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Category: Legislation

Things Heat Up in Congress

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Congress returns to work this week under a heat advisory for our fist long stretch of very hot and humid weather in DC. Today is predicted to see 94 degrees in the nation’s capitol, but it will feel more like 101 according to weather.com. And today will likely be the coolest day of the week! The good news (or bad news?) is that most of the action will take place indoors as Congress continues to slog through their cluttered agenda.

FY14 Appropriations: Appropriators in both chambers continue to move their FY14 spending bills forward this week, with the House ready to take up a $512.5 billion defense spending bill that accounts for more than half of the $967 billion in FY14 discretionary spending being considered in that chamber. On Wednesday, House Appropriations will also mark up the $47.4 billion Commerce-Justice-Science bill. The panel the same day will mark up a $17 billion Financial Services bill that would cut the Internal Revenue Service budget by nearly a quarter. Senate Appropriations subcommittees mark up their version of the Commerce-Justice-State and Homeland Security spending bills on Tuesday.

The major issue remains to be the $91 billion budget gap between the two chambers. The House and Senate are preparing spending bills that adhere to vastly different overall numbers, which will make reconciling any of these bills near impossible before September 30th. It is almost certain that we will see short-term continuing resolution this fall, with the final outcome unknown at this time. Continue reading “Things Heat Up in Congress”

July Federal Update

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FY14 APPROPRIATIONS

The path to enacting FY14 appropriations measures is paved with legislative friction as Congress is showing no signs of undoing the sequester and the House and Senate chambers are working on vastly different overall budget numbers. At this point, there are three budgets — House, Senate, and White House — all of which assume no sequestration, but include different ways to account for the cuts in later years.

The House is advancing its FY14 appropriations bills at a $967 billion overall spending cap, while the Senate is working with a $1.058 trillion cap, which does not take into account the sequester. Ironically, both the House and Senate plans would trigger a new round of across-the-board spending reductions under sequestration because they violate the caps set by the 2011 Budget Control Act (PL 111-25). But the House GOP plan busts the caps in defense and other security measures while the Senate is expected to bust the caps in both defense and non-defense (domestic) bills. All of this is leading to a big fight on spending, which will certainly culminate in a continuing resolution (CR) before the federal fiscal year ends September 30th. Continue reading “July Federal Update”

Student Loans: Cloture Vote Fails but Senate Makes Possible Deal

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The Senate failed to invoke cloture and move forward 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.

The vote was 51-49 and 60 votes are needed to invoke cloture, which would end debate on the measure.

However, later Wednesday evening, a bipartisan group of Senators, including Majority Whip Dick Durbin, announced a long-term student loan agreement.

Continue reading “Student Loans: Cloture Vote Fails but Senate Makes Possible Deal”

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.