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News and updates

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.

What We’re Reading This Week, December 5-9

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Here’s a selection of articles the Federal Relations team is reading this week.

Ignored – House Democrats are in the midst of a post-election leadership expansion designed largely to amplify the voices of lawmakers in the heartland, where voters flocked to Donald Trump and propped up vulnerable Republicans down the ballot. But after a series of votes and appointments during the past few days, the party’s leadership structure remains tilted strongly in favor of the coasts, sparking criticism from Midwestern Democrats who feel their voices are too often ignored. Read more in The Hill. 

Valley Goes to the Tower – During the election, Silicon Valley largely shunned the President-elect Trump and all he stood for. Now, the president-elect is summoning leaders of the biggest tech companies to New York for a round-table discussion. Read more in The New York Times. 

Freedom from Senate (AOC)
Freedom from Senate (AOC)

Not Double Secret Probation – A regional accreditor has placed Baylor University on warning and the University of Louisville on probation for 12 months. Both sanctions typically require the institutions to correct their deficiencies and report back to the accrediting agency on their actions. Read more in The Chronicle. 

Dreamer Pressure – President-elect Donald Trump will face bipartisan pressure not to revoke deportation relief for so-called “Dreamers,” undocumented immigrants whose parents brought them to U.S. as children. To date, more than 740,000 undocumented young people have been approved for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program created by the Obama administration in 2012. Trump has vowed to “immediately terminate the program,” but Democrats and some Republicans voiced concern about what might happen to the DACA recipients. Read more in The Wall Street Journal.

Pruitt – Trump’s pick for the EPA is staunchly against almost everything the EPA has done in the last eight years, and dismantling all that work is likely going to be harder than he thought. Read more in Vox. 

Messy – There are a host of complicated business entanglements Trump’s family will face when he takes office. For example, Ivanka Trump was in the process of finalizing a deal with Japanese apparel giant Sanei when she sat in on her father’s meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Read more in The New York Times. 

Dead Zone – Thousands of poor Americans are currently excluded from Obamacare because of politics, and it is tough physically and mentally being uninsured. Read more in The New York Times. 

Yes, Eliza? – Researchers have recently found that more prisoners had changed their linguistic habits by the time they were released, the more likely they’d stay out of trouble. Read more in the Science of Us. 

Capitol Christmas Tree – Ted Bechtol has been the Capitol’s official Christmas tree selector for 12 years, but he’s not in charge of picking one for his own house. Read more in WaPo. 

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.

CR Released, Should Pass This Week

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The continuing resolution (CR) was released late last night. The text of the legislation is here. The big news is that the CR will fund the federal government through April 28, 2017. The legislation maintains the current budget cap level of $1.07 trillion put into place under the Budget Control Act of 2011, which results in an across the board cut of .1901%.

The House is expected to vote on the measure on Thursday and the Senate is expected to follow suit on Friday. 

Big Items of Note: 

The Defense Overseas Contingency Fund, which is not subject to budget caps, was increased by $8 billion in response to the Administration’s request to combat ISIS. Of note, the Administration asked for $11.6 billion.  The CR increase does include RDT&E funding that is related to the Global War on Terrorism and the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Fund received a $87M increase.  The funding will go to both defense-specific funding to combat ISIS as well as non-military spending — such as Humanitarian Assistance, State Department and USAID operations funding, Economic and Stabilization Assistance, and Embassy security funding — to combat ISIS. 

The CR does add funding in FY 2017 to accounts created and highlighted in the Cures bill for opioids, NIH and FDA initiatives, and Flint drinking water. The Cures funding is fully offset per the authorizing bill. Specifically, the totals for the year amount to: 

  • $500 million in grants to states to fight opioid abuse, 
  • $352 for the new NIH Innovations Fund (as created by Cures), 
  • $20 million directed to the FDA Innovation account (as created by cures), and  
  • $50 million is directed to HHS to address health issues relating to a lead-tainted drinking water system in Michigan. 

There is a provision to address President-elect Trump’s Secretary of Defense nominee, Ret. USMC Gen. James. Mattis, who left service three years ago. Under a 1947 federal statute, Secretaries of Defense must be civilians or retired from service for at least 7 years to be eligible to serve; its an effort to assure civilian control of the military. This requirement has been waived once in 1950 for General George C. Marshall. 

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Other Items of Note:

There is additional funding to allow continued operations and data collection for continuation of data for weather warnings, including forecasts of severe weather events from NOAA’s Joint Polar Satellite System.

There is a provision allowing additional funding, if needed, for the housing and care of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) after February 1, 2017. The number of UACs has been spiking as of late and was an issue for the FY2017 appropriations cycle. Of note, this funding comes from the Labor-H appropriations bill. 

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Additional updates will be posted on our blog.