Skip to content
News and updates

News and updates

Senate HELP committee to vote on key bills

Posted on

 On Thursday, February 26, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee will vote on several significant bills regarding access to quality education and health care.

The bills under consideration include:

  • S. 1602, Mathematical and Statistical Modeling Education Act
  • S. 1558, Understanding the True Cost of College Act of 2025
  • S. 3747, Home School Graduation Recognition Act
  • S. 1782, Charlotte Woodward Organ Transplant Discrimination Prevention Act
  • S. 1552, Living Donor Protection Act of 2025
  • S. 3315, Health Care Cybersecurity and Resiliency Act of 2025

Date: Thursday, February 26, 2026

Time: 10:00 AM ET/ 9:00 AM CT

Location: 430 Dirksen Senate Office Building

Link to watch live

Jay Bhattacharya named acting CDC director

Posted on

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the head of the NIH, is set to become acting director of the CDC, according to administration officials. He will continue to run the NIH, serving both positions until President Trump appoints a permanent CDC director that gets confirmed by the Senate.

Bhattacharya will replace Jim O’Neill, who was removed last week by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as part of a broader restructuring. White House officials said President Trump will name O’Neill to lead the National Science Foundation.

O’Neill was confirmed by the Senate last June as deputy secretary of HHS and had been leading the CDC temporarily after the ousting of Susan Monarez in August following her disagreements with Secretary Kennedy over vaccine recommendations. O’Neill led the CDC through its most controversial changes to vaccine policy, including removing meningitis, flu, hepatitis A, and rotavirus from the list of routinely recommended vaccines.

The restructuring also promotes Chris Klomp, deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, to chief counselor overseeing all HHS operations.

The leadership shake-up comes as administration officials look to focus on President Trump’s health policy moves, particularly his push to lower drug prices, ahead of the midterm elections.

Senate fails to advance DHS funding

Posted on

A failed Senate vote Thursday has set the stage for shutting down the Department of Homeland Security beginning at midnight tonight. Republicans tried to advance the same bill that the House approved last month, which would fund DHS through September. As expected, the proposal, which did not add any new curbs on immigration enforcement that Democrats have been pushing for, failed to draw the 60 votes necessary. The vote was 52 to 47, with Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) as the only Democratic senator to vote in favor.

The vote comes after a week of intense hearings, including a Thursday oversight hearing by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, where Chairman Rand Paul (R-KY) asked three top DHS officials to watch a frame-by-frame video of the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti. The three witnesses—ICE acting Director Todd Lyons, CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott and director of USCIS Joseph Edlow—also testified before the House Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday. The Senate committee also grilled a panel of Minnesota officials, including Attorney General Keith Ellison, Rep. Tom Emmer, state Rep. Harry Niska and Paul Schnell, the commissioner of Minnesota’s Department of Corrections.

Republicans had hoped that Democrats would be swayed by Thursday’s announcement by Tom Homan, border czar, that the Trump administration would pull immigration agents out of Minnesota. But Senate Democrats have remained firm that they will not support even a temporary funding measure without new guardrails. The House and Senate are both headed into a weeklong recess, meaning a funding lapse for DHS will begin Saturday morning, the third time in five months that parts of the government have been shut down. The shutdown will affect FEMA, CISA, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, and TSA. Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson said negotiations would continue and that members of Congress should be prepared to quickly return.

Energy Department Launches Genesis Mission Consortium

Posted on

Yesterday, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced the launch of the Genesis Mission Consortium, a historic public-private partnership advancing the Department’s Genesis Mission to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in accelerating scientific discovery.

Building on President Trump’s Executive Orders Launching The Genesis Mission and Removing Barriers to American Leadership In Artificial Intelligence, the consortium brings together technical capabilities and expertise from the private sector, academic institutions, and mission teams at the DOE and the 17 National Laboratories.

As described in the launch announcement, “the consortium will help identify high-value partnerships among its members and external stakeholders, strengthening collaborative responses to funding opportunities. It will amplify DOE’s outreach by promoting solicitations, executing agreements, and tracking project successes. Functioning as a collaborative hub, the consortium will serve as a single, coordinated access point for members and their resources.”

For more information on the Genesis Mission Consortium, visit www.genesismissionconsortium.org.

 

February 12 Update:

The DOE built upon the Genesis Mission launch by announcing 26 science and technology challenges. “These challenges represent a bold step toward a future where science moves at the speed of imagination because of AI. It’s a game-changer for science, energy, and national security,” said DOE Under Secretary for Science and Genesis Mission Lead Dr. Darío Gil. “By uniting the U.S. Government’s unparalleled data resources and DOE’s experimental facilities with cutting-edge AI, we can unlock discoveries that will power the economy, secure our energy future, and keep America at the forefront of global innovation.” For the full list of challenges, visit https://www.energy.gov/documents/genesis-mission-science-and-technology-challenges.

Trump signs $1.2 trillion funding bill

Posted on

Following the quick turnaround leaders hoped for, the House passed a spending package on Tuesday afternoon to fund most of the federal government for the rest of the fiscal year. Just hours after the House approved the bill, President Trump signed the package into law, officially ending the partial government shutdown. More details on the package can be found here.

The final vote was 217 to 214, with most House Democrats (193) voting against the bill, while 21 Republicans also opposed the measure. Speaker Mike Johnson was optimistic that the bill would pass quickly, but it faced hurdles as President Trump and Republicans pressured conservative holdouts to vote in favor.

While the package fully funds the majority of federal agencies through September, it funds DHS only through the end of next week, setting the stage for difficult negotiations over immigration restrictions. Lawmakers have ten days to reach a broader deal or another short-term agreement to avoid a funding lapse. The funding debate has been focused on ICE and Customs and Border Protection, but DHS includes other major agencies like TSA, FEMA, and the Coast Guard.