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News and updates

Minibus vs. Omnibus

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While the House is in recess this week, the Senate will continue working on FY12 appropriations measures in an effort to create a path forward on completing those bills before the continuing resolution (CR) expires on November 18th.  Later today, the Senate will test the waters with a “minibus,” which would include three spending bills together in one package of piece of legislation.  The other alternative is to put all 12 spending bills together in an omnibus bill, but the House leadership has indicated that this is not a viable option for their members. 

The minibus (HR 2112) being considered in the Senate this week includes an amended version of their FY12 Agriculture spending bill, as well as the Transportation-Housing Development (S 1596) and Commerce-Justice-Science (S 1572) spending bills.  If the Senate is successful in moving its first minibus, it seems likely that the House will also proceed in this way to avoid the larger omnibus option.

The minibus vs. omnibus option is not the only obstacle facing Congress as they struggle to complete the FY12 process.  Republicans in both the House and Senate are hoping to include a variety of policy riders to the FY12 ranging from abortion to farm dust.  Some conservatives have indicated that they will attempt to include many of the same policy riders that they tried to include during the FY11 battle earlier this year.  An October 4th legislative bulletin from the conservative Republican Study Committee listed several riders that are priorities for the conservative right, including a ban on federal funding for abortion providers, measures aimed at halting new environmental and net neutrality regulations, and efforts to strip funding for National Public Radio, the Palestinian Authority and the Legal Services Corp.

The problem is that a rider-laden spending bill doesn’t have a chance of approval in the Senate. Republican leadership will be forced to rely on Democrats to pass the bills, which will likely result in another threat of government shutdown as we wind down to November 18th.

This Week in Congress

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The House begins their work week today at noon, with votes scheduled for later this evening.  In addition to several bills related to veterans , the House will begin debate on the Panama, South Korea, and Colombia free trade agreements. 

Meanwhile, the Senate begins their work week later today (around 5:30pm).  The Senate is set to vote on a judicial confirmation, passage of the currency misalignment bill, and whether to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to a variation of President Obama’s jobs proposal.  The jobs plan will take up much of the remainder of the short week in the Senate.

The final act in the FY12 appropriations saga may involve moving annual spending balls in a few small packages, rather than assembling them into a massive omnibus bill funding all of federal government.  The Senate has signaled it’s tentative support for this plan, which the House is hoping to “sell” to their members who expected to see each of the 12 spending bills move independently.  The current continuing resolution (CR) runs through November 18th so both chambers will need to come to some resolution soon as to how they’ll move forward.  The one thing they all seem to agree on:  finish work on FY12 BEFORE the Joint Deficit Reduction Committee makes their recommendations on or before November 23rd.

House Passes Six Week-Long CR, Heads to President for Signature

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The House today cleared a six week-long Continuing Resolution that the Senate passed last week. The measure will keep the government running through November 18th and sets spending at the $1.043 trillion level agreed to in the debt limit law passed in August. It allocates $2.65 billion for disaster aid for FEMA, and the offsets to be taken from a couple of loan guarantee programs to promote energy efficiency – to which Democrats objected, were eliminate in the final measure. The bill now heads to the President for his signature before the current short-term extension expires tonight.

House Appropriations Releases Draft Labor-HHS-Ed Spending Bill

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The House Appropriations Committee released their draft Labor-HHS-Education spending bill today in which they executed several spending cuts and revoked all additional funding for “Obamacare”. Some highlights:

Health & Human Services

  • The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) is funded at $6.7 billion, a $1.5 billion increase over FY11 levels
  • The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is funded at $31.76 billion, which is $1.4 billion above FY11 and designed to support at least 9,150 new and competing research projects
  • Head Start would receive $8.09 billion, approximately $500 million above FY11
  • The Center for Medicare/Medicaid Services takes a cut of $290 million from FY11 with an FY12 funding level of $3.2 billion

Education

  • Investing in Innovation (i3) funding is eliminated by the House in their FY12 bill
  • International Education & Foreign Language (Title VI) is cut by approximately $10 million to $66.7 million from already reduced FY11 levels
  • Federal Work Study is level funded at $978.5 million
  • TRIO is level funded at $826.5 million
  • GEAR UP is level funded at $302.8 million
  • the Fund for the Improvement of Post-secondary Education (FIPSE) is eliminated by the House for FY12
  • The Pell Grant Program is maintained at a maximum award amount of $5,550 but in order to fill the shortfall in the program, the Committee suggests limiting lifetime eligibility to 6yrs (from 9yrs), rolling back recent changes to the qualification formula, and eliminating eligibility for students who attend school less than half time or students who do not have a diploma/GED

CR Agreement Finalized

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Late yesterday, Congressional leaders agreed to a deal that will avert a government shutdown as the end of the federal fiscal year looms.  The Senate approved a week-long continuing resolution (CR) that will run through October 4th, which is expected to be approved by the House – through a pro forma session – sometime on Thursday.  A longer term CR will still be necessary and will be the main topic of debate when both chambers reconvene next week after this week’s recess period.  The deal will do little, however, to end partisan fighting over FY12 spending.

The Senate bill is a considered a “clean” CR that will fund the federal government through October 4th at the $1.043 trillion limit set by the debt limit law (PL 112-25) enacted in August.  The bill would eliminate the $1 billion in fiscal 2011 disaster aid for the FEMA and Army Corps of Engineers included in the House version, as well as offsets for an energy loan program.  The House plans to approve the measure by voice vote in a pro forma session on Thursday, paving the way for the President to sign the measure and avoid a federal shutdown when the new fiscal year begins October 1st.

The overall deal was agreed to after the Senate passed a revised version of Majority Leader Reid’s six-week stopgap measure that would provide government funding through November 18th and eliminate disaster aid for FY11 and the energy offsets.  While both chambers favor the longer-term stopgap, it will not be cleared until next week after the House returns from recess and has had a chance to debate it.   Appropriators are expected to use the next six weeks to draft a year-end omnibus spending bill, but with partisan divisions forcing lawmakers to spend nearly two weeks on the short-term deal, it seems far from certain that an agreement can be reached by November 18th on a broader spending bill.

The good news for now is that we are avoiding a government shutdown but the path forward on FY12 appropriations is far from certain.

Sources:  Congressional  Quarterly, Roll Call