Weekly Legislative Update
 Week of December 12, 2016
  
Congressional Outlook

Week of December 12th

The House and Senate have adjourned for the remainder of the 114th Congress, and will return for the first day of the new 115th Congress at noon on Tuesday, January 3rd, 2017, when 52 new Representatives (25 Democrats and 27 Republicans) and 7 new Senators (5 Democrats and 2 Republicans) will be sworn into office. The House will meet for three additional pro forma sessions on December 12th, 13th, and 16th and the Senate will meet for seven additional pro forma sessions on December 13th, 16th, 20th, 23rd, 27th, 30th, and January 3rd, both in order for the House to pass a tranche of legislation that the Senate worked through the night and into this past Saturday morning to pass and to forestall any recess appointments during President Obama's final days in office.
 
The final party breakdown in the House for the 115th Congress is 241 Republicans and 194 Democrats, and the final party breakdown in the Senate is 52 Republicans and 48 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus. After Paul Ryan (R-WI) is officially re-elected as Speaker of the House on January 3rd, the 241 members of the House GOP conference will receive their Committee assignments for the new Congress.  
 
Congressional Republicans have a busy agenda for President-elect Donald Trump's first year in office. In addition to confirming Trump's Cabinet appointments, GOP leaders aim to repeal Obamacare, push through tax reform and pass a massive infrastructure package in the first few months of the 115th Congress. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Republicans would begin preparations to repeal the Affordable Care Act when the Senate reconvenes on January 3rd. Republicans plan to adopt two budget resolutions next year, which would give them two shots at "reconciliation," which allows for expedited consideration of certain tax, spending, and debt limit legislation which cannot be filibustered (i.e., it only needs a simple majority of 51 votes in the Senate to pass). GOP leaders plan to use the first resolution to repeal Obamacare, and the second one to push through tax reform.
Week in Review

President Obama Signs 140-Day Continuing Resolution Into Law, Averting Government Shutdown
 
On Saturday, December 10th, President Obama signed a 140-day Continuing Resolution (CR; H.R. 2028) into law, which funds the federal government from Dec. 10th, 2016-April 28th, 2017 (in-depth section-by-section analyses of the CR are available here and here). The CR, entitled the "Further Continuing and Security Assistance Appropriations Act, 2017," covers 11 of the 12 annual appropriations bills and will maintain government operations at the FY 2017 annual rate of $1.0696 trillion through April 28th. The House passed the bill on December 8th by a vote of 326-96 and the Senate passed the bill on December 9th by a vote of 63-36.
 
In addition to extending funding through April 28th, the legislation:
  • Provides $4.1 billion in emergency funding to rebuild and repair damages caused by Hurricane Matthew in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida; and severe flooding that occurred in Texas, Louisiana, West Virginia, and elsewhere;
  • Provides $10.1 billion in Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding for defense and non-defense priorities;
  • Provides $170 million, with an offset,in appropriations for the EPA and HHS to address the Flint, Michigan drinking water situation;
  • Provides $872 million from accounts funded by the 21st Century Cures Act, including:
    • o   $500 million to support grants to States to respond to the opioid abuse crisis;
    • o   $352 million to support biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health;
    • o   $20 million to modernize FDA regulation; and
    • Provides $45 million, fully offset, to the retired miners' health program for the duration of the CR. 
There are also several "anomalies," or changes to current funding rates or policy in the CR, including:  
  • A provision providing for expedited consideration in the Senate of legislation that overrides current law in the appointment of the next U.S. Secretary of Defense. The legislation would allow the next Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, to have been retired from active duty for more than three years but less than the current requirement of seven years;
  • A provision continuing language that blocks the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from finalizing a rule that would require public companies to disclose more about their donations to outside groups, such as trade associations, that engage in political spending;
  • A provision continuing language that prevents the Internal Revenue Service from issuing new guidance about what constitutes political activity by nonprofit organizations;
  • A provision allowing additional funding, if needed, for the housing and care of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) after February 1, 2017;
  • A provision changing a rider carried in the FY 2016 Omnibus in order to block the U.S. Department of Transportation's overnight rest break requirement of the "Hours of Service" rule, which was promulgated to prevent commercial vehicle accidents caused by driver fatigue; and
  • A provision preventing Members of Congress from getting a cost-of-living pay increase in 2017. 
House and Senate Pass Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation (WIIN) Act, Sending Bill to President Obama's Desk
 
Last week, Congress passed the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation (WIIN) Act ( S. 612), sending the bill to President Obama for his signature. The House passed the bill on December 8the by a vote of 360-61 and the Senate passed the bill in the early morning hours of December 10th by a vote of 78-21. According to the House Republican Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee staff, the WIIN Act "is comprehensive legislation to address the needs of America's harbors, locks, dams, flood protection, and other water resources infrastructure critical to the Nation's economic growth, health, and competitiveness. The WIIN Act is a measure that includes the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2016, which overwhelmingly passed the House in September, in addition to provisions to improve drinking water infrastructure around the country, address control of coal combustion residuals, improve water storage and delivery to help drought-stricken communities, address federal dam maintenance backlogs, and approve longstanding water settlement agreements for the benefit of taxpayers and Native Americans. The WIIN Act is the result of bicameral negotiations, improves critical infrastructure across America, and strengthens the economy." More detailed summaries of the entire WIIN Act provided by the relevant House and Senate Committees of jurisdiction are available here, here, and here. Read more...
Senate Passes 21st Century Cures Act, Sending Bill to President Obama's Desk
 
On December 7th, the Senate passed, by a vote of 94-5, the 21st Century Cures Act ( H.R. 34 ); the House previously passed the bill on November 30th by a vote of 392-26 . The bill provides for $4.8 billion over ten years for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), $500 million over ten years to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), $1.8 billion over ten years for Vice President Joe Biden's Cancer Moonshot initiative, and $1 billion over two years for grants to states to help combat the opioid epidemic. While fully offset, funding for H.R. 34 will need to be allocated on a yearly basis, through the annual appropriations process. The bill modifies current federal regulatory processes involving medical research, developing drugs and other treatments, and testing and approving those medical products in an effort to accelerate the development and delivery of cures to diseases and medical conditions. The bill directs funds towards high-risk, high-reward research performed by early stage investigators. NIH is encouraged to use the new influx of dollars to address areas of unmet medical needs, including but not limited to, biomarkers, precision medicine, infectious diseases, and antibiotics. The bill would promote the maintenance of the best biomedical workforce in the world by increasing the cap on the NIH student loan repayment programs to $50,000 annually and expanding the types of research that clinician scientists can pursue.

The bill modifies the FDA's regulatory framework for "precision drugs" that can be targeted to treat patients with a specific genotype of disease - consistent with President Obama's Precision Medicine Initiative. Additionally, the bill will help the FDA compete for qualified experts by allowing greater flexibility and resources to hire and retain staff by abolishing a hard cap on the number of staff the FDA is authorized to hire under its "senior service" core.The bill also includes reforms to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and initiatives intended to address mental health and substance use issues facing towns and cities across the nation. The bill establishes an Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders and reauthorizes numerous grant programs aimed at suicide prevention, crisis intervention and preventing substance use disorders. This section of the bill also includes language to ensure successful implementation of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, as well as a provision to allow law enforcement to use funds for mental health response training and crisis intervention. Offsets in the bill include the sale of 25 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Also included in the bill is House-passed language that would allow employers with less than 50 employees to offer pre-tax health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs), which is currently not allowed under the Affordable Care Act. The White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy for H.R. 34, stating that it "strongly supports passage" of the bill and President Obama will sign the bill into law on Tuesday, December 13th at a formal signing ceremony at the White House. Read more...
Senate Passes FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, Sending Bill to President Obama's Desk
 
On December 8th, the Senate passed, by a vote of 92-7, the $619 billion FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (S. 2943); the House previously passed the bill on December 2nd by a vote of 375-34. The bill sets FY 2017 Pentagon policy and funding levels and authorizes approximately $611.2 billion in discretionary budget authority in total. This includes $523.7 billion for the Department of Defense (DOD) base budget and $19.4 billion for the defense-related activities of the Department of Energy (DOE). The bill authorizes more than $67.8 billion in discretionary budget authority for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), which includes $3 billion of base, non-war spending that the House GOP majority deemed as funding for OCO in order to circumvent the Budget Control Act's defense discretionary spending cap for FY 2017 agreed to last fall. The initial House-passed bill included $18 billion in non-war funding deemed as funding for OCO.
 
The bill supports a 2.1% pay increase for military personnel and also updates the Uniform Code of Military Justice to include new protections for victims of military sexual assaults. The bill removes language in the House-passed bill that would have discriminated against LGBT employees and also removes language blocking the application of the "Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces" Executive Order to DOD as well as Senate language that would have exempted the DOD from numerous other executive orders related to labor rights. Language that would have prohibited funds from being used to enforce executive orders aimed at combatting climate change was also dropped. The bill provides $1.2 billion to combat ISIL and provides authority to train and assist vetted Syrian opposition forces through December 31, 2018, and maintains congressional oversight over those efforts. The legislation maintains existing restrictions on domestic transfers of Guantanamo detainees and prevents the use of funds for construction or modification of U.S. facilities to house Guantanamo detainees. President Obama is likely to sign the bill into law this week. Read more...
Energy Reform Bill Runs Out of Time in the House
 
House and Senate leadership pulled the plug on the energy reform package (S. 2012) last week, bringing to an end the significant efforts to negotiate a compromise between the different House and Senate passed measures. The Chairwoman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee, Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-WA), worked hard to finish negotiations with the House on the Senate bill, and accused House leadership of running out the clock on the bill. Read more...
House Passes ECHO Act, Sending Bill to President Obama's Desk
 
On December 6, the House passed, by voice vote, the Expanding Capacity for Health Outcomes (ECHO) Act ( S. 2873 ), which would require the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to study the possible use of distance-education technologies to provide health care, particularly in underserved areas. The Senate previously passed S. 2873 on November 29 by a vote of 97-0 . The ECHO Act a ims to better integrate the Project ECHO model-referred to as a "technology-enabled collaborative learning and capacity-building model"-into health systems across the country. The bill:
  • Requires the HHS Secretary, in collaboration with the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA), to prioritize analysis of the model, its impacts on provider capacity and workforce issues, and evidence of its effects on quality of patient care.
  • Requests a GAO report regarding opportunities for increased adoption of such models, efficiencies and potential cost savings from such models, ways to improve health care through such models, and field recommendations to advance the use of such models.
  • Requires the HHS Secretary to submit a report to Congress on the findings of the GAO report and the HHS report, including ways such models have been funded by HHS and how to integrate these models into current funding streams and innovative grant proposals.
The bill has now been sent to President Obama for his signature. Read more...
Senate Passes 61 Bills by Voice Vote Before Adjourning
 
In the early morning hours of Saturday, December 10th, the Senate passed 61 bills by voice vote, before adjourning. Many of these bills are non-controversial and had already been passed by the House earlier in the 114th Congress. These bills include:
  • The Railroad Emergency Services Preparedness, Operational Needs, and Safety Evaluation (RESPONSE) Act of 2016 (S. 546), which would enable first responders to get quality training to handle hazardous situations and have access to the appropriate resources and effective communications. Specifically, the bill would establish a public-private council that combines emergency responders, federal agencies, and leading experts to review training and best practices for first responders. This council, co-chaired by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), would provide Congress with expert recommendations on how to address first responders' safety needs with increased railway safety challenges so they can best protect communities across the country. The bill, which the House already passed with an amendment on November 29 by voice vote, now goes to President Obama to be signed into law;
  • The Marine Debris Act Amendments of 2016 (S. 3086), which would reauthorize and amend the Marine Debris Research, Prevention, and Reduction Act and authorize the appropriation of $10 million annually over the 2017-2021 period for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in coordination with other agencies, to carry out activities to reduce the amount of debris in oceans and coastal areas and $2 million annually for the Coast Guard (USCG) to better enforce laws about discarded refuse from ships. The bill has now been sent to the House for consideration;
  • The SEC Small Business Advocate Act of 2016 (H.R. 3784), which creates the Office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation and the Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee within the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The bill, which the House already passed with an amendment on November 29 by voice vote, now goes to President Obama to be signed into law;
  • The Open, Public, Electronic, and Necessary (OPEN) Government Data Act (S. 2852), which will require public data to be accessible at Data.gov so individuals, organizations, and other government offices can utilize it. The bill will require, by default, the data included at Data.gov to be machine-readable format to make it accessible to anyone and easily searchable. It also protects privacy and national security information when making federal government data available to the public while requiring federal agencies use it to improve decision-making. The bill has now been sent to the House for consideration;
  • The National Urban Search and Rescue Response System Act of 2016 (S. 2971), which would amend the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act to specifically authorize operations of the National Urban Search and Rescue Response System through 2019. The bill would authorize the appropriation of such sums as may be necessary for FEMA to continue to administer that system. Under current law, the system maintains and manages emergency search and rescue teams and coordinates with state and local governments to mobilize those teams in the case of a natural disaster, terrorist activity, or other emergency. The bill, which the House already passed with an amendment on December 7 by a vote of 405-7, now goes to President Obama to be signed into law; and
  • The Tribal Infrastructure and Roads Enhancement and Safety (TIRES) Act (S. 1776), which would modify the approval process for certain transportation projects on Indian reservations. The bill has now been sent to the House for consideration.
President-elect Trump Announces Additional Cabinet members
 
President-elect Donald J. Trump's transition team announced several Cabinet and executive nominations over the past week, including:
  • Businessman Andrew Puzder, to serve as U.S. Secretary of Labor;
  • Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt (R-OK), to serve as Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency;
  • Retired Marine General John F. Kelly, to serve as U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security;
  • Exxon Mobil Corporation CEO Rex Tillerson, to serve as U.S. Secretary of State (this nomination is still pending and not official, as of Dec. 12);
  • Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), to serve as U.S. Secretary of the Interior;
  • Wrestling magnate Linda McMahon, to serve as Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration;
  • Goldman Sachs COO Gary Cohn, to serve as Director of the National Economic Council;
  • Iowa Governor Terry Branstad (R-IA), to serve as U.S. Ambassador to China;
  • Retired Marine General James Mattis, to serve as U.S. Secretary of Defense; and
  • Neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson, to serve as U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
More nominations are expected to be made this week by the Trump transition team, including for U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, U.S. Secretary of Energy, and U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
President Obama Signs Five Bills Into Law
 
On December 8, President Obama signed the following five bills into law:
  • H.R. 4665, the "Outdoor Recreation Jobs and Economic Impact Act of 2016," which requires the Department of Commerce to conduct an assessment of the outdoor recreation economy of the United States;
  • H.R. 4902, which amends the overtime compensation system for U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Air and Marine Operations officers to Law Enforcement Availability Pay;
  • H.R. 5785, which exempts retired air traffic controllers under contract with the Federal Aviation Administration as full-time air traffic control instructors from a reduction to their Federal Employees Retirement System annuity supplement;
  • H.R. 5873, which designates the Federal building and United States courthouse located at 511 East San Antonio Avenue in El Paso, Texas, as the R.E. Thomason Federal Building and United States Courthouse; and 
  • S. 2754, which designates the Federal building and United States courthouse located at 300 Fannin Street in Shreveport, Louisiana, as the Tom Stagg Federal Building and United States Courthouse.
Congressional Schedule

There are no scheduled hearings this week as the House and Senate are in recess.