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The House and Senate are in session this week, with both chambers returning Tuesday evening. Congress must pass final Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 government funding legislation by Friday, March 8, to avoid a partial federal government shutdown. President Joe Biden will hold his State of the Union address on Thursday evening beginning at 9pm ET and the Biden-Harris Administration is scheduled to release its FY 2025 budget proposal to Congress on Monday, March 11.
On Friday, President Biden signed the Extension of Continuing Appropriations and Other Matters Act, 2024 (P.L. 118-40), into law, averting a partial government shutdown. Those extensions to the Agriculture-Rural Development-Food and Drug Administration, Energy-Water Development, Military Construction-Veterans Affairs, and Transportation-Housing and Urban Development Appropriations bills all face a March 8 deadline. Congress must act on the remaining eight bills by Friday, March 22. On Sunday afternoon, led by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), House and Senate appropriators released the first “minibus” package with the four bills expiring Friday in addition to the final FY24 Commerce-Justice-Science and Interior-Environment spending bills. The six-bill, $436 billion appropriations package titled the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024, which is 1,050 pages long, represents the least controversial of the 12 appropriations bills. The first minibus will provide a meager $1.5 billion increase over the enacted FY23 omnibus funding levels. Specifically, the Energy-Water and Transportation-HUD bills would receive small increases, with Agriculture bill funding remaining flat and the other three bills receiving slight reductions. Both parties claimed victories in the negotiations. The first minibus makes up around 26 percent of annual discretionary spending. The FY24 funding breakdowns are as follows:
Agriculture-Rural Development-FDA: $26.2 billion
Commerce-Justice-Science: $81.8 billion
Energy-Water Development: $58.2 billion
Interior-Environment: $38.9 billion
Military Construction-Veterans Affairs: $346.7 billion
Transportation-Housing and Urban Development: $103 billion
When Congress acts on the minibus package, it will also finalize and approve several thousand Community Project Funding / Congressional Directed Spending requests (i.e., earmarks) for FY 2024. The remaining six FY24 spending bills, which expire on March 22, face a more difficult path, including negotiations on numerous policy riders and significant differences regarding congressional earmarks under the Labor-HHS-Education spending bill. The House will vote on the first minibus package under “suspension of the rules” which allows for streamlined consideration of the measure on the House floor. However, passage will require a two-thirds majority (i.e., 288 votes if all 432 current House members are present and voting).
The House will consider fourteen bills under suspension of the rules, including the NTIA Reauthorization Act of 2023 (H.R. 4510), which reauthorizes the National Telecommunications and Information Administration through FY 2025 and updates the mission and functions of the agency; and the Energy Emergency Leadership Act (H.R. 3277), which requires the Energy Department to establish a new assistant secretary position focused on preparing for and responding to energy emergencies such as physical and cyberattacks on grid infrastructure. The House will also vote on the Expanding Access to Capital Act of 2023 (H.R. 2799), which loosens federal securities regulations in an effort to increase access to capital markets, including relaxing Securities and Exchange Commission registration and disclosure requirements for investors, companies, advisers, and brokers and changing the accredited investor definition to enable more individuals to invest in private companies and preempt state laws related to independent contractor status; and the Laken Riley Act (H.R. 7511), which allows states to pursue civil action against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other federal agencies for harms allegedly caused by not complying with immigration laws related to admissions and removals. H.R. 7511 also requires DHS to detain migrants who enter the country illegally or who are charged with burglary or shoplifting.
This week, the Senate will vote on the Airport and Airway Extension Act of 2024 (H.R. 7454), which the House passed last Thursday by a vote of 401-19. The upper chamber expects to pass the legislation, making it the third extension to the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) funding authorities from March 8 to Friday, May 10. The extension provides lawmakers two additional months to finish bicameral negotiations on a five-year reauthorization. Three weeks ago, the Senate Commerce Committee passed its version of the five-year FAA reauthorization by voice vote, leaving necessary action on the Senate Floor; the House passed its version back in July 2023. The Senate will also vote this week on the nominations of Ronald Keohane to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, Moshe Marvit to be a Member of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission, and Cathy Ann Harris to be Chairman of the Merit Systems Protection Board.
For the remainder of the week, the House will hold several hearings including a Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing on “Department of Transportation Discretionary Grants: Stakeholder Perspectives;” an Oversight and Accountability Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic hearing on “Examining the White House’s Role in Pandemic Preparedness and Response;” and a Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries hearing on the “America’s Wildlife Habitat Conservation Act” (H.R. 7408). The Senate will hold several committee hearings, including a Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing on the “National Transportation Safety Board Investigations Report.”
This Tuesday is “Super Tuesday,” a critical day for the presidential primaries as voters from 16 states and one territory will head to the polls to select their nominee for each party.
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