Month: May 2024

Congress has adjourned for the Memorial Day district and state work periods, and lawmakers will resume legislative business on Monday, June 3. When the House returns, lawmakers are expected to take up the first fiscal year (FY) 2025 spending bill for Military Construction-VA, which passed out of the Appropriations Committee in a party-line vote during a markup last week. Meanwhile, an announcement from Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on the Senate’s schedule will likely occur at some point this week. The next vote scheduled in the upper chamber is a procedural vote to advance Christopher Hanson’s nomination to be a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

• CA-20: California state legislator Vince Fong (R-CA) will be sworn in to replace former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) next month after winning the special election to serve the remainder of the former speaker’s term.
• GA-03: The race between Brian Jack, former President Donald Trump’s political director, and Mike Dugan, the former Georgia Senate Majority Leader, will head to a runoff after neither candidate met the 50 percent threshold. The winner will advance to the general election to replace retiring Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-GA) next Congress.
• OR-03: State Representative Maxine Dexter (D-OR) won a competitive primary over Gresham City Councilor Eddy Morales (D-OR) and former Multnomah County Commissioner Susheela Jayapal (D-OR) in the primary to replace outgoing Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) next Congress.
• OR-05: State Representative Janelle Bynum (D-OR) won the Democratic nomination in the closely watched primary against attorney Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who lost to incumbent Rep. Lori Chavez DeRemer (R-OR) in the 2022 general election. This race is considered one of the most competitive in the country and could be one of a few that ultimately decide who wins control of the House in November.

House GOP leadership is planning to call up a pair of crypto-focused bills for consideration this week, including legislation that would establish a regulatory framework for digital assets. Specifically, the Financial Innovation and Technology (FIT) for the 21st Century Act would, among other things: (1) provide the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) with regulatory authority over digital assets as a commodity if the blockchain on which it runs is functional and decentralized; and (2) charge the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with regulating digital assets as a security if its blockchain is functional but not decentralized. The measure is expected to pass the chamber today and could do so with bipartisan support. Notably, Democratic leadership is not whipping against the FIT for the 21st Century Act, and the White House issued a statement of administration policy (SAP) that expresses opposition but doesn’t threaten a veto.

The House will meet for legislative business today as lawmakers look to quickly pass legislation to provide tax relief for recent disasters. Specifically, the Federal Disaster Tax Relief Act (H.R. 5863) would: (1) extend rules for the treatment of certain disaster-related personal casualty losses; (2) provide tax relief for gross income losses due to wildfires; and (3) provide relief for those impacted by the East Palestine train derailment. The measure was originally included in the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act that passed the House earlier this year. However, with the Smith-Wyden tax bill on ice in the Senate, Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) — the lead sponsor of H.R. 5863 — circulated a “discharge petition” that earned the requisite 218 votes needed to circumvent House leadership and place the bill on the floor for consideration. In addition to the Federal Disaster Tax Relief Act, lawmakers will take up suspension bills out of the Committees on Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I), Financial Services (HFSC), and Oversight & Accountability.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced yesterday that the chamber will hold votes on legislation that mirrors the bipartisan border security agreement that was dropped from the national security supplemental talks earlier this year. A procedural vote on The Border Act — which contains various reforms to border-focused statutes that govern border patrol hiring authority and training, “catch-and-release,” asylum processing, and border community support — is expected to occur before the chamber gavels out for the Memorial Day state work period on Thursday. While the measure is not expected to meet the 60-vote threshold needed to advance, Leader Schumer indicated that he plans to use some of the remaining floor time this spring and summer to shift the focus back to border security as a means of placing pressure on House and Senate Republicans to come back to the negotiating table. Meanwhile, the Senate will return later today to resume consideration of pending judicial nominations.

• Today in Congress. House lawmakers are set to take up three GOP-sponsored bills that would: (1) block the administration from withholding Israel security assistance; (2) allow qualified off-duty and retired officers carry concealed firearms in more areas subject to federal prohibition; and (3) require the Attorney General to study the effect border migration is having on law enforcement. Meanwhile, senators will take up a resolution that seeks to negate a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Staff Accounting Bulletin that requires public companies to include digital assets they hold for clients on their balance sheets.

• Increasing funding for AI innovation to advance U.S. leadership in AI, maintain our global competitiveness, and perform cutting-edge AI research and development.
• Ensuring enforcement of existing laws for AI, including ways to address any gaps or unintended harmful bias; prioritizing the development of standards for testing to understand potential AI harms; and developing use case-specific requirements for AI transparency and explainability.
• Encouraging a conscientious consideration of the impact AI will have on the U.S. workforce, including the potential for job displacement and the need to upskill and retrain workers.
• Bolstering national security by leading globally in the adoption of emerging technologies and addressing national security threats, risks, and opportunities for AI.
• Addressing challenges posed by deepfakes related to election content and nonconsensual intimate images, as well as examining the impacts of AI on professional content creators and the journalism industry.
• Identifying ways to ensure higher education institutions and companies of all sizes can compete in AI innovation, including through reviewing federal statutes and regulations that might affect innovation and fully funding the National AI Research Resource (NAIRR).
• Establishing a strong comprehensive federal data privacy framework.
• Mitigating the threat of potential long-term risk scenarios.

Both chambers will resume legislative business tomorrow as the House looks to clinch a long-term reauthorization for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Late last week, the Senate overwhelmingly passed legislation that will keep the FAA operational into 2028, as well as a one-week extension to provide the House with additional time for a final vote. The FAA Reauthorization Act will now head to the House for consideration under suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds majority voting in favor to allow for expedited passage. The bill will need to be passed and signed into law by Friday, May 17 to avoid an agency shutdown.

• Establish a Commerce Department program to promote U.S. supply chain resilience and develop best practices for domestic manufacturers to reduce supply chain disruptions (H.R. 6571);
• Create a pilot program to explore the use of artificial intelligence (AI) at the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) (H.R. 4814);
• Reauthorize the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) (H.R. 4510);
• Assign the Commerce Department to be the principal adviser to the president on the deployment and use of blockchain or other “distributed ledger technology” (H.R. 6572); and
• Expand the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Program to support law enforcement recruitment activities (S. 546).