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.
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.
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 willlikely 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.
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.
Here’s a selection of articles the Federal Relations team is enjoying this week.
Best Time to Be a College Graduate – Employers added 160,000 employees in April, downshifting from the monthly average of 192,000 workers so far this year. While the downshift isn’t good news, the job market for recent college graduates is booming. Overall unemployment numbers are steady at five percent, and recent college graduates have unemployment numbers half of that. Read more at NPR.
For the Future – NSF Administrator France Cordova unveiled a research agenda intended to shape the agency’s next few decades and win over the next US President and Congress. It contains nine big ideas to illustrate how increased support for the type of basic research that NSF funds could help answer pressing societal problems. Read more in Science.
Longworth Stairwell (AOC)
Uh…Unity?…Now??…Nah, Never Mind – Early in the week, the GOP presumptive presidential nominee was expected to turn his tune towards inclusion and unity or so said Republican party thought leaders…but is there any chance of that? With the nomination all but assured, it would be conventional, normal, and prudent for Trump to start reaching out and building a coalltion in preparation for the general election. That said, the immediate response by Republican leadership to Trump’s lock of the nomination was tepid at best. The fractious coalition of conservatives that we used to know as the Republican Party is, after a decade of fraying ties between the Washington establishment and its base, is now composed of two separate coalitions. Read more at Politico. But in advance of two, very publicized meetings with House and Senate leadership, while following a three hour meeting the GOP party leader early in the week, Trump had not followed convention by trying to mend fences and provide a united front. Rather, he’s taken every opportunity to lob pot shots at Paul Ryan as well as Hillary Clinton. Why? He’s got a mandate or as he explained, a hit broadway show with this campaign now. Read more in the New York Times.
Getting “Cantored” – Now a verb, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin pushed back against Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), presumably for his nonsupport of Donald Trump. In a recent speech, Palin announced she would support a primary challenger in Ryan’s race. She then compared efforts in the Ryan race to last cycle’s shocking loss of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), which sent the House GOP into a tailspin. Read more in The Washington Post.
Potty Police – North Carolina Republicans are increasingly worried that the state’s new ‘bathroom law’ blocking protections for the LGBT community will cost the GOP dearly in November’s elections. They say the reason is simple: the party that took over North Carolina as champions of small government is now seen by moderate voters as the party of the bathroom police. The “public safety” rationale for the law has seen major pushback by major American businesses. Read more in Politico.
Rock & Hard Place – Meanwhile, the law has a practical impact on North Carolina constituents, such as the University of North Carolina. As the federal government and state elected leaders launched legal battles over North Carolina’s controversial bathroom law this week and last, UNC system President Margaret Spellings said the university is “truly caught in the middle.” The Justice Department sent a letter to the UNC President saying that the university’s federal funding was endanger if it complied with the North Carolina law. In the 2014-2015 school year, the UNC System received $1.4 billion in federal funding over the 11 campuses. Spellings responded to Justice late Monday with a letter saying the university is committed to complying with federal non-discrimination laws, but also required to follow the law of the state. Read more in the Raleigh News & Observer.
Politics of Restrooms – Why do mayors, city councils, and state legislatures even care what restrooms people can or should use? It’s not simply about bathroom choice, but the expanding the rights of the socially disenfranchised, the right to privacy, the backlash over marriage equality, and the fundamental chasm between socially liberal Democrats (mostly mayors of cities) and socially conservative Republicans (state legislatures). Read more in Vox.
Kinda the Current Republican Equivalent of Obi Wan – On the national GOP’s standing rules committee, Curly Haugland has been the pedantic curmudgeon, the stubborn speed bump who for years has raised points of order only to watch establishment Republicans stampede over him. This year, he might be the only thing preventing Trump from getting the nomination — on the first ballot. Read more in Politico.
Brazil – In a country beset with issues this year (economic crisis, Zika, impending Olympics), the Brazilian Senate voted this week to suspend the first female President Dilma Rousseff. Her 180 day suspension gives the Senate time to contemplate her impeachment for fiscal improprieties related to government spending. Rousseff has endured an almost Shakespearian fall from grace and power as former allies rally against her and scandals besiege her. This turn of events is all precipitated by her efforts to protect her mentor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, know as Lula, who is a central figure in Petrobras scandal, one of the most sweeping bribery scandals ever. Read more in The Guardian. Vox also has a good overview of the issue.
Dope – Speaking of the Olympics, a former Russian official and head of the anti-doping lab revealed that dozens of Russian athletes at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, including at least 15 medal winners, were part of a state-run doping program, meticulously planned for years to ensure dominance at the Russian held Winter Games. according to the director of the country’s anti-doping laboratory at the time. Read more in the New York Times.
SafeTrack – In a huge announcement this week (to those who live in or around or travel to the District of Columbia), the Washington Area Metro Authority announced a drastic plan to do much-needed and long-over due repairs to the metro system. Part of this plan is to do “safety surges” which requires shutting down large swaths of the Metro system for multiple weeks at a time, effectively shutting down access to parts of DC for up to five weeks. Long and short, Metro is trying to cram three years of deferred maintenance into a single year by shutting down track, single tracking lines, and limiting working hours. Expect fewer trains, more time on platforms and lesser access. Read more about SafeTrack at The Washington Post.
