What We’re Reading This Week, May 18-22

Posted on May 22, 2015May 22, 2015

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.

Alexander and Murray Release HEA Working Groups

Posted on May 21, 2015

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:

Accountability
Accreditation
College Affordability and Financial Aid
Campus Sexual Assault and Safety

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.

Senate Releases “COMPETES” Bill

Posted on May 21, 2015

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:

a five-year authorization for both the Office of Science and ARPA-E
funding for the Office of Science would increase about 4 percent annually, for a total of increase of about 22 percent over five years
funding for ARPA-E would also increase about 4 percent each year, for a total of increase of about 22 percent over five years

More information about this bill is here.

COMPETES Passes the House

Posted on May 20, 2015May 21, 2015

After an interesting debate, the House narrowly passed HR 1806 – the America COMPETES Reauthorization of 2016 but a vote of 217-205. The bill was largely along party line vote with all Democrats and 23 Republicans voting against the measure. Earlier this week, the White House issued a veto threat.

As previously discussed, the bill authorizes science programs across the federal government, boosts funding for the National Science Foundation and the Energy Department’s Science office while cutting funds for climate and renewable energy research. It also bars DOE research from being used in any federal regulations. Only six of the twelve amendments stood for floor votes when debate ended and most of the Democratic measures failed. Most amendments passed via voice vote, including a Democratic amendment to reauthorize DOE’s Energy Innovation Hubs. Later, however, efforts to scrap language requiring NSF grants to include a “national interest” justification, and Science Committee ranking member Eddie Bernice Johnson’s attempt to rewrite the bill entirely, failed.

A Democratic amendment that sought to continue allowing DOE to produce drop-in biofuels with the Pentagon failed more narrowly than the overall bill passed: 208-215.

Other amendments that passed included:

A measure from Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) that would add $5 million for manufacturing partnerships by decreasing funding for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy by the same amount
An amendment from Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) creating workshops to instruct teachers in robotics and other STEM-related learning.
An amendment by Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA) that would allow House and Senate leaders to appoint members to several science advisory boards in the bill.

Earlier in the day, the House also passed HR 880 – the American Research and Competitiveness Act of 2015, which would permanently extend the R&D tax credit.

Both measures now move to the Senate.

OMB Letter of Concern to House Appropriators about FY16 CJS

Posted on May 20, 2015May 20, 2015

As this process gets ever more interesting, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Sean Donovan sent a letter to House Appropriations Committee’s Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) and Ranking Member Nita Lowey (D-NY) about the draft FY16 CJS Appropriations bill. The letter expressed strong concern on the funding levels for science and innovation due to the adherence of the committee to the Sequestration framework levels. The Committee is expected to mark up the bill this morning.

The letter says in part:

“Its shortsighted funding cuts undermine both fiscal responsibility and economic competitiveness, since they would prevent investments that both reduce future costs to taxpayers and inform business decision making, improve weather forecasting, support business expansion into new markets, and spur development of innovative technologies.”

Read the letter here.