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News and updates

House Releases $81 Billion Supplemental

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Totaling $81 billion, the supplemental spending bill (HR 4667) released Monday evening is $37 billion more than the $44 billion the Trump Administration requested in mid-November. As supplemental appropriations, the money is designated as emergency spending, which does not require offsets under congressional budget rules. The White House included a list of offsets, which can be found here.

If approved as is, this latest disaster aid bill would bring the emergency spending total to $132.75 billion this year — significantly surpassing the $60 billion spent in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and the $120 billion appropriated after Hurricane Katrina.

The bill includes:

  • $27.6 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency
  • $26.1 billion for Community Development Block Grants for disaster recovery
  • $12.1 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers
  • $3.8 billion for agriculture recovery
  • $2.9 billion to assist schools in affected areas to rebuild and refurbish
  • $1.6 billion for the Small Business Administration disaster loan program
  • $1.5 billion to repair military facilities
  • $1.4 billion for damages to federal highways
  • $600 million in economic development grants

The bill includes language that would allow individuals who have lost property to wildfires to deduct damage costs on their taxes, would remove the penalty for withdrawing money from a retirement account and would incentivize donations to people and regions rebuilding after wildfires.

House leadership has not yet announced whether the supplemental aid package will be added to the stopgap spending bill (H J Res 124) heading to the House Rules Committee on today and the House floor after that.

Current stopgap funding  expires Dec. 22.

House Committee Clears HEA Reauthorization Bill

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In a marathon markup session that lasted well into the evening, the House Education and the Workforce Committee cleared yesterday the PROSPER Act (H.R. 4508), its version of the bill to reauthorize the Higher Education Act (HEA), by a vote 23 to 17.  A copy of the bill is available here.

During the session, approximately 60 amendments were considered.  A write-up of the markup session is available here.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has not yet moved its version of the HEA reauthorization bill.

 

This Week in Congress, December 11-15

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Here is a selection of committee meetings taking place this week.

U.S. Senate

SENATE COMMERCE, SCIENCE & TRANSPORTATION
Subcommittee Hearing
National Ocean Policy
Dec. 12, 2:30 p.m., 253 Russell Bldg.

SENATE HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR & PENSIONS
Full Committee Hearing
Prescription Drug Costs
Dec. 12, 10 a.m., 430 Dirksen Bldg.

SENATE JUDICIARY
Full Committee Hearing
Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act
Dec. 12, 10 a.m., 226 Dirksen Bldg.

U.S. House of Representatives

HOUSE EDUCATION & THE WORKFORCE
Full Committee Markup
Affordable Postsecondary Education Support
Dec. 12, 10 a.m., 2175 Rayburn Bldg.

HOUSE JUDICIARY
Full Committee Hearing
Oversight of Mueller’s Russia Investigation
Dec. 13, 10 a.m., 2141 Rayburn Bldg.

What we’re reading, Dec. 4-8

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Here’s a selection of articles that are keeping us informed this week.

Shutdown Showdown – House Republicans are working on a multistep government funding strategy that involves a two-week stopgap measure to keep the lights on beyond Dec. 8 and fully funding defense by Christmas. No final decisions have been made but the idea GOP leaders have discussed with key conference members is to stick to the plan to pass a continuing resolution through Dec. 22. They then hope to pass a spending bill that would fund defense-related agencies through the end of fiscal 2018 and include another short-term CR for the remaining agencies, likely sometime into mid-to-late January. Read more from Roll Call.

Conferencing on the Tax Bill – The Senate’s passage of a tax overhaul illustrated a fragile coalition of support that ironically provides the chamber with the upper hand headed into conference committee negotiations with the House. House Republicans wanted a conference process on the two chambers’ differing tax bills to prevent the House from getting jammed by the Senate, as they acknowledge has happened frequently on major bills. But some members realize that a conference committee may still result in a final product that tracks more with Senate priorities given the thin margin of support in that chamber. Read more at Roll Call.

House HEA Proposal – The sprawling, 542-page revamp of the Higher Education Act released Friday by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.), chairwoman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, kicks off what is likely to be a rocky and drawn-out legislative process aimed at reshaping college education. Read more from the Wall Street Journal.

Meet the Moderates –   These politicians and candidates are breaking with today’s aggressively partisan times to advocate a more centrist line. Read more from Governing.

The Silence Breakers – The #metoo silence breakers have started a revolution of refusal, gathering strength by the day, and in the past two months alone, their collective anger has spurred immediate and shocking results: nearly every day, CEOs have been fired, moguls toppled, icons disgraced. In some cases, criminal charges have been brought. Read more about TIME person of the year here.

Ranking the Bowl Games –  Bow down to Washington! There are two ways to approach bowl season, which has been trimmed from 40 contests to 39 after the demise of the Poinsettia Bowl. One, you can grumble about how there’s too many bowl games, a truly “get off my lawn” way to handle things. Two, you can pick and choose some enjoyable matchups and ignore the ones whose greatest utility is providing a few hours of programming for the Four Letter Network and extra practices for the teams involved. Read more about all 39 bowl games from the Washington Post. Go dawgs!

Shutdown Averted… For Now

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Both chambers of Congress cleared yesterday another short-term spending package that would keep the government funded through December 22.  The old spending agreement ends at midnight Saturday.

Although the government remains funded for another two weeks, there still is no agreement on many of the unresolved issues that will need to be addressed before a final package for FY2018 can be adopted.  These include questions about whether to break the budget caps, and if so, how much and for which sets of programs.  Questions also remain on whether or how to address the DACA/”Dreamers” situation, which must be dealt with by March.

It appears at this point that another short-term extension will be needed beyond the 22nd.