Civic Register
| 11.27.17

Congress Facing Frenetic Finish to 2017

Join us and tell your reps how you feel!

Update - 11/27/17: The Senate is set to start its work week this afternoon while lawmakers in the House will return tomorrow. GOP senators and the Trump administration are expected to meet several times in the coming days to plan for what they hope will be a vote on the Senate floor for their tax reform legislation.

The Senate entered today with 15 legislative days remaining for 2017, while the House has 12 scheduled.

Countable's original article appears below.

Congress will return from its Thanksgiving recess next week facing a jam-packed, three week work period before the next holiday recess begins and lawmakers depart the Capitol for the last time in 2017. Here’s a look at the most pressing issues that will be on the agenda:

Tax Reform

Republican members of Congress want to complete their work on tax reform before the end of the year so that the 2018 tax year begins with tax cuts already in place. The Senate is expected to bring its tax reform bill to the House floor next week, and if it passes it will then go to a conference committee to merge the Senate’s legislation with the House-passed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Once the conference committee produces a compromise bill, both chambers will need to pass it before it can go to President Donald Trump’s desk.

Government Funding

In September, Congress passed a stopgap funding bill to fund the government open through December 8, 2017 along with $15.2 billion in disaster relief funding, thus avoiding a partial government shutdown. Now faced with the new deadline, lawmakers will hope to once again keep the government funded.

The good news is they aren’t starting from scratch — the House passed a $1.23 trillion omnibus spending bill in September that included all of the usual 12 appropriations bills for fiscal year 2018. The bad news is that the Senate hasn’t taken action on the House-passed bill yet, and the next few items on the list could complicate the debate.

Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)

CHIP’s authorization expired at the end of September 2017, and while states have funding available to keep it running, some are expected to start running out of money in December and January. Once again, the House has already done some work on this issue, passing the CHAMPIONING HEALTHY KIDS Act in early November. It remains to be seen whether the Senate passes its own bill, setting up a likely conference committee, or goes along with the House’s legislation.

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)

When President Donald Trump ended the Obama era program known as DACA, he did so with a six-month delay to give Congress until March to find a solution to help the so-called "Dreamers" — young immigrants who were brought to the country illegally by their parents.

That may not be good enough for Democrats, however, as some liberals have threatened to shutdown the government by withholding their support for an omnibus appropriations bill. Support from Democratic lawmakers has been pivotal in getting spending bills across the finish line in the House in recent years, as some fiscally conservative GOP members tend to oppose them.

Debt Limit

September’s stopgap funding bill also raised the U.S. debt limit through December 8, allowing the government to continue borrowing money to fund its operations. That will provide an interesting backdrop to the debates around government spending and tax cuts, as deficit hawks look to use the national debt for leverage.

However, just because the debt limit is reached doesn’t mean that Congress will have to raise immediately. The Treasury Department has what are known as "extraordinary measures" — essentially accounting maneuvers using four government accounts — that provide anywhere from three to five months of flexibility. That means the real debt limit debate will likely be put on ice until the spring.

Surveillance Programs

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act expires on December 31, 2017. The provision authorizes the collection of electronic communications of non-U.S. persons outside the U.S. for national security purposes, but has been criticized for violating the civil liberties of Americans whose communications are incidentally collected.

There are several competing proposals that lawmakers could take up. The House Judiciary Committee passed the USA LIBERTY Act, which would be a six-year reauthorization and a variety of reforms. The Senate Intelligence Committee advanced the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act, which would make modest reforms while extending FISA for eight years. A third proposal by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rand Paul (R-KY) known as the USA RIGHTS Act would only reauthorize FISA for four years while taking additional steps to safeguard Americans' privacy.

Iran Sanctions

On October 13, President Donald Trump decertified the Iran nuclear agreement over violations of the spirit of the deal and "destabilizing activities" carried out by the Iranian regime. The move fell short of abandoning the deal outright and that started a 60 day clock in which Congress can act on the matter.

Lawmakers will have three courses of action available to them:

  • They could move to re-impose the sanctions on Iran that were lifted by the nuclear deal, which could effectively kill the agreement in the eyes of Iran’s regime.

  • They could make changes to the law by adding provisions that would trigger the re-imposition of sanctions if certain lines are crossed — like if Iran reaches a nuclear "breakout" period.

  • They could do nothing and allow the terms of the nuclear agreement to stand as they are.

We’ll have more on all this as it happens, but in the meantime you can use the Take Action button to tell your reps what you’d like to see them accomplish before the end of the year and share your thoughts in the comments below.

— Eric Revell

RELATED READING

(Photo Credit: tupungato / iStock)