Senate Will Take Up Education, Labor Spending This Week
Last week
was light for Congress; the Senate adjourned all week for Columbus Day recess
and the House ended work on Wednesday. The pace will change this week. With
the extended deadline for passing funding bills looming (November 16th),
Congress is expected to kick into high gear as they attempt to complete their
yearly appropriations work amidst multiple veto threats from President Bush. The Labor-HHS-Education spending bill-which
funds job training, child care, the Women's Bureau and other key programs-is
likely to be at the center of this action.
The Senate
is expected to vote on their final Labor-HHS-Education bill sometime this week.
(The House has already approved their version.) After the Senate votes, both the
Senate and the House will need to move quickly to work out the differences
between the two bills in a joint House-Senate conference committee because the Labor-HHS-Education bill is expected to be the
first bill sent to the President.
Bush has vowed to veto any spending bill that goes beyond his budget requests for the year including the
Labor-HHS-Education bill which exceeds his
targets for education and social services spending by $10.9 billion.
Overriding
the President's veto would require a two-thirds vote in both chambers.
This is not impossible, but it is a heavy lift. If the override fails,
Congress will have to engage in negotiations with the President, which could
result in cuts to key services.
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Republican Committee Members Introduce WIA Reauthorization Bill
The Workforce Investment
Act (WIA) reauthorization process inched forward last week when Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon (R-CA) introduced H.R. 3747, the Workforce Investment Improvement
Act.
Rep. McKeon is the
Ranking Member on the House Education and Labor Committee, which has
jurisdiction over WIA reauthorization. The Democratic majority of the Committee, led by Chairman George Miller
(D-CA), is expected to introduce their own bill. While Miller's bill will likely be the
starting point for the reauthorization process, McKeon's proposal will also be
part of the debate.
Democratic Committee
staff have suggested that they will not finish work on their bill until the
beginning of next year.
McKeon's proposal builds on H.R.27, the House's WIA reauthorization bill from the 110th Congress. Women Work! had serious concerns with H.R. 27, which did little to expand training opportunities for women in economic transition. We are currently analyzing the new bill's implications for unemployed and underemployed women-staytuned to next week's Insider for more information! |
