Today, the White House has issued a Statement of Administrative Policy (SAP) on H.R. 244, the Consolidated Appropriations bill, also known as the FY 2017 Omnibus. While the White House says it is concerned that Congress did not go far enough in funding some priorities, it is a good first step, but priorities should be funded in FY 2018.
Long and short, no veto threat on this bill, but maybe the next one.
Here is a selection of committee meetings taking place this week.
TUESDAY, MAY 2
House Energy & Commerce
MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY REGULATIONS
May 2, 10 a.m., 2123 Rayburn Bldg.
Subcommittee Hearing
WEDNESDAY, MAY 3
Senate Appropriations
DEFENSE INNOVATION/RESEARCH FUNDING
May 3, 10:30 a.m., 192 Dirksen Bldg.
Subcommittee Hearing
Senate Armed Services
CONTRIBUTIONS OF DEFENSE LABORATORIES
May 3, 10 a.m., 222 Russell Bldg.
Subcommittee Hearing
Senate Environment & Public Works
STREAMLINING INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS
May 3, 10 a.m., 406 Dirksen Bldg.
Full Committee Hearing
House Appropriations
CENSUS 2020 OVERSIGHT
May 3, 10:30 a.m., H-309, U.S. Capitol
Subcommittee Hearing
House Natural Resources
NEW HYDROPOWER DEVELOPMENT/AFFORDABILITY
May 3, 2:30 p.m., 1324 Longworth Bldg.
Subcommittee Hearing
House Oversight & Government Reform
FAFSA DATA BREACH
May 3, 9:30 a.m., 2154 Rayburn Bldg.
Full Committee Hearing
THURSDAY, MAY 4
Senate Appropriations
VETERANS AFFAIRS TELEMEDICINE
May 4, 10:30 a.m., Dirksen Bldg.
Subcommittee Hearing
At 2 am last night, House and Senate appropriators released the FY 2017 Omnibus, which comprises the 11 unfinished FY 2017 appropriations bills, providing fresh spending instructions for nearly every corner of the federal government and formally appropriates more than $1 trillion in discretionary spending for FY 2017, in keeping with the spending limits agreed to last year. A high level overview is below.
Overall, the FY 2017 Omnibus provides an annualized total of $1.07 trillion in base spending for FY 2017, or $1.16 trillion including Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding. Beyond the top line, and widely reported, the FY 2017 Omnibus includes a $2 billion increase to NIH or a 6.2 percent increase over current levels. The deal includes an extra $1.5 billion to enhance border security, but there is no money to begin construction of Trump’s wall along the Mexican border. Additionally, appropriators absolutely rejected about $18 billion in cuts to domestic discretionary programs that Trump had suggested to avoid further expanding the deficit in his FY 2017 supplemental request. To boost funding for the military and border security, lawmakers increased by $15 billion the OCO spending, which does not count against statutory budget cap.
While the budget numbers will look big on paper, they will have less meaning in the real world because most of the money to be formally appropriated has already been spent, since there are only five months remaining in the current FY 2017, which runs through Sept. 30.
The most recent stopgap (H.J.Res. 99), enacted Friday, keeps the government open through May 5. The Omnibus legislation could see a House could vote as soon as Wednesday. Once the Omnibus passes the House, it will move on to the Senate.
The legislation did resolve a significant amount of big political sticking points, including:
Labor-H
Health Provisions
Report language of note:
NIH
“Funding from the 21st Century Cures Act was previously appropriated for fiscal year 2017 by section 194 of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2017. Per the authorization, $300,000,000 is transferred to the National Cancer Institute for cancer research and $52,000,000 will be allocated from the NIH Innovation Fund, in this agreement reflected in the Office of the Director, for the Precision Medicine Initiative cohort ($40,000,000), the BRAIN Initiative ($10,000,000), and regenerative medicine research ($2,000,000).”
Education Provisions
Report language of note:
TRIO:
“There is concern that the Department has rejected and made ineligible for review several fiscal year 2017 grant applications based on minor formatting issues. The Department is strongly encouraged to provide flexibility to such applicants by permitting submission of a corrected application. The Department should include consistent formatting requirements across all TRIO competitions in the future.”
Defense
Research Accounts:
6.1: $2.28 Billion (level)
6.2: $5.30 billion (+$30 million)
USDA
AFRI — $375 million (+$25 million)
McIntire-Stennis — $33.9 million (level)
CJS
E&W
Interior
Here’s a selection of articles the Federal Relations team is reading this week.
It’s Harder Than It Looks – Trump misses driving, feels as if he is in a cocoon, and is surprised how hard his new job is. President Donald Trump on Thursday reflected on his first 100 days in office with a wistful look at his life before the White House. “I loved my previous life. I had so many things going,” Trump told Reuters in an interview. “This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier.” Read more from Reuters.
Diversity Among Early Career Awardees – Increasing diversity within academic science has been a priority for France Córdova since she became director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2014. Within a year she had launched an initiative, called INCLUDES, that challenges universities to do a better job of attracting women and minorities into the field. Now, Córdova has turned her attention inward in hopes of improving the dismal track record of NSF’s most prestigious award for young scientists. Read more from Science Magazine.
Judge Blocks Another Trump Order – A judge in San Francisco on Tuesday temporarily blocked President Trump’s efforts to starve localities of federal funds when they limit their cooperation with immigration enforcement, a stinging rejection of his threats to make so-called sanctuary cities fall in line. The judge, William H. Orrick of United States District Court, said only Congress could place such conditions on spending. The ruling, which applies nationwide, was another judicial setback for the Trump administration, which has now seen three immigration orders stopped by federal courts in its first 100 days. Read more from The New York Times.
Indirect Costs Associated with Research – For more than a decade, the University of Washington has used federal research funding to help finance a $1.1 billion building boom in labs and research offices — 15 buildings in all. But now the Trump administration is talking of sharply curtailing the overhead costs that can be included in research grants. Those so-called “indirect” costs cover salaries of hundreds of staffers who help with research support — and constructing new lab and office space. Read more from The Seattle Times.
On DeVos Rescinding Protections for Borrowers – Democrats sent a letter to Secretary DeVos criticizing the reversal of Obama-era policy on loan servicing and borrower protections. Read the full letter here.
Late last night, House Republican leadership decided to forego a vote on the ACA amendment by Rep. Tom MacArthur circulated earlier this week. MacArthur, who is the leader of the moderate Republican Tuesday Group, would shift how individuals with preexisting conditions are insured to the states. The amendment won the support of the conservative House Freedom Caucus by loosening insurance mandates, but didn’t gain many moderates. Additionally, the House Democrats announced that if the House voted on the amendment, Democrats would all vote against the much-needed, short-term CR to keep the government open though midnight Friday.
This morning, the House of Representatives passed the one-week CR to keep the government operating. It is an necessary step to avert a shutdown as negotiators continue to work on an agreement to extend funding through the remainder of the year via an omnibus appropriations measure.
The Senate unanimously passed a stopgap spending bill, about an hour after the measure was overwhelmingly approved by the House.
The bill funds the government for one week, avoiding a government shutdown at midnight. Lawmakers plan to pass a broader spending package next week to fund the government through September.