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News and updates

House Starts Moving Appropriations Bills

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House Leadership is bringing its first FY2017 appropriations bill to the Floor this week with the FY2017 Military Construction (Mil-Con) appropriations bill. Since the House failed to pass a FY2017 Budget resolution before the April 15th statutory deadline, House Appropriators have been required to wait until May 15th to begin to bring funding measures forward.  The House is expected to consider the FY2017 Mil-Con bill, which is considered the least controversial measure, as well as a supplemental appropriations bill providing Zika funding.

The Senate, meanwhile, is also considering supplemental funding for Zika, but has been well in advance of the House in considering the 12 annual appropriations bills.

House Unveils Zika Funding

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Today, House Appropriations Committee released the House Republicans’ $622 million supplemental appropriations bill to fight Zika. The supplemental is expected to be considered by the House this week.

The bill is fully offset, according to a statement released by the Committee. It uses $352 million in “unobligated” money that was appropriated to address the Ebola outbreak in 2014 and $270 million in “unused administrative funding” from the Health and Human Services Department. Funds would be allocated for FY 2016, which means they could be used during the next five months. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) previously announced that the Committee intends to include Zika funding in the FY 2017 Labor-H bill. 

The proposal is likely to be derided by Democratic Members and the Administration, which have repeatedly called for $1.9 billion in emergency funding without offsets to research and combat the mosquito-borne virus.

 

ED Unveils Pell Dual Enrollment Pilot Program

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The Department of Education unveiled its plan to allow dual enrollments in the Pell grant program today. The plan, which would take place in the 2016-2017 school year, would allow high school students, who are Pell-eligible, to pay for and enroll in college classes using Pell Grant funds.

At a cost of $20 million, this latest experimental site will benefit up to 10,000 low-income students who will be able to enroll in college coursework while still moving through high school. Dual enrollment and early college programs have been shown to boost high school grades and college persistence and graduation rates. However, most students cover the tuition out-of-pocket at nearly half of colleges that offer dual enrollment.

ED will publish a notice in the Federal Register next week inviting colleges, in partnership with public secondary schools or local education agencies, to apply to participate.

Read the Department of Ed’s blog post about the program here. 

More Movement on Appropriations

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The House and Senate will continue to work on fiscal year 2017 funding bills next week. Both the House and Senate are expected to take up, very different, Zika funding packages next week.  While the Senate will likely to vote to accept a $1.1 billion emergency package, the House plans to vote on a bill that provides less than that but the exact amount the House is willing to provide is not yet clear. Additionally, the House bill will include off-sets and will only provide funding through Sept. 30, the end of FY 2016, unlike the Senate package.  The House has announced that the FY 2017 Labor-H package will include Zika funding. 

Next week, the full House Appropriations Committee markup of the FY 2017 Defense and Legislative Branch appropriations bills, while the respective subcommittees will mark up the FY 2017 CJS and T-HUD bills.  The Senate Appropriations Committee will mark up the FY 2017 Ag and Legislative Branch bills.

More Senate Approps Movement (E&W, T-HUD, Mil-Con, Zika)

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Today, the Senate has passed its first Energy & Water appropriations bill under regular order since 2009. The failure of Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) Iran amendment broke up the logjam for both the FY 2017 E&W and will allow the upper chamber to consider both the FY 2017 Transportation and HUD (T-HUD) and FY 2017 Military Construction-VA (Mil-Con) bills in one combination bill next week. 

The $37.5 billion FY 2017 Energy-Water bill moved into express mode after Senators reached a unanimous consent agreement to bypass procedural floor votes and waive cloture debate time.  The T-HUD and Mil-Con bills combined make up $139.5 billion in discretionary spending, about 13 percent of the total $1.07 trillion in discretionary funding made available for FY 2017 under last year’s bipartisan budget deal. However, don’t expect smooth sailing for the Senate consideration going forward. Last year’s T-HUD bill, endured efforts to restrict funding on Mid Eastern Refugee housing, similar to Senator Cotton’s amendment. Such amendments are known as  “poison pills”. 

Also today, Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) announced a bipartisan $1.1 billion Zika package. The White House has said that it wants $1.9 billion to fight the mosquito virus, which is spreading virulently and causing birth defects. The supplemental funding is expected to be added, via amendment, to the T-HUD, Mil-Con package considered next week.