The House and Senate are in session this week. The House will vote on nine bills under suspension of the rules, including the Senior Security Act of 2019 (H.R. 1876), which would establish a Senior Investor Taskforce at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to identify challenges such as the financial exploitation and cognitive decline of investors older than 65, and to consider whether rules issued by the SEC or securities self-regulatory organizations should be changed. The House will also vote on the Climate Action Now Act (H.R. 9), which would keep the United States in the 2016 Paris Agreement on climate change; prohibit the use of federal funds to take actions to remove the U.S. from the accord; and require the White House to submit to Congress a plan for the U.S. to meet its voluntary commitments under the Paris Agreement and to use the deal's transparency provisions to hold other countries accountable for meeting their commitments.

 

The Senate will consider eight executive and judicial nominations, including: William Cooper to be General Counsel of the Department of Energy; R. Clarke Cooper to be an Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs; Gordon Hartogensis to be Director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation; J. Campbell Barker to be U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Texas; Andrew Brasher to be U.S. District Judge for the Middle District of Alabama; Rodolfo Ruiz II to be U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Florida; Raul Arias-Marxuach to be U.S. District Judge for the District of Puerto Rico; and Joshua Wolson to be U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

 

Three House Appropriations Subcommittees will markup the first FY 2020 Appropriations bills to receive action this year: Labor-Health and Human Services-Education; Legislative Branch; and Military Construction-Veterans Affairs. House appropriators have yet to agree on top-line allocations for all 12 subcommittees, which they plan to vote on at the first full committee markup, possibly next week. The House and Senate Appropriations Committees will hold additional FY 2020 budget hearings with the heads of the Departments of Homeland Security, Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Labor; the Central Intelligence Agency; the Federal Emergency Management Agency; the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, among others.

 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) are scheduled to sit down with President Trump on Tuesday morning to discuss infrastructure legislation, which has long been a chief priority for both Democrats and the President. The meeting will serve as a major test as to whether bipartisanship is possible in an increasingly hostile environment in Washington. Although the White House and Democrats have pointed to infrastructure as a possible area for working together, how to pay for an overhaul of the country's roads and bridges has remained a persistent question.