After a week of declarations and revisions, the Senate has postponed their consideration of a CR until Monday. Congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle conceded they are not prepared to wrap up negotiations this week.
Congressional leaders and appropriators have been working on the funding bill since coming back into session earlier this month. The key sticking points appear to be language in the Zika conference report that would restrict which clinics in Puerto Rico can receive additional funding and an exemption for certain types of mosquito spraying under the Clean Water Act. Those objections caused Democrats to block the $1.1 billion Zika funding bill in the Senate in June.
In addition to Zika funding, numerous lawmakers have requested that emergency spending, including money for Flint’s lead-contaminated drinking water problem and Louisiana’s recent flooding. The White House sent a $2.6 billion emergency funding request to Congress on Tuesday and Louisiana Members are pushing for at least some of that money to be added to the CR.
While the Senate has, so far and continues to, lead the discussions around a CR and many expect McConnell to move legislation through his chamber first, beginning with procedural vote Monday night. House Appropriations Chair Hal Rogers (R-KY) said he reserved the right for the House to move a bill to the floor before the Senate, but with the House leaving early Thursday afternoon, such a move seems unlikely.
The NCAA has announced it will no longer hold championship tournament games in North Carolina, citing a law passed by the state last year that eliminates discrimination protections for the LGBTQ community. The law, House Bill 2, gained national attention for mandating that individuals use the bathroom associated with the gender listed on their birth certificate.
In a statement from the NCAA Board of Governors, which is largely made up of university presidents and chancellors, the NCAA said, “NCAA championships and events must promote an inclusive atmosphere for all college athletes, coaches, administrators and fans. Current North Carolina state laws make it challenging to guarantee that host communities can help deliver on that commitment.” The NCAA is the latest of many organization, including the NBA, to voice disapproval of the measure.
The House Ways & Means Subcommittee on Oversight will hold a hearing on university endowments tomorrow, Tuesday, September 13th at 10 AM/ET. Titled, “Back to School: A Review of Tax-Exempt College and University Endowments,” the hearing is following up on an October 2015 hearing on, “The Rising Costs of Higher Education and Tax Policy.” The committee will hear from representatives from the Cato Institute, Washington College, the Urban Institute, and more.
Writing a stopgap spending measure, known as a Continuing Resolution (CR), to avoid a government shutdown on October 1st, just got a bit harder than lawmakers anticipated.
Typically, CRs extend current funding levels into the new fiscal year for a short duration. Unfortunately, there’s a hitch this time. If current FY2016 funding is simply extended, it would exceed the FY 2017 discretionary spending caps as set by Sequestration in 2011. How much will it exceed? According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a straight extension will exceed the caps by $10 billion.As scored by CBO for the purposes of a stopgap, FY 2016 base discretionary spending comes in at $1.080 trillion, $10 billion above the $1.070 trillion, FY 2017 limit.
The CBO explained that most of the excess spending comes from the scheduled expiration of some spending cuts in fiscal 2017, as previously passed in prior fiscal years.
So some of the same budget maneuvers that allowed Congress to spend billions more dollars in FY 2016 are now complicating the crafting of a stopgap funding measure to keep the government operating when the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30. The maneuvers that were used in FY 2016 include changes in mandatory programs, or so-called CHIMPs, that inflated nondefense spending in FY 2016. CHIMPs refer to provisions in appropriations bills that reduce or constrain mandatory spending, providing an offset for higher discretionary spending.
In preparing for a stopgap spending measure, the CBO’s score must eliminate any savings that do not automatically continue into the next year, including changes in mandatory programs that appropriators often make to free up extra money for discretionary projects. Changes in mandatory programs, mostly from an expiring cut to the Children’s Health Insurance Fund, account for $5.6 billion of the lost savings. Further, the CBO score assumes that a CR extends the entirety of the subsequent fiscal year, not a short duration — a prudent move since it is currently unclear how long the CR will last. The date being cited most often now is December 9th.
It is not yet clear whether the overage problem can be fixed through some simple technical corrections, or whether it could mean trimming any popular programs.
Meanwhile, the House Republican Caucus remains deeply divided on how to proceed. Despite the Constitution clearly stating that the power of the purse originates in the House, the Senate will go first in trying to pass a short-term CR next week to keep the federal government functioning through the November election.
Here’s a selection of article the Federal Relations team is enjoying this week.
Stepping Up – The House Freedom Caucus wasted no time since returning from their summer recess showing just how tough they can make life for Speaker Paul Ryan — and for Democrat Hillary Clinton if she becomes President. They’re pressuring Ryan to oppose a deal taking shape in the Senate on must-pass legislation to keep the government open, and promising Clinton to keep investigating email issues even if she ends up in the White House. Read more in the AP.
Take Down – The closure of ITT Technical Institutes, a national chain of career schools with a 50-year legacy, is fueling a debate over the federal government’s aggressive policing of for-profit higher education and whether it could destroy the industry. Read more in the Washington Post.
Vice President Dick Cheney’s bust in the 2nd floor Senate connecting corridor of the Capitol (AOC)
Endowed? – A Sept. 13 hearing of a House Ways and Means subcommittee is set to look at how colleges, through their tax-exempt endowments, are trying to reduce tuition. The hearing in Washington, which will feature testimony from policy experts and college representatives, comes as many endowments are expected to post investment declines for FY 2016. Read more in Bloomberg.
Five To Flip – Democrats must net five seats — or four and retain the White House — to regain control of the upper chamber. They are defending 10 seats, while Republicans face a more challenging path, needing to defend 24 seats. The Hill has the nine seats most likely to go from Red to Blue.
10 Most Vulnerable – While several sitting Members of Congress have already been defeated in the primary, here is the latest 10 most likely Members to have a rough election. Read more at Roll Call.
Long List – Congress is back for a few weeks, and they have a lot to pack in, including many to-dos for research and science. Read more in Science.
Pledge for Childcare – Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton renewed her pledge to invest in child-care programs on college campuses, spotlighting the need for a service that has been disappearing at many schools just as the number of student parents grows. Read more in The Washington Post.
Balancing Act – Speaker Ryan has a tough month ahead of competing interests and political demands. Uniting the GOP conference has not proven to be an easy task. Read more at Roll Call.
Fact’s Don’t Matter – According to the Pew Research Center, the nation is more polarized than at any time in recent history. While some of the issues dividing us boil down to ideology and preference, there is at least one on which hard science should have a strong say. Facts, however, seem to polarize us more, rather than unite us. Read more in the New York Times.
Redistricting Redrawing the Map – A Washington Post-SurveyMonkey poll of all 50 states indicates the 2016 campaign could flip several red and blue states from their longtime loyalties. See how it shakes out at The Washington Post.
8 Hours in the Sky – For eight hours, with American airspace completely cleared of jets, a single blue-and-white Boeing-747, tail number 29000—filled with about 65 passengers, crew and press, and the 43rd President, George W. Bush, as well as 70 box lunches and 25 pounds of bananas—traversed the eastern United States. Politico has the story of those on Air Force One 15 years after the attacks of 9/11.
