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The House and Senate are in session this week before a two-week recess for the July 4th holiday.
The Senate will begin working on the upper chamber’s appropriations process for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024. The process starts with deciding the total funding amounts that each of the 12 subcommittees will receive (known as 302(b) allocations). Following a decision on allocations, many expect the Senate to follow the guidance of the bipartisan debt ceiling deal through the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. The Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs bills will be marked up first.
The House Appropriations Committee will mark up the Homeland Security and the Legislative Branch Appropriations bills on Wednesday, and the Defense and Energy-Water will receive a full committee markup on Thursday. The Financial Services appropriations subcommittee will mark up its spending bill on Thursday. House Republicans have reduced government funding by $130 billion, with the Financial Services bill receiving a 59 percent decrease for FY 2024. Notably, the House set its appropriations levels below the agreed-upon debt limit deal; this discrepancy will remain a sticking point for Congress as it could head toward a potential government shutdown if negotiations stall before the September 30 deadline.
Also, this week, the Senate will vote on several judicial nominations, including Natasha Merle as United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York and Julie Rikelman as United States Circuit Judge for the First Circuit.
This Farm Bill will take the stage as another key issue for Congress to address. Of note, House Agriculture Committee staff have begun writing the 2023 Farm Bill, with negotiations around the text expected to begin in earnest following the July 4th recess. The House version of the legislation will most likely be marked up in early September (the week of September 11 at the earliest), leaving minimal time to reconcile the bill with the Senate before the September 30 deadline for many farm bill authorizations. Congress has the option to apply short-term extensions to some of those expiring provisions. Additionally, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees will begin full committee markups of the National Defense Authorization Act on Wednesday.
For the remainder of the week, the House will hold several hearings, including an Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing on the “Clearing the Air: Examining the Environmental Protection Agency’s Proposed Emissions Standards” and an Agriculture Committee hearing on “Stakeholder Perspectives on USDA’s Rural Development Programs.” In the Senate, the Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a hearing on “Reauthorization of the Economic Development Administration: State and Local Perspectives.”
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