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Category: Pure Politics

Senate Passes Budget with ACA Repeal Instructions

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Early Thursday morning, Senators voted 51-48 to adopt the FY2017 budget resolution, with Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) casting the only Republican vote against it. With just 51 votes, the Senate moves forward with plans to repeal the ACA while avoiding a filibuster from Senate Democrats. Ultimately, the Senate considered 19 amendments before the final vote — and stymied each one, mostly through procedural votes.

The key amendment of the vote-a-rama was an amendment offered by Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), who was joined by other moderate GOP Senators, would delay an initial deadline to write legislation to repeal the 2010 health care law,. The amendment was ultimately withdrawn without a vote.

The Corker Amendment would have pushed back the Jan. 27 deadline for four House and Senate committees to write legislation to repeal the health care law, the sole purpose of the budget resolution under consideration. A vote on the amendment would have been a key indicator of where Senators stood on a growing debate among Republicans about how quickly Congress should repeal the law, especially without a clear replacement ready to go.

The FY 2017 budget resolution includes reconciliation instructions with the purpose of repealing the health care law, which would occur through separate legislation.

 

ACA Repeal

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Health care, taxes, and a regulatory reform will dominate the Hill during Trump’s first 100 days in office, and the partisan maneuvering begins today. Both President Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Mike Pence headed to Capitol Hill to discuss the health care law this morning.

Obama’s goal is to rally Democrats.

Vice President-elect Pence met with the Republican conference, which is still sorting through which elements of the ACA to preserve and how long the transition period to a replacement plan should last. Conservatives, like the House Freedom Caucus, want as little as a six-month transition period. Other Members are mulling as long as a four-year-delay, which would keep elements of Obamacare in place past the 2020 elections. During the meeting, Pence announced the incoming Administration’s two track approach of using Congress as well as Executive Order. 

There’s already questions about the timeline for repealing the Affordable Care Act because of the taxes used to fund the law, like the investment tax hike on the wealthy, the medical device tax and the Cadillac tax on expensive employer-provided health plans. Discussions remain on-going about how to best unravel the roughly $1 trillion worth of tax increases in the health care law. House and Senate Republicans will not know what the new baseline is for tax reform until those decisions are made.

The Senate voted to move ahead in debating a FY 2017 budget resolution that would include reconciliation instructions repealing the ACA. The budget instructs House and Senate committees to come up with a repeal bill by January 27th. The motion to proceed to the resolution required only a simple majority vote and the tally was 51-48 as voting continued. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) voted no. The Senate is expected to consider the resolution the remainder of the week, and the House is expected to pass it prior to the Inauguration on January 20th. It should be noted that the President does not need to sign the resolution, and it does not become law. Rather binding on Congress. 

Perry as Energy Secretary

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President-elect Trump has reportedly picked former Texas Governor Rick Perry to lead the Department of Energy.

During his time of governor, Perry, who succeeded 41st President George W. Bush as Texas’ top official in 2000, preached an “all-the-above” energy mix, including contributions from oil and gas, wind energy, carbon capture and storage technology, and nuclear power.

 

CR Passes, Happy Holidays!

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In a late Friday night vote, the Senate passed the Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the government through April 28, 2017 by a vote of 62-34. The House passed the measure earlier in the week, and with the Senate’s passage, a government shutdown has been averted.

There was much uncertainty thrown into the CR at the last minute with Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) trying to halt the measure due to the lack of a full year’s extension of retired coal miners’ health benefits. Manchin was threatening to filibuster or convince 40 Senate Democrats to vote against cloture on the measure. That effort failed and the Senate passed cloture on Thursday. That vote added a new wrinkle in that cloture guarantees 30 hours of debate on legislation, and if the Senate Democrats were to exhaust the full 30 hours, then the Senate vote would not occur until 1 am on Saturday, December 10th, a full hour after the CR had expired.

Rather than risk that scenario, the Senate  ended debate earlier, proceeded with, and passed the measure at 11 pm on Friday. It should be noted that the House recessed Thursday, and most House Members were back in the district, with little intention of returning, on Friday.

President Barack Obama is expected to sign the CR. 

The stopgap measure, which took immediate effect, extends current funding levels for most federal agencies and abides by an annual cap on discretionary spending of $1.07 trillion for FY2017. It also provides extra money for military operations, flood relief, medical research and the effort to repair the lead-contaminated water system of Flint, MI.

With that, the House and Senate are expected to recess Sine Die in the coming week. They will convene in the 115th Congress.

Trump Picks Pruitt for EPA

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President-elect Donald Trump has picked Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a frequent critic of the Obama Administration, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.

Pruitt, 48, has emerged as a hero to conservative activists. He is one of a number of Republican attorneys general who have formed an alliance with some of the nation’s top energy producers to push back against the Obama regulatory agenda and has challenged many of President Barack Obama’s regulations. He helped lead the legal charge against the Clean Power Plan carbon rule, which he said tramples on states’ rights. A constitutional lawyer, Pruitt also led more than two dozen states in challenging the EPA’s Waters of the United States rule, which is now on hold waiting a court hearing date.