Legislative Activity Debt Ceiling Looms Over House Speaker Elections According to the Treasury Department, the debt ceiling will be reached on November 3, leaving the House only five more legislative days to increase it. Complicating the issue, the floor vote for a new House Speaker is scheduled for Thursday, October 29, with Rep. Paul Ryan … Continue Reading
Legislative Activity Budget Negotiations Continue Amidst Busy Congressional Calendar Budget negotiations between staff for Republican leadership, the White House, and Democrats are ongoing, but there have been few signs of progress. Democrats have recently announced they will not accept changes to entitlements as part of a budget deal to increase government spending, increasing the likelihood … Continue Reading
Legislative Activity House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Releases Highway Bill, Markup Scheduled This Week On Friday, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (T&I) released its long-awaited surface transportation reauthorization bill and scheduled the markup of the bill for this Thursday, October 22. The House provides six years of authorizations from the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) … Continue Reading
Legislative Activity Budget Negotiations Begin Recently, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) began discussions with President Barack Obama on a budget deal. The three of them participated in a conference call to lay the foundation for negotiations, and while Majority Leader McConnell reportedly pushed to keep Democratic Leadership in … Continue Reading
Legislative Activity Speaker Boehner’s Resignation May Lead to Quick Passage of a Short-Term FY 2016 Continuing Resolution Friday’s announcement by House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) that he would resign from Congress at the end of October will likely lead to the enactment of a “clean” FY 2016 Continuing Resolution (CR) that will fund the government through … Continue Reading
Legislative Activity House Likely to Move CR Soon, But Complications Remain With only eight legislative days scheduled in the House before government funding runs out on September 30, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is under a short timeline to push a Continuing Resolution (CR) through the House. Speaker Boehner could bring a CR to the floor … Continue Reading
Legislative Activity Appropriations Process All But Over, CR Likely The appropriations process is almost certainly over and when Congress returns from the August recess there will be just ten legislative days before federal funding runs out, hardly enough time to negotiate a budget deal or an omnibus spending bill. As anticipated, Congress will likely pass … Continue Reading
Legislative Activity Congress Shuffles Closer to a Budget Deal, as Appropriations Process Stops The appropriations process is all but over, after a Confederate flag flap during floor debate of the House Interior-Environment bill brought the process to a standstill. While the appropriations committees in both the House and Senate may mark-up their final appropriations bills … Continue Reading
Legislative Activity House Passes DHS Spending Bill, Ending Weeks-Long Impasse and Avoiding Shut-Down On Tuesday, the House passed the Senate’s “clean” version of the FY 2015 spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ending weeks of debate and preventing a repeat of last week’s 11th hour agreement avoiding shut-down of the agency. The $40 … Continue Reading
Legislative Activity Congress Avoids DHS Shut-Down, Passes Short-Term Funding Measure Funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will again be the top priority on the congressional agenda this week after both a “clean” full-year continuing resolution (CR) and a three-week CR failed to advance in the House, forcing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) … Continue Reading
Legislative Activity Congress Narrowly Averts DHS Shut-Down, Passes Stop-Gap Measure Late Friday night, Congress passed a stopgap measure extending funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) one week, clearing the bill for the President’s signature less than two hours before the previous Continuing Resolution (CR) was set to expire. The 11th hour agreement came … Continue Reading
Legislative Activity DHS Funding Deadline Nears Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding expires on Friday, February 27, leaving only days for Congress to act to fund DHS. The Senate has not been able to overcome a Democratic filibuster of the House DHS funding legislation (H.R. 240), which includes policy riders blocking the President’s executive actions … Continue Reading
Legislative Activity DHS Funding Deadline Days Away With days before U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding expires on February 27, Congress appears no closer to resolving the partisan impasse. The Senate has set aside time Monday to vote on the House version of the spending bill (H.R. 240), but it remains to be seen … Continue Reading
Legislative Activity FY 2015 Appropriations Resolution of the FY 2015 federal budget will be a top priority of the lame duck session as the Continuing Resolution (P.L. 113-164) under which the federal government is currently operating expires on December 11. Before the election recess, the House passed seven of its spending bills while disagreements on … Continue Reading
Legislative Activity Congress Set to Extend FY 2014 DHS Budget in Continuing Resolution On September 9, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) introduced a draft continuing resolution (CR, H.J. Res. 124) to fund the federal government at the FY 2014 spending levels through December 11, 2014. Chairman Rogers announced, “Virtually all existing policy and … Continue Reading
LEGISLATIVE ACTIVITY Omnibus On Track For Votes This Week Appropriations leaders intend to introduce their $1.012 trillion FY 2014 appropriations omnibus bill today after working through the weekend in an effort to resolve the final policy differences in the Labor-HHS-Education, Financial Services, and Interior-Environment bills. The bill is expected to be sent to the President … Continue Reading
Legislative Branch Activity Budget Lawmakers have until this Wednesday, January 15, to pass a spending bill and to avert another government shut down. Last Friday, January 10, House Appropriations Chair Harold Rogers (R-KY) filed a “clean” three-day continuing resolution to keep the federal government open through January 18. If passed by Congress by Wednesday, Congress … Continue Reading
LEGISLATIVE ACTIVITY Appropriators Ready Omnibus For Action Closely guarding any progress, House and Senate Appropriations staff worked over the holiday recess to reconcile their respective versions of FY 2014 spending bills in order to incorporate them into a comprehensive omnibus package. Early this week, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Ranking Member Richard Shelby … Continue Reading
Legislative Branch Activity Budget Lawmakers are facing an extremely abbreviated timeline to move a $1.012 trillion appropriations measure for FY 2014 that would cover government operations through September 30. Both chambers have slightly more than a week to pass the likely omnibus measure – or a continuing resolution – before the current stopgap spending measure … Continue Reading
LEGISLATIVE ACTIVITY Federal Government Shutdown Continues As the federal government enters the second week of a shutdown, there has been no progress to end the stalemate between Democrats and Republicans, and it appears more and more likely a resolution of the shutdown and the necessary increase of the nation’s borrowing authority will converge on October … Continue Reading
The Senate will convene today, Monday, September 30, at 2:00 pm. After any leader remarks, the Senate will be in a period of morning business until 5:00 pm, with senators being permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each. Senators will be notified when any votes are scheduled. Today, the House will convene at … Continue Reading
LEGISLATIVE ACTIVITY FY 2014 Appropriations After conservative Republicans rejected the short-term FY 2014 Continuing Resolution (H. J. Res. 59) introduced by House Republican leaders last week, the House must go back to square one this week and come up with another near-term funding solution, as a government shutdown looms in two weeks. House conservatives rejected … Continue Reading
LEGISLATIVE ACTIVITY FY 2014 Appropriations The House is scheduled to consider a short-term FY 2014 Continuing Resolution (CR) this week that would maintain federal funding at current levels for likely two to three months past the start of the fiscal year on October 1. With the debate over Syria action expected to monopolize the nine … Continue Reading
Legislative Activity House Appropriations Action Last week, the House approved its $595 billion FY 2014 Defense appropriations bill (H.R. 2397) by a vote of 315-105. An amendment from Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) to eliminate funding for the National Security Administration’s (NSA) telephone record collection program, which Republican leadership resisted bringing to the floor, was narrowly … Continue Reading
