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News and updates

This Week in Congress, May 18-22

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There’s lots to keep an eye on in committee this week! We’re paying particularly close attention to the 21st Century Cures markup in House Energy & Commerce, the CJS markup in House Appropriations, and the Higher Education Act hearing in Senate HELP.

As always, committee work can be live-streamed on each committee’s website and select hearings can be viewed on one of C-SPAN’s channels.

 

TUESDAY, MAY 19

Senate Appropriations
FY2016 ENERGY & WATER DEVELOPMENT APPROPRIATIONS
2:30 p.m., 138 Dirksen Bldg.
Subcommittee Markup

House Energy & Commerce
21ST CENTURY CURES ACT
5:00 p.m., 2123 Rayburn Bldg.
Full Committee Markup

House Transportation & Infrastructure
PACIFIC NORTHWEST EARTHQUAKE PREPAREDNESS
10:00 a.m., 2167 Rayburn Bldg.
Subcommittee Markup

House Homeland Security
EXAMINING DHS ENGAGEMENT WITH ACADEMIA AND INDUSTRY
10:00 a.m., 311 Cannon Bldg,

 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 20

Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
HEA Act Reauthorization: Institutional Risk Sharing
10:00 a.m., 430 Dirksen Bldg.
Full Committee Hearing

House Appropriations
FISCAL 2016 APPROPRIATIONS: COMMERCE-JUSTICE-SCIENCE
10:30 a.m., 2359 Rayburn Bldg.
Full Committee Markup

House Appropriations
FISCAL 2016 APPROPRIATIONS: DEFENSE
9:30 a.m., H-140 Capitol Bldg.
Subcommittee Markup

House Energy & Commerce
21ST CENTURY CURES ACT
10 a.m., 2123 Rayburn Bldg.
Full Committee Markup

House Passes NDAA, SASC Releases Senate NDAA

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After what was beginning to look like a tough vote for House Leadership, the House today passed the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The bill authorizes military operations globally, sets defense policy, and offers a $612 billion spending blueprint for appropriators. Typically, the NDAA easily passes though the House with a wide margin of bipartisan support. The vote was 269-151.

After passing nearly unanimously from the House Armed Services Committee, both the White House and House Democrats came out against the FY16 NDAA earlier this Wednesday. Late Thursday, a group of House Republicans immigration hard-liners worked to strip out language that encouraged the Pentagon to allow DREAMers (those children who were brought to the US illegally at a young age by their parents and have been living here for almost their whole lives) to serve in the military.

Over in the Senate, Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Jack Reed (D-I), announced details of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s markup of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 (NDAA). The committee on Thursday voted, 22-4, to report the bill, which authorizes $612 billion funding for the Department of Defense and the national security programs of the Department of Energy.

Highlights include:

 

  • The bill authorizes $400.0 million for a technology offsets initiative to build and maintain the military technological superiority of the United States by spurring research and innovation in six high-profile technology areas to counter advantages being gained by adversaries. This includes $200.0 million for directed energy.
  • It authorizes science and technology programs of the Department of Defense at $12.4 billion.
  • Funding is increased by $140.0 million for basic research across all the services.
  • The bill cutes funding for various research and development programs by $120.0 million to eliminate inefficiencies, reduce redundancies, and terminate outdated efforts.
  • The bill authorizes a program to enhance the defense laboratories with innovative academic and industry partners in research and development activities to enable more effective transfers of lab-generated innovations to small business and other industry partners to promote their transition into military systems or commercial technologies.
  • The measure mandates the establishment of activities for major information technology acquisition programs to increase oversight and reduce technical risk and overall costs.
  • It would reauthorize the Rapid Innovation Program to accelerate the fielding and transitioning of innovative technologies.

 

 

 

What We’re Reading This Week, May 11-15

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Here’s a selection of articles the Federal Relations team has been reading this week.

TPA Tanking – The President and the Senate had a bumpy week as the Senate Democratic Caucus bucked the President and came out in opposition to fast tracking trade promotion authority for a pan-Pacific trade pact. Read more at Politico. And here. And here.

Arctic – Good overview of arctic security and natural resources issues in the region. Read more at Foreign Policy.

Cheaper $$$ – It’s about to get cheaper to borrow money for college. Read more at the Washington Post. 

Core Sciences – The House’s COMPETES reauthorization cut the Geosciences directorate by over 8% and the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate by 45%. Now, Congressman John Culberson (R-TX), who chairs the CJS Appropriations committee, agrees that NSF should be funding more of the “pure sciences.” Read more at Science Insider. 

More Defense Drama – The Democrats we’re the only ones rallying against the NDAA this week. A group of House Republicans also rallied against the bill because the bill encouraged “DREAMers” into the Army. Read more at Politico.

Some of us found this amusing.

…And if you’re on Facebook, you should be following both of these feeds. 

21st Century Cures Proposes Funding Increase for NIH

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The latest version of the 21st Century Cures Act was released this morning and the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health is scheduled to markup the measure on Thursday, May 14th. Like the discussion draft, the updated version provides for an increase in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), both through reauthorization and $10 billion over five years in mandatory funding, starting in FY 2016.

Meanwhile, Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), a member of the Senate HELP Committee, said Tuesday the chamber would draft its own biomedical innovation bill rather than picking up the House’s 21st Century Cures Act. HELP Chair Lamar Alexander (R-TN) said the committee had a goal to get a bill on the floor by early next year but many think that is an overly ambitious timeframe.