CLEMSON ON CAPITOL HILL
This Week
Both Chambers will be in session this week and return today. The Senate will convene at 4:00pm. The House will meet at 12:00pm for morning hour and at 2:00pm for legislative business, with votes postponed until 6:30pm.
Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Advances in the Senate
Last week, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved their bipartisan Labor-HHS-Education (LHHS-ED) funding bill by a vote of 29-1.
The bill would fund the National Institutes of Health at $34.084 billion, a $2 billion (6.2%) increase from FY2016 enacted. Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA) Title VII and Title VIII programs would be funded at $527 million, a $35 million (7.1%) increase from FY2016. The Senate FY17 LHHS-ED appropriations bill funds Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) at $324 million, a $10 million (-2.9%) cut from FY2016.
Under the bill, the maximum Pell Grant for FY2017 would be $5,935, a $120 increase from FY2016. In addition, the Senate LHHS-ED bill reinstates year-round Pell Grants. The reinstated year-round Pell program is modeled after the program included in S.1062, the “Year-Round Pell Grant Restoration Act,“ which does not have a minimum credit requirement or acceleration clause for eligibility.
Reinstating year-round Pell in FY2017 would cost $1.2 billion ($950 million in discretionary funding and $250 million in mandatory funding). Funding year-round Pell would not require a rescission from the Pell surplus, it simply would increase the cost of the Pell program and deplete the surplus more quickly.
Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need, Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants, Federal Work Study, TRIO, and GEARUP are all level funded.
The LHHS-ED bill language and the report may be found here.
Senate Consideration of FY2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)
On Friday, June 10, the Senate voted to invoke cloture and limit debate on the NDAA. Senators have filed over 500 amendments.
Click here to see the STATE UPDATE for June 13, 2016.