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Month: November 2019

Don’t Forget, the Current CR Expires Next Week

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While a large swath of Washington is preoccupied with the public impeachment hearings, which started earlier today, senior appropriators met yesterday to figure out a path forward on how to keep the government open past next Thursday.  The current continuing resolution, which has kept the federal government open since October 1, expires at midnight, November 22.

It appears that at least the top appropriators– in both chambers and on both sides of the aisle– have agreed to push for a second CR that would last through December 20.  The assumption is that such an agreement would buy Congress enough time pull together packages of spending bills for the rest of FY2020 before adjourning for the year.  the wildcard is the Trump White House and its insistence on funding for a border wall as well as the possible impact of impeachment on spending negotiations.

At the end of the day, funding for most parts of the government would run out next Friday without any further action by Congress and the White House.  Read more about the situation here.

Opposing the EPA “Transparency Rule”

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On November 13th, UW signed onto a letter circulated by the Michael J Fox Foundation to the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. The letter opposes the Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science rule, which would require raw data to be made publicly available when it is used to formulate new regulations. UW is joined by over sixty other higher education institutions, associations, and research organizations in opposing these rule changes. There are many instances, especially in the health sciences, when making raw data publicly available would be infeasible or harm the confidentiality of research subjects. Therefore, this rule could limit the quality of data used in the regulatory process, as only data which could be made publicly available would be utilized.

SCOTUS Hears DACA Today

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The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) will hear oral arguments for Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California (18-587). Consolidated with similar cases, the Court will hear arguments related to the Administration’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Considered one of the major cases of this term, the arguments before the justices will concern two key issues;

  1. Whether the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to wind down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy is judicially reviewable; and
  2. Whether DHS’s decision to wind down the DACA policy is lawful.

While the Court will hear arguments today, a decision is not expected until the Spring of 2020. To hear the oral arguments, SCOTUS posts the audio file each Friday following the arguments. The audio may be accessed here.

For a deep dive round up of how the case might be argued and rule, the SCOTUS blog has a round up here.

Federal Relations is monitoring the progress of the case and the federal responses on DACA closely and will continue to provide updates.

What We’re Reading this Week (November 4th-8th, 2019)

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Below is a selection of articles the Federal Relations team has read this week.

US and China to Rollback Tariffs: The US and China have entered “extensive and serious discussions” to rollback tariffs. This would be done in phases, and is expected to greatly improve global economic output. More at Politico.

Republicans Seek Whistleblower Testimony: House Republicans are expected to request the “Ukraine call” whistleblower to testify publicly. This comes after Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) called for the media to “print the name” of the whistleblower. Whistleblowers are protected from retaliation, and there are concerns that exposing the identity of the whistleblower would put them in harms’ way. House Intelligence Committee Democrats can deny the Republican request to call the whistleblower for testimony. More at CNN.

Bolivia Protests Turn Violent: Protests continue following the Bolivian Presidential Elections on October 20th. Supporters of the opposition party accuse the sitting President Evo Morales of rigging the vote to win another five year term. Three people have died so far. The Organization of American States (OAS), of which the US is a member, is expected to audit the elections. More at BBC.

Ex-Twitter Employees Accused of Spying for Saudi Arabia: The US has accused two former Twitter employees, including one Saudi citizen, of accessing personal information of Twitter users at the request of the Saudi Government. This is the first time Saudi Arabia has been publicly accused of espionage within the United States. It is believed that Saudi Arabia wanted to unveil dissidents who use anonymous accounts to criticize the government. More at Washington Post.

State of Emergency in South Sudan: Serious flooding in South Sudan has displaced over a million people, and also caused major crop failure and unsanitary conditions. President Salva Kiir declared a state of emergency in response. See Voice of America for more.

Federal Government Sues Gilead: The Trump Administration has filed a lawsuit against Gilead, a company making HIV-prevention drugs. The lawsuit argues that Gilead is infringing on patents owned by the Department of Health and Human Services, and accuses Gilead of price gouging on drugs which were the result of taxpayer-funded research. More at New York Times.

Idea Floating for New Research-Funding Entity

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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is considering a draft proposal for a new entity which would spend $100 billion over five years on research related to artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and 5G technology. The tentative name for the proposed organization is the “National Science and Technology Foundation”. It would be a subsidiary of the National Science Foundation and would work in concert with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). For context, NSF’s annual budget is currently $8.1 billion.

The idea comes from the interim report, published November 4th, from the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, which was a commission established through the FY2019 National Defense Authorization bill (P.L. 115-232).

The US is competing fiercely with Russia and China to be the global leader in artificial intelligence, so this organization would be closely tied to US national security.

The proposal is still in the earliest stages of development, and it has not been decided how the organization will be structured or if it will continue to operate after the initial five year period.

Read more about the proposal here.