News and updates

After a bruising election, House and Senate are both back in session today to figure out how (and what) to move forward in the Lame Duck. The overall priority will be to find a way to fund the government into next year. Also on the agenda are a series of bills including the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), 21st Century Cures – a major funding measure for health care research, as well as the Water Resources Development bill. 

Congress will be in session for a week before recessing for the Thanksgiving break. New Members in both the House and Senate will be in town for orientation. Also up this week are party leadership elections in both the House and Senate. While Speaker Ryan appeared endangered prior to the election, the Republican leadership in the Senate and House is expected to be the same. The more interesting party to watch in leadership elections this week might be the Democrats in the House. They badly underperformed on Election Day, and allies of Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader, have been busy trying to limit unrest over her continuing tenure. While, Pelosi is expected to remain leader, she needs to address rank-and-file frustration with life in the minority.

Show Me the Money
How will Congress approach funding? A stopgap through next spring has long been advocated by House conservatives. Prior to the election, an omnibus or series of smaller “minibus” packages was expected. Now with the House, Senate, and Administration all soon to be in Republican control, Republicans seem more inclined to pass a CR into the Spring of 2017 or even a full year CR, potentially with fully funding select FY 2017 measures already through the Appropriations Committee, than prior to the election. Exactly which measures that could be included for full year funding are still being discussed. It seems that House Republican leaders are leaning toward a CR, while Senate leaders appear to prefer a spending deal to wind up the FY 2017 this year.

Regardless, Congress still has to deal with the current President, and what he will sign, in the near term.
A CR until the spring would allow the new Administration to put its own stamp on spending within the first 100 days. That said, it will put another “must do” on the new Trump Agenda, which already has to shape FY 2018 spending as well as face an early (and highly unpopular with conservatives) vote on raising the debt limit, and will further complicate the Trump agenda of what to do with Obamacare, tax reform, immigration reform, infrastructure measure and more. 

That situation was complicated late last week by the $11.6 billion war supplemental the Obama Administration sent to Congress. It includes $5.8 billion in Overseas Contingency Operations funding for the Pentagon and another $5.8 billion in OCO money for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. That funding could go a long way to bridging the $18 billion defense funding gap between House leaders and the White House.

Other Items

The NDAA, which is Congress’s annual need-to-pass defense fiscal policy bill, is currently being held up over a dispute over an endangered bird and LGTB rights is holding up the legislation. The White House has threatened to veto the annual bill if, among many other objections, it includes language that would allow federal contractors to discriminate against employees based on their sexual orientation. It is not clear yet if lawmakers will reach a compromise over the legislation before the end of the year.

Congressman Upton’s priority, 21st Century Cures, has also long been a possibility for the Lame Duck, but now its fate this Congress seems unclear.

The House and Senate passed widely different versions of WRDA in September, with the upper chamber’s bill being much broader. And while the House measure would authorize spending to help Flint, Mich. tackle its lead contamination crisis, the Senate’s bill would appropriate actual funding.