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Category: Legislation

House Science Marks Up COMPETES Reauthorization

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Today, the full House Science Committee marked up HR 1806, the America COMPETES Reauthorization bill, which the House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith introduced late last week. Thirty four amendments were offered for consideration over the five hour mark up, and these amendments largely fell along party lines. Several controversial amendments passed, while amendements to restore certain directorate’s funding or amend climate change provisions.

Highlights of some amendments considered include:

  • An amendment offered by Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) to amend the bill and add “human activity impacts climate change” to the DOE Science mission.
  • An amendment offered by Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) to officially authorize the Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) program, which passed.
  • An amendment offered by Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) to direct and broaden DOE’s Fusion Energy Sciences. which passed.
  • An amendment offered by Rep. Suzanne Bonamici to have a report on STEAM education, which failed.

The amended bill was passed out of committee by a vote of 19-16, which was a party line vote. The next step for the bill is consideration by the full House. While there has been no definite timeline stated by House leadership as to consideration of HR 1806, it is expected to be considered soon.

The Office of Federal Relations will continue to monitor the bill and its progress.

ESEA Moves through Senate HELP Committee

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Senators Patty Murray (D-WA) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) in the markup of the Every Child Succeeds Act.

In a rare example of legislating and bipartisanship, the HELP Committee unanimously passed its rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education reauthorization bill this afternoon.  The bill, called Every Child Succeeds, includes historically toxic education topics like testing and school performance ratings. The bill has been so toxic that the last three Congresses have tried and failed to rewrite it. The House had to pull the measure from the House Floor earlier this year after full consideration because of lack of support for final passage.

In contrast, the bipartisan legislation, cowritten by Chairman Alexander and Ranking Member Murray, figuratively flew through the committee. It was unveiled last week and considered Wednesday and Thursday of this week.

In contrast, the 2013 consideration of legislation to reauthorize these programs, with a committee largely comprised of the same group of Senators, was mired in partisan gridlock, dozens of amendments and two long days of fighting. What ultimately passed on June 12, 2013 was by a party-line vote of 12-10. All Democrats on the committee approved the bill and all Republicans opposed it.

Conversely, today, every member of the committee, Republican and Democrat, including the polarizing Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Tim Scott (R-NC), Al Franken (D-MN) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), all lined up their support behind the committee chairs and the legislation. The overall tone to the whole process between Chairman Alexander and Ranking Member Murray has been one of cooperation and compromise.

Senator Alexander hopes the Senate] can take up the measure before the Memorial Day recess.

While passing the Senate seems all but assured, the Senate version is vastly different than the House measure. What, if anything, will pass the House remains to be seen.

More information about the Every Child Succeeds can be found here.

To watch the markup, click here.

The Office of Federal Relations will continue to monitor this bill and report on it’s progress.

 

House Releases COMPETES

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The House Science Committee Republicans released their version of the America COMPETES reauthorization legislation. The COMPETES bill reauthorizes major science programs including then entirety of the National Science Foundation, the science programs within the Department of Energy, and NIST.

The bill is here.

In addition, the legislation will mark up the Full Committee next week on April 22nd at 10:15 EST. You can watch the mark up here.

The Office of Federal Relations is monitoring this legislation and will give updates as it progresses.

Busy Budget Week in Congress

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It’s shaping up to be a busy week as Capitol Hill continues its efforts to finally pass a repeal and replacement of the much-maligned Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) or “Doc Fix.” While a group of bipartisan legislative leaders released the broad outlines of a proposal last week, we are sure to see more detailed legislative language as early as today – and the official cost of the proposal. A vote could take place later this week, just a few days before the increased rates are to take effect (March 31st) if Congress takes no action.

In addition to impending action on the SGR proposal, Congressional leaders from both chambers continue to debate their respective budget resolutions. Unlike the potential SGR fix, the budget debate will be largely partisan and include attempts (again) to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The result of these budget negotiations could go a long way toward setting up their overall strategy — and the tone for what they accomplish — heading into the heart of the legislative year.

Congress will then recess for a two-week Easter break, returning to the Capitol on April 13th.

 

Senate Introduces Budget Resolution

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Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi (R-WY) introduced the Senate Budget today, whihc differs in big ways from a House GOP blueprint introduced yesterday. Both aim to balance the budget (the Senate in 10 years, the House in nine) and both cut over $5 billion in spending (the Senate cuts $5.1 trillion and the House would cut $5.5 trillion).  It proposes an additional $236 billion in cuts to non defense discretionary spending from FY2017-FY2025 and it would leave the defense discretionary caps at the sequester levels.

Most importantly, and a point that goes directly to the contention in the House Republicans, the Senate GOP budget only provides $58 billion for a war funding account known as the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) fund — much less than the $90 billion included in the House GOP budget. In a move to appease House defense hawks, the House Budget had a huge increase in the OCO, which is not subject to the Sequester caps. The budget resolution effectively draws a line in the sand over war funding by creating a point of order against raising Overseas Contingency Operations account funding above $58 billion next year. Points of order require 60 votes to pass. That means any move to boost the OCO funding would need the support of Senate Democrats. Obama has proposed $51 billion in war funds for the military.
As for policy directives, the Senate proposal includes reconciliation instructions for the Senate Finance and Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committees to each find no less than $1 billion of savings over 10 years to put toward deficit reduction by no later than July 31, 2015. It also creates a Deficit-Neutral Reserve Fund (DNRF), a budget gimmick that allows Committee chairs to break budget constraints and will not result in a budget point of order, for the HELP Committee to reauthorize the Higher Education Act (HEA).  The budget proposal also creates a DNRF for improvements in medical research, innovation and safety, among other health reforms.  The budget also calls for a DNRF for energy legislation, which could include reforms to research programs at the Department of Energy.
Similar to the House Republican Budget, the Senate budget would cut Pell — and cut $90 billion from the Pell grant program over 10 years. Additionally, the  proposal would set non-defense discretionary spending at $493 billion for 2016.
To read about the Senate Budget, click here. 
The Senate is marking up the budget Wednesday and Thursday, and it is expected that the full Senate will consider the proposal next week.

The Office of Federal Relations is currently monitoring the legislation and will make more information known as it becomes available.