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Author: Sarah Castro

Reviewed 9/22

If at first you don’t succeed, the House will try and pass the Farm Bill (again)

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The proverb is clearly something the House lives by. To demonstrate, the House Republican Leadership will attempt to pass the Farm Bill again this week after a disastrous attempt and failure prior to the Fourth of July Recess.

The House is expected to consider a modified version of the bill considered in June. This bill would strip all of the nutrition program portions of the bill, including food stamps, and be straight farm programs. In addition, the new Farm Bill would strip the requirement from the 1949 law that Congress reauthorize or extend the Farm Bill periodically.

Democrats have criticized the measure saying not only is stripping the nutrition programs a nonstarter in the Senate, but such a move would effectively kill the measure in the House if conferenced.

It is unclear if the House Republicans have the 218 votes needed to pass the measure.

Over the July Fourth Recess 532 agriculture-related groups sent a letter to Speaker Boehner opposing any move to strip nutrition programs from the Farm Bill. The coalition letter to Boehner is here.

Senate to Try and Pass Student Loan Interest Bill (again)

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Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid has scheduled a cloture vote on S. 1238, the Keep Student Loans Affordable Act, which is a measure that would keep the Stafford subsidized interest rate at 3.4 percent for another year. Over 43 Democratic Senators has sponsored the legislation including Senators Murray and Cantwell.

The vote is a cloture vote, which would end the Senate’s debate on the measure and allow the bill a straight up or down vote. A cloture vote requires 60 Senators to agree to end debate, and the legislation is not expected to get the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture.

Despite the anticipated failure of the cloture movement, Senators remain hopeful that some agreement to extend the 3.4 percent interest rate can be reached.

Sequester: DoD to Start Civilian Furloughs

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Today, the Department of Defense (DoD) will begin implementing civilian furloughs to 650,000 civilian employees at installations across the country. The furloughs amount to a 20 percent cut in pay over the next three months. This means most furloughed employees face one day without pay for each week through the end of September.

Initially, the Pentagon projected that civilian employees would need to take 22 furlough days to meet its sequester targets. However, Secretary of Defense Hagel announced in May that the number would be reduced to 11 days.

Many federal agencies have managed to avoid furloughs and layoffs, but the DoD decided it could not meet the mandated cuts without them. The furloughs are projected to save approximately $1.8 billion

While furloughed, workers are prohibited from performing any work-related assignments while away from their jobs.

The furloughs could bolster the arguments of workers and lawmakers who oppose sequestration, tipping the scales against the automatic cuts. Or they could roll out with a whimper, further solidifying the cuts as a long-term fiscal reality for the Pentagon.

In other defense news, the Senate is beginning to focus on how the department will proceed in the next fiscal year.

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Happy Fourth of July!

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Happy Fourth of July from the Office of Federal Relations.

Congress will be back on Monday from the District Work Period. Federal Relations will have a full report on what’s to come before the August Recess next week.

Senate Passes Immigration Reform

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A short time ago, the US Senate approved sweeping immigration legislation. By a vote of 68 to 32, the Senate approved and concluded a month-long debate of a measure which was nearly 1,200 pages. To note the historic significance of the vote, Vice President Biden presided over the vote and Senators voted from their desks, which is a rare procedural move to mark historic votes and special occasions. The Senate used the same formal procedure of voting from their desks to pass ObamaCare three years ago.

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