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News and updates

Sen. Appropriations Committee Finishes Its Work, Clears Last 4 Bills

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By clearing the last four bills yesterday, the Senate Appropriations Committee has reported out all 12 spending bills for a fiscal year for the first time in five years.  The committee reported out favorably yesterday the following FY2024 spending measures:  Labor-HHS-Education; Defense; Interior and the Environment; and Homeland Security.  Unlike the situation in the House, where the leadership had to pull the Agriculture spending bill from a floor vote because it lacked enough support even among the Republicans, the committee process in the Senate yesterday was very bipartisan.  The Interior bill passed by a vote of 28 – 0, the Defense bill was approved 27 – 1, the Labor-HHS bill was adopted 26 – 2, and the vote was 24 – 4 on the Homeland Security legislation.  

Labor-HHS-Education

HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

  • NIH

The Senate legislation would fund the National Institutes of Health at a total of $47.8 billion, an increase of $943 million above the current level.  The total includes $1.5 billion for ARPA-H, which represents level funding under the Senate version of the bill.  Within the NIH, the bill would increase, among other programs, mental health and Alzheimer’s research by $100 million each and while cancer research would see an increase of $60 million.

  • Title VII Health Professions and Title VIII Nursing Programs

The legislation proposes to fund the Title VII Health Professions programs at a total of $529 million, an increase of $20 million.

At the same time, the Title VIII Nursing programs would see a total of $302.5 million, a $2-million increase over this year.

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

  • Student Aid and Higher Education
    • Pell Grant– The maximum award would increase by $250 to $7,645
    • SEOG– $900 million (a decrease of $10 million)
    • Federal Work Study– $1.22 billion (a decrease of $10 million)
    • International Education– $85.7 million (level funded)
    • TRIO– $1.19 billion (level funded)
    • GEAR UP– $338 million (level funded)
    • GAANN– $23.5 million (level funded)
  • Institute of Education Sciences (IES)
    • IES would be funded at $793 million, a cut of $14.5 million

Interior

USGS

  • Climate Adaptation Science Centers– $63.1 million (level funded)
  • ShakeAlert– $29.6 million (level funded)

NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES

  • $207 million (level funded)

Defense

Under the committee-approved bill, defense basic research would be see an increase of 10.5 percent for a total of $3.22 billion.

  • Army basic research:  $672.5 million (an increase of 5.8%)
  • Navy basic research:  $793.5 million (an increase of 15.2%)
  • Air Force basic research:  $711.9 million (an increase of 16.3%)
  • Defense-wide basic research:  $862.3 million (a decrease of 7.0%)
  • DARPA:  $4.1 billion (0.7% increase)

Both chambers are now in recess until after Labor Day. 

NDAA Progress: Senate Releases Text; House Prepares for Floor Action

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Congress returned this week for a three-week blitz before the August recess, with the FY24 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and FY24 spending bills on the list of priorities. The Senate Armed Services Committee released its version of the FY24 NDAA which will likely be considered on the floor next week. The House has also released its version which is teed up for floor consideration as well. There are hundreds of amendments that were filed that will need to be worked through. Some amendments target research security which UW and the higher education community are monitoring.

House Armed Services Committee staff is maintaining a floor amendment tracker, which will include vote outcomes, here.

SCOTUS Rejects Loan Forgiveness Plan

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Following up on yesterday’s ruling on ending explicit use of race in admissions, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down earlier today the Biden Administration’s loan cancellation proposal.  In a 6 – 3 decision, the court’s majority ruled that the Education Department did not have the authority to cancel loans.  The decision is available here.  

You can read more about the decision here, here, and here. 

UNC Chapel Hill, Harvard Admissions Practices Struck Down

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In a much awaited decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled this morning that the admissions practices at both Harvard University and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill are unconstitutional because of how race is in their decisions.

The entirety of the ruling is available here. 

Examples of initial analyses of the ruling are available here, here, and here.

NDAA Markups Set for This Week

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Both the House and Senate are set to have full committee mark ups for the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) this week. HASC Chairman Mike Rogers (R-AL) expressed his praise for the bipartisan work of the seven subcommittees so far, however there are still many partisan issues to be addressed including disagreements related to the Space Command Headquarters and abortion polices in the military. The House’s spending bill includes about $826 billion for new discretionary funding, about $285 billion more than President Biden’s request. Democrats have signaled their disagreement with the bill by calling out the $1.1 billion in cuts to salaries for civilian personnel, the $714 million cut to climate change programs and $100 million cut to DEI efforts that are included in the House bill. Another key part of the House bill includes a $9 billion investment in the Indo-Pacific region focused on deterring Chinese aggression.

The Senate full committee will meet for what could be a three-day full committee markup of the 2024 NDAA. Read more about here.