The FY2019 appropriations process continued to move forward today.
The House agreed to its version of the Defense spending bill by a vote of 359 to 49. The detailed report for the bill is available here.
In the Senate, the full Appropriations Committee adopted its version of the Labor-HHS-Education and Defense spending bills. While most of the details from the two bills are not yet available, the bills’ highlights have been posted by committee here and here.
The Senate Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee reported out this morning its FY2019 bill. While most of the legislation’s details are not yet available, Chairman Roy Blunt (R-MO) highlighted during his remarks the $2-billion increase in the bill slated for NIH. He also called out the proposed Pell Grant maximum of $6,195 and the continuation of the year-round Pell. A press release about the highlights of the bill is available here.
The bill is slated to be taken up by the full Appropriations Committee on Thursday, when the panel will also consider the Defense bill.
More details will be posted as they become available.
The House Appropriations Committee was scheduled to take up today its FY2019 Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Bill. The legislation funds, among other agencies and programs, those that support biomedical research and student financial aid, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Pell Grants. The committee markup, however, has been postponed until after the July Fourth recess. While Republicans are citing scheduling issues as the cause of the postponement, Democrats are claiming that the delay is due to Republican concerns about amendments that will likely be offered by Democrats to address family separation issues during the markup session.
As it stands, the current version of the legislation, the details of which are available here, would hold the Pell Grant maximum steady at $6,095 while funding the program at $22.475 billion overall. With respect to other financial aid and higher education programs, Work Study would receive $1.13 billion while TRIO and GEAR-UP would be funded at $1.01 billion and $360 million, respectively. SEOG would also bevlevel funded at $840.0 million.
International Education-Title VI programs and the Institute for Education Sciences would be held level at $72.1 million and $613 million, respectively, by the House bill.
On the biomedical research front, NIH would see an increase of $1.25 billion under this bill and would receive $38.33 billion. The Health Resources and Services Administration would receive $6.54 billion under this bill.
On the other side of the Hill, the Senate Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee is scheduled to take up its version of the FY2019 bill later this morning. The full Appropriations Committee is scheduled to mark up the legislation on Thursday, when it is also expected to consider the Defense spending bill. The Office of Federal Relations will report on the details as they become available.
In a notice posted yesterday, the Education Department announcement that it will delay again by a year the implementation of “gainful employment” (GE) regulations. Last July, the department decided to delay the implementation of the GE regulations until this July 1. This notice pushes back the regulations until July 1, 2019.
Read more about the background on the issue here.
Both chambers of Congress continue their march through the FY2019 appropriations process.
The Senate Appropriations Committee took up and cleared its Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS), Interior, and Legislative Branch bills earlier today, meaning that the committee has cleared seven of the 12 spending bills. Some of the initial details about the CJS and Interior bills were posted yesterday.
In the House, the Defense spending measure was reported out by the Appropriations Committee yesterday and the Labor-HHS-Education bill is scheduled to be taken up by its subcommittee Friday morning.
House Defense Appropriations Bill
A copy of the detailed report for the bill is available here.
Subcommittee Labor-HHS-Education Bill
While the full details from the bill are not yet available, some of the contents of the measure are known.
We will share additional details as they become available.