The House is also slated to vote on a defense authorization bill (HR 4310), which has a small provision with big implications for future transportation fuels. The Defense Department has been developing advanced biofuels for its ships and planes, helping make a market along with other federal agencies. The DOD’s goal is to curb dependence on oil products, provide reliable home-grown motor fuels with less wild price swings than oil, and perhaps ultimately deploy biofuel facilities that could shrink fuel tanker convoys that make inviting targets for adversaries. Commercial ship lines, railroads, airlines and other motor fuel users are watching, partly because biodiesel and jet fuel could help trim their emissions and partly in hopes of getting fuels with less volatile costs. House conservatives don’t like the DOD paying for alternative fuels when oil-derived fuels may be cheaper, and the authorizing bill would exempt the DOD from the alternatives program. That could cripple the effort since the DOD is the world’s largest buyer of oil fuels and its fleets are key to developing new-era fuel options.

Source:  CQRollCall.com

The Senate will take up a measure today that would prevent subsidized student loan interest rates from doubling this July.  While both parties agree that they want to stop the rate hike from going forward, Senate republican leadership indicated Monday that they will likely filibuster the democratic measure because it opposes the proposed offset.   Senate democrats need 60 votes to move forward with their bill.  Democrats, who control 53 votes in the Senate, would need at least seven republicans to vote with them to overcome a filibuster and begin debate on the bill.  House republicans have already passed a different version.   

The democratic legislation would cover the $6 billion cost of preventing the interest rate increase by eliminating a corporate tax loophole that allows the wealthy to pay less in Social Security and Medicare taxes.  Republicans prefer a measure similar to the House-passed bill, which would offset the cost of the interest rate cut by eliminating a fund in the 2010 health care overhaul that covers prevention and public health.

President Obama has made a campaign issue out of the bill because interest rates on Stafford loans will jump to 6.8 percent from 3.4 percent if Congress doesn’t act by July 1^st.

UPDATE:  The Senate just voted to blocked the bill to prevent doubling of the student loan rates.  Stay tuned…

Congress returns to work today after a week-long recess period.   The Senate convenes at 2:00pm and continues debate of the student loan interest rate bill.  The House is also in at 2:00pmwith votes expected around 6:30pm. 

This afternoon, the House Budget Committee will mark up two bills:  The Sequester Replacement Act of 2012 (HR 4966) and The Sequester Replacement Reconciliation Act of 2012.  Both measures aim to replace sequestration, the mandatory cuts scheduled to begin in January 2013.  The first bill would stop sequestration from happening, while the second would outline a series of cuts to entitlement programs such as health care and food stamps that would replace the cuts to discretionary spending expected through sequestration.  The full House is due to pass the package late in the week likely along partisan lines.  However, the safe bet is Congress won’t reach agreement on how to deal with spending priorities until after the elections. 

Meanwhile, on Tuesday the Senate is scheduled to debate a bill to keep interest rates on federally subsidized student loans at 3.4 percent for one more year, instead of increasing to the previous amount of 6.8 percent.  The House passed a similar bill a week ago, but the two chambers differ on how to pay for the extension.  In a sign of their desire to downplay the partisan tensions, Senate Republicans are expected to help Democrats reach the 60 votes needed to overcome a procedural hurdle to bringing the measure to the floor.  

Tuesday also marks the formal launch of a House-Senate conference to write a surface transportation reauthorization bill.  If conferees can’t come to an agreement on the bill before the November election, then chances are good the bill just won’t get done this year.  And that will mean starting over from scratch early in 2013.  The biggest hurdles include the length of reauthorization, policy riders approving the Keystone XL pipeline and blocking EPA’s authority to regulate coal ash, and how best to pay for the cost of highway and transit programs around the country.  This bill reauthorizes the University Transportation Centers; the UW operates one of these centers for USDOT Region 10.

Also this week, the full House is scheduled to debate the FY 2013 Commerce-Justice-Science spending bill, which includes funding for NOAA and the Office of Science and Technology Policy.  House Rules Committee meets at 5:00pm today to write the spending bill’s rule, and it will hit the floor sometime later in the week.  This will be the first FY 2013 appropriations bill to be approved in the House, but differences over spending levels make it likely that both chambers won’t agree on most or even all of its spending bills until after the elections.  But by sending the measures through committee and to the floor in each chamber, leaders are at least offering a starting place for those year-end negotiations.  Congress has missed the statutory September 30^th appropriations deadline for more than a decade, instead relying on continuing resolutions to keep the government from shutting down until the final bills are cleared and signed by the President.

Congress is in recess this week, returning to work on Monday, May 7^th.  Before leaving town last Friday, the House took action on legislation to delay the increase in student loan interest rates.  And both chambers continued to move forward on their FY2013 appropriations measures.

FY 2013 Appropriations

While Congress is expected to finalize any major FY2013 spending decisions until after the November elections, it’s already apparent that we will see lean spending plans coming out of both chambers as they continue to work within the constraints of the Budget Control Act (LP 112-25) and also deal with deficit reduction.  All of this will force lawmakers to more carefully prioritize spending and likely make tough, and substantial, programmatic cuts in both domestic and non-defense spending in coming years. 

Student Loan Interest Rates

The topic du jour last week (and during the recess week) revolves around preventing the increase in student loan interest rates.  While there appears to be broad, bipartisan support to prevent this increase, the two parties remain divided on how best to pay for it.  On Friday, the House passed legislation that would prevent the 3.4 percent student loan interest rate from doubling in July, but the White House and Democrats are opposed because the measure’s $6 billion cost would be offset by eliminating the Prevention and Public Health Fund created by the 2010 health care reform bill.  The fund provides money for programs aimed at preventing tobacco use, obesity, heart disease, strokes and cancer.  While both parties oppose allowing the student loan interest rates to return to 6.8 percent, the White House vowed to veto the measure over the proposed repeal of the prevention fund.  The Senate is expected to take up their version of the bill when Congress returns from recess next week.  That proposal would offset the costs by ending a corporate tax break, which is backed by most Democrats.  Senate leaders however, have indicated they will look for a compromise offset that both parties can agree to.

Surface Transportation Reauthorization

Shortly after returning to work next week, Congressional leaders will convene a Senate-House conference committee to negotiate a final measure to reauthorize highway and transit funding and programs.   The two chambers are miles apart with the House advocating for a 5-year reauthorization and the Senate promoting a 2-year bill.  There are also major differences on how to pay for highway and transit programs.  It will certainly be a long, drawn out process that may – or may not – result in a final bill.  The current “temporary” authorization runs out in 61 days and will certainly need another extension if Congress cannot come to agreement.

The Office of Federal Relations is tracking several provisions in the proposals that could have some impact on the University’s transit initiatives and the safety enhancements planned for the portion of the Burke Gilman Trail that runs through campus.  Additionally, the bill will reauthorize the University Transportation Centers (UTC) program.  The UW operates the Region 10 UTC.

Congress is back in session today after a two-week break for the Easter holiday.  Appropriators in both chambers will begin moving FY 2013 annual appropriations bills this week.  The House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday will start marking up its spending bills for FY 2013 with a goal of cutting federal spending by a little more than one percent, or $15 billion.  Senate appropriators, on the other hand, will begin their markups with a slightly more generous target that would still keep annual discretionary spending relatively flat.  Senate subcommittees begin the process on Tuesday with the Commerce-Justice-Science and Transportation-Housing and Urban Development measures.  The House Energy-Water subcommittee will meet Wednesday and the Commerce-Justice-Science panel is expected to meet Thursday.  Under House rules, the draft bills will be made public 24 hours in advance of the markups; the Senate does not have a requirement for an early look.

Appropriators have yet to announce plans for writing the massive Labor-HHS-Education spending bill, which is always among the last and most controversial funding measures to move.  The bill faces an additional challenge this year with the pending Supreme Court ruling on health care reform due in June.  House appropriators might wait until after the ruling to move the bill.  Meanwhile in the Senate expects the court will uphold the law and plans to write its spending bill assuming health reform will remain intact.

Tuesday

• The Senate Appropriations Committee will hold subcommittee markups of its Commerce, Justice, Science FY 2013 spending bill and its Transportation, Housing and Urban Development FY 2013 spending bill.
• The Senate Armed Services Committee will hold a subcommittee hearing on the health and status of the Department of Defense science and technology laboratories and enterprise.

Wednesday

• The House Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee will mark up its Energy and Water Development FY 2013 spending bill.
• The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold subcommittee hearings on budget and spending concerns at the DOE and FDA User Fees 2012: How Innovation Helps Patients and Jobs.
• The House Science, Space, and Technology Committee will hold subcommittee hearings on NSF Major Multi-User Research Facilities Management and Growing the Wireless Economy through Innovation.

Thursday

• The House Homeland Security Committee will hold a subcommittee hearing on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and DOE National Labs: Finding Efficiencies and Optimizing Outputs in Homeland Security Research and Development.
• The House Science, Space, and Technology Committee will hold a subcommittee hearing on Impact of Tax Policies on the Commercial Application of Renewable Energy Technology.
• The American Chemical Society will hold a Capitol Hill briefing on Cybersecurity and Smart Infrastructure: Ensuring Resilience and Deterrence.

The House is expected to adopt the FY 2013 GOP budget plan, which would set up a conflict with the Senate over appropriations spending levels.  That chamber also plans a vote on a three-month highway bill extension, days before funding for transportation programs expires.  

The Senate votes on a motion to invoke cloture on an oil and gas tax preference repeal measure and resumes consideration of its bill on tax rates for high-income earners.

If both chambers can agree on the transportation extension, they will likely leave town this afternoon to begin their 2-week recess period.

In other action in DC, the Supreme Court has concluded oral arguments on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.  They will now diliberate behind closed doors and offer their ruling sometime in June.

The House Budget Committee approved its FY 2013 budget resolution late last night.  This resolution, a blueprint developed by Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), will now go to the House floor where it is expected to gain strong support from most Republicans and fierce opposition from Democrats.  The plan would set discretionary spending in FY 2013 at $1.028 trillion, which is $19 billion less than the $1.047 trillion spending cap outlined in the debt limit agreement (Budget Control Act) approved last August. To find the extra saving, the measure directs six authorizing committees to find more than $200 billion in mandatory savings over a 10-year period. The savings would be packaged together and moved through the House using the budget reconciliation process, although the move will almost certainly be unsuccessful since reconciliation requires that the Senate and House agree to the same budget plan.

The budget resolution will be considered on the House floor next week, the last week of work before a two-week congressional recess period.

Budget:  With the House in recess last week, work continued behind the scenes to draft the FY 2013 budget resolution which is expected to be marked up this week.  This budget resolution is likely to propose deeper spending cuts in an effort to balance the budget more quickly. Conservatives have been pushing to get the discretionary limit down to $931 billion, more than $100 billion below the $1.047 trillion discretionary spending cap in the Budget Control Act (PL 112-25). The resolution may also include provisions aimed at limiting the impact of sequestration, the automatic spending cuts scheduled to begin in January of 2013 that would result in just under $100 billion in defense and non-defense discretionary spending reductions.  Any effort to address sequestration through this budget resolution or subsequent legislation will likely come down to a tug-of-war between protection of defense spending vs. protection of entitlements.

Appropriations:  Appropriators in both chambers will hear from a series of Cabinet officials and agency leaders throughout the week, continuing a busy schedule of hearings that have touched on the administration’s FY 2013 budget request as well as its policies.  Among the officials set to testify before Appropriations subcommittees this week are U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan E. Rice, Commerce Secretary John Bryson, Small Business Administration Administrator Karen G. Mills, National Institutes of Health Director Francis S. Collins, NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden Jr., Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, and Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

Congressman Norm Dicks announced today that he will retire at the end of this session of Congress.  His decision comes as a shock, but after 44 years in public service in Washington, DC, and at age 71, we all can certainly appreciate and understand his desire to spend more time with his wife Suzie, their children, and grandchildren.

Dicks will certainly leave a lasting legacy of Congressional accomplishments unlike nearly any other Member of the House or Senate.  There are very few places in Washington State or even the country that have not been beneficiaries of his fine work — including the University of Washington!

The following statement has been released from UW President Michael Young:

“On behalf of generations of students, faculty and staff at the University of Washington, I want to express our deep gratitude to Congressman Dicks for his lifetime of service to the citizens of Washington and especially for his unwavering support over the many years he served in Congress for higher education and his alma mater. His service to his constituents and his knowledgeable commitment to education have benefited countless numbers of people in the Northwest and beyond, especially his staunch support for protecting the environment and conducting research to understand it better. He also was one of the early supporters of establishing the University of Washington in Tacoma.  He has been a great friend to this University and a special alumnus in whose accomplishments as a public servant we take great pride. It is hard to imagine Washington’s Congressional delegation without him. If ever the phrase ‘well-deserved’ applies to a retirement announcement, this is certainly one of them.”

The House and the Senate are expected to vote on legislation that would extend a payroll tax cut through the end of the year.  The legislation also would extend federal unemployment insurance benefits and prevent a cut in Medicare payments to physicians.

The Senate holds a test vote on an amendment offered by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) on a two-year surface transportation bill.  This procedure will help determine if the Senate can move toward final passage when they return from their President’s Day recess.

Both the House and Senate will be in recess next week for President’s Day.

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