Category: Legislation

The Office of Federal Relations Team is not making any holiday plans – for now – as it now looks like Congress won’t wrap up annual appropriations work nor consider recommendations for long-term deficit until just before Christmas.

House appropriators may try to expedite completion of overdue FY12 appropriations bills by adding one or two additional measures to what is now a three-bill Senate “minibus” package.  The Senate is expected to pass the first of several minibus bills soon after it returns from a weeklong recess next week.  Once the Senate takes this action, House Leaderships has indicated that they expect conference negotiations on the minibus to begin immediately, and that those talks would be completed quickly.

The Senate version of the minibus (HR 2112) contains three of the 12 regular appropriations bills for the fiscal year that began October 1^st – Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science (S 1572) and Transportation-HUD (S 1596).  The House might add continuing resolution (CR) language to that legislative vehicle that would keep the government operating past the November 18^th expiration of the current stopgap bill (PL 112-36).  A new CR might last until late December, when Congress is expected to be considering a broad deficit reduction package aimed at saving at least $1.2 trillion or more over the next decade.

The Senate has passed only one regular spending measure, the Military Construction-VA bill (HR 2055).  The House has passed six of the 12, but did so under an overall discretionary spending target of $1.019 trillion that is lower than the limit now in effect.  The House stopped considering individual appropriations bills after Congress set the current target of $1.043 trillion in the Budget Control Act enacted in August (PL 112-25).  Wrapping up FY12 appropriations will involve negotiating compromises on dollar amounts for programs and on efforts to change federal policy through limitations on spending or policy riders.  House appropriators, for example, have proposed using a draft Labor-HHS-Education spending bill to cut off money to enforce the 2010 health care overhaul (PL 111-148, PL 111-152).  House Republicans also have sought to weaken environmental regulation by adding amendments to the Interior-Environment appropriations bill (HR 2584).

Not to be overshadowed by appropriations efforts, Republicans and Democrats on the Joint Deficit Reduction Committee are laying out budget proposals this week that could serve as a starting point for intense negotiations over a final plan to save at least $1.2 trillion over the next decade. 

Republicans outlined their plan behind closed doors yesterday one day after details of a $3 trillion Democratic proposal was released.  Details of the GOP plan are minimal, but it would rely largely on spending cuts and other non-tax revenue to exceed the savings mandate.  In part, the GOP plan is aimed at drawing contrasts with the Democratic plan, which would seek an equal mix of tax increases and spending cuts — including $500 million in Medicare and Medicaid reductions — to meet its mark.  

Neither plan stands a chance of being enacted in whole, but there are some signs in each plan that progress is being made among the committee’s 12 members on tough issues.  Both proposals take a “go big” approach and target savings upward of $2 trillion, Democrats are at least willing to consider cuts to entitlements, and the GOP does not appear to have completely ruled out a corporate tax overhaul.  

During a public hearing with the committee yesterday, CBO Director Elmendorf warned that caps on discretionary spending in the August debt deal (PL 112-25) could make it challenging for lawmakers to find more savings through cuts.  He added that the impact of the caps will be felt most heavily by programs rising at a rate faster than inflation, such as Pell grants for higher education, defense, and veterans’ health care.

Stay tuned for more political maneuvering as congressional leaders try to figure out how best to resolve both FY12 appropriations and long-term debt reduction.

While the House is in recess this week, the Senate will continue working on FY12 appropriations measures in an effort to create a path forward on completing those bills before the continuing resolution (CR) expires on November 18^th.  Later today, the Senate will test the waters with a “minibus,” which would include three spending bills together in one package of piece of legislation.  The other alternative is to put all 12 spending bills together in an omnibus bill, but the House leadership has indicated that this is not a viable option for their members. 

The minibus (HR 2112) being considered in the Senate this week includes an amended version of their FY12 Agriculture spending bill, as well as the Transportation-Housing Development (S 1596) and Commerce-Justice-Science (S 1572) spending bills.  If the Senate is successful in moving its first minibus, it seems likely that the House will also proceed in this way to avoid the larger omnibus option.

The minibus vs. omnibus option is not the only obstacle facing Congress as they struggle to complete the FY12 process.  Republicans in both the House and Senate are hoping to include a variety of policy riders to the FY12 ranging from abortion to farm dust.  Some conservatives have indicated that they will attempt to include many of the same policy riders that they tried to include during the FY11 battle earlier this year.  An October 4th legislative bulletin from the conservative Republican Study Committee listed several riders that are priorities for the conservative right, including a ban on federal funding for abortion providers, measures aimed at halting new environmental and net neutrality regulations, and efforts to strip funding for National Public Radio, the Palestinian Authority and the Legal Services Corp.

The problem is that a rider-laden spending bill doesn’t have a chance of approval in the Senate. Republican leadership will be forced to rely on Democrats to pass the bills, which will likely result in another threat of government shutdown as we wind down to November 18^th.

With just five days until the end of the current federal fiscal year, congressional leaders continue to work to resolve an impasse over how to pay for disaster aid that threatens to shut down the government on Friday at midnight. 

There appears to be bipartisan support for a continuing resolution (CR) that would allow the government to keep operating through November 18^th at a rate that reflects the $1.043 trillion annual limit set by the debt limit law (PL 112-25) enacted in August.  Disaster aid funding appears to be the main stumbling block.  While no one questions the need for the assistance in the wake of a string of natural disasters this year, there is much disagreement over how to pay for this aid.  Democrats believe it is unfair to call for the emergency aid to be offset, something they say has not been done before, while Republicans say offsets are needed to keep federal spending constrained so that is doesn’t contribute to the federal deficit.

The Senate is scheduled for a procedural vote tonight at 5:30pm on an amendment, proposed by Majority Leader Reid (D-NV), to the House-passed CR that would remove the spending offsets for the bill’s recovery aid.  It would require 60 votes to pass and would also require the House to agree to the changes before it could be sent to the President for signature.  However, Senate Democrats may not have the 60 votes required to overcome a filibuster.  If the Senate does not accept the House-passed CR that would keep the government operating when FY12 starts on Saturday (October 1^st) or if the Senate does not come to an agreement to change the measure that might win unanimous consent in the House, the issue probably cannot be resolved before Tuesday at the earliest.  With both chambers scheduled to be in recess this week to observe the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah (beginning at sundown on Wednesday), congressional leaders have limited time to come to a resolution to avoid a government shutdown. 

Sources:  Congressional Quarterly, Politico