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The Senate is in session this week for one more week before leaving Washington on Thursday afternoon for the August recess. The House canceled all votes on the schedule for this week and leadership decided to break for recess early and will return on September 9. The Legislative Update will take a break alongside Congress and return on Monday, September 9.
After House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and other Republican leadership acknowledged their plan to pass all 12 Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 spending bills by the start of the August recess was going to fail, House Republican leaders decided to cancel all votes slated for this week and begin their recess early. The House has passed five bills through the full House floor to-date, leaving the House with significant controversial provisions and riders to work through upon returning next month.
On Thursday, the full Senate Appropriations Committee will mark up their versions of the FY 2025 Energy—Water Development (E&W), Defense, Labor—Health and Human Services—Education (LHHS), and Financial Services—General Government (FSGG) spending bills. The FY25 Homeland Security spending bill was originally going to be marked up as well but was pulled off the docket by Committee leaders on Monday over immigration-related programs. Approved lists of FY25 Congressionally Directed Spending (CDS) requests submitted by senators in May under the FY25 E&W, LHHS, and FSGG spending bills will be announced publicly on Thursday following the markup. Following the markup, the Senate Appropriations Committee will have completed markups of 11 of the 12 annual spending bills – setting up important negotiations before the September 30 deadline to fund the government.
The Senate this week will take a final vote on the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act (S. 2073), which is an inclusion of two bills, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children’s and Teens Online Protection Act (COPPA), limiting the amount of data that platforms can collect on children and offering kids the ability to opt out of various design features like content recommendations and engagement nudges. The Senate will also vote on the nomination of Adam Landy to be a Judge of the U.S. Tax Court for a term of fifteen years and Stacey Neumann to be a U.S. District Judge for the District of Maine. The Senate will also hold a joint hearing Tuesday between the Homeland Security and Judiciary Committees on the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, with testimony from the Secret Service and FBI.
For the remainder of the week, the Senate will hold several additional committee hearings and markups, most notably a Finance Committee hearing on “Tax Tools for Local Economic Development”; an Energy and Natural Resources hearing to consider “The Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024 (S. 4753)”; a Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on “Long-Term Economic Benefits and Impacts from Federal Infrastructure and Public Transportation Investment”; a Budget Committee hearing on “Charging Ahead: The Future of Electric Vehicles” and an Appropriations Committee markup of the FY 2025 Energy—Water Development; Defense; Labor—Health and Human Services—Education; and Financial Services—General Government Appropriations Bills.
Arizona will hold primary elections for the Republican nominee in the state’s U.S. Senate race between Kari Lake and Mark Lamb. Several competitive House primaries will also take place in the Grand Canyon State, including a six-way Democratic primary election in the 1st Congressional District to take on GOP incumbent Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) in November. House members will attend the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s (D-Texas) funeral on Thursday in Houston.
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