The House Rules will meet today to approve a rule for consideration of the FY2016 CJS Appropriations bill (H.R. 2578). The House will begin consideration of the bill beginning tomorrow at noon and possibly continuing through Thursday.
As has been previously mentioned, the cuts to the measure and the report language accompanying the legislation have raised some concerns. The White House has also expressed concerns on the bill.
Here is a AAAS article on the winners and losers of the House bill.
Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee announced that they will markup the PATENT Act on Thursday. The House Judiciary Committee is still on hold on the Innovation Act.
Here’s a selection of articles the Federal Relations team has enjoyed this week.
Home Office – Historically, some Representatives have given a new meeting to the term home office as many of them (up to a third) use their Congressional offices as their personal abodes during the Congressional work week. Recently, there has been a call to see if this housing decision is actually tax evasion. Read more about the practice and the potential issue at Roll Call.
Shaky Ground – The paper of record has a column on America’s lagging investment in research putting our innovation economy on shaky future footing. Read more at The New York Times.
Race for Students – Article on the competition between colleges to attract out of state students. Read more at EdCentral.
Fed Under Investigation – Rep Jeb Henserling (R-TX), Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, is investigating potential leaks by the Fed in 2012 about potential interest rate changes. Read more at the New York Times.
Merging Markets – States are looking to merge their healthcare exchanges in light of potential Supreme Court rulings. Read more at The Hill.
Trade on Track – After some starts and stops the Senate looks ready to consider trade promotion authority and give the White House fast-track authority for Asia. Read more at The Hill.
Bigger, Better, But… – A long form piece on the reforms implemented in the Houston Independent School District (HISD), which is the nation’s third largest city. HISD has won the prestigious Broad Prize for Urban Education for the last two years in a row. Read more at Politico.
Big Ten – An interesting piece on how the Big Ten needs the other 5 power conferences to join reform efforts if there will truly be student athlete reform. Read more at ESPN.
Today, HELP Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-WA) announced several bipartisan, full committee staff working groups to address four major issues related to the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.
The working groups will examine the following topics:
Senators Alexander and Murray are developing a bipartisan committee process to work towards the ninth reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA). These working groups, with public meetings, are a series of hearings. Thus far, the HELP Committee has held three hearings and will hold additional hearings to inform their process as they work to produce legislation in committee this fall.
The bipartisan staff meetings are open to all members of the Senate education committee.
On Wednesday afternoon, as the House was working on passing its version of America COMPETES, Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Chris Coons (D-DE), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Corey Gardner (R-CO), Diane Feinstein (D-CA), and Martin Heinrich (D-NM) today introduced the energy portion of America COMPETES. To give some perspective of the heavy hitters sponsoring this legislation, Senator Alexander is the Chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which has jurisdiction over several broader sections of COMPETES, including NSF. Alexander was an active participant in the passage of the original Competes Act that was enacted in 2007 (PL 110-69).
The Senate measure is expected to be taken up by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee (ENR) this summer as part of a broad energy package that the Chairwoman of that Committee, Lisa Murkowski, hopes to advance. The Ranking Member of the Committee, Maria Cantwell, is also a cosponsor of the legislation. Further, Senator Alexander chairs the Energy-Water Appropriations Subcommittee and Senator Feinstein is the ranking Democrat on the panel.
Highlights of the bill include: