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Category: Committee Work

Text of FY2018 Omnibus Released

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The House Appropriations Committee has released text of the fiscal year 2018 omnibus spending bill. The House could vote as early as Thursday on the package. The House Rules Committee is expected to meet Wednesday night to report the bill to the floor for debate and a vote. The House typically observes a three-day rule before considering any legislation, but the House is expected waive to that provision and vote as early as Thursday.

After the House votes, the measure will be ready for Senate action, which must happen Friday, before current stopgap spending (PL 115-123) expires Friday.

The 2,232-page measure will be added as an amendment to an unrelated bill (HR 1625).

Failure to approve the measure by midnight Friday, without passing another stopgap in its place, would lead to another partial shutdown just before lawmakers were scheduled to depart for a two-week recess.

The text of the legislation can be found here. 

Federal Relations is reviewing the measure and will provide updates.

Current known highlights include:

National Institutes of Health (NIH) is funded at $37 billion (an increase of $3 billion above the fiscal year 2017 enacted level). Within the total, the legislation includes $300 million for the Cancer Moonshot and $12.6 million for the Gabriella Miller “Kids First” pediatric cancer research initiative. The bill supports a new multi-year Down syndrome research initiative that will expand NIH support for research on Trisomy 21 and related diseases and disorders. The bill also includes a provision requiring NIH to continue reimbursing grantee research institutions for facilities and administrative costs.

  • $1.8 billion (+$414 million) for Alzheimer’s disease research,
  • $400 million (+$140 million) for the Brain Research through Application of Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) initiative,
  • $290 million (+$60 million) for the All of Us research initiative (formerly called the Precision Medicine Initiative),
  • $10 million (+$8 million) for regenerative medicine research,
  • $100 million (+$40 million) for research to develop a universal flu vaccine,
  • $351 million (+17 million) for research on combating antibiotic-resistant bacteria,
  • $543 million (+27 million) for Clinical and Translational Science Awards, and
  • $351 million (+$17 million) for Institutional Development Awards (IDeA)

CDC is funded at $8.3 billion (an increase of $1.1 billion above the fiscal year 2017 level). Funding within the CDC includes $1.45 billion for CDC’s Public Health Preparedness and Response programs – an increase of $45 million. This will ensure that the Strategic National Stockpile and State and Local Preparedness capacity are adequate.

Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) is funded at $7 billion ($550 million above the fiscal year 2017 enacted level).

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is funded $334 million ($10 million above the fiscal year 2017 enacted level).

Department of Education is funded at $70.9 billion ($2.6 billion above the fiscal year 2017 enacted level). The maximum Pell Grant award is increased to $6,095, funded by a combination of discretionary and mandatory funds. TRIO and GEAR UP programs are increased by $60 million and $10 million, respectively, bringing TRIO programs to a total of $1.01 billion and GEAR UP to a total of $350 million.

NSF is funded at $7.8 billion ($295 million above the fiscal year 2017 enacted level). Research and related activities are funded at $6.3 billion ($301 million above the current level).

NASA is funded at $20.7 billion, $1.1 billion above the 2017 enacted level, including $4.8 billion for Exploration ($466 million above the fiscal year 2017 enacted level) and $6.2 billion for NASA Science programs ($457 million above the fiscal year 2017 enacted level).

NOAA is funded at $5.9 billion ($234 million above the fiscal year 2017 level).

EPA funding is frozen at the fiscal year 2017 enacted level of $8.1 billion. Within this total, EPA’s regulatory programs are reduced by $23.5 million below the current level. EPA’s staffing levels have been reduced by 650 positions over the last year, and are presently at 14,172 positions. Overall staffing has been reduced by 3,106 positions since fiscal year 2010.

USGS receives $1.1 billion for the USGS ($63 million above the fiscal year 2017 enacted level). Funding is targeted to critical infrastructure investments in natural hazards programs, streamgages, the groundwater monitoring network, and mapping activities. The bill includes $23 million for an earthquake early warning system to help save lives during natural disasters, and $26 million to fully fund the development of “Landsat 9” – a satellite program that provides land use measurements that are important to local communities for agriculture, forestry, energy and water resource decisions.

 

 

Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence Testifies in Congress

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Today Dr. Oren Etzioni, CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence and UW Professor of Computer Science, was invited by the subcommittee chair to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Information Technology in the first of two committee meetings slated to discuss the future of artificial intelligence. Dr. Etzioni was joined by experts from Intel, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and NVIDIA. Check out the hearing on YouTube.

 

 

Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

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The House Republican Leadership unveiled their much-awaited Tax Cuts and American Jobs act.

At first glance, the measure would:

  • cut the corporate tax rate to 20%;
  • reduce the seven individual tax brackets into four;
  • nearly double the standard deduction to $24K (married), $18,300 (head of household), and 12,200 (single);
  • increase the child care tax credit to $1,600 (from $1000);
  • change the mortgage interest deduction to apply to house loans up to $500,000 on new home purchases while existing homes would be grandfathered;
  • repeal the student-loan interest deduction;
  • private universities with assets exceeding $100,000 a student would pay a new 1.4% excise tax on their net investment income; and
  • businesses would no longer be able to deduct entertainment expenses, though today’s rules for business meals would remain.

The charitable deduction will not change, and the tax provisions related to 401(k)s are unchanged.

The bill text is here.

A section-by-section of the measure is here. 

Federal Relations is still going thought the measure and will continue to provide updates.

More Disaster Relief; Tax Reform Slowly, Slowly

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It’s getting expensive to deal with disaster relief.

Going first, the House is scheduled to vote this week on the second installment of hurricane relief aid. While the Trump administration requested $29.3 billion, lawmakers have been busy trying to add to the total.

Texas lawmakers want an extra $18.7 billion for victims of Hurricane Harvey, which devastated coastal Houston. The Governor of Puerto Rico asked for another $4.6 billion to help the territory deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Florida lawmakers have asked for an additional $26.9 billion for victims of Hurricane Irma.

If all those requests were honored, the total aid package would balloon to $79.5 billion. Also, House Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-TX) has lobbied the White House for extra money for missile defense to combat the threats from North Korea.

Disaster aid is considered emergency funding that is exempt from discretionary spending limits imposed by the Sequester. However, with the ultimate damage assessment from three recent hurricanes projected to reach a few hundred billion dollars, some conservatives are beginning push to pay for long-term rebuilding costs by cutting other programs, which is a nonstarter with Democrats.

This second installment does not even consider how the US is approaching federal disaster preparedness and recover. For example, the Administration’s request includes $16 billion to cancel debt owed by the National Flood Insurance Program, which has faced mountains of red ink since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The FEMA-run program literally can not pay claims.

…and Congress and the Administration haven’t started talking about wildfires yet…

 

Meanwhile, House and Senate leadership are slowly trying to fill in the Administration’s framework for tax overhaul. Generally, lawmakers have said the cost of tax rate cuts would be offset by eliminating most of deductions and credits in the tax code. However, the few ideas floated publicly have run into stiff resistance.

The idea to include a border-adjustment tax, that would have raised $1.2 trillion over 10 years, has been dropped after business lobbies complained that it would raise prices for consumers. Also, the idea to eliminate the state and local tax deduction has unleashed a huge volume of complaints to tax writers. Plans to completely eliminate the “death tax” have also been sidelined as it becomes more clear that reducing of changing existing taxes will be more politically manageable than outright repealing them.