The US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) will hold a hearing on simplifying the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Witnesses are from the National College Attainment Network, University of North Carolina, HCM Strategies, Harvard University, and Columbia University.
In a press statement, the US Department of Education announced the publication of the final rule Improving Free Inquiry, Transparency, and Accountability at Colleges and Universities. The rule will be effective 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.
The final rule intends to “ensure that public institutions of higher education uphold fundamental rights guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and that private institutions of higher education adhere to their own policies regarding freedom of speech, including academic freedom”.
Among other things, the press statement outlines major aspects of the rule, including :
The full press statement and link to fact sheet is available here.
While most of the public’s attention is focused on the difficult negotiations that may or may not be taking placing on the next COVID relief package, the clock continues to count down to the start of FY2021.
The House is working to adopt a second “minibus” of spending bills before this weekend. Instead of taking up a seven-bill package as originally planned, the chamber is now considering one made up of six pieces, having removed the almost-always-controversial Homeland Security measure from the minibus. More than 300 amendments are expected to be debated before a vote to adopt the legislation.
This week’s package is made up of: Commerce-Justice-Science; Defense; Energy and Water; Labor-HHS-Education; Financial Services-General Government; and Transportation-HUD bills. Last week, the House cleared the Agriculture, Interior, State-Foreign Operations, and VA-Military Construction measures. This leaves the Homeland Security and Legislative Branch bills for future consideration.
The Senate still has yet to produce any of the 12 bills.
The FY2021 appropriations process continues to march on in the House, for now, with two more bills slated for committee action today. This afternoon, the Appropriations Committee is scheduled to take up the Labor-HHS-Education and Energy and Water Development bills.
Labor-HHS-Education
As part of the overall level of $47 billion for NIH, the Labor-HHS-Education bill would fund:
In addition, AHRQ would be funded at $343 million
Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA) Title VII health professions and Title VIII nursing programs would be funded at $512.5 million and $270.0 million, respectively.
The Labor-HHS report also includes the following language with respect to the reporting of foreign gifts that meet certain criteria:
Disclosure of Foreign Gifts and Contracts.—The Committee reminds colleges and universities receiving Federal funds that section 117 of the HEA requires institutions to disclose certain gifts from or contracts with foreign entities and that the Department makes such information publicly available on its website. The Committee directs the Department to work with institutions to improve the reporting process. Disclosure requirements increase transparency and help protect our national security and academic integrity.
In addition to the funding levels for the programs we reported on last week, the House bill would also fund Title VI International Education programs at $80.3 million (an increase of $4.2 million), GAANN at $24.0 million (an increase of $1 million), and the Institute of Education Sciences at $630.5 million (an increase of $7 million).
Energy and Water
The Energy and Water Development bill under consideration today calls for $2.85 billion for the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EER&E) programs, an increase of $58 million. Within EER&E, renewable energy programs would see a cut of $4 million and would be supported at $638 million.
The bill calls for ARPA-E to be funded at $1.02 billion, which represents an increase of $35 million.
The Office of Science would see $7.05 billion under this bill, an increase of $50 million. Following programs within Science would be funded in the following manner:
With schedules and logistics thrown into complete disarray by COVID-19, progress on the FY2021 spending bills had been stalled. The logjam has been partially broken, at least for now, in the House, with all 12 bills scheduled for markup this week.
Office of Federal Relations will provide additional details as they become available. The following are some of the highlights of several different bills so far:
Labor-HHS-Education
National Institutes of Health
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Student Aid
The legislation would also prohibit the Department of Education from implementing its new Title IX regulations.
The text of the bill is available here and a summary of the bill prepared by the committee staff is available here. The report accompanying the bill, which contains most of the detailed breakdown of funding, is not yet available.
Commerce-Justice-Science
National Science Foundation
Under the bill unveiled earlier today, NSF would be funded at $8.55 billion, an increase of $270 million. Within NSF:
NASA
NASA would be flat-funded at $22.63 billion in the bill. The bill proposes to divide up the funding, in part, in the following manner:
NOAA
The bill would fund NOAA at $5.45 billion, an increase of $101.9 million.
This is the text of the bill and a summary is available here.
Interior
The current version of the House bill contains $36.76 billion in regular appropriations, an increase of $771 million, and $15 billion in emergency appropriations.
While we have not yet seen further breakdowns for the agency, the USGS is slated to receive an increase of $22 million under this bill.
Both the NEH and the NEA would each be funded at $170 million, an increase of $7.5 million.
The bill text is available here and the summary of the bill is available here.
Energy and Water
Under the the subcommittee-approved bill, the Department of Energy Office of Science would see an increase of $50 million and would be funded at $7.05 billion.
ARPA-E would see an increase of $10 million, while the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy program.would be funded at $2.85 billion, an increase of $58 million.
The summary for the bill is available here.
Full Committee
The full Appropriations Committee is slated to take up the Interior bill on Friday and is scheduled to mark up both the Labor-HHS-Education and Energy and Water bills next Monday.
We will provide further details as they become available.