Skip to content
News and updates

Category: On the Hill

Another CR Pushed Through To Buy More Time

Posted on

The House passed on a bipartisan basis yesterday another short-term continuing resolution (CR) to keep the federal government open past the current deadline of midnight, February 19. The Senate is expected to follow suit.

While a number of issues have created problems with respect to the completion of funding bills for FY2022 — which started October 1– one of the biggest hurdles has been the inability of the two parties to come to an agreement on “top line” numbers, the overall funding levels for both defense and non-defense programs.  The passage of another short-term CR allows the various negotiators to continue conversations without risking a government shutdown in less than two weeks.  The CR that was agreed to by the House last evening would keep the government funded through March 11.

Read more about the situation here. 

Register Now: Federal Relations Spring Town Hall

Posted on

The Office of Federal Relations will host a virtual town hall for the campus community on Thursday, March 24th from 12pm-1pm PT. Our staff will provide an update on the federal budget, infrastructure and competitiveness bills, and preview the UW’s 2022 federal agenda. This will be followed by an opportunity for Q&A. Register here (NetID restricted).

CR until February 18

Posted on

The House and Senate have agreed to pass a continuing resolution (CR), which would keep the federal government open and funded, until February 18, 2022. Congress has previously passed a CR that expires at midnight on Friday, December 3, 2021.

The extension gives the House and Senate additional time to finish FY2022 funding and try to pass other legislative priorities, like Build Back Better and raise the debt ceiling, before the end of the calendar year.

While the extension is not happy news, there had been political rumblings of allowing the federal government to shut down for a short time in December for political gains. The CR until February 18, 2022 avoids that situation.

The legislation would be a straight extension of existing funding with the only increase in appropriations for Afghan refugees.

House Passes “Build Back Better” Package

Posted on

After months of intraparty discord among Democrats, both within the House and between chambers, the House passed early this morning the “Build Back Better” reconciliation package.  The House cleared the measure by a vote of 220 – 213, with one Democrat voting against it.  The vote was delayed to this morning after Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) spoke for more than eight hours against the package, lasting into the very early hours of this morning.

The package now goes to the Senate, where changes are likely, as at least one Democrat in that chamber has made clear his reservations about several parts of the House bill.

Read more about the vote and the next steps here and here.

House Dems Finally Schedule Votes on Reconciliation, Infrastructure Bills

Posted on

After last minute negotiations among themselves last night, the House Democrats have finally scheduled votes on both the  budget reconciliation and infrastructure bills for this morning.

There were a number of issues on which the House Democrats were trading proposals on the reconciliation measure, including those around immigration, deductibility of state taxes, and paid leave, just to name a few.  The version that is being voted on today will be further modified by a “manager’s amendment,” crafted to address additional last minute changes.

Even if this version does pass the House by the narrowest of margins, how the Senate plans to deal with it remains unknown.  The Senate may wind up taking up a different version of the bill, meaning that the ball would once again be in the House’s court.

The infrastructure bill, which has actually passed the Senate, is also scheduled (as of this morning) for a vote today.  This was part of the compromise between the moderate and progressives, as the latter group wanted to make sure that the former would vote for a reconciliation bill as well as the less costly infrastructure package.

We will provide additional updates.