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Category: On the Hill

Foxx to be Chair of House Education and Workforce Cmte, Trump’s Ed Landing Team

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With approval of the full Republican conference, the House Republican Steering Committee has selected Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) as the chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce in the 115th Congress.  She grew up in Appalachia without power and running water and began working as a weaver at age 12 to help support her family. These experiences convinced her that it’s an individual’s hard work, and not federal programs, that lead to success.

As the 73-year-old GOP lawmaker and former community college president, Foxx has been a staunch critic of the Obama Administation’s Department of Education efforts. 

She is a strong supporter of school choice and supports the president-elect’s $20 billion school choice plan emphasizing vouchers. Specifically, she wants to examine the billions doled out annually under Title 1 — a Great Society program that boosts funding to schools catering to poor students. The money is now considered a possible funding source for Trump’s school choice plan. Other items on her agenda: 

  • reexamine the role of the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, which conservatives revile for its focus on issues such as campus sexual assault and bathroom access for transgender students;

  • reverse a Democratic Congress’ decision to have the Education Department, not banks, issue student loans; and 

  • reverse regulations targeting for-profit colleges.

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Mike Pence’s former general counsel has joined the landing team at the Education Department. Attorney Thomas Wheeler was named to the team Thursday. He served as general counsel for Pence during his time as Indiana governor, according to a 2013 press release from the Republican National Lawyers Association that announced him as a member of its board of governors. Wheeler also has extensive experience representing schools on legal issues, including civil rights-related cases, according to the web site for his law firm in Indianapolis, Frost Brown Todd, LLC.

House Considers NDAA Today

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The House will debate and vote on the compromise National Defense Authorization Act today, likely before noon.

The measure is expected to pass, though it is unclear by how wide a margin. The White House hasn’t indicated where President Barack Obama will come down on the final bill, though it leaves out many of the most controversial provisions that drew Democratic opposition and a veto threat from the administration.

The compromise NDAA ditched the contentious riders, including provisions on the greater sage grouse and workplace protections based on sexual orientation. It’s also expected to include $9 billion on top of the Pentagon’s budget request, incorporating the administration’s $5.8 billion war supplemental request as well as funding to cover military readiness shortfalls.

For FY2017, the NDAA conference agreement would authorize Department of Defense (DoD) Basic Research (6.1) at $2.142 billion (FY16 is $2.309 billion), Science and Technology (6.1-6.3) at $12.489 billion (FY16 is $13.251 billion), and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) at $2.957 billion (FY16 is $2.891 billion).

The NDAA conference also would extend the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program until FY2022 (Sec. 1834). The bill would not make any changes to the SBIR/STTR set-aside amounts.

The conference agreement would establish the Manufacturing Engineering Education program (Sec.215), to award grants to industry, non-profits, universities or consortiums of such groups, to enhance or establish new programs in manufacturing engineering education. The Manufacturing Engineering Education program language is a slightly modified version of the Manufacturing Universities language originally included in the Senate-passed FY2017 NDAA bill.

 The FY2017 NDAA report, summary fact sheet and joint explanatory statement are posted here.

The Senate is expected to consider the bill next week.

Cures Passes House

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Last night, the House approved, 392-26, the 21st Century Cures Act, amended by a Manager’s Amendment submitted by House Energy and Commerce Chair Fred Upton (R-MI). While the Manager’s Amendment modifies slightly the allocation of funding in the NIH Innovation Account on an annual basis, it maintains the overall level of funding in the Account at a total of $4.796 billion between FYs 2017 and 2026. For the Precision Medicine Initiative, the Amendment provides $1.455 billion between FYs 2017 and 2026; for BRAIN, $1.511 billion between FYs 2017 and 2026; for cancer research, $1.8 billion between FYs 2017 and 2023; and for clinical research to advance regenerative medicine using adult stem cells, the Amendment provides $30 million between FYs 2017 and 2020.

The overwhelming vote tally gained more Republican votes and registered the same level of Democratic support when compared to the vote on a previous 2015 bill version (HR 6).

The legislation now moves to the Senate for consideration next week.

White House Supports Cures

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Late yesterday, the White House issued a Statement of Administrative Policy (SAP) in support of the 21st Century Cures legislation, which is on the House Floor today.

The SAP expressly calls out the Innovation Fund in the measure, which targets funding for several of the Administration’s health care priorities, as a highlight of the measure.

Read the SAP here. 

They’re BACK & 21st Century Cures to be Considered by the House

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Congress is back today for the remainder of its lame-duck session. While both the House and Senate are slated to be in session until December 16, Republicans appear content to run out the clock until President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in on January 20, which could make for a much shorter and less eventful lame duck session.

Congress still has a handful of legislative priorities to take care of before the end of this Congress, including passing a final National Defense Authorization Act and a government funding bill. The final fiscal 2017 defense policy bill could surface as early as this week. Once finalized, a conference report must be signed by House and Senate negotiators before final floor consideration in both chambers.

The compromise NDAA is expected to ditch contentious riders, including provisions on the greater sage grouse and workplace protections based on sexual orientation. It’s also expected to include $9 billion on top of the Pentagon’s budget request, incorporating the Administration’s $5.8 billion war supplemental request the Obama Administration submitted to Congress on November 10, as well as funding to cover military readiness shortfalls.

It’s still all about the money.  

Additionally, Congress needs to pass a spending bill to fund government by the December 9 to avoid a shutdown. Republican leaders decided before Thanksgiving to move a new continuing resolution (CR) through March, allowing Trump to put his mark on federal spending during his first year in office. Meanwhile, Appropriators and Congressional leadership continue to wrestle with an exact date in March to end the CR as well as if to include the supplemental funding requested by the Obama Administration. 

Agenda for the Week

In the House, lawmakers will consider a compromise bill seeking to spur efforts on medical innovation. A new version of the 21st Century Cures measure (HR 6) emerged on Friday after private negotiations among bill supporters and is headed toward a House vote on Wednesday of this week. House Members passed the original bill in 2015, but Senators were unable to complete the assembly their own bill.

The newly revised version tweaks funding, offsets and other provisions of the package seeking to revamp Food and Drug Administration procedures for approving new drugs and boosting biomedical research efforts of the National Institutes of Health.

The main order of business on the Senate floor is a bill that would study expanding a program to provide specialized medical treatments to rural and medically underserved communities.