Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and Hill look closer to a deal as the Trump Administration has backed down on demands for a downpayment on the border wall in FY 2017.
A bigger sticking point has been the ACA subsidies. This afternoon, the White House has said that it will continue paying Affordable Care Act cost-sharing subsidies, removing the biggest remaining hurdle in the negotiations to avoid a government shutdown.
Negotiations continue, but a short term CR may still be in order.
Here is a selection of committee meetings happening this week.
TUESDAY, APRIL 25
Senate Judiciary
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND INNOVATION
April 25, 10 a.m., 226 Dirksen Bldg.
Full Committee Hearing
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26
Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation
FREE ENTERPRISE IN SPACE
April 26, 10 a.m., 253 Russell Bldg.
Subcommittee Hearing
Senate Environment & Public Works
WOTUS RULE REVIEW
April 26, 10 a.m., 406 Dirksen Bldg.
Full Committee Hearing
Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions
PENDING LEGISLATION/GOTTLIEB NOMINATION
April 26, 9:30 a.m., 430 Dirksen Bldg.
Full Committee Markup
Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs
FEDERAL PROGRAMS WASTE AND FRAUD
April 26, 10 a.m., 342 Dirksen Bldg.
Full Committee Hearing
Senate Special Aging
AGING WITHOUT COMMUNITY
April 26, 1:30 p.m., 562 Dirksen Bldg.
Full Committee Hearing
House Oversight & Government Reform
UNFUNDED MANDATES
April 26, 10 a.m., 2154 Rayburn Bldg.
Subcommittee Hearing
House Science, Space & Technology
SPACE LIFE SEARCH
April 26, 10 a.m., 2318 Rayburn Bldg.
Full Committee Hearing
House Transportation & Infrastructure
HAZARDOUS MATERIAL TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE
April 26, 10 a.m., 2167 Rayburn Bldg.
Subcommittee Hearing
THURSDAY, APRIL 27
Senate Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs
ASSESSING RUSSIA SANCTIONS
April 27, 10 a.m., 538 Dirksen Bldg.
Full Committee Hearing
House Education & the Workforce
STRENGTHENING SCHOOL ACCREDITATION
April 27, 10 a.m., 2175 Rayburn Bldg.
Full Committee Hearing
House Oversight & Government Reform
BORDER WALL SECURITY
April 27, 10 a.m., 2154 Rayburn Bldg.
Subcommittee Hearing
Mark up for both the House Energy and Commerce (E&C) and House Ways and Means (W&M) committees will happen this morning beginning at 10:30 am. Both committees will consider the bills until they’re done and each committee is expecting around 100 amendments per committee. Highlights of the bill are below .
Big Items:
House and Senate Consideration
The House E&C and W&M mark up is today. After that, both parts will have to go to the House Budget Committee to be “married together” and more changes can be made. House Budget consideration could be as soon as Friday depending on when E&C and W&M finish. House Leadership will likely try to put the bill up for full consideration by next week.
From there, it will go to the Senate. The Senate will attempt to pass this via the Senate Budget Reconciliation process, which means that the Senate will consider this via a straight up or down vote — 60 votes are not needed. However, whatever the House passes, the Senate will change to conform to Reconciliation rules, so presumably McConnell can change the legislation enough to pacify some of these Senators and/or pick up Democrats like Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), who represents a state where Trump is very popular.
There are restrictions in what the Senate can considered via Budget Reconciliation. Namely, there is a restriction called the Byrd Rule, which means, in overly simplistic terms, provisions considered in a budget bill have to be related to cost or spend money; they cannot legislate. Why is this important? There are items in the House draft, such as Section 103 in the E&C draft (the provision defunds Planned Parenthood) that will be struck from the Senate’s version by virtue of the fact that these provisions legislate.
While officially, the Senate should do as the House and send the bill to the companion Senate committees (HELP, Senate Finance, and Senate Budget), there is a push to have McConnell move this straight to the Senate Budget Committee or Senate Floor. Regardless, this legislation will move quickly in each legislative body.
The goal is to have the whole bill passed and signed before Congress leaves for a two-week Easter Recess on April 7th.
In the mean time, the Congressional Joint Committee on Tax has estimated this will cost $500 B over the next 10 years due to all of the ACA taxes repealed — all ACA taxes are repealed but for the the Cadillac Tax, which is delayed until 2025. There still is no CBO score, which would include an accounting of all revenue lost as well as the number of people losing coverage. A CBO score isn’t expected until after the measure is considered by the House.
Politically
Conservative political groups are blasting the measure already. The Club for Growth, Heritage Action, FreedomWorks, and Americans for Prosperity have all been very critical of the measure and have the ear of conservative Members. Other groups, such as AARP, have also come out against the bill.
The Office of Federal Relations will continue to track the legislation and continue to provide updates.
Last night, the Senate confirmed another Cabinet nominee for Trump as it voted 72-27 to confirm billionaire investor Wilbur Ross as Commerce Secretary.
Ross is a 79-year-old businessman who made his fortune by turning around companies in distressed industries like textiles and steel and is expected to play a leading role in trade policy.
The Senate now turns to Interior Secretary nominee, Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT). Out of the 15 primary federal department chiefs, Zinke looks like he will soon become the 11th Cabinet member confirmed. The Zinke nomination is expected to take the maximum amount of time possible similar to nearly every other Trump nominee.
Trump Address Congress,
Meanwhile, it’s a little over a month into his new Administration and President Donald Trump will address a joint session of Congress for the first time tonight at 9 pm Eastern/6 pm Pacific. While not an official State of the Union address, the new president’s first address to Congress traditionally has been a tone setting speech. Expect a speech from Trump that will offer his vision for the country, including his policy priorities, but will not likely be heavy on details.
The While House has previewed the speech and expect Trump to hit on such topics as: the coming Presidential Budget Request (PBR); recent antisemitic attacks; the White House and the media, including CNN and false reporting; Obamacare repeal and replacement; and an extreme vetting Executive Order (expected Wednesday).
See the White House preview here.
Meanwhile, the White House has said that the PBR will be previewed March 16th with something akin to a skinny budget, but the complete PBR will not be released until mid-May. The OMB, with newly approved OMB Director Mulvaney, began circulating top line numbers to agencies yesterday in preparation for a full budget preview and request. As those documents were circulating, the Trump PBR will call for $603 billion in military spending, which is a 2% boost from current levels. That sum would also represent a $54 billion, or 10%, increase over budget caps set in law. Additionally, the plans has no cuts coming from entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. The increase would come from the non discretionary defense portions of the budget.
Before the FY2018 PRB is released, the Trump Administration is expected to ask Congress for a $30 billion in supplemental defense spending via the Overseas Contingency Operations account that is not subject to the spending caps. It’s a move that’s been used by Congress previously.
Senate confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch have been scheduled to begin March 20.
The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing is expected to last three to four days. Questioning of the Judge Gorsuch will begin on March 21. Senators will hear testimony from outside experts as well as the nominee.