The House Education and Labor Committee is scheduled to mark up this morning the HEA reauthorization legislation that was introduced approximately two weeks ago. Yesterday, an amendment to the bill that would essentially serve as the substitute to the original at the markup session was filed.
We expect the markup to be fairly partisan, given the nature of the bill. We will provide further updates.
Last night, Senator McConnell filed cloture last night on a motion to proceed to H.R. 2740, which you may recall is the most expansive/expensive of all the spending packages and includes Labor-HHS, Defense, State/Foreign Ops, and Energy and Water. A successful vote on Wednesday means that the Senate floor debate could begin on this bill with new text from the Senate Republicans. The consideration would not be without a fight from Senate Democrats who want more of their priorities included in the bill and higher spending numbers for the Labor-HHS bill.
By a vote of 92 to 2, the Senate yesterday agreed to debate a package of four FY2020 spending bills. As noted yesterday, the bundle is a Senate substitute to a set of House-passed bills and includes the following measures: Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science, Interior, and Transportation-Housing and Urban Development.
Even if the Senate does ultimately approve the package, what happens after that still remains a mystery, as the second set of bills that may be considered contains some of the most controversial ones, including the Defense and Labor-HHS measures.
The continuing resolution signed into law in late September runs out November 22.
The Senate might see some thawing on the appropriations front later this week, but how much thawing remains to be seen.
In an attempt to break through on the appropriations impasse that has faced the Senate for weeks, the Republican leadership in the chamber plans to file a cloture motion on a package of four spending bills that had near unanimous support in committee. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will file a motion to invoke cloture on a House-passed legislative package of bills. Should the vote be successful, the Senate would then seek to replace the House-approved measure with its own bundle of bills: Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science, Interior and Environment, and Transportation-Housing and Urban Development. If and when the Senate approves its substitute, things will likely get trickier.
Senate Republicans hope that agreement on the first package will allow for movement on a second bundle of appropriations measures, a combination of bills much more controversial because of the partisan fights on issues like funding for the border wall and language on abortion policy. After agreeing to the first “minibus” of bills, the Republican goal is to move to the floor the Defense, Labor-HHS-Education, Homeland Security, and Military Construction-Veterans Affairs measures. The Democrats have signaled that, at this point, this may be a bridge too far.
Stay tuned.
As expected, the House Democrats introduced last week their version of the legislation to reauthorize the Higher Education Act (HEA). The 1,100-page College Affordability Act is likely to be marked up by the Education and Labor Committee next week. Unlike the Senate bill that was introduced in late September by HELP Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN), the House legislation represents a comprehensive look at the underlying HEA.
The legislation covers a wide-range of issues in the HEA, from an increase of $500 in the Pell Grant maximum award to proposed changes in how outcome standards are determined for accreditation purposes and topics in between, such as the elimination of loan repayment programs currently in place and the creation of two new loan repayment options for new loans.
Read more about the legislation here. We will provide further updates.