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Category: Legislation

Stimulus Bill Fails in Senate

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The Senate today voted on a GOP-introduced $500 billion stimulus package, however the bill failed on a 51-44 vote.

Negotiations continue between House Democrats and the Administration. The two sides are potentially very close to reaching a deal on an almost $2 trillion package. Senate Majority leadership reportedly does not support such a large price tag. An agreement would need to be reached between the House, Senate, and Administration in the next few days in order to pass both chambers and be signed into law before the November 3rd elections.

Updates here.

House Passes Continuing Resolution

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The House passed a continuing resolution (“CR”), H.R. 8337, to fund the Federal Government through December 11th, 2020 and avoid a potential shutdown. The bipartisan resolution passed 359-57 and is part of a deal reached by House Democrats, Senate Republicans, and the Administration. The CR must still pass in the Senate and be signed by the President. The full story is available here.

As of now, all 12 FY 2021 appropriations bills have passed in the House, but none have passed in the Senate, indicating a likely long road ahead.

 

Senate Republicans Release Targeted COVID-19 Package

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Today, US Senate Republican leaders released a smaller, targeted COVID-19 package. Titled “Delivering Immediate Relief to America’s Families, Schools and Small Businesses Act”, the legislation focuses on specific priorities including childcare, COVID-19 testing, unemployment insurance, and the USPS. It would cost approximately $500 billion and a vote is expected as soon as this week. A larger relief package remains in limbo as Democratic and Republican leaders failed to reach an agreement on a topline number.

Meanwhile, the FY2021 Appropriations Bills Move Along

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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.

Will We See More Appropriations and Senate “COVID 4.0” This Week?

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After adopting a four-bill spending package for FY2021 last week, the House is currently scheduled to take up an even larger seven-bill “minibus” later this week, H.R. 7617.The legislation combines the FY2021 Defense, Commerce-Justice-Science, Energy and Water Development, Labor-HHS-Education, Financial Services-General Government, Homeland Security, and Transportation-HUD measures.  As we noted last week, the Senate has yet to move on even a single spending bill.

Meanwhile, over the on the Senate side of the Capitol, we may finally see this week a set of proposals that represents the Senate Republican wish list for a “COVID 4.0” relief package.  The Senate Republican leadership had hoped to unveil something last week but could not work out differences among themselves and with the White House.  The goal is to unveil a proposal this week so that they can start negotiating with the Democratic House, which passed the the HEROES Act in May as its marker for negotiations.  There is pressure to act as quickly as possible as a number of benefits from the CARES Act are scheduled to expire very soon, including expanded unemployment benefits.