This week the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued an interim final rule to require employers with 100 or more employees to ensure each of their workers is full vaccinated or tests negative for COVID at least once a week and wears a face covering at work. 

Debt Ceiling

The House approved a bill on Tuesday that will briefly lift the debt ceiling until about December 3, 2021 (the same day the current continuing resolution funding the federal government expires). The bill increases the Treasury Department’s borrowing authority by $480B to nearly $28.9T. President Biden is expected to sign the bill into law.

Bipartisan $1.2T Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (H.R. 3684) (Infrastructure)

and

$3.5T Build Back Better Budget Act (Budget Reconciliation)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) want to send a budget reconciliation package and an infrastructure bill to the President’s desk before November. However, they are no way near reaching a deal on budget reconciliation within their own caucus even on the topline spending number. Progressives are pushing for $3.5T or more, while moderates in the party have suggested $1.5T is a more appropriate topline figure. President Biden has suggested a compromise of $2T. Without a compromise on the overall amount, the rest of the details for the reconciliation package can’t be ironed out. Once an overall spending level is agreed on, Progressives will have to determine what social spending or climate programs they are amenable to cutting to get to that spending level. Another option is to trim the duration of the programs instead of cutting them. However, the New Democratic Coalition (the House’s biggest moderate caucus) is arguing that a smaller package should focus on long-term certainty for a handful of priority programs. It may take until the end of the calendar year for Democrats to reach an agreement within their caucus. If that’s the case, then a longer-term lift of the debt ceiling could be included in a final budget reconciliation bill.

Upcoming Deadlines

Highway Authorization – October 31, 2021

FY2022 Appropriations Bills – December 3, 2021

Debt Ceiling – Approx. December 3, 2021 (Some forecasters say this latest increase in borrowing authority could allow Treasury to keep paying its bills through the end of the calendar year or even slightly into 2022.)

The Senate passed a $1.2 trillion bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (H.R. 3684) by a vote of 69 to 30 today. While this marks a major milestone for getting the bill enacted into law, there are a few more hurdles to overcome.

The bill now goes to the House for consideration. If the House passes the bill without any changes it would go directly to the President for his signature. The White House has privately cautioned House Democrats about making any changes to the bill saying it would risk delaying or blowing up the deal.

A group of Senate Republicans lead by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) unveiled a $568B infrastructure proposal today. This is their counteroffer to President Biden’s proposed $2.3T American Jobs Plan. 

Today House Democrats released a continuing resolution (CR) that would fund the federal government at FY 2020 levels when the FY2020 appropriations bills expire on September 30. The CR funds the federal government through December 11, 2020.

Under a CR, agencies are not allowed to initiate or resume any project or activity for which appropriations, funds, or other authority were not available in FY2020 (translation: no new starts under a CR).

The CR also includes, among other things, the following:

• Additional funding for Presidential Inauguration activities, transition activities, transition archival activities, and transition office space
• One-Year extension of the highway authorization at FY2020 levels
• Authorization of the National Flood Insurance Program through September 30, 2021
• One-Year reauthorization of the Appalachian Regional Commission
• Extensions of funding and authorizations for public health programs
• Medicare and Medicaid funding and authorization extenders
• Emergency Stopgap USCIS Stabilization Act
• United State Parole Commission Extension Act
• Antitrust Criminal Penalty Enhancement and Reform Permanent Extension Act
• Department of Veterans Affairs Expiring Authorities Act

The CR does not include the $30B in farm aid that the administration was seeking to replenish funding for the U.S. Dept of Agriculture’s Commodity Credit Corp. President Trump had announced $13B in new aid to farmers at a rally in Wisconsin on Thursday. Democrats had considered including the additional farm funding in the CR in exchange for $2B in child nutrition funding, but then canceled the tradeoff. Both programs are not funded in the CR.

The House will vote on the CR this week and then it will go to the Senate to act before September 30. Senate Republicans could potentially reject the measure, so a federal government shutdown is not out of the picture. However, support staff for Congress are affected during a shutdown. Those deemed non-essential would be furloughed. If the Senate wants to confirm a Supreme Court Justice, they are likely to want to avoid a shutdown.

Continuing Resolution Bill Text

https://rules.house.gov/sites/democrats.rules.house.gov/files/BILLS-116HR8319IH.pdf

Continuing Resolution Summary

https://appropriations.house.gov/sites/democrats.appropriations.house.gov/files/Continuing%20Appropriations%202021%20Extensions%202020%20Summary.pdf 

The House Appropriations Committee began work on their FY2021 spending bills last week. The committee will complete action on all 12 spending bills this week. Next week, they will package four of these bills – Agriculture, Interior-Environment, Military Construction-Veterans Affairs, and State-Foreign Operations – and consider them on the House floor. The week of July 27, they will take up another package of FY21 spending bills, but didn’t announce which bills would be included in that package. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) wrote in a Dear Colleague, “the House will have passed legislation to fund 96% of the government before the end of July for the second time in two years.” Most think that this means they will hold back the FY21 Homeland Security Appropriations bill from House floor consideration as it is 3.9% of the total FY21 discretionary budget.

Senate Appropriators have not released nor marked up any of their FY21 bills. Senate Republicans are concerned that Democrats will offer amendments on coronavirus aid (they think that should be considered separately) or on reforming police (they think that should be a separate policy bill, not a spending bill).

As they were marking up their FY21 bills, House Appropriators set the overall funding levels – called 302(b)s – for each subcommittee. Here’s how the House funding levels compare with the enacted levels for FY20.

The end of the fiscal year is September 30. Congress likely will have to pass a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government past September 30. A CR basically funds the government at the prior year’s funding levels and doesn’t allow for any new starts.

I went through some of the House FY21 spending bills and pulled funding levels and language for programs I thought would be of interest to FOSA members.

The Senate amended and passed H.R. 266, the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act earlier this week by voice vote. The House took up the measure yesterday and passed it by a vote of 388 (yea) to 5 (nay) to 1 (present). Four Republicans (Biggs – AZ, Buck – CO, Hice – GA, and Massie – KY) and one Democrat (Ocasio-Cortez – NY) voted no. Rep. Justin Amash (I-MI) voted present.

The $484B relief package amends the original Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act to provide an additional $310B for the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program and an additional $10B for Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) and Emergency Grants. The bill also makes agricultural enterprises with 500 or fewer employees eligible for EIDL grants. And it provides set asides of not less than $30B for insured depository institutions, credit unions, and community financial institutions with consolidated assets between $10B-$50B and not less than $30B for insured depository institutions, credit unions, and community financial institutions with consolidated assets less than $10B. To prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus, domestically or internationally, the bill provided an additional $2.1B to the U.S. Small Business Administration for salaries and expenses to administer these programs.

The bill also provides the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) an additional $1T for its Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund. Seventy-five billion is health care providers for health care related expenses or lost revenues that are attributable to coronavirus, and $25B is for research, development, validation, manufacturing, purchase, administration, and expanding capacity for COVID–19 tests to effectively monitor and suppress COVID–19, including tests for both active infection and prior exposure. The HHS Inspector General will receive $6M of the bill’s funds for oversight.

President Trump will sign the measure in a noon ceremony in the Oval Office.

H.R. 266, Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act

https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr266/BILLS-116hr266eas.pdf

What’s Next?

While H.R. 266 is the fourth bill passed by Congress to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, Congressional leaders and the administration have described it as an interim step or a CARES Act 2.0 as they negotiate the next package that they are referring to as “phase four.”

Congressional leaders have acknowledged that they need to do more. President Trump said this week that a phase four stimulus would include funding for road projects and expanding broadband service. He also wants a payroll tax cut and tax breaks for restaurants, sports and entertainment interests. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) wants to extend enhanced unemployment insurance benefits past their current July 31 expiration, and provide another round of tax rebate checks. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said the next bill should include funds for state and local governments, hazard pay for front-line workers, food aid, election security and funds for the U.S. Postal Service. Governors across the country are requesting at least $500 billion for state aid in the next bill. And sixty members of the New Democrat coalition asked House leadership in a letter to include policies in the next coronavirus stimulus bill to help communities start to reopen. The group details proposals on testing, surveillance and contact tracing.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), on the other hand, wants to wait and see how the first three stimulus bills work before adding additional debt. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin pushed back on McConnell saying that with interest rates very low the cost of carrying the debt to the American taxpayer is quite low.

This next phase of economic stimulus likely will be the last before the 2020 elections. Congress isn’t scheduled to return to D.C. until May 4, but staff and members are negotiating and preparing a phase four in the meantime.

The House and Senate passed H.R. 748, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act this week. This is the third piece of legislation to pass Congress in response to the coronavirus global pandemic. The first bill Congress passed provided $8.3B in emergency coronavirus funding and was enacted into law on March 6 (P.L. 116-123). The second bill, H.R. 6201, the $2.5B Families First Coronavirus Response Act, was signed into law on March 18 (P.L. 116-127).

The Senate passed H.R. 748 on Wednesday by a vote of 96-0. The four Senators not voting either tested positive for coronavirus or were self-quarantined because of exposure to someone: Sens. Lee (R-UT), Paul (R-KY), Romney (R-UT), and Thune (R-SD). While the vote was unanimous, negotiators spent several days working out a deal between the Senate, the House and the administration. And during floor consideration, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) offered an amendment that would have capped unemployment benefits at a person’s previous average pay. The Senate voted 48-48, falling short of the 60-vote threshold needed to pass the amendment. If Sasse had succeeded with his amendment, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) threatened to ask for an amendment that would tighten restrictions on companies that received government funds in the bill.

The House then passed the bill by voice vote today, but the vote followed a chaotic 24-hour scramble in which hundreds of lawmakers had to quickly return to DC to block a single Republican lawmaker from holding up the bill. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) asked for a recorded vote on H.R. 748, but was denied as there was an insufficient number of members of Congress requesting the recorded vote. Massie then objected and raised a point of order that a quorum was not present. The chair ruled that a quorum was present and the voice vote passing the bill was upheld.

The bill will provide Americans who earned less than $75,000 (single) or $150,000 (married) a one-time payout of $1200 (single) or $2400 (married).  In addition, they are eligible for an additional $500 per child. The rebate amount is reduced by $5 for each $100 that a taxpayer’s income exceeds $75,000 ($150,000 married). The amount is completely phased-out for single filers with incomes exceeding $99,000, $146,500 for head of household filers with one child, and $198,000 for joint filers with no children. For the vast majority of Americans, no action on their part will be required in order to receive a rebate check as the IRS will use a taxpayer’s 2019 tax return if filed, or in the alternative, their 2018 return. The bill also provides unemployed individuals with an additional $600 a week for four months on top of their regular unemployment compensation.

The bill also provides $500B for distressed businesses. However, there are some restrictions on this funding including limits on executive pay, a ban on stock buybacks, a ban on outsourcing, and requirements that companies honor collective bargaining agreements and stay neutral on any union organization efforts.

The President is expected to sign the bill later today.

CARES Act

https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/FINAL%20FINAL%20CARES%20ACT.pdf

Senate Appropriations Committee Summary (Republicans)

https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Coronavirus%20Supplemental%20Appropriations%20Summary_FINAL.pdf

Senate Appropriations Committee Summary (Democrats)

https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/032520%20Title-By-Title%20Summary%20FINAL.pdf

Unemployment Insurance Section-By-Section

https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/CARES%20Act%20Section-by-Section%20(Tax,%20Unemployment%20Insurance).pdf

Health Policy Section-By-Section

https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/CARES%20Act%20Section-by-Section%20(Finance%20Health).pdf

Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee Section-by-Section

https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/ef2d5d75-82b2-4de8-9e4e-89e1cdc2b758/EA7D2DA06BB292AB5903710F77D02485.final-section-by-section—keeping-american-workers-employed-and-paid-act.pdf

Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee One Pager

https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/28e8263e-e7d4-4da7-a67b-077c54ba4220/9F7B494B2E355791B24536DC2162CF16.final-one-pager-keeping-american-workers-paid-and-employed-act-.pdf