Update from Washington, D.C. 04/02/2012
With federal transportation programs slated to expire on March
31, lawmakers approved late last week and President Obama signed
into law a three-month extension of SAFETEA-LU. Passage of the
legislation (HR 4281), which represents the ninth short-term
continuation of current law since the Act first expired in
September of 2009, came after considerable debate among principal
members of Congress and occurred just before lawmakers left
Washington to begin their two-week spring break.
For their part, House Democrats strongly resisted approval of
another transportation extension and were instead urging their
GOP colleagues to take up a companion version (HR 14) of the
Senate’s recently approved two-year highway and transit
reauthorization bill (MAP-21). Most House Democrats were joined
by 10 Republicans in voting against the short-term measure, which
was ultimately cleared on a 166-158 vote.
Following passage of the 90-day bill, House Republican leaders
expressed optimism that the extension would provide their chamber
with the necessary time to debate and approve a long-term
transportation renewal. According to House Speaker John Boehner
(R-OH), Republicans are putting the finishes touches on the GOP’s
five-year energy and transportation bill and expect to have the
measure on the House floor shortly after members return on April
16.
In other news, the House began debate the week of March 26 on the
GOP’s fiscal year 2013 budget resolution (H Con Res 112). The
budget blueprint, which was adopted on a 228 to 191 vote on March
29, will provide the House with its tax and spending framework
for the upcoming fiscal year. It should be noted that the budget
resolution does not receive the president’s signature and
therefore does not have the force of law.
Under the House budget plan, discretionary spending for fiscal
year 2013 would be limited to $1.028 trillion, or $19 billion
lower than the $1.047 trillion spending cap that was set as part
of last year’s Budget Control Act (BCA, PL 112-25). In addition
to a lower spending allocation for fiscal year 2013, the House
Republican budget also assumes several major policy changes,
including enactment of legislation that would combine the
Medicaid and State Children’s Health Insurance Program into a
single block grant. According to the House Budget Committee, the
proposal would save an estimated $810 billion over the next
decade.
The House budget resolution also calls for passage of legislation
that would modify most of the $109 billion in automatic spending
cuts that are scheduled to take place in January of 2013 pursuant
to the BCA. Under the Republican budget, $98 billion of the
automatic budget cuts – known as a “sequester” – would be
achieved from a lower discretionary spending cap, as well as
through reductions in mandatory spending programs. Additionally,
the budget assumes that legislation will be enacted that will
protect defense programs from the automatic budget sequester.
It important to note that the aforementioned policy modifications
assumed in the budget are predicated upon Congress initiating
later this year a process known as budget reconciliation. The
budget reconciliation process would insulate the policy changes
from filibuster in the Senate, but the procedure could only
commence if the Senate also adopts the House budget
resolution.
Incidentally, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has
repeatedly indicated that the Senate will forgo passage of a
fiscal year 2013 budget resolution. Instead, the upper chamber
will soon begin moving ahead with consideration of its fiscal
year 2013 appropriations bills, which will adhere to the
discretionary budget caps that were established under the BCA.
The divergent approaches to this year’s budget and appropriations
process, which will result in the passage of bills with differing
top-line spending figures, sets the stage for a likely
House-Senate budget showdown later this year.
In other developments, on Wednesday, March 28, Senator John
Barrasso (R-WY) introduced legislation (S 2245) that would block
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers (Corps) from finalizing their joint “waters of the
U.S.” guidance. The proposed guidance, which is under final
review at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), would expand
the scope of the Clean Water Act (CWA) to give EPA and the Corps
regulatory authority over additional waters within the United
States, including those waters now considered entirely under
state jurisdiction.
The pending guidance is of concern to county governments for a
variety reasons. For example, the guidance in its current form
would likely result in the Corps asserting jurisdiction over
county ditches via the CWA’s Section 404 permitting program. Such
Agency action would create additional regulatory burdens on
counties and would impose additional costs.
S 2245 currently has 32 Republican cosponsors.
Finally, Congress was transfixed this past week by the
unprecedented three days of hearings the Supreme Court held on
arguments on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act
(ACA). One of the issues before the Court is the legal challenge
of 26 States as to whether the federal government has the power
to require States to expand Medicaid eligibility as provided in
the law.
Under the ACA, if a State refuses to cover the new populations
identified in the Act, it risks losing all of its Medicaid
funding. While no lower court has supported the aforementioned
challenge, Supreme Court justices appeared to be evenly split on
the matter during last week’s oral arguments. The Court is
expected to announce its rulings sometime in June.