Senate Passes NDAA, but FY16 Defense Funding Stalls

Posted on June 18, 2015June 18, 2015

The Senate passed the unusually contentious FY16 NDAA, by a vote of 71-25, today. The Senate had planned to move ahead to tackling Defense Appropriations on the Floor, but the measure failed to receive 60 votes needed to invoke cloture and proceed. As a reminder, the President has issued a veto threat on the bill and Senate Democrats have promised to block any appropriations bills that rely on the current spending plan. The FY16 appropriations cycle was left in limbo after Senate Democrats appeared to have succeeded in torpedoing a procedural vote that would have allowed debate to begin on the FY16 Defense appropriations bill. Democrats in Congress and the White House are opposed to the underlying spending framework.

The full Senate Appropriations Committee marked up the Defense bill on June 11, and here is the press release.

In the bill:

RDT&E: $70.325 billion, which is $539.7 million above the President’s FY16 request
Basic Research: $2.317 billion, which is $228.5 million over the FY16 request, and a $39.341 million over FY15 enacted.

The report included this language: “The Committee believes that further investment in basic research must continue. Basic research is the foundation of innovative breakthroughs that are critical to maintaining the Nation’s future technological edge. Investments in basic research not only provide advances in technology for our military men and women, but also provide an important incubator for national labs and academic research institutions. These investments also encourage partnerships and collaboration with industry. In order to keep pace with the global challenges to come, the Committee believes that additional funding should be allocated to Federal research.”

Applied Research: $4.928 billion, which is $215 million over the FY 16 request and $280.3 million over FY 15 enacted.
Advanced Technology Development: $5.577 billion, which is $113.6 million above the FY 16 request and $251.5 million over FY 15 enacted.
DARPA: $2.865 billion, which is $107.1 million below the FY 16 request and $50.4 million below FY 15 enacted.

FY2016 Labor-HHS Bill Moves Through Subcommittee

Posted on June 18, 2015

The House Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee approved its FY2016 spending bill by voice vote, with all Democrats voting against the proposal. The panel earlier had rejected a dozen amendments in a series of voice votes, with partisan splits apparent over family planning and the implementation of the 2010 health law. However, members of both parties made it clear that they would like to see a new law passed to ease the cap now in place on most federal spending. The measure will be considered by the full appropriations committee next week.

Given the return of sequestration in full force for FY2016, the Labor-HHS panel may have little room to do more than tweak budget accounts. The current budget caps for discretionary spending will make it difficult to reward favored programs without making deep reductions elsewhere.

The Labor-HHS-Education bill may be the one bill that thwarts the Republicans’ goal of moving all 12 appropriations measures by the end of the federal fiscal year (September 30^th). Because of the politically-contentious policies carried out through the bill – such as abortion, labor issues, and the Affordable Care Act – there are strong doubts that even GOP control of both the House and Senate can get Congress back in the habit of considering it beyond an omnibus spending package.

But there is a bit of a new dynamic this year, since the Labor-HHS bill funds agencies charged with facing some of the nation’s most pressing issues, including the lingering threat of Ebola, a resurgence of measles, and calls to move ‘cures’ through clinical trials faster. There’s interest in both parties in the budget and operations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.

Next week’s full committee mark-up of the Labor-HHS bill will likely be a repeat of yesterday’s subcommittee mark-up. We will see lots of amendments fall along party lines, and the underlying bill will remain largely unchanged from its current draft. And while the full House will likely approve the measure, action in the Senate is still in doubt as Democrats have vowed to block all FY2016 spending measures until a new budget deal is agreed on that will lift the spending caps.

Senate HELP Looks at Accreditation

Posted on June 17, 2015

The Senate HELP Committee is holding a hearing today on accreditation’s role in ensuring quality and how that fits into the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. The committee will hear from Peter Ewell, vice president of the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, Thomas Edison State College President George Pruitt, and Albert Gray, president and CEO of the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and School, and American Council of Trustees and Alumni Anne Neal.

Watch the hearing and find the written testimony here.

This hearing will be part of a series of hearing related to the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.

White House Signals Concerns with FY16 House’s Financial Services and Senate’s Defense Funding Bills

Posted on June 17, 2015

Continuing its theme, the White House, though the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Shaun Donovan, signaled concerns with two more Congressional appropriations bills. Donovan wrote the House Appropriators about the FY16 Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill and Senate Appropriators about the FY16 Defense appropriations bill.

The White House warned that the House’s FY16 Financial Services spending bill, scheduled to be marked up today, would jeopardize the independence of financial regulators, cost billions of dollars in lost tax revenue and hinder implementation of the 2010 health care overhaul.

Similar to previous warnings about the House and Senate NDAA bills and the House’s FY16 Defense spending bill, Donovan warned that, “The president’s senior advisers would recommend he veto any legislation that implements the current Republican budget framework.” According to the OMB, the Senate’s legislation would implement a “gimmick” by shifting money to war accounts, the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding, from core budget lines. He also criticized the Senate Appropriations measure’s proposal for “unnecessary” funding of a National Guard and Reserve Component Equipment Account.

The White House and Congressional Democrats have been very vocal on a need for Congress to collectively come to the table and cut another deal, similar to the one Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) and Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) cut in 2013 in 2013 (Murray-Ryan), to avoid the cuts as required by the Budget Control Act of 2011(sequester). The House is crafting all bills, legislative and appropriations, under the financial caps and resrtaints set by the Budget Control Act, which was binding until 2021.

Read the the letter to House Appropriators about the House’s FY16 Financial Services bill here.

Read the letter to Senate Appropriators about the Senate’s FY16 Defense bill here.

House Appropriators Releases FY16 Labor-H

Posted on June 16, 2015June 16, 2015

House Appropriations Committee Republicans released their draft FY16 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Labor (Labor-H) spending plan earlier today, and Democrats are already protesting the proposal and calling for an end to the budget caps. The House Appropriations Labor-H Subcommittee is expected to consider and pass the measure tomorrow.

The Labor-H bill may be the one of the most delicate and contentious appropriations bills considered by the House and the Senate this year because of the hot-button, politically-contentious policies, and well-known agencies funded through the bill. For context, the bill funds a diverse amount of well-known agencies, including :

National Institutes of Health
Centers for Disease Control
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Department of Education
National Labor Relations Board
Corporation for Public Broadcasting

Despite the Congressional Republicans’ goal of moving all 12 appropriations measures this year, there are strong doubts that even GOP control of both chambers can get Congress back in the habit of considering it beyond an omnibus spending package. To wit, neither the House or Senate released a draft Labor-H bill in FY2015, and only the Senate acted in FY2014. The bill contains programs on health spending, including Obamacare policy riders, education spending, including student loan provisions and riders, Department of Labor programs and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Overall

The draft bill would provide a total of $153 billion in new discretionary funding, $3.7 billion less than the current level and $14.6 billion less than the President’s Budget Request. It would provide $31.2 billion for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an increase of $1.1 billion from the current level and $100 million more than the President sought. Lawmakers in both parties have expressed a desire to boost funding for NIH, but they are limited by laws that keep overall FY16 discretionary funding at 2015 enacted levels.

Health-Related Funding

Within the NIH funding, the legislation includes $165 million to support activities for the National Children’s Study, $480.6 million for Clinical and Translational Sciences Awards, and $311.8 million for Institutional Development Awards (IDeA) programs.   The bill also provides increases for several targeted research initiatives, including $886 million, a $300 million increase, for an Alzheimer’s disease research initiative; $461 million, a $100 million increase, for an antibiotic resistance initiative; $150 million, a $95 million increase, for the Brain Research through Application of Innovative Neuro-technologies (BRAIN) initiative; and the full $200 million requested for the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI).

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), which has been at the forefront of efforts to contain the Ebola virus in Africa and keep Americans from abusing narcotics including painkillers, would get $7 billion. That’s a $140 million increase from the current year and equal to the President’s Budget Request. This includes $70 million to combat prescription drug abuse, an increase of $50 million from the current level. While we do not yet know how much funding is included for specific programs – like the Education Research Centers, Agriculture and Fishery Centers, and Health Prevention Research Centers – the House bill does include $341.1 million for NIOSH, which is about $6.2 million more than was included in the FY2015 omnibus.

Beyond the bipartisan increases for CDC and NIH, the draft bill contains provisions that are sure to induce partisan debates. The Labor Department would get $11.7 billion, $206 million less than current funding and $1.4 billion less than Obama requested. The Education Department would get $64.4 billion, $2.8 billion less than current funding and $6.4 billion less than requested.

Also on the ‘bad news’ front, the proposal would terminate the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The bill also includes several policy provisions, including prohibitions on the Department of Education from moving forward with regulations to establish a college ratings system, place new requirements on teacher preparation, define “gainful employment” and “credit hour,” and dictate how states must license institutions of higher education.

Policy riders include a provision ensuring any new HHS Dietary Guidelines focus only on food and nutrients and have a sound scientific evidence base and several provisions to protect life, including continuations of all longstanding restrictions on abortion funding that have been included in the legislation in prior years. The legislation also includes the text of Congresswoman Diane Black’s (R-TN) HR 940, the Health Care Conscience Rights Act.

Education-Related Funding

House Approriators allocated $64.4 billion in discretionary funds for the Education Department, about $6.4 billion below the Administration’s request.The bill eliminates 19 duplicative, ineffective or unauthorized education programs and cuts several other “lower-priority” programs.

For elementary education, the measure would fund grants for states to support children with special needs, known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), at $12 billion, about $500 million more than the 2015 level and $1 billion greater than the President’s request. Funding for Head Start would increase by roughly $300 million to $8.8 billion. The President requested an additional $1.5 billion for Head Start programs to lengthen both the school day and school year. The program currently receives $8.5 billion, which appropriators boosted significantly after they took heat because of slots lost in the program during the sequester, forcing some facilities to shut their doors during the Fall 2013 government shutdown.

In the higher education realm, appropriators proposed raising the maximum Pell Grant award by $85 to $5,915 though a combination of mandatory ($1,055) and discretionary funds ($4,860). Perkins was provided $1.7 billion total, an increase of $600 million, the program has remained at $1.117 billion since FY 2014.

funding. Most interestingly for higher education, there are a number of potentially contentions policy riders which prevent the Education Department from moving forward with regulations to establish the Administration’s college rating system (Postsecondary Institution Ratings System), place new requirements on teacher preparation, change the definitions of gainful employment and credit hour, and tell states how to license institutions of higher education.

Other Provisions

The bill provides an advance appropriation of $445 million for Corporation for Public Broadcasting for fiscal year 2018, which is the same level of advance funding provided in the fiscal year 2015 enacted level and the budget request.

The bill includes $200 million for the National Labor Relations Board – a decrease of $74.2 million (27 percent) below last year’s level and $78 million (28 percent) below the President’s budget request.

Going Forward

The House Appropriations on has not yet scheduled a full committee markup on this proposal nor is it clear when the measure will be considered on the House floor, but that should happen sometime in the next week or two. There are sure to be a lot of amendments debated during the process. We will continue to update this information as the bill advances – but we are still a long way from the finish line on this one.

Read the press release here.

Read the text of the bill here.