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Draft 2024 NATaT Policy Platform - 2/23/2024
NATaT Weekly Legislative Report
June 24, 2024
Congressional Outlook
Voters in Oklahoma and Virginia will vote in congressional primaries this Tuesday. Voters in Georgia’s 3rd and 14th Congressional District will head to the polls to decide primary runoff elections, with the 3rd district runoff winner the likely selection to replace retiring Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.) and the winner of the 14th district runoff to face off against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).
Bills and Regulations of Interest to You
The House returns to session on Tuesday, and the Senate is in recess until July 8. The Legislative Update will take a one-week break and return on Monday, July 8, following the Independence Day holiday when both chambers return to session.
The House will continue its rapid pace to pass all 12 appropriations bills on the full floor before the August recess. On Tuesday, the Rules Committee will meet to set the rules on the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act (H.R. 8752), the Department of State and Foreign Operations Act (H.R. 8771), and the Department of Defense Appropriations Act (H.R. 8774) bills. The full House will vote on the three bills before leaving town this week. Even with the slim margins in the House, GOP leaders expect all three bills to pass. The Homeland Security and the Defense bills will include an increase of $3 billion and $9 billion, respectively, and the State–Foreign Operations bill will face an $8 billion cut from the previous fiscal year. The Senate will begin marking up their version of the Fiscal Year 25 appropriations bills starting on July 8. The chambers will be at odds as the House will not operate using the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) deal brokered by President Joe Biden, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) explained that he would not honor “side deals,” leading to cuts to non-defense spending. The Senate will certainly pass versions of the bills much different than the lawmakers in the House in the coming months, setting up intense negotiations. On movement in the Senate, Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND), ranking member of the Agriculture–Food and Drug Administration bill, expects the bill to see the first Senate markup along with the Legislative Branch bill.
Later this week, the House Appropriations Committee will hold 5 subcommittee markups for the Labor-HHS, Transportation-HUD, Interior, Energy and Water, and Commerce-Justice-Science bills. Once complete, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) will look to finish full committee markups on the week of July 8 and hold a floor vote on the remaining bills the week of July 22, with the exception of the controversial Transportation–Housing and Urban Development bill, which will occur on July 29.
The House will consider 6 bills under suspension of the rules, with all six bills focused on international relations. For the remainder of the week, the House will hold several committee hearings, including a Homeland Security Committee hearing on “Finding 500,000: Addressing America’s Cyber Workforce Gap,” a Transportation and Infrastructure Committee markup on “The Water Resources Development Act of 2024,” the Natural Resources Committee will hold a markup on “Fix Our Forests Act (H.R. 8790),” and a Judiciary Committee hearing on “Follow the Science?: Oversight of the Biden COVID-19 Administrative State Response.”
| Bill | Title | Sponsors | Background |
| S. 4608 | Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) | Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) | Amends the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act to authorize the use of individual training accounts for certain youth. |
| S. 4626 | Supporting America’s Firefighters and Emergency Responders to Electric Vehicles (SAFER EVs) Act of 2024 | Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) | Standardizes and improves safety training specific to electric vehicles for firefighters and other emergency response providers. |
| S. 4628 | Enhancing Mitigation and Building Effective Resilience (EMBER) Act | Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) | A bill to improve wildfire mitigation, management, and recovery. |
| H.R. 8777 | Cutting Unobligated Tumultuous Spending Act | Rep. Aaron Bean (R-FL-4) | Rescinds unobligated Covid-19 relief funds and certain infrastructure funds to offset the cost of the supplemental foreign assistance made available for fiscal year 2024. |
| Agency | Title | Proposed Regulation | Comment Deadline |
| CISA | Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act (CIRCIA) Reporting Requirements | The Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022 (CIRCIA), which proposes regulations implementing the statute's covered cyber incident and ransom payment reporting requirements for covered entities | July 3, 2024 (Extension) |
| FERC | Standards for Business Practices and Communication Protocols for Public Utilities | Amends its regulations to incorporate by reference, with certain exceptions, the latest version (Version 004) of the Standards for Business Practices and Communication Protocols for Public Utilities adopted by the Wholesale Electric Quadrant of the North American Energy Standards Board. | July 5, 2024 |
| FEMA | Individual Assistance Program Equity | Amending its regulations governing the Individual Assistance program to increase equity by simplifying processes, removing barriers to entry, and increasing eligibility for certain types of assistance under the program. | July 22, 2024 |
| OSHA | Emergency Response Standard | The proposed rule would expand the scope of OSHA's standard to include a broad range of hazards emergency responders encounter during emergency response activities and would bring the standard in line with FEMA’s National Response Framework. It would also modernize the standard to align with the current industry consensus standards issued by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) on the safe conduct of emergency response activities. | July 22, 2024 (Extension) |
| Army Corps | Proposals for Inclusion in the Annual Report to Congress on Future Water Resources Development | Army Corps seeks comments for proposals for inclusion in the 2025 Annual Report to Congress on Future Water Resources Development (Annual Report). The Annual Report includes proposals submitted by non-federal interests for new feasibility studies, proposed modifications to authorized water resources development projects or feasibility studies, and proposed modifications to environmental infrastructure program authorities | August 30, 2024 |
Week in Review
House set to dive into spending bills
Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu is set to address the US Congress on July 24
House Republicans shift message on extending 2017 tax cuts
Tillis ramps up Senate GOP debate on rules changes, offering ideas of his own