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.

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.

Today in Congress

Posted on February 17, 2012October 17, 2012

The House and the Senate are expected to vote on legislation that would extend a payroll tax cut through the end of the year. The legislation also would extend federal unemployment insurance benefits and prevent a cut in Medicare payments to physicians.

The Senate holds a test vote on an amendment offered by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) on a two-year surface transportation bill. This procedure will help determine if the Senate can move toward final passage when they return from their President’s Day recess.

Both the House and Senate will be in recess next week for President’s Day.

Effort Begins to Repeal Sequester

Posted on February 2, 2012October 17, 2012

Senate Republicans are posed today to initiate an effort to block automatic budget cuts scheduled to take place next January. They will propose replacing the first year of the spending “sequester” with a plan to shrink federal employment and extend a pay freeze on government workers. The effort is an attempt to stave off what many view as potentially devastating cuts to the Pentagon.

Late last year, House Armed Services Chairman McKeon (R-CA) offered a similar proposal (HR 3662) that quickly received a veto threat from the White House. McKeon’s legislation would save more than $120 billion over a decade, effectively offsetting the first year of the statutory sequester of both defense and non-defense spending. That would push off until FY14 the spending cuts triggered the Budget Control Act (PL 112-25) that was approved by Congress last August.

The Senate’s proposed bill, the Down Payment to Protect National Security Act of 2012, will add credibility to the sequester repeal effort due to the high-profile sponsors of the bill, including Senators Jon Kyl (R-AZ), John McCain (R-AZ), John Cornyn (R-TX), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH).

Like McKeon’s measure, the Senate legislation would replace $109 billion in estimated, across-the-board spending cuts that are set to kick in January 2, 2013 with savings from a reduction in the federal workforce over a decade. McKeon’s proposal would trim the workforce by 10 percent by replacing every three workers who leave an agency with just one new hire. The Senate bill would cut the workforce by 5 percent, replacing every three full-time workers who leave with two new hires. The Senate bill goes farther than the House measure by also finding savings by extending the current pay freeze for federal civilian workers until June 30, 2014. Contrast that will what is expected to be in the President’s FY13 budget request: a 0.5 percent pay bump for federal employees in his budget proposal due February 13^th, bringing an end to the two-year freeze.

Senator Murray (D-WA) has already expressed her opposition to the GOP plan via Twitter, where she posts “GOP to lay out plan to avoid def. cuts tmw. Who thinks it will also avoid having wealthy pay fair share? Ask only middle class sacrifice?”

Sequestration: What it means for Federal Research Funding

Posted on February 2, 2012November 1, 2012

Automatic spending cuts, or sequestration, was established through the Budget Control Act passed by Congress last August and is set to go into effect January 2013. The sequestration process has great implications for all federal discretionary programs, including most – if not all – of federally funded research programs. Below is a link to a detailed explanation of this process and the impacts to federal spending in both the short- and long-term.

Sequestration_Details