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Category: Pure Politics

Texas Congressman Holds Up COVID-19 Funding Bill

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Rep. Louie Gohmert, (R–TX), is holding up the House-passed coronavirus relief bill, HR 6201– the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, and preventing it from being delivered to the Senate for a vote.

The House was expected to make technical corrections today to the bipartisan measure,  which passed by the House early Saturday. However, Rep. Gohmert is insisting on having the changes read out loud, keeping the measure from being passed by Unanimous Consent. If one Member of Congress stands in opposition, the House cannot use the Unanimous Consent process to send the bill to the Senate and the House would have to have a vote by the full house — and many Members went home to their districts from Washington this weekend.

 

On Saturday, the House early this morning passed H.R. 6201, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, by a vote of 363-40.  An overview of the measure is here.

Highlights of the bill include:

  • Clarifies that the funds provided under section 105 of Division G can be used for COVID-19 diagnostic tests and related administration or service costs (as defined under section 101). Claims reimbursed under this section would be limited to those for uninsured individuals not eligible for other COVID-19 testing and services assistance included in the bill.
  • Clarifies that Medicaid payment for the new eligibility category for the uninsured under section 104 of Division G is limited to COVID-19 testing and testing-related services. Makes a technical amendment to clarify that the increase to the federal medical assistance percentage (FMAP) specified in section 104 of Division G is applicable notwithstanding the first sentence of the subsection.
  • Clarifies that SSA should use dedicated phone lines for emergency paid leave applications, separate from those used for the regular Social Security program.
  • Clarifies that that the emergency waiver of federal rules applies to four specific kinds of rules: work search, waiting periods, “good cause” to leave employment, and employer experience rating.
  • Removes findings from the Health Care Worker Protection Act of 2020.
  • Clarifies definition of a “qualifying need related to a public health emergency.”

 

 

The FY2020 Deal

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After weeks of negotiations, Congressional leaders released last evening the long-awaited texts of the FY2020 appropriations bills.

As we noted before, the 12 bills were combined into two massive legislative packages.  The first package is the “defense” package and consists of the Defense, Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS), Financial Services-General Government, and Homeland Security measures.  The second “non-defense” package consists of the remaining spending bills—Labor-HHS-Education (LABOR-HHS), Agriculture, Energy and Water, Interior, Legislative Branch, Military Construction, State-Foreign Operations, and Transportation-Housing and Urban Development—and a host of other bills and provisions of policy importance but not directly related to appropriations.

The House is expected to vote and pass the measures today, and the Senate is expected to pass both measures by Thursday, prior to the Continuing Resolution expiring.

The President is expected to sign the measures.

We will provide additional details throughout the week.  Here is an initial breakdown of how various agencies and programs would fare in FY2020 under this package of bills. This post will be updated.

LABOR-HHS

National Institutes of Health

  • Overall: $41.7 billion (including $492 million from 21st Century Cures Act)—increase of $2.6 billion
    • $2.8 billion for Alzheimer’s research
    • $3.1 billion for HIV/AIDS research
    • $500 million for Precision Medicine
    • $500 million for BRAIN Initiative
    • $195 million for Cancer Moonshot
  • Fogerty: $80.76 million and increase of $2.65 million

HRSA

  • Title VII Health Professions and Title VIII Nursing workforce development programs receive  $684.5 million — a $42.8 million (7%) increase.
    • The legislation includes first-time funding for the Loan Repayment Program for Substance Use Disorder Treatment Work and Mental and Substance Use Disorder Workforce Training Demonstrations within the Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training program

CDC

  • Overall:  $8 billion – increase of $636 million
  • NIOSH: $342 million– increase of $6.5 million

Other HHS items of note:

  • The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund, which funds the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), is reauthorized through FY2029.
  • Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is level funded at $338 million.
  • The Administration is prohibited from lowering F&A rates.
  • NIH salary caps remain at Executive Level II.
  • $25 million for gun research. Out of the $25 million set aside, $12.5 will be from the CDC and the other $12.5 will come from the NIH. The Dickey amendment language remains in place and CDC cannot use the funding to lobby in favor of gun control.
  • Delay scheduled Medicaid DSH allotment reductions through May 22, 2020

Department of Education

  • Pell Grants: maximum award of $6,345 – increase of $150
  • SEOG: $865 million – increase of $25 million
  • Federal work study: $1.18 billion – increase of $50 million
  • TRIO: $1.09 billion – increase of $30 million
  • GEAR-UP: $365 million – increase of $5 million
  • GAANN: $23 million – level funded
  • Institute for Education Sciences: $623.5 million – increase of $8 million
  • International Education/ Title VI programs: $76.1 million – increase of $4 million

Also, the measure would require the Department of Education to brief Congress on how they are administering of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness and Temporary Extended Public Loan Forgiveness programs.

Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS): $252 million — increase of $10 million

CJS

National Science Foundation

  • Overall: $8.278 billion – increase of $203 million
  • Research and Related Activities: $6.737 billion – increase of $217 million
  • Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction: $243.23 million – decrease of $52.5 million
  • Education and Human Resources: $940.0 million – increase of $30 million

NASA

  • Overall: $22.63 billion – an increase of$1.13 billion
  • Space Grant: $48.0 million – increase of $4 million

NOAA

  • Overall: 3.76 billion – increase of $167 million
  • NOAA Climate Research: $169.5 million – increase of $10.5 million
    • Climate Research Cooperative Institutes: $66.5 M – increase of $5.5 million
  • Integrated Ocean Observing System Regional Operations: $39.5 million—increase of $0.5 million
  • Sea Grant: $87 million total, including Aquaculture – increase of $6 million
    • Aquaculture: $13 million – increase of $1 million

 

INTERIOR

  • Overall: $13.5 billion – increase of $545 million
  • USGS (part of Interior):  $1.27 billion increase – of $110.4 million 
  • Climate Adaptation Science Centers: $38.3 million – increase of $13.0 million
  • Cooperative Research Units: $24 million – increase of $5.5 million
  • ShakeAlert Earthquake Early Warning: $19 million – increase of $2.9 million, plus an additional $6.7 million for infrastructure
  • EPA: $9.06 billion  – increase of $208 million
  • EPA Science: $716.4 million
    • EPA Science to Achieve Results (STAR) grant program: $6 million
    • $6 million for Harmful Algal blooms
  • National Endowment for the Arts: $162.25 million – increase of $7.25 million
  • National Endowment for the Humanities: 162.25 million – increase of $7.25 million

 

ENERGY

  • Overall: $38.586 billion – increase of $2.9 billion
  • Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy: $425 million – increase of $59 million
  • Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy: $2.79 billion – increase of $411 million
  • Office of Science: $7 billion – increase of $415 million
    • $71 million for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning across the six Office of Science programs
    • $195 million for Quantum Information Sciences including
      • $120 million to carry out a basic research program on quantum information science
      • $75 million for the establishment of up to five National Quantum Information Science Research Centers
  • Fusion Energy Sciences Research: $414 million — reduction from $432 million

 

Other Items of Note:

  • Repeal of the parking tax: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) tax on employer provided parking and transportation benefits as unrelated business income.
  • Repeal of the “kiddie” tax: (taxing nonqualified scholarship amounts for minors at the higher, trust rate rather than nominal tax rate).  This glitch in TCJA caused a child’s unearned income over $2,100 to subsequently be taxed at the trusts and estates rate instead of their parents’ top marginal tax rate, including taxable scholarship amounts.
  • Retroactive reinstatement and extension of the above-the-line tuition deduction, which expired at the end of 2017.  The bill reinstates the deduction from 12/31/2017 until 12/31/2020.

A Primer on Impeachment

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In late September, Speaker of the House, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), announced a formal impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. Impeachment is when a legislative body levels charges against a government official. Similar to an indictment, it is the first step in the process of removing a government official from office because they have committed particularly offensive crimes, such as treason or bribery.

President Trump is accused of trying to solicit personal favors by threatening to withhold foreign aid to Ukraine. This was brought to attention through a whistleblower complaint from an Intelligence Community employee.

Only two previous Presidents have ever been impeached. President Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868, but was acquitted in the Senate. President Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998, and was also acquitted in the Senate. Articles of impeachment were approved against President Richard Nixon in 1974 following the Watergate Scandal, although he resigned before the full House could vote to impeach him. No prior President has ever been removed from office as a direct result of impeachment.

The last government official to be impeached, found guilty, and removed from office was Judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr. Formerly a Judge in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, Porteous was found guilty of perjury by the Senate in 2010 and was removed from office.

For Congress to impeach the President, here are the steps of impeachment, in a nutshell.

  • First, the House opens an inquiry. Power of impeachment rests with the House of Representatives, and is enshrined in Article II, Section II of the United States Constitution.
    • One area of contention in this inquiry has been voting. Under statute, the House is not required to follow any specific procedure to conduct an impeachment inquiry. In the past, a vote in the committee was required to issue subpoenas. Now, as a result of rule changes which occurred 2015, Democratic Committee Chairpersons have unilateral subpoena power (as the majority party). A vote would give Republicans the potential to seek unilateral subpoena power for the Ranking Members of the Committees (Republicans), allowing them to call their own witnesses and potentially change the direction of the inquiry. Speaker Pelosi asserts that the House Committee Chairpersons have all the necessary tools to conduct an inquiry, making a vote redundant.
  • Next, various House committees investigate. The Committees may seek evidence through calling witnesses, issuing subpoenas, and reviewing records. They will determine whether impeachable offenses occurred. The current inquiry is centered in the House Intelligence Committee, due to the nature of the whistleblower complaint, however multiple committees, including the House Oversight and Government Reform and House Judiciary Committee, are involved in the investigation.
    • In this inquiry, the White House has instructed the Department of State not to turn over evidence to House investigators, and has forbidden Department of State employees from testifying before the House. State Department employees are ultimately lead by President Trump, creating a sticky legal dilemma. The House Committees would have to initiate legal action in a federal court to obtain evidence.
  • Afterwards, the House Judiciary Committee reviews the findings. This is done after the various Committees have reviewed their evidence. The Judiciary Committee may recommend the entire House vote on articles of impeachment. To impeach a President, the entire House of Representatives must vote by simple majority. Voting is an involved process in and of itself, as the House must agree on voting method, when to vote, etc.
  • Impeaching a President doesn’t mean they are removed from office. The Senate must hold a trial overseen by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The current Chief Justice is John Roberts. A trial can be lengthy because the Senate will need to establish procedures, review evidence, and actually agree to hold a vote. The President would then be removed if 2/3 of Senators vote in favor of removal. In this Congress, a 2/3 vote would require 12 Republican Senators, and all Democratic Senators, to vote in favor of impeachment.

Currently, the House and Senate are controlled by opposing parties. As a result, it is unlikely the Democratic-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate would both reach the same conclusion. The inquiry has also become highly partisan, with each side accusing the other of corruption and abuse of power. However, not all evidence has been reviewed or made publicly available. As of October 8th, the White House is refusing to cooperate with the inquiry. It is unclear what will happen next, but it is important to keep in mind impeachment is an extremely difficult and lengthy process.

Edit: This post originally stated that President Richard Nixon was impeached. While the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment, Nixon resigned before there was a vote in the House to adopt the articles. The post has been updated to reflect this.

Edit: This post originally stated that President Andrew Jackson was impeached instead of President Andrew Johnson. 

Walking and Chewing Gum at the Same Time… For Now

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While the Director of National Intelligence was testifying on the other side of the Capitol, the Senate Appropriations Committee took up five FY2020 appropriations bills today:  Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS); Interior; Homeland Security; Legislative Branch; and State-Foreign Operations.  We will provide details about the bills of greatest interest to UW as soon as they become available.

While the committee process moved forward, none of the 12 spending bills have been signed into law.  The Senate passed the House-adopted CR earlier this afternoon 82-15, sending it to the President’s desk.  While the White House has signaled that the President will sign it into law, thus keeping the government open through mid-November.  However, with the recent political developments,  what happens after this CR expires is anyone’s guess.

 

 

Adding More Fuel to the Fire

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As expected, three more Senate Appropriations subcommittees cleared their respective spending bills yesterday:  Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS), Interior, and Homeland Security. As predicted, the markup of the Homeland Security bill proved to be the most controversial, as that bill contains $5 billion for the border wall sought by the President.  Amendments to all three bills will be considered at the full committee markup, scheduled for tomorrow

While details about the measures will not be available until after the committee’s activities tomorrow, some initial information about the funding levels for a number of research agencies of interest to UW is available.  For example, the Republican press release on the bill provides for the following:

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) – $22.75 billion for NASA, $1.25 billion above the FY2019 enacted level, reflecting the need to fund infrastructure for human spaceflight to support for the accelerated plan to return to the moon by 2024 while supporting NASA’s science, technology development, aeronautics, and education activities.  Using the same account funding structure as in previous years, this includes:

  • $6.2 billion for Exploration, $1.2 billion above the FY2019 enacted level, to advance NASA’s human exploration program by providing $2.586 billion for the Space Launch System (SLS), $1.4 billion for the Orion crewed spacecraft to continue development of NASA’s next deep-space crewed capsule, $500 million for the proposed Lunar “Gateway,” and $744 million in funding for crewed lunar landers.
  • $6.9 billion for Science, equal to the FY2019 enacted amount, including $1.9 billion for Earth science, $2.6 billion for Planetary science, $1.2 billion for astrophysics, $423 million for the Webb telescope, and $735 million for Heliophysics.
  • $784 million for Aeronautics, which is $59 million above the FY2019 enacted level.  The funding will allow for ongoing low sonic boom experimental plane development, as well as supporting research in unmanned aircraft safety and airspace integration, and advanced aircraft composite and materials research.
  • $112 million is provided for the NASA’s STEM Engagement education programs, which were proposed to be eliminated in the budget request.  Within STEM Engagement, Space Grant is funded at $47 million, NASA’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) is funded at $22 million, the Minority University Research and Education Project is funded at $33 million, and STEM Education and Accountability projects is funded at $10 million.
  • $1.076 billion is provided for Space Technology, $149 million above the FY2019 enacted level.  Funding is included to advance projects in early stages of development that are expected to eventually demonstrate capabilities needed for future space exploration.

National Science Foundation (NSF) – $8.317 billion for NSF, $242 million above the FY2019 enacted level.  Funding is provided for basic research across scientific disciplines to support the development of effective STEM programs.

  • The bill provides $249 million above the FY2019 level for research and $27 million above FY2019 level for education activities.  These funds will allow NSF to provide more grants to highly competitive research projects and help provide opportunities to prepare the next generation of STEM leaders.
  • $190 million is provided for EPSCoR, an increase of $14 million above the FY2019 enacted level.

Meanwhile, the following information about NOAA comes from the Democratic side of the committee:

NOAA Research and Grants.  The bill rejects the administration’s request to cut funding for climate, weather, and oceans research by 41 percent, and instead funds the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) research at $572 million.  Additionally, the bill again rejects the proposal to eliminate successful NOAA programs like Sea Grant, Coastal Zone Management (CZM) grants, the National Ocean and Coastal Security Fund, and the National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS).  The Sea Grant program is funded at $75 million, $7 million above the fiscal year 2019 level, which yields $575 million in economic activity and supports 12,500 jobs and 1,300 American businesses.  CZM grants are funded at $76.5 million, $1 million above the fiscal year 2019 level, and the National Ocean and Coastal Security Fund is funded at the fiscal year 2019 level of $30 million. Our coasts and Great Lakes contribute about $350 billion to the economy annually and these State-Federal partnerships support sustainable economic development and environmental restoration. The bill also provides a $19 million increase above the fiscal year 2019 level to implement the new Pacific Salmon Treaty.

Weather Satellites.  This bill provides $755 million to continue construction of NOAA’s three new Polar Weather Satellites, equal to the fiscal year 2020 request.  Polar satellites provide 85 percent of the data used to forecast the weather, and are a vital component of Americans’ personal, property, and economic security.  One-third of U.S. GDP is affected by climate and weather, including farmers trying to protect livestock and crops, cities relying on energy from wind turbines and solar panels, and air travelers trying to get home safely and on time. Last year, the United States experienced 14 separate weather and climate disasters that cost more than $1 billion dollars each.  These storms would have cost far more and posed even greater threats to human safety without sufficient warning.  The bill also provides $304 million for NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) weather satellites, equal to the fiscal year 2020 request

NOAA Ships.  The bill provides $75 million for a portion of a third NOAA ocean survey vessel.  NOAA currently has 15 ships in its aging fleet, with one vessel coming offline unexpectedly earlier this year. Further, that number will dwindle to 8 vessels by 2028.  The Committee has recently funded two additional vessels, but to maintain its current oceanographic capacity, NOAA needs to build not two but eight additional vessels in the next several years, as construction takes eight to ten years per ship.  These vessels enable NOAA to map the ocean floor, support weather forecasts, conduct oceanographic and climate research, and improve ecosystem and fisheries management. The bill also provides $60 million to improve NOAA’s existing vessels’ state of good repair.

With respect to the Interior bill, the Democratic press release includes the following bit of information:

Cultural Programs.—The bill provides $157 million each to the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, an increase of $2 million more for each endowment than the fiscal year 2019 enacted level, rejecting the Administration’s proposal to terminate these programs.  The bill provides $1.047 billion for the Smithsonian Institution, $4.1 million above fiscal year 2019 and $69.3 million above the President’s budget request.  Funding for the National Gallery of Art is increased to $172.2 million, and funding for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts increases to $43.29 million.

At the same time, the Republican press release includes the following information about the U.S. Geological Survey:

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) – $1.2 billion for the USGS, an increase of $49 million above the FY2019 enacted level.  Within this amount, there are important program increases for energy and mineral resources, natural hazards, water resources, and deferred maintenance and capital improvement projects.

As noted before, there already was a significant amount of disagreement before yesterday afternoon between the two sides on how to move forward with respect to appropriations because of  differences on a host of issues, not the least of which was the border wall.  The House Democrats’ inquiry into possibly impeaching the President could add another wrinkle to not only the appropriations process but to governing as a whole.

After the announcement by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) yesterday afternoon about the inquiry, the White House agreed to release the transcript of the call between President Trump and the Ukrainian president.  It was released earlier today.

How much more fuel will be added to the political fire?  Can the various actors walk and chew gum at the same time?  Stay tuned.