The Week in Review
The House and Senate were in recess last week.
The Week Ahead
Congress is set to return today and will begin what is sure to be a hectic period on Capitol Hill. The first major action for the House will be voting on a formal disapproval of the nuclear deal that the Obama administration has negotiated with Iran, with a floor vote scheduled for Wednesday. The Iran treaty is also at the top of the Senate agenda, as the Senate is set to immediately consider a resolution (H.J. Res. 61) on Tuesday that will act as the legislative vehicle for the Senate’s disapproval of the nuclear agreement. While the Republican-controlled Congress is expected to pass the measure of disapproval, the President has secured enough votes from Democratic Senators to ensure that a presidential veto will not be overridden.
Author: Thornrun
Rosenstock: With Heavy Agenda in Congress , Short-Term CR Likely in September
In today's "Morning Money," Politico quoted Thorn Run's Jason Rosenstock on the packed schedule Congress faces in its return from the August recess. "With only ten legislative days scheduled for September it looks like there will only be time to deal with two of the [numerous] issues this month,” Rosenstock argues in the update. On government funding, he added that “the conventional wisdom is that the House and Senate will pass a short-term, fairly clean continuing resolution (CR) before the end of the month (and possibly before the Pope arrives on September 24th). .. [I]t likely to be a short-term solution, that will only keep the doors open through the end of the year."
Continue reading “Rosenstock: With Heavy Agenda in Congress , Short-Term CR Likely in September”
Health Policy Report
The Week in Review
The House and Senate were in recess last week.
The Week Ahead
Both chambers of Congress are in recess until Tuesday, September 8. When the Senate reconvenes, members are set to immediately consider a measure which would disapprove of President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. For a full rundown on the major legislative issues due to be considered after the summer break, please refer to TRP’s Fall Legislative Outlook.
Health Policy Report
The Week in Review
The House and Senate were in recess last week.
The Week Ahead
Both chambers of Congress are in recess until Tuesday, September 8. When the Senate reconvenes, members are set to immediately consider a measure which would disapprove of President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. For a full rundown on the major legislative issues due to be considered after the summer break, please refer to TRP’s Fall Legislative Outlook.
Health Policy Report
The Week in Review
The House and Senate were in recess last week.
The Week Ahead
Both chambers of Congress are in recess until Tuesday, September 8. When the Senate reconvenes, members are set to immediately consider a measure which would disapprove of President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. For a full rundown on the major legislative issues due to be considered after the summer break, please refer to TRP’s Fall Legislative Outlook.
Health Policy Report
The Week in Review
August recess arrived last week in Washington, with the Senate pushing off votes on cybersecurity and the Iran deal until lawmakers return to Capitol Hill on September 8. Under a unanimous consent agreement reached on Wednesday, Republicans and Democrats agreed to postpone debate on a cybersecurity measure (S. 754) that would give liability protection to companies that voluntarily share cyber threat information with intelligence agencies and law enforcement. Both sides agreed to debate the bill—plus 10 Republican and 11 Democratic amendments—after the August recess. The Senate will be able to proceed to consideration without needing to set up a cloture vote.
Health Policy Report
The Week in Review
Two high-profile issues dominated discussion in Congress last week, namely a conclusion to the highway funding debate—for now—and the ongoing controversy over the actions of Planned Parenthood. With the highway funding deadline looming, the Senate and House reached a short-term agreement to keep money flowing for highway construction until October 29, 2015. However, both chambers remain committed to their competing proposals for a long-term fix; the Senate prefers a six-year measure that includes three years of various offsets and a renewal of the Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im), while the House wants a measure that prevents the Ex-Im bank from reopening and relies heavily on repatriation revenue from businesses operating overseas. Finding a long-term compromise will be near the top of the Congressional agenda when they return from the August recess.
Financial Services Report
Our Take
Last week Treasury Secretary Lew sent a letter to Congress letting them know that the Treasury’s extraordinary measures used to stave off default would likely expire around the end of October all but ensuring that we will once again see a conflation of the congressional effort to resolve the debt limit tied into the constitutional obligation of Congress to fund our government. With both parties appearing to have drawn their lines in the sand over the funding of Planned Parenthood, itself an issued that will be easily incorporated into the large politics of the 2016 Presidential race, the combination of these issues, plus Highway funding, international taxation, and the renewal of the Export-Import charter clearly mean that Congress will have a lot on its plate come the fall.
Health Policy Report
The Week in Review
Last week witnessed a flurry of transportation action, as the Senate worked through the weekend in hopes of advancing their version of highway funding legislation. The Senate’s six-year measure would pay for new highway funding for three years by using a variety of offsets on top of the current federal gas tax, which on its own is not generating enough revenue to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent. The Senate bill would generate $9 billion by selling crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, $16 billion by cutting the dividend rate paid by the Federal Reserve, and $4 billion by indexing customs fees to inflation. In order to placate Democrats, mass transit funding has been expanded in the bill and an offset taking away Social Security benefits for those with a felony warrant was removed. Even with all the changes, the Senate will eventually need to come up with another package of offsets to pay for the bill’s final three years.
Financial Services Report
Looking Ahead
Near Term
The House Financial Services Committee continues its nostalgic review of Dodd-Frank with a hearing on Tuesday. Later that afternoon the Committee will mark-up the following bills: