This Week in Congress

Posted on April 16, 2012October 17, 2012

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.

Spending Cuts to be Proposed

Posted on April 2, 2012October 17, 2012

The House and Senate began their two-week spring recess last Friday after passing the House budget resolution for FY 2013. This plan would cut $19 billion from the FY 2013 spending level outlined in the Budget Control Act (PL 112-25) approved by Congress last August. Most of those cuts would come from non-defense discretionary spending (which supports most research agencies), while defense discretionary spending would be increased. The House voted along party lines to approve the budget resolution, while also voting down a number of alternative symbolic proposals.

Even though the House approved budget resolution isn’t likely to receive any consideration in the Senate, its effects will be felt throughout the coming year in the appropriations process as well as in the ongoing debate about how Congress will deal with automatic cuts set to go into effect in January under sequestration. Appropriators in both chambers say they will start marking up their FY 2013 spending bills when they return April 16^th from the two-week recess. The House will be working from the $1.028 trillion overall discretionary spending level for FY 2013 set out in the Republican budget resolution while the Senate is determined to move forward with marking up bills at the $1.047 trillion level set in the Budget Control Act. The differing top-line figures may make it difficult to clear any annual appropriations bills before the end of the fiscal year on September 30^th, and it seems likely Congress won’t finish its appropriations work until after the November elections.

The House approved budget resolution also requires six House Committees to identify spending cuts to meet the top line number identified in that measure. These committees must report to the Budget Committee by April 27^th. The budget resolution outlines a specific savings target for each committee, including the amount of cuts that should go into effect this year and next, over the next five fiscal years, and over 10 years. Specifically, the Agriculture Committee must find $33.2 billion over 10 years, Energy and Commerce must find $96.8 billion, Financial Services must find $29.8 billion, Judiciary must find $39.7 billion, Oversight and Government Reform must find $78.9 billion, and Ways and Means must find $53 billion.

Although the Senate Majority Leader has said that chamber won’t take up a budget resolution this year, senators in both parties are still working on long-term budget proposals. Bipartisan groups of lawmakers in both chambers say they are continuing to work behind the scenes to craft a deficit reduction package based on the fiscal commission’s framework and the work of other bipartisan groups.

The Office of Federal Relations is monitoring these budget negotiations closely and will report new information as it becomes available.

Today in DC

Posted on March 29, 2012October 17, 2012

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.

House Budget Proposes Additional Cuts to FY 2013

Posted on March 22, 2012October 17, 2012

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.

FY 2013 Budget & Appropriations this Week

Posted on March 19, 2012October 17, 2012

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.