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Month: December 2020

Even with Trump Keeping People Guessing…

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Even as the President now has Washington guessing about what will happen next to on the COVID/omnibus front, we continue to read through the package.

The joint COVID/appropriations legislation contains a whole host of bills that are not related to COVID or appropriations, which is not that unusual for a “Christmas tree” bill.  The inclusion of the Energy Act of 2020 (Div. Z) is a case in point.

The energy legislation contains a slew of energy innovation and research-related provisions, including the reauthorization of the ARPA-E program.  In addition, it addresses a host of energy research areas, such as fusion, renewable energy, energy storage, carbon management/removal, electric grid security, and mineral security.  A section-by-section summary of that portion of the legislative package, compiled by the Senate Energy Committee, is available here.

We will continue to review the bill.

Well, That Didn’t Take Long

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With a video in which he called it a “disgrace,” President Trump yesterday blasted the COVID/omnibus spending package that was only adopted on Monday.  His biggest complaints seem to be that the stimulus checks of $600 per person for families making less than $75,000 a year is not big enough and that the bill contains too much “wasteful” spending.  He wants the checks to be at least $2,000.

Smaller checks were pushed by Congressional Republicans and his own Treasury secretary.  Democratic leaders have, at least publicly, seized on the remarks to try to make another push on larger stimulus checks.  Not surprisingly, the video is now leading many to wonder whether Trump will veto the measure, which took six months to craft.

Trump must sign the measure by next Monday in order to prevent a shutdown.

Read more about the developments here in Politico, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Axios.

As We Delve Deeper Into the Bill…

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The federal relations team continues to read through the 5,600-page package and will provide updates with items of interest throughout the process.

Initially, we have come across these education-related provisions:

  • Codifies IRSt Q&A regarding taxability of emergency financial aid grants. Excludes emergency financial aid grant funding from gross income calculations and from income considerations for Lifetime Learning and American Opportunity Tax Credit purposes  (Div. N, Title II, Subtitle B, Sec. 277)
  • Addresses potential confidentiality concerns arising from IRS providing tax data for FAFSA purposes (Div. N, Title II, Subtitle B, Sec. 284)
  • Allows eligible U.S. students engaged in study abroad via distance education to continue to receive Title IV funds through either the end of the disaster declaration at the host institution or June 30, 2022, whichever is later. ( FF, Title I, Sec. 101)
  • Higher income limits for the purposes of Lifetime Learning credit, deduction of qualified expense repealed (Div EE., Title I, Subtitle A, Sec. 104)
  • Extension of exclusion of employer-paid student loan payments from taxable income, up to $5,250 (Div EE., Subtitle B, Sec. 120)

 

 

Biden Education Secretary Named

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Reports on Tuesday indicate President-elect Biden will name Miguel Cardona, the education commissioner of Connecticut, to be US Secretary of Education-designee. Cardona is a public school educator who started his career as a 4th grade teacher.

Read more here.

COVID/Approps Spending Package Cleared by Both Chambers

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After making the text available earlier in the day, both chambers of Congress cleared the massive $2.3-trillion COVID/FY2021 appropriations package last evening.  The measure now goes to the White House for the President’s signature, although it is uncertain when that would exactly happen.

Because the printing and processing of the official text of legislation for the President’s signature takes time– and the size of yesterday’s package was unusually large– Congress also passed and Trump signed yesterday another continuing resolution to prevent a government shutdown while the legislative package was being readied.

Office of Federal Relations will continue to provide updates about the bill on its blog.