The House and Senate are in session this week. The House will consider 18 bills under suspension of the rules, including the Hazard Eligibility and Local Projects (HELP) Act (H.R. 2548), which modifies eligibility for FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Assistance grant programs to allow local governments to begin work on projects before funds are awarded; the Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability (DATA) Act (H.R. 4229), which requires the FCC to issue new rules to require the collection and dissemination of granular broadband availability data and to create new maps to facilitate analysis of the data it collects and inform decision making; the Mapping Accuracy Promotes Services (MAPS) Act (H.R. 4227), which makes it unlawful for a person to willfully, knowingly, or recklessly submit broadband service data that is inaccurate;and the Grant Reporting Efficiency and Agreements Transparency (GREAT) Act of 2019 (H.R. 150), which establishes government-wide data standards for information reported by grant recipients and requires the publication of recipient-reported data collected from all federal agencies on a single public website.
On Tuesday, the House will vote on two "minibus" appropriations packages funding the federal government for the remainder of fiscal year 2020 (i.e., Sept. 30, 2020), in order to avoid a government shutdown beginning Saturday, Dec. 21. The two packages total $738 billion for the military and $632 billion for non-defense spending. The first package includes the Defense, Commerce-Justice-Science, Financial Services,and Homeland Security spending bills, while the second package includes the remaining eight spending bills (Agriculture, Energy-Water, Interior-Environment, Labor-HHS-Education, Legislative Branch, Military Construction-VA, State-Foreign Operations and Transportation-HUD). The spending packages also include funding extensions for several health care programs (including community health centers); the permanent repeal of three major health insurance taxes; an extension of the National Flood Insurance Program through Sept. 30, 2020; federally prohibiting the sale of tobacco products to people under 21; and two years of additional funding for the Secure Rural Schools program, among other issues.
The House may also vote on the Restoring Tax Fairness for States and Localities Act (H.R. 5377), which suspends, for 2020 and 2021, the $10,000 limit on the amount of state and local taxes (SALT) that can be deducted on federal returns, increases the top marginal income tax rate to 39.6% to offset the cost of the SALT cap changes, and allow teachers to deduct more expenses.
On Tuesday, the Senate will vote on the House-passed conference agreement for the FY 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (S. 1790), which authorizes about $635 billion in base funding for the Defense Department and $71.5 billion in Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding. The bill would also create a three-month paid parental leave program for federal employees; provide a 3.1% pay raise for service members; reduce the use of "forever chemicals" - per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) - on military bases; and establish the Space Force as part of the U.S. Air Force. The Senate will then vote, on Wednesday and/or Thursday, on the two FY 2020 minibus appropriations packages that the House is set to pass on Tuesday.
On Thursday at 9pm ET/6pm PT, seven candidates running in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary are scheduled to debate each other at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California, hosted by PBS NewsHour and Politico: former Vice President Joe Biden, Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and entrepreneurs Tom Steyer and Andrew Yang.
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