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Category: Administration

Justice Antonin Scalia, 1936-2016 (SCOTUS Edition)

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On Saturday, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was found dead of natural causes in a ranch in the Big Bend area of West Texas at Cibo Creek Ranch. He was 79. Having died in such a remote area, the declaring the justice dead, and disseminating the news of the his death, caused some some issue.

Scalia, life in pictures (POLITICO)

Known for his caustic dissents, Justice Scalia began his service on the court as an outsider, but his theories, initially viewed as idiosyncratic, gradually took hold, and not only on the right and not only in the courts. He has been called the most influential jurist of the last quarter century.

Justice Scalia was a champion of originalism, the theory of constitutional interpretation that seeks to apply the understanding of those who drafted and ratified the Constitution. In Scalia’s hands, originalism generally led to outcomes that pleased political conservatives, but not always. His approach was helpful to criminal defendants in cases involving sentencing and the cross-examination of witnesses.

Born in Trenton, New Jersey, he was an only child who quickly was a standout in high school and subsequently at Georgetown University (graduating summa cum laude) and Harvard Law School (graduating magna cum laude). After practicing law in Cleveland, OH and teaching law at the University of Washington, he was confirmed as Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel after the Watergate scandal — he was nominated by President Nixon and served under President Ford.

Eventually, Scalia was nominated and confirmed to the DC Court of Appeals by President Reagan in 1982. Reagan again nominated Scalia for the US Supreme Court in 1986, where he was unanimously confirmed. He was the longest serving justice on the court.

With the death of Justice Scalia, comes a political storm caused by his absence, which is made more keenly felt since there has never been a vacancy on the Supreme Court in a presidential election year. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has declared that the Senate will not confirm a candidate until after the election of the new president. However, it is unlikely President Obama will not nominate a candidate. Even if the Senate does decide to move forward, it will be a long fight.

That said, the absence of Scalia does not mean that the court will cease working. Rather, the court will continue to work with the slim 5-4 conservative lean now gone. The even 4-4 split of the court calls into questions many of the cases on the docket and potential gridlock on issues, including congressional redistricting, abortion access, birth control access, forming unions, the Administration’s immigration and enviromental policy, affirmative action in college admissions, and more.

Holding with tradition, Justice Scalia will lie in repose at the Supreme Court on Friday.

House on Science in the “National Interest”, White House Threatens to Veto

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The House will take up a bill today, HR 3293 – Scientific Research in the National Interest Act, that would require the National Science Foundation to show the grants it doles out to scientists are in the national interest. Similar to previous measures restricting NSF sponsored by Congressman Lamar Smith, the legislation is expected to pass.

Predictably, the White House issued a Statement of Administrative Policy (SAP) threatening to veto the measure on Tuesday. The SAP stated that the bill would “add nothing to accountability in federal funding for scientific research” and replace existing law with “confusing language that could cast a shadow over the value of basic research.”

 

Read the SAP here. 

President Releases FY2017 Budget

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Today, President Barack Obama proposed a $4.23 trillion FY 2017 budget, which will be his last in office. Overall, the White House’s proposal sticks with the discretionary spending limits set by last year’s budget deal.

Predictably the lame-duck budget was met with dismissal by Congress. Republican appropriators are complaining that the Administration is circumventing the budget caps by leaning heavily on new mandatory funding for programs that typically would receive discretionary dollars controlled by Congress. However, the President’s budget is symbolically the beginning of the federal appropriations conversations.

Included in the request was $19 billion for cybersecurity efforts a proposed a 35 percent increase in federal funds for the next budget year to boost the nation’s ability to safeguard its computer networks, both private and public, from attacks while preserving privacy.

For the third year in a row, the President proposed his College Opportunity and Graduation Bonus. In FY17, the program would provide $547 million for colleges that do a good job graduating low-income students on time. Department officials said the proposal is an important complement to student-focused incentives like the new $300 Pell bonus for recipients who take at least 15 credits per semester. The bonus would reward institutions that improve in this area, regardless of how well they were doing in the first place.

Other items of note include:

Defense S&T is cut by more than $535 million with nearly 40% of the cuts coming from 6.1 basic research.

The budget provides $7.96 billion for the National Science Foundation, of which $7.56 is discretionary and $400 million is new mandatory funding. For discretionary, this would be a 1.3% increase, but including mandatory an increase of 6.7%, over FY 2016. All directorates, including SBE and GEO received 6 percent increases. 

The Administration is is requesting $19.025 billion for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which is $300 million below FY 2016. This includes mandatory spending. The current fact sheet available doesn’t break out discretionary vs. mandatory. The Science directorate would get $5.6 billion, which is an increase of $12 million or 0.02%. Space Tech would be $827 million, an increase of 20%. Aeronautics would get $790 million, an increase of 23.4%. NASA Space Grant would receive $24 million.

NIST provided funding to expand the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) institutes by providing $42 million to launch two new institutes in 2017 and continue operations of the first Commerce led institute.  The Budget also proposes an additional $1.9 billion in mandatory funding for an additional 27 institutes, completing the President’s vision for a network of 45 institutes over the next ten years.

NOAA

  • NOAA OAR would get $519.7 million, which would be an increase of 12.4%. NOAA Climate Research was allocated $159.1 million.
  • $12 million increase for investments in finding solutions to the challenge of ocean acidification. NOAA’s ocean acidification program
  • NOAA SeaGrant would get $68.9 million, which is $4 million below FY 2016.

The Department of Education received $69.4 billion in FY2017 for discretionary spending, an increase of roughly $1 billion from FY2016. An initial pass at the budget includes big wins for ESSA programs and supports including preschool and Head Start ($9.6 billion for Head Start, an increase of $434 million).

ED and the Administration announced previously that it was creating an enforcement unit within the Office of Federal Student Aid to respond to allegations, and the budget request includes $13.6 million specifically for FSA enforcement and oversight activities.

  • Pell: The Budget would see the maximum grant award for students boosted by $20, from $5,915 to $5,935, the administration is proposing an additional $2 billion for changes to encourage students to complete their degrees
  • FAFSA Changes: The Budget proposes to eliminate up to 30 burdensome and unnecessarily complex questions, shortening the FAFSA application substantially, and making it easier for students and families to access critical resources to pay for college.
  • Tax Changes: The Budget would streamline and expand education tax benefits by: 1) consolidating the Lifetime Learning Credit into an expanded AOTC; 2) exempting Pell Grants from taxation and the AOTC calculation; and 3) eliminating tax on student loan debt forgiveness, while repealing the complicated student loan interest deduction for new borrowers.

Read more about the FY2017 Budget here. 

Snow Week

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Congress has screeched to a halt this week as DC continues to be quagmired in snow by Snowzilla.

Bench on Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC

A blizzard that blanketed the Northeast this weekend has disrupted the congressional calendar, with the House canceling all votes for the week and the Senate pushing its first vote to Wednesday evening. Congressional Democrats still plan on gather in Baltimore Wednesday evening until Friday for the annual Democratic issues retreat, which was truncating the Congressional calendar on the weather-shortened week. The Federal government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) closed all federal offices again on Monday as the District continues to dig out from record snow fall. Meanwhile the latest controversy in the District is the snow totals and how they are officially calculated for DC. The official totals, recorded at Reagan National Airport, came in at 17.8 inches of snow, and many are taking issue with this official recording. Dulles reported 29.3 inches of snow.

Other fun facts:

  • New York City missed is its all-time storm record by a tenth of an inch, with 26.8 inches at Central Park. Meanwhile, 30.1 inches was recorded at JFK airport.
  • Worst-hit was the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, according to the National Weather Service, with 42 inches recorded in Glengarry and 40.5 in Shepherdstown.
  • Airports are recovering, but at least 1,500 flighs were canceled Monday according to FlightAware.

When Congress returns, they come back to a full and already truncated calendar. The FY 2017 Budget will be front and center as Congress waits for the President’s FY 2017 budget request as well as working through a potential budget itself. While Congress does not need to pass a budget for FY 2017 due to the budget deal reached last year that covered FY 2016 and FY 2017, reports of the rising deficit have brought federal budgeting again to the forefront. For the first time since 2009, the deficit will grow relative to the size of the economy, amounting to 2.9 percent of gross domestic product. This year’s deficit is projected to be $544 billion, up from $439 billion last year.

Politics will be in full swing as the Iowa and New Hampshire presidential primaries are fast approaching while the Senators and Members of Congress also begin to focus on their own primaries.