Accredited nursing schools and health care facilities can apply through June 7 for up to $350,000 a year in funding to increase veterans’ enrollment in baccalaureate nursing programs, and explore ways to award academic credit for prior military health care experience or training, the Health Resources and Services administration announced today. The agency expects to award up to nine four-year cooperative agreements. The funding was announced at a White House Forum on Military Credentialing and Licensing.
News and updates
This Week in Congress
Congress is continuing to move forward with the appropriations process this week before adjourning on a week long recess next week.
Below are some upcoming congressional hearings scheduled that we will be keeping our eye on and may be of interest to the UW community.
Tuesday, April 23
Senate Budget
2014 Budget: Veterans’ Programs
10:30 am, 608 Dirksen
Wednesday, April 24
Senate Appropriations
FY14 Defense Appropriations
11 am, 192 Dirksen
Senate Appropriations
FY14 Energy and Water Appropriations
2:30 pm 192 Dirksen
Senate Appropriations
FY14 Interior and Environment Appropriations
9:30 am, 124 Dirksen
Senate Appropriations
FY14 Labor, HHS, Education Appropriations
10 am, 138 Dirksen
Consolidated STEM Programs in the President’s Budget
The President’s FY2014 Budget, released on April 10th, proposed moving STEM funding from across the federal government to NSF as well as reorganizing and eliminating certain STEM programs. Dr. John Holdren, the Director of the Office of Science and Tech Policy (OSTP), testified to the House Science and Technology Committee today about the impacts on Science and Tech in the President’s Budget. His testimony can be found here.
In addition, OSTP has information on the nature of the reorganization including a listing of the specific STEM education programs that will be eliminated/consolidated across federal agencies, as well as the new STEM education programs that the budget proposes.
Below are the 78 programs proposed for consolidation in the 2014 Budget, along with the current agency homes.
Senate Releases Immigration Reform Bill
Senate negotiators have reached an agreement on a bill to make the most substantive changes to immigration laws in nearly three decades. The “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013” would affect visas for high-tech workers, create a new “W-visa” program to attract low-skilled workers, and require businesses to implement new electronic-verification requirements to check the immigration status of their employees.
The bill will also create what is certain to be a controversial pathway to citizenship for the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants to become permanent legal residents a decade after they register with the government. Immigrants would pay a $2,000 fine, pass a background check, have a job, and wait 10 years before applying for a green card. Three years after that, they could apply to become U.S. citizens. Dream Act youth can obtain green cards in five years and citizenship immediately thereafter.
In exchange for the “pathway to citizenship” for many immigrants, conservatives demanded language in the bill that would call for billions of dollars to be spent on tightened security at the U.S.-Mexico border with a goal of apprehending 90 percent of those crossing the border in “high-risk” areas. But the whole process is contingent, at several points over a decade, on the government meeting certain border-security benchmarks.
This Week in Congress
The Senate resumes its gun control debate this week, beginning today with the most substantive and contentious issue: a bipartisan proposal to require background checks of gun purchasers in commercial and Internet sales. It’s the start of deliberations that could keep that chamber busy until the Memorial Day recess. We also expect to see an immigration reform legislation unveiled this week in the Senate.
The House will consider four minor bills under suspension today, including measures that would bar federal employees and contractors who owe back taxes from being employed or awarded contracts worth more than $150,000. The House will focus on cybersecurity legislation for the remainder of the week.
In addition to floor action, both chambers plan more than 40 congressional hearings this week to review President Obama’s FY14 budget as lawmakers weigh the potential for a grand bargain on deficit reduction (to replace the sequester). The $3.77 billion budget request assumes that sequestration has been turned off, and therefore the FY 2014 top-line spending number does not include cuts required by sequestration. Conveniently, the budget request also makes comparisons with the FY 2012 enacted spending levels, which do not take into account the sequester. The White House was able to do this because technically they have 30 days from the time the final FY13 continuing resolution was passed (March 22nd) to calculate the final spending numbers, including cuts from the sequester. The budget also assumes that Congress will consider increased tax revenue and entitlement reform, both very sticky political subjects.