As members of Congress return to D.C. following their two-week Easter recess, the House leadership is eager to get back to regular order.
This means the speaker wants the House to begin legislating by authorizing departments and programs before Congress appropriates the money. Appropriating without authorizing has all but become the norm in Congress.
Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, believes that the politicizing of our defense, intelligence and other security and safety departments is putting our nation at risk and needs to stop. It is this politicizing that has kept Congress from considering the various authorization bills for many years now. Therefore, expect the House to consider important authorization bills this spring before following up with the consideration of the 11 appropriations bills that actually fund the various agencies and departments.
Look for the House to consider these authorization bills this spring: Department of Defense; Intelligence; Homeland Security; the Patriot Act.
When the House considers the 11 appropriations bills, the speaker intends to allow them to be considered under an open rule, which means amendments will be able to be offered by minority and majority members of Congress.
When the House convenes this week, it will first address the energy issue. Look for the House to consider the following energy-related bills early in May:
- HR 1229 -- Putting the Gulf back to work. This lifts the moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico by setting time-lines for permits to drill,
- HR 1230 -- Restoring American offshore leasing. This requires the administration to conduct offshore lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and off the shores of Virginia.
- HR 1231 -- Reversing the Moratorium Act. This lifts the moratorium and begins a 2012-2017 lease plan setting a production goal of 3 million barrels of oil per day by 2027.
Finally, the House members will continue passing bills that will dismantle Obamacare. This continues their practice started before the Easter recess whereby they completed action on HR 1213, mandatory funding for state insurance exchanges. The bills they will be passing this spring are the following:
- HR 1214 -- Repealing the mandatory funding for school-based health centers.
- HR 1217 -- Repealing the prevention and public health fund.
- HR 1215 -- Ending the direct appropriations for state sex-education programs and requiring annual authorization.
- HR 1216 -- Ending the direct appropriations for graduate medical education programs and requiring annual authorization.
Over on the Senate side of the Capitol, debate will continueon the small-business innovation bill, S 493. The Senate has eight amendments pending from its debate before the recess. These amendments include:
- Vitter Amendment No. 178 (requiring the federal government to sell unused federal property)
- Cornyn Amendment No. 186 (bipartisan commission).
- Paul Amendment No. 199 (spending cuts).
- Sanders Amendment No. 207, as modified (Social Security).
- Hutchison Amendment No. 197 (delaying health care reform).
- Pryor Amendment No. 229 (Patriot Express Loan program).
- Cardin Amendment No. 240 (surety bonds).
- Snowe Amendment No. 253 (contracting fraud prevention).
The majority leader has threatened to pull the small-business bill off the floor because of the amendment bySen. Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine, and her insistence on pushing it for a vote. Sen. Harry Reid believes the spirit of the Snowe amendment undermines the intention of the overall bill and the programs authorized in the bill.
The Senate GOP leader has indicated that he would like to set up some budget votes during the first week back from recess. Sen. Mitch McConnell will be maneuvering himself to call for a vote on both the U.S. president's budget as well as the House budget resolution which passed the House by a vote of 235-193 before the Easter recess.
Meanwhile, the House and Senate leadership will be conducting meetings to determine the path that will be needed to consider the increase in the public debt. This increase vote will be needed by this summer according to the U.S. Treasury.
Stay tuned to see how the debt limit increase begins to unfold in Congress as well as the dismantling of Obamacare and the new proposals to address rising energy prices.
Elizabeth B. Letchworth is a retired, elected United States Senate secretary for the majority and minority. Currently she is a senior legislative adviser for Covington & Burling, LLC and is the founder of Gradegov.com
