Category: Uncategorized

Below are some congressional hearings scheduled for next week that we will be keeping our eye on and may be of interest to the UW community:

Tuesday, March 5
Senate Budget
Wasteful Spending in the Tax Code
10 am, 608 Dirksen

Senate Veterans’ Affairs & House Veterans’ Affairs
Legislative Priorities of Veterans Organizations
10 am, 345 Cannon

House Appropriations
FY14 Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations
10 am, H-309 Capitol Bldg

House Appropriations
FY14 Energy & Water Appropriations
10 am, 2362-B Rayburn

House Appropriations
FY14 Labor-HHS-Ed Appropriations
10 am, 2358-C Rayburn

House Energy & Commerce
American Energy Security and Innovation
10 am, 2322 Rayburn

House Judiciary
Skilled Immigration for American Competitiveness
10 am, 2141 Rayburn

Wednesday, March 6
Senate Veterans’ Affairs & House Veterans’ Affairs
Legislative Priorities of Veterans Organizations
10 am, 418 Russell

House Appropriations
FY14 Agriculture Appropriations
10 am, 2362-A Rayburn

House Appropriations
FY14 Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations
11 am, H-309 Capitol Bldg

Thursday, March 7
Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation (joint hearing with Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs)
Cybersecurity Issues
2:30 pm, G-50 Dirksen

Senate Energy & Natural Resources
Interior Department Nomination (** Sally Jewell)
10 am, 366 Dirksen

House Appropriations
FY14 Agriculture Appropriations
10 am, 2362-A Rayburn

A roundup of bills introduced in the last week that may be of interest to the higher education community:

H.R. 700: A bill to direct the Secretary of Education to carry out the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Education (ARPA-ED) to fund directed development projects to supported targeted breakthroughs in teaching and learning.
Sponsor: George Miller (D-CA)  Introduced: 2/14/2013  Last Major Action: Referred to House Committee on Education and the Workforce  Cosponsors: None

H.R. 812: Amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to improve education and prevention related to campus sexual violence, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking.
Sponsor: Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)  Introduced: 2/25/2013  Last Major Action: Referred to House Committee on Education and the Workforce   Cosponsors: 28 (Including Rep. Larsen)
Maloney Press Release

H.R. 822: A bill to improve and expand geographic literacy among kindergarten through grade 12 students in the United States by improving professional development programs for kindergarten through grade 12 teachers offered through institutions of higher education.
Sponsor: Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)  Introduced: 2/26/2013  Last Major Action: Referred to House Committee on Education and the Workforce   Cosponsors: 2

The full text of these bills can be found by searching for their respective bill number at thomas.loc.gov

NIH Director Francis Collins announced to reporters yesterday after a tour of facilities with Senator Mikulski (D-MD), that he had informed each director of the 27 individual institutes and centers that they will have the authority to determine how to take the looming 5.1% ($1.5 billion) sequester cut to NIH scheduled to take effect on March 1^st. Director Collins instructed institute directors “to figure out how to distribute that amongst the many difference kind of mechanisms, grants and centers, in terms of the intramural program, but everything will take a hit.” The NIH will attempt to prioritize things that seem most promising and critical to public health, although there is still expected to be across-the-board damage to virtually everything.

Senator Mikulski indicated that Congress is looking at March 27^th when the continuing resolution (CR) expires for a potential sequester fix. According to the Senator, that would create a legislative vehicle “to solve the problem of sequester to get us beyond the CR and to give certainty for this year and then focus on fiscal year ’14 appropriations while the President hopes to seek, with other leadership, a grand bargain.”

A roundup of bills introduced last week that may be of interest to the higher education community:

H.R. 729: A bill to amend the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 to exempt the National Institutes of Health from sequestration under section 251A for fiscal 2013, and to reduce the sequestration by the amount of the exemption.
Sponsor: Jim McDermott (D-WA)  Introduced: 2/14/2013  Last Major Action: Referred to House Budget Committee  Cosponsors: 2
Link to McDermott Press Release

H.R. 618: A bill to authorize the Secretary of Education to enter into voluntary, flexible agreements with certain guaranty agencies to provide delinquency prevention and default aversion services for borrowers and potential borrowers of Federal Direct Loans under the Higher Education Act of 1965.
Sponsor: Michael Michaud (D-ME)  Introduced: 2/12/2013  Last Major Action: Referred to House Committee on Education and the Workforce  Cosponsors: 4

S. 370: A bill to improve and expand geographic literacy among kindergarten through grade 12 students in the United States by improving professional development programs for kindergarten through grade 12 teachers offered through institutions of higher education.
Sponsor: Thad Cochran (R-MS)  Introduced: 2/14/2013  Last Major Action: Referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions  Cosponsors: 1

The full text of these bills can be found by searching for their respective bill number at thomas.loc.gov

Last night, President Barack Obama used his fifth State of the Union address to lay out an ambitious second term policy agenda.  The president called for comprehensive immigration reform, managing college costs, raising the minimum wage to $9 an hour, universal access to preschool for all four year olds, gun safety, climate change, $50 billion for infrastructure spending, partnerships to promote cleaner energy and improved manufacturing, a free trade zone with Europe,and winding down the war in Afghanistan. Obama called on Congress, and specifically Congressional Republicans, to allow his proposals on issues ranging from taxes and entitlements to guns and immigration to move forward.

Once again, the president addressed the rising costs of higher education in the State of the Union. Specifically, he called upon colleges and universities to do more to make college affordable, and going further, Obama called upon Congress to address this issue in the upcoming Higher Education Act reauthorization. He asserted that measures such as affordability and value should determine which colleges should receive federal aid. In addition, the president announced that the Administration is releasing today the long-waited “College Scorecard” to compare schools based on cost and value.

Additionally, Obama called for renewed bipartisan efforts to develop a package of spending cuts and tax hikes to replace the $85 billion in automatic fiscal 2013 spending cuts scheduled to begin March 1. The president urged Congress to pursue a combination of spending cuts and new tax revenue to reduce the deficit rather than across-the-the-board spending cuts, and he suggested a corporate tax overhaul could provide funding for new efforts to boost the economy. Without a deal, Obama warned, furloughs would occur that would undermine the economic recovery, hurt military and domestic programs and “cost us hundreds of thousands of jobs.” Obama did not propose changing the spending caps set by the 2011 law and said “nothing I’m proposing tonight should increase our deficit by a single dime.” But with little room to maneuver under the spending caps, Obama made clear that the tax code would be at the center of his efforts to broker deals with the House and Senate Republicans to tackle the deficit, spur growth and strengthen the middle class. Congress must act before March 27 – the expiration of the current stopgap for the CR.