Congress has returned to Washington from their long summer recess. While those of us that never left got used to the traffic snarling once again, members of the House and Senate jumped back into a few of the pots they left simmering on the fire while they were gone.
The Senate immediately began preparing for a vote on its WRDA bill, which includes aid for the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Sen. Jim Inhofe, and Ranking Member Sen. Barbara Boxer have worked amendments into their manager's amendment while Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has cleared a path for a vote on the floor. That vote could come early next week and should come before the week is over. One amendment is the reauthorization of the Comite Diversion Project in Louisiana that has drawn so much attention since the flooding in that state. The House has not made any movements toward passing their version of WRDA, which does not contain aid for Flint and would require a pretty heavy lift in conference to line up with the Senate's version should it get out of the House.
Conferees from the House and Senate met for their first face to face meeting of the Energy Bill conference on Thursday. While all members are still putting a brave face forward and saying the right things about getting a conference report to the President's desk, several challenges loom. Congressman Frank Pallone (D-NJ), the key negotiator for House Democrats, has said that his support for a final report is contingent upon inclusion of appropriated dollars for energy infrastructure investments. That's a big ask in this political environment with spending already up against budget caps. House Republican Rob Bishop's opposition to the permanent reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund in the Senate's version of the bill will need to be smoothed over at some point as well. The permanent reauthorization of the popular program was critical to Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair Lisa Murkowski attracting bipartisan support for her bill. While both sides recognize that there are challenges, the lead negotiators also know that if they can't get a conference report signed by President Obama, eighteen months of work will have been for naught and they will need to start all over in 2017.
Finally, the biggest buzz in DC comes from the budget process. Since both chambers only passed a handful of appropriations bills before the summer, some funding mechanism for the government must be found before last year's budget omnibus expires at the end of September. The easiest, and therefore the most likely, solution is a short term Continuing Resolution, or CR, that would continue current levels of funding for the government through the end of the year, giving Congress time to work on another omnibus during the lame duck session after the elections have ended. There is significant opposition to a short term CR from some House Republicans in the Freedom Caucus, who fear that a short term CR will lead to another omnibus that could increase government spending. Democrats and the White House have said that they support a short term CR.
