Congress Adjourns for Summer With Work Still To Do
The House and Senate adjourned late last week for their annual August recess, leaving no shortage of legislative to-do items to address later in the year. With Congress’s summer work period now over, we wanted to provide a brief overview of the post-August landscape as well as a quick review of the current status of issues of interest to the University.
Looking Ahead to September and the Lame Duck
Congress returns to work on September 9 with just two weeks of legislative work scheduled before another long recess ahead of the November mid-term elections. Recognizing the unlikelihood of completing its work, leaders have already scheduled a Congressional Lame Duck session to run from mid-November potentially through much of December. However, much of the post-election schedule will be shaped by the outcome of the midterm elections and whether Senate control will flip between the parties next year.
One must-do item in the short September work period is the adoption of some measure to continue funding for federal programs at the start of the new fiscal year on October 1. At this point, it seems a continuing resolution (CR) will likely be needed for all accounts. As neither party wants to threaten a shutdown ahead of the midterms, the CR will likely simply put federal operations on auto-pilot until Members return in November. Another funding matter is likely also to demand attention in September – the supplemental border security bill that delayed the House recess and remains a high priority for the Administration with the humanitarian crisis at the border. However, with elections so close on the horizons, politics and posturing on key issues are likely to dominate the September session leaving most issues for the lame duck.
The productivity of the lame duck will depend in large part on the outcome of the elections. Though the Republican majority in the House is in no danger, the Democratic majority in the Senate is another matter. At least 10 competitive Senate races will determine control of that chamber in January. If Republicans achieve a net gain of six Senate seats (as predicted by many) and win a Senate majority in the next Congress, the GOP may be less inclined to compromise on many issues during the lame duck, preferring instead to push consideration of bills into the new Congress when they will control both houses of Congress. No doubt some issues will be essential to do. The annual Defense authorization bill has always been completed. And depending on the length of the CR adopted in the September session, federal funding will need to be extended further or resolved in some sort of omnibus fashion during the lame duck in order to cover federal spending through the remainder of the year.
Pending Legislation of Interest
With many questions for what the fall will bring, following is a high-level roundup of action on relevant bills, though not all items necessarily have a future in this Congress.
FY15 Appropriations: In December 2013 the Murray-Ryan budget agreement, which established agreed-upon, bipartisan top line spending levels for Fiscal Years 2014 and 2015, led to a great deal of optimism that having achieved this overall agreement, unlike in the recent past, appropriators might be able to complete the 12 annual appropriations bills that fund the federal government through the regular legislative process. This prospect fueled a hope that the regular order would serve the higher education and research community well as we have typically fared better when bills progressed through the formal committee process and to conclusion in each branch. Funding for National Endowment for the Humanities is a good example; after having its funding cut in the committee, the full House eliminated the cut by restoring $8 million on the House floor.
The early optimism for FY15 has faded however and, as of today, the House has approved just eight of the 12 appropriations measures while the Senate did not pass a single one – leaving the potential of flat funding through a CR very much alive. Within the bills that are currently in process in either the House or Senate support for research and education accounts are mixed. In the fiscally conservative House, the National Science Foundation has received a comparatively generous three percent increase, while basic research performed by the DOD has been cut. In the Senate, the National Institutes of Health has received a two percent boost while also providing strong support for basic and applied research at the Defense Department.
Attached is a table tracking the progress of the appropriations bills most important to Harvard (including FY10 when spending was at a high). All of these figures are merely markers for larger negotiations between the House and Senate as they work to compile an omnibus spending package necessary to fund the government. The alternative, less desirable option, is another continuing resolution that would, at best, continue current fiscal year funding levels until the new Congress convenes next year. It may be that ultimately leaders will adopt a mix of approaches with some accounts being approved at new levels and others continuing at last year’s funding.
Larger Federal Budget Issues: Looming but unlikely to be on this Congress’s plate are the larger fiscal challenges facing Congress. The Murray-Ryan House/Senate budget agreement of 2013 was a two year deal only and, after FY15, sequestration returns. Sequestration, enacted as a part of the 2011 Budget Control Act, restrains federal spending below the BCA’s low overall caps through automatic, across-the-board cuts. If fully enforced without change, non-defense discretionary spending would not recover to nominal FY10 levels until FY19. In March 2015, the current agreement on the federal debt limit will expire putting this difficult issue once again before the Congress. Many are predicting, with the debt limit debate, the expiration of the Murray-Ryan deal and the return of sequestration, that there will be a renewed effort to craft a grand budget deal. But once again, new Congressional leaders will be key to this debate so we await the outcomes of the midterms.
Comprehensive Tax Reform: Although both House and Senate committees have dedicated substantial time and attention to comprehensive tax reform, it is no longer expected this year and will likely become part of the debate on the larger fiscal issues. Republicans have argued for comprehensive tax reform that lowers rates and simplifies the law for both individuals and corporate entities and that is revenue neutral. Democrats have pushed for simplification, some lower rates and new tax revenues to address the budget shortfalls. Until this fundamental question is resolved, tax leaders have lowered their sights – with efforts to move standalone legislation on the tax extenders and to lay the ground work for comprehensive reform in the future. The House acted on several higher education related measure in July. The Student and Family Tax Simplification Act would consolidate the four current education tax breaks into American Opportunity Tax Credit, expanding the refundability of the credit but limiting the benefit to only four-years of undergraduate expenses. The House also approved legislation to permanently extend the IRA rollover provision that allows taxpayers older than 70½ to donate up to $100,000 from their IRAs to charities. Neither bill seems likely to see Senate action this year, although some version of the IRA rollover provision may be considered in legislation on tax extenders likely during the lame duck.
Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act: With hearings now mostly complete, House and Senate committees have begun to roll out legislation to reauthorize the Higher Education Act -- although likely as prologue to action next year. At the end of June, Senate Chairman Harkin released a fairly comprehensive draft that, among other things, increases accountability, strengthens consumer protections for student borrowers, tightens the eligibility requirements of for-profits, reinstates the summer Pell program, establishes a new large program to support public higher education and calls for grant programs addressing affordability and increases transparency. The draft is missing various sections including those on key aid and institutional programs with releases expected throughout the fall. Senator Harkin is soliciting feedback on this draft, with much of the higher education community focused on working with his office to shape the next draft. Although with Senator Harkin retiring this year and final action unlikely, many are also looking toward next year and new committee leadership. Unlike the comprehensive approach adopted by the Senate, House committee Republicans have taken a piecemeal approach. They introduced and the House completed action in July on three non-controversial measures related to the reauthorization, perhaps as a demonstration of the committee and House’s ability to get something done. The Advancing Competency-Based Education Demonstration Project Act supports innovations in competency-based education; the Strengthening Transparency in Higher Education Act streamlines the college cost consumer disclosure requirements; and, the Empowering Student through Enhanced Financial Counseling Act promotes financial literacy through interactive counseling. House committee Chair, John Kline, has indicated the committee will continue to roll out smaller bills on discrete topics within the HEA throughout the fall.
The Campus Accountability and Safety Act: Getting more attention than any other HEA issue, sexual assault on college campuses has been the focus of substantial attention this year. In January, President Obama established the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault with the stated goal of strengthening federal enforcement efforts and coming up with more tools for schools to use in combating sexual assault. In May, Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) began a series of roundtable discussions that included sexual assault survivors, experts, institutional representative and other stakeholders intending to inform eventual legislation aimed at improving federal policy regarding campus sexual assault. Last week, Senator McCaskill (D-MO), along with a bipartisan group of Senators, introduced legislation, the Campus Accountability and Safety Act, to address the problem of sexual assaults on college campuses. The measure would require every university to conduct campus climate surveys of their students and publish the results of these surveys online. The bill would also greatly increase the penalty for schools found in violation of either Title IX or the Clery Act. Under the new legislation, schools that do not comply with certain requirements of the bill would face a penalty of “up to 1%” of their operating budget. Fines for schools failing to disclose sexual offenses under the Clery Act would rise to $150,000 per violation – the previous fine was $35,000. Additionally, the bill mandates certain resources be provided to survivors of sexual assault, such as confidential advisers to help survivors navigate the reporting process and identify support services. Sponsors of the legislation, including those who introduced an identical companion bill in the House, are calling for passage this fall but, with the limited number of legislative days remaining on the calendar, the prospects for passage appear remote but the bipartisan nature of the supportive coalition could improve those prospects.
Reauthorization of the America COMPETES Act: The House and Senate have taken significantly divergent approaches to reauthorizing COMPETES, which sets policy for the new and existing research programs funded by the NSF, National Institutes for Standards and Technology, and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. Because authorization bills establish or reaffirm policies governing the federal expenditures, the bills become opportunities to express favorable federal sentiments on science and education or a magnet for troublesome amendments to federal policy. The House Science Committee, in the past a bastion of bipartisan support for research, has taken a much more political and divisive stance toward the COMPETES bill this Congress, splitting the bill into two separate pieces of legislation: The FIRST Act, covering NSF, and the EINSTEIN bill -- which reauthorizes the other research agencies. The “FIRST Act” is a disappointing bill that is a marked departure from the initial doubling goal of COMPETES, as it authorizes only a 1.5 percent increase for NSF in FY15 (which is oddly below the amount provided by House appropriators in the FY15 funding bill) and includes sharp reductions to Geosciences and Social, Behavioral and Economic research. FIRST also contains troubling new policy provisions and accountability measures, including a requirement that NSF justify grants based on new national interest criteria, new hurdles for researchers with more than five years of funding from NSF, and new research misconduct rules, among other things. FIRST has never been scheduled for a floor vote and, in a sign that it will not be, House leadership has been selectively pulling targeted, specific, bipartisan portions out of the larger bill for consideration by the House. For its part, the Senate Commerce Committee has released a discussion draft of its version of COMPETES, which tracks far more closely than the House bills to previous iterations of the law. It is a five-year authorization that would set robust goals for funding growth at NSF, as well as policy provisions for NSF, OSTP and STEM education programs. Given the divergent approaches and the limited time remaining, COMPETES seems increasingly unlikely this year.
The Secret Science Reform Act: Troubling approaches to setting science policy is not limited to the FIRST Act. On June 24, the House Science Committee approved the Secret Science Reform Act of 2014, legislation that would prohibit the EPA from proposing or issuing regulations unless the scientific information on which they are based is “specifically identified and publicly available in a manner that is sufficient for independent analysis and substantial reproduction of research results.” The introduction of this bill stems from the Committee’s attempts to compel EPA to hand over raw research data behind studies used to justify certain clean air regulations, notably the Harvard Six Cities study. That data has been protected because it contains personal health and mortality information. Companion legislation has been introduced in the Senate, though will not advance in that chamber; House floor consideration has not occurred or been scheduled to date.
The Accelerating Biomedical Research Act: Outgoing Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) has introduced legislation that would except NIH from the current Budget Control Act caps that are putting so much downward pressure on discretionary funding. The bill aims to allow for annual increases (through FY21) at NIH that are large enough to restore the purchasing power lost at the agency since the end of the five-year doubling effort in FY03. To date, the bill has not attracted a Republican co-sponsor nor companion legislation in the House; it is unlikely to become law but will provide for a continued focus on the underfunding of NIH.
Contact
We will continue to provide updates from Washington, particularly as the Congress returns in September. If you have any questions regarding this update or the Office of Federal Relations’ efforts in Washington, please feel free to be in touch with Suzanne Day or Jon Groteboer at (202) 863-1292.