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News and updates

News and updates

Omnibus Signed After Last Minute Veto Threat

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After surprising most of Washington with a last minute tweet this morning threatening to veto the FY2018 omnibus spending bill, President Trump ultimately signed it into law this afternoon.  As the last minute hurdles were being cleared on the Hill earlier this week, White House staff had assured Congressional Republicans that Trump would support the measure.

Earlier today, the President tweeted that he might veto the bill because it did not address the DACA issue and did not fully fund the border wall that he had wanted.  Ultimately, he was persuaded to sign it to avoid a government shutdown.

Read more here and here.

What We’re Reading, March 19-23

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Here’s a selection of articles we read this week.

What does a scientist look like? When asked to draw a scientist, school-age kids in the United States are increasingly sketching women. That’s the main conclusion of a new study that compiled information about 20,860 pictures drawn by students age 5 to 18 over 5 decades. Read more from Science Magazine.

The Omnibus – Congressional negotiators reached a tentative agreement Wednesday night on a $1.3 trillion federal spending bill, releasing it to the public just 52 hours before a government shutdown deadline. The draft billruns 2,232 pages, and we’re going through it so you don’t have to. Click through to Washington Post for the key highlights.

Word on the Hill – Roll Call is all over Capitol Hill and its surrounding haunts looking for good stories. Some of their best are ones they come across while reporting the big stories. Read ’em at Roll Call.

Randy’s blog is back! –  Randy Hodgins, UW’s vice president for external affairs (and our boss) is back to blogging! Read his first post which happens to discuss his recent trip to DC here.

Senate Clears Spending Package

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A few hours after House did its part, the Senate cleared the FY2018 omnibus spending package by a vote of 65 – 32. President Trump has signaled that he will sign the measure, avoiding a shutdown, which would occur if it were not signed into law before midnight tonight.

More Omnibus Details Available

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On the Defense front, the omnibus package would fund DoD basic research (“6.1”) programs at a total of $2.34 billion, an increase of $114.6 million above the Administration request.  Applied research (“6.2”) programs would be funded at $5.68 billion, or $708.2 million above the request.

Basic research funding breaks down in the following manner in the bill:

  • Army:  $470.0 million ($40 million above the request)
  • Navy:  $621.9 million ($26 million above the request)
  • Air Force:  $520.3 million ($15 million above the request)
  • Defense-wide:  $731.0 million ($33.6 million above the request)

Funding for applied research is divided up in the following manner:

  • Army:  $1.37 billion ($480.2 million above the request)
  • Navy:  $994.1 million ($108.0 million above the request)
  • Air Force:  $1.43 billion ($150.6 million above the request)
  • Defense-wide:  $1.88 billion ($30.6 million below the request)