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June 25, 2018 - Washington Report

By Leah Wavrunek posted 06-25-2018 03:17 PM

  

This Week on the Hill

The House and Senate are in session this week before a one-week recess over July 4th, with an expected focus on immigration and the farm bill.

The House convenes today and will consider 20 bills, followed by votes through Thursday on bills including an immigration bill (H.R. 6136) and the Department of Defense appropriations act (H.R. 6157). Several committees scheduled hearings this week: the Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing Tuesday on sports betting following the Supreme Court decision and the Veterans’ Affairs Committee will hold a hearing Tuesday on hiring and retaining veterans.

The Senate convenes today and is expected to finish up consideration of the three-bill spending package (additional information below). Following the spending bill, the chamber is expected to begin consideration of the farm bill (S. 3042). Several committees scheduled hearings this week: the Finance Committee will hold a hearing Tuesday on prescription drug affordability; the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will hold a hearing Wednesday on reducing health care costs; and the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a hearing Wednesday on Medicaid fraud and overpayments.

 

Fiscal Year 2019 Budget Update

The House and Senate continue to advance fiscal year 2019 spending bills, with the Senate expected to hold a final vote later today on its first spending package to reach the floor.

  • House Budget Resolution: The House Budget Committee approved a fiscal 2019 budget resolution on a 21-13 party-line vote last week. The bill directs 11 authorizing committees to produce $302 billion in mandatory spending cuts over ten years. The Senate has not announced plans to pass a fiscal 2019 budget resolution and with several spending bills already being advanced through the House, this may be a largely symbolic plan.
  • House State-Foreign Operations: The full Appropriations Committee approved the $54 billion spending bill by a vote of 30-21 on Wednesday, which is equal to the fiscal 2018 enacted level.
  • House Spending Allocations: The full Appropriations Committee voted 28-22 to reduce the Homeland Security bill’s discretionary spending level from $52.5 billion to $51.4 billion, following previous action to add $1.1 billion to the Military Construction-Veterans Affairs spending bill to cover veterans’ health care programs.
  • Senate Homeland Security: The full Appropriations Committee voted 26-5 to advance the bill which provides $55.15 billion, including $48.33 billion in discretionary funding. The bill spends $611 million more than the fiscal 2018 enacted level and adds additional border patrol agents while also providing $148 million to combat the opioids crisis. The Federal Emergency Management Agency would receive $11.69 billion, including $3.27 billion for grant and training programs directed to state and local first responders and emergency management personnel. The Ranking Member’s summary is here.
  • Senate Financial Services: The full Appropriations Committee voted 31-0 to advance the $23.7 billion bill which funds Treasury, the Executive Office of the President and the federal judiciary. An amendment to add $250 million to the Election Assistance Commission for grants to states failed on a 15-16 vote. The Ranking Member’s summary is here.
  • Senate State-Foreign Operations: The full Appropriations Committee voted 31-0 to advance the $54.4 billion bill, which is an increase of $400 million over fiscal 2018 enacted levels. The Ranking Member’s summary is here.
  • Senate Spending Package: The Senate is scheduled to hold a final vote Monday evening on the first spending package to reach the floor, encompassing the Energy-Water, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction-Veterans Affairs spending bills. The nearly $147 billion spending measure had almost 100 amendments submitted, and a manager’s package adopted last week included 30 amendments. The House passed their version on June 8 by a vote of 235-179.

This week the Senate will mark up the Defense spending bill and the Labor-Health and Human Services-Education bill while the House will also mark up the Labor-HHS-Education bill. After this week, all spending measures except Homeland Security will have advanced out of the House Appropriations Committee, while the Senate Appropriations Committee will have completed work on all 12 spending bills.

 

Supreme Court Overturns 1992 Sales Tax Ruling

The Supreme Court issued a 5-4 opinion on Thursday overturning a 1992 ruling that barred states from collecting sales tax from businesses with no physical presence in the state. The ruling in South Dakota v. Wayfair overturned Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, finding the physical presence rule of Quill is “unsound and incorrect.” Chief Justice John Roberts filed the dissent, believing the issue was best left to Congress.

 

House Passes Farm Bill, Senate Vote Expected This Week

On Thursday the House voted 213-211 to pass the Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018 (H.R. 2), the farm bill written by House Republicans. Democrats are opposed to the bill due to increased work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and tightened eligibility requirements. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill will cost $430 billion over five years and $868 billion over a ten-year scoring window. Additional information on the bill can be found here. The Senate Agriculture Committee approved a bipartisan bill on June 13 and the full chamber will begin consideration of the bill later today. Due to the differences between the two chambers, a conference committee will be required to reconcile the bills. The current authorization ends September 30.

 

Department of Labor Releases Final Rule on Association Health Plans

The Department of Labor (DOL) released its final rule on Association Health Plans (AHPs) that broadens the definition of employer under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) to allow entities to form associations and offer individuals health insurance coverage on the basis of geography or industry. The final rule carries out the President’s Executive Order 13813, “Promoting Healthcare Choice and Competition Across the United States,” issued on October 12, 2017, that directed the Secretary of Labor to consider issuing regulations or revising guidance that would expand access to more affordable health coverage by permitting more employers to form AHPs. As many as 4 million people will have coverage in AHPs in the coming years, according to the Secretary of Labor, including 400,000 people who previously did not have any insurance coverage.

 

State Groups Sign Letter Opposing Public Employee Pension Transparency Act

Last week a coalition of national organizations representing state and local governments, elected officials, finance professionals, employees and retirement systems sent a letter to Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) opposing the Public Employee Pension Transparency Act. The bill is currently being circulated by Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA) who introduced a similar bill in 2016. According to the letter, the bill “conflicts with existing governmental accounting standards, inserts the federal government into areas that are the fiscal responsibility of sovereign states and localities, imposes costly federal regulation, and threatens to eliminate the tax-exempt bonding authority of state and local governments.”

 

Proposed Reorganization of Executive Branch Would Combine Labor and Education Departments

The administration released a plan to reorganize the federal government, fulfilling an executive order issued in March 2017 directing the proposal of a comprehensive plan to reform the federal government to be more efficient, effective, and accountable. Major proposed changes include merging the Departments of Labor and Education, moving the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program from the Department of Agriculture to the renamed Department of Health and Public Welfare (formerly Health and Human Services) and restructuring the postal service. Under the proposal the regulation of food safety would move to a new federal agency, the Federal Food Safety Agency, within the Department of Agriculture while environmental cleanup programs across the Departments of Interior, Agriculture and Environmental Protection Agency would be consolidated under the Superfund program. The House Oversight and Government Reform will hold a hearing on the plan Wednesday.

 

Rescission Vote Fails in Senate

The Senate held a procedural vote on the President’s nearly $15 billion rescission bill (H.R. 3) on Wednesday which failed on a vote of 48-50 after two Republicans joined all Democrats in voting against it. The bill would rescind budget authority from accounts identified by the administration on May 8 and June 5, with the largest amount ($7 billion) coming from the Children’s Health Insurance Program. A special procedure which allowed the bill to pass with a simple majority of votes expired on Friday, leaving a future vote uncertain. The House approved the bill by a vote of 210-206 on June 7.

 

House Passes Numerous Opioid Bills Over Two Weeks

The House approved over 60 bills over the previous two weeks related to opioids and treatment for substance use disorder. Some of the bills of interest to states include: H.R. 4005, which allows inmates to restart Medicaid benefits 30 days before release; H.R. 3192, which extends access to mental health and substance use disorder services to children and pregnant women under the Children’s Health Insurance Program; H.R. 5801, which integrates prescription drug monitoring programs into state Medicaid programs; H.R. 5797, which allows state Medicaid programs to remove the Institutions for Mental Diseases (IMD) exclusion for Medicaid beneficiaries aged 21 to 64 with an opioid use disorder for fiscal years 2019-2023; H.R. 6082, which allows health care professionals access to a patient’s medical history related to substance abuse without their explicit consent, aligning with HIPAA; and H.R. 6, a comprehensive bill including several provisions related to Medicaid and Public Health. The Senate is coordinating a package of opioid bills across several committees and an eventual conference committee will be required to work out differences between the chambers.

 

Perkins Reauthorization Markup Scheduled in Committee

On Tuesday the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions has scheduled a markup on a bill to reauthorize the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. The law spends approximately $2 billion each year on career and technical education programs and was last updated in 2006. The House passed a bipartisan reauthorization bill, H.R. 2353, in June 2017. The National Governors Association sent a letter to the committee urging lawmakers to keep governors in mind when it comes to reauthorizing the bill and to connect Perkins to state economic development and workforce systems.

 

Recently Released Reports

Aligning State Systems for a Talent-Driven Economy: A Road Map for States

National Governors Association

Report to Congress on Medicaid and CHIP: June 2018

Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission

Child Welfare Outcomes 2015: Report to Congress

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Increasing the Supply of Qualified High School Teachers for Dual Enrollment Programs: An Overview of State and Regional Accreditor Policies

Education Commission of the States

What We Don't Know About State Spending on Natural Disasters Could Cost Us

The Pew Charitable Trusts

 

Economic News

 

Unemployment Rates Lower in 14 States in May

New data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that many state unemployment rates saw little change in May; 36 states and the District of Columbia had stable rates and 14 states had lower rates. Compared to one year earlier, 39 states and the District of Columbia had little or no change, while 11 states had unemployment rate decreases. The national unemployment rate edged down from April to 3.8 percent and was 0.5 percentage point lower than in May 2017. Nonfarm payroll employment increased in 7 states in May and was essentially unchanged in 43 states and the District of Columbia. Over the year, 35 states added nonfarm payroll jobs and 15 states and the District of Columbia were essentially unchanged.

 

Report Shows Federal Government’s Fiscal Path is Unsustainable

The U.S. Government Accountability Office recently released The Nation’s Fiscal Health, which shows the reported federal budget deficit increased to $666 billion in fiscal year 2017. This was the second consecutive year that the budget deficit increased, up from $587 billion in fiscal year 2016 and $439 billion in fiscal year 2015. After the end of fiscal year 2017, Congress and the President enacted the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, and the

Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018. In its April 2018 budget and economic outlook report, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that these legislative changes increased the projected deficit by $271 billion for fiscal year 2018 and by $2,656 billion over the next 10 years (2018–2027). According to the report, absent policy changes, the federal government’s fiscal path is unsustainable and the debt-to-GDP ratio would surpass its historical high of 106 percent within 14 to 22 years.