Labor-HHS Spending Bill Clears House Committee

Posted on July 12, 2018

After an all-day markup, the FY2019 House Labor-HHS-Education bill was cleared by the Appropriations Committee last night. The committee’s adoption of the bill means that 11 of the 12 spending bills have cleared the House Appropriations Committee; the Senate committee has cleared all of its bills.

The 13-hour markup was contentious at times, with heated debates on a number of issues, including child separation. Of the roughly 50 amendments offered and debated during the session, a significant number of them focused on child separation practices at the border.

Although the bill has now cleared the committee process, it is unclear at this point whether it will see floor action in the near future.

A copy of the bill is available here and the accompanying report is available here.

Immigration Stalled Again

Posted on February 15, 2018February 15, 2018

The Senate on Thursday effectively failed to move forward with any of four immigration proposals put forward today. This included a Republican proposal backed by President Donald Trump that would grant 1.8 million “Dreamers” a path to citizenship and provide $25 billion for a border wall and security improvements.

The action came on a 39-60 vote to limit debate on an amendment by Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-IA), to an unrelated bill (HR 2579) related to the Administration’s “Four Pillars” proposal Sixty votes were needed to invoke cloture.

Grassley’s proposal mirrored Trump’s framework to provide a path to citizenship for Dreamers brought to the United States as children in exchange for border security funding. It would also end family-based immigration or “chain migration” and phase out a diversity lottery program. Democrats considered the restrictions on family-based immigration a nonstarter.

The Senate earlier rejected three other immigration proposals, including a bipartisan deal by 16 mostly centrist Senators, calling themselves the “Common Sense Caucus,” that Trump threatened to veto because it did not do enough to limit family-based immigration.

All amendments failed this afternoon.

There was no clear path forward in the House for any of these proposals.

Senate Set to Begin DACA Debate This Week

Posted on February 12, 2018

The Senate is expected to kick off its debate on DACA this week, perhaps as early as this evening. As a way to reopen the government after the last government shutdown in January, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) made a commitment to allow the Senate to start debate on possible ways forward on the DACA situation if a solution had not been found by February 8.

Two-year budget deal reached in Senate

Posted on February 7, 2018

Today, the Senate reached a far-reaching bipartisan budget agreement that would set top-line spending limits for FY2018 and FY2019, which would be added to the continuing resolution (CR) passed by the House. The spending levels for the two years represent significant increases above what is currently allowed under the budget caps that were created in 2011.

Under the agreement, funding for non-defense discretionary programs would be increased by $63 billion in FY2018 and $68 billion in FY2019 while defense programs would see increases of $80 billion and $85 billion, respectively.

In addition, the deal includes an additional $2 billion for the National Institutes of Health over the next two years while also providing approximately $6 billion for the opioid crisis. The agreement calls for $20 billion in infrastructure investment among its other provisions.

The deal does not address Dreamers and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced earlier in the day that she would not support any funding deal until she gets a commitment from Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) to bring an immigration bill to the floor. The Senate agreement, which will be added to the short-term CR through March 23, must be sent back to the House and passed before midnight, Friday morning.

A budget deal on the horizon before a shutdown?

Posted on February 7, 2018

As expected, the House agreed to yesterday by a vote of 245 to 182 the next short-term continuing resolution (CR) that would keep the government funded through March 23. The current CR expires Friday morning at midnight. The House-passed CR would fund the Department of Defense for the rest of the year at $30 billion over what the budget cap allows for while keeping the majority of the non-defense discretionary programs funded only through the length of the CR. Senate Democrats, not surprisingly, have rejected the House approach.

One of the biggest reasons why the government has had to function through a series of short-term CRs is because of Congress’ lack of agreement on how much money should be available overall for FY2019. It appears that the two parties and the two chambers might be reaching an understanding on the “top line” for this year and next. While details have not yet been confirmed– with reports in the neighborhood of an increase for both defense and non-defense programs of $300 billion for two years– the Senate could very well strike the defense-only parts of the House-adopted CR and replace them with those that would set the new overall spending levels in its version of the CR.

Regardless of what the Senate does, unless it accepts the exact same legislative package as the House’s, the Senate language would need to return to the House for its consideration and adoption before the end of tomorrow in order to avoid a shutdown.

Still unresolved in all of this is the Dreamers situation. To end the shutdown back in January, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) committed to allowing the Senate to debate possible ways to address Dreamers if no solution was found before the expiration of the current CR.