Legislative Activity Senate to Vote on Highway Funding Bill This week, the Senate is expected to vote on H.R. 5021, the Highway and Transportation Funding Act of 2014, which recently passed the House by a vote of 367-55. The bill would patch and reauthorize the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) through May 2015 by using transfers … Continue Reading
Legislative Activity House Passes Highway Funding Bill, Senate Prepares to Vote on Legislation Last week, the House voted 367-55 to pass H.R. 5021, the Highway and Transportation Funding Act of 2014. The bill would patch and reauthorize the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) through May 2015 by using transfers from the General Fund and the Leaking Underground Storage … Continue Reading
Legislative Activity House to Vote on Highway Funding Bill, Other Tax Measures This week, the House is expected to vote on H.R. 5021, the Highway and Transportation Funding Act of 2014. The bill, which was reported out of the Ways and Means Committee along party lines on July 10, would patch the Highway Trust Fund … Continue Reading
Legislative Activity Tax Extenders Bill Stalls in Senate, Timing Now Unclear On May 15, the Senate was unable to garner the 60 votes needed to end debate on tax extenders legislation. The bill, which would provide a two-year extension for certain tax extenders that expired on January 1, stalled as a result of Republican concerns … Continue Reading
LEGISLATIVE ACTIVITY Appropriations Work Begins Following last week’s submission by President Obama of his FY 2015 Budget Proposal to Congress, appropriators are set to begin work in earnest on the FY 2015 spending bills. Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-WA) previously stated that her committee would not take up a budget resolution for FY … Continue Reading
Legislative Branch Activity Upcoming Hearings: Tuesday, March 11: The Senate Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing to consider the nomination of Navy Vice Admiral Michael S. Rogers to be Admiral and Director of the National Security Agency, Chief of the Central Security Services, and Commander of U.S. Cyber Command. In addition, the Committee will … Continue Reading
Legislative Activity Senate to Hold Hearing on Federal Reserve Nominees This Thursday, March 13, the Senate Banking Committee will hold a hearing on various nominations to the Federal Reserve Board, including the nomination of Stanley Fischer, former Bank of Israel Governor, to be Vice Chairman. The committee will also consider the nominations of former U.S. Treasury … Continue Reading
Legislative Activity Lew Before Taxwriting Committees on Presidents’ Budget Proposal Following last week’s release of the President’s FY 2015 Budget Proposal, Treasury Secretary Lew appeared before the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means Committees to discuss the Administration’s proposal. In addition to addressing the Administration’s budget, Members discussed comprehensive tax reform, specifically focusing on … Continue Reading
Legislative Activity House To Consider Amending Flood Insurance Bill This Wednesday, February 26, and for the duration of the week, the House will consider amending the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act under suspension of the rules. The legislation would scale back flood insurance rate increases. According to Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), “the House will … Continue Reading
LEGISLATIVE ACTIVITY Debt Ceiling The suspension of the nation’s debt ceiling authorized by the FY 2014 Continuing Resolution (P.L. 113-46) will expire on Friday; however, the Department of Treasury predicts it will be able to extend the deadline through the end of February using accounting techniques knows as “extraordinary measures”. The debt ceiling increase was … Continue Reading
Legislative Activity This Week’s PPACA Vote House leadership has scheduled a vote next week to ban federal subsidies from being used for abortion coverage. H.R. 7, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” sponsored by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), is scheduled for floor consideration on Wednesday January 29, and would prohibit any federal funds from … 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 Activity House Leadership is expected to bring up an Affordable Care Act (ACA) bill next week that would address security issues with the health insurance exchanges and enhance protection of personal information entered on the healthcare.gov website. The measure will be the first of a number of proposals in 2014 addressing health reform focusing … Continue Reading
LEGISLATIVE ACTIVITY House Approves Ryan-Murray Budget Agreement On Thursday, December 12, the House passed the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 (H.J. Res. 59) by a vote of 332-94. A total of 62 Republicans and 32 Democrats voted against the two-year budget agreement put together by Budget Conference Committee leaders Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Sen. … Continue Reading
LEGISLATIVE ACTIVITY Budget Deal Reached On Tuesday evening, the leaders of the Budget Conference Committee – Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) – announced a two-year budget agreement. The budget leaders found previously unreachable middle ground by first taking both tax increases and major entitlement program cuts out of the negotiations and … Continue Reading
LEGISLATIVE ACTIVITY Budget Breakthrough? Forgoing formal conference negotiations, in recent weeks the leaders of the Budget Conference Committee – Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) – have taken it upon themselves to forge a limited budget agreement and appear to be close to a deal that would increase FY 2014 and FY … Continue Reading
LEGISLATIVE ACTIVITY BUDGET CONFERENCE COMMITTEE The second formal meeting of the Budget Conference Committee on Wednesday, November 13 yielded no signs of progress on a fiscal agreement. Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf was present at the meeting to discuss the agency’s deficit and revenue projections over the next ten years and the economic impact … Continue Reading
LEGISLATIVE ACTIVITY Budget Conference Committee The Budget Conference Committee will hold its second formal meeting on Wednesday, November 13 in an effort to reach an agreement on a topline discretionary funding for FY 2014 and possibly a one- to two-year sequestration mitigation package. Appropriators are pushing the committee to establish the topline number by November … Continue Reading
Legislative Activity Farm Bill Conference: Priority Issues At-A-Glance On October 30, the 41 House and Senate farm bill conferees convened at a public meeting to formally kick-off negotiations, although informal talks began a few months ago between agriculture leadership’s staff. Despite many conferees cautioning against pre-maturely drawing lines on issues, it was clear what issues … Continue Reading
LEGISLATIVE ACTIVITY Farm Bill Conference This Wednesday, October 30, marks the official start to the farm bill conference, which will be a public meeting involving the 41 House and Senate conferees. For months, agriculture leadership and their staff have met behind the scenes on an informal basis to start conversations on reconciling the two farm … Continue Reading
Legislative Activity Federal Emergency Management Agency Reauthorization On Tuesday, October 22, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-PA) introduced the first ever Federal Emergency Management Reauthorization Act (H.R. 3300). The bipartisan bill is co-sponsored by full committee Ranking Member Nick Rahall (D-WV), Emergency Management Subcommittee Chairman Lou Barletta (R-PA), and subcommittee Ranking Member … Continue Reading
The Senate will be in recess this week. The House will not be in session today, but tomorrow, Tuesday, October 22, the House will meet at 12:00 pm for morning hour and 2:00 pm for legislative business, with votes being postponed until 6:30 pm. Legislation to be considered under suspension of the rules includes: H.R. … Continue Reading
LEGISLATIVE ACTIVITY The 16-day government shutdown ended in the wee hours of Thursday, October 17 when President Barack Obama signed H.R. 2775 ( P.L. 113-46) after it was approved by the Senate (81-18) and the House (285-144). The legislation encompassed an agreement reached last Wednesday, October 16, between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and … Continue Reading
LEGISLATIVE ACTIVITY Farm Bill Conferees On Saturday, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) named farm bill conferees. The Republicans appointed 17 members, including 12 Agriculture Committee members, two Foreign Affairs Committee members, two Ways and Means Committee members, and one member to represent the Republican leadership. Republican conferees … Continue Reading
