Earlier this morning, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee approved the nomination of Miguel Cardona to serve as Education Secretary. His nomination now moves on to the full Senate.
Category: Student Aid
Split Screen: COVID Package in House, Trump Trial in Senate
As noted yesterday, House committees that received instructions to craft specific parts of the larger COVID relief package will begin to act today, with the Education and Labor Committee marking up its bill at 3 PM today (the session will be webcast here). The Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I), Financial Services, and Agriculture Committees are scheduled to follow suit by marking up their bills on Wednesday. Copies of the T & I and Financial Services bills were released late yesterday.
The House Ways and Means Committee is expected to take up its piece of the COVID package next week during a markup that is expected to take multiple days. The entirety of the Ways and Means package and summaries of each section are available here. Provisions of interest in the bill include, for example:
- $1,400 credit for both children and non-child dependents;
- Tax credits for state and local governments to provide paid family and medical leave created by Families First Corona Response Act, which would become effective March 31, 2021; and,
- Extension of the employee retention tax credit.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Capitol complex, the full Senate today is scheduled to start the trial to convict former president Donald Trump. Once the trial officially starts, both sides can use up to 16 hours to make their case.
Texts of Biden Executive Actions Now Available
As noted earlier yesterday, President Biden was expected to take a number of executive actions on a host of issues on his first day, including COVID-19, DACA, and student loan repayments, among others. He did take those executive actions after being sworn in and the texts of those executive actions are now available.
- The text of the Presidential Memorandum on “Preserving and Fortifying DACA” is available here.
- The text of the Presidential Proclamation ending the “Muslim ban” is available here.
- The text of the Executive Order on a review of regulations that negatively impact the climate issued during the Trump Administration is available here.
- The text of a memo from the White House Chief of Staff to agency heads halting “midnight regulations” is available here.
- A statement regarding student loan repayments is available here. The Education Department has already updated its website to reflect an extension on the repayment pause through September 30.
Texts of other executive actions taken by the new President are available here.
Biden To Take Executive Actions Today
Shortly after being sworn today, President Biden is expected to take a set of executive actions that seeks to jump start the process of addressing his priority areas.
Among the steps Biden is expected to take are asking the Department of Education to consider extending the moratorium on student loan repayments through September 30, issuing a presidential memo asking the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice to “preserve and fortify protections for Dreamers,” and ending the “Muslim ban”.
Read more about the executive actions here.
Descriptions of the 17 actions that he is expected take are available here.
President Signs Appropriations Bills into Law
President Trump has signed both the $900 billion COVID relief package, as well as the $1.4 trillion FY21 omnibus appropriations bill, into law. His signature will avert a government shutdown.
More details here.