The House and Senate have returned from their President’s Day recess.
The Senate convened at 10:00 A.M. and is expected to spend the day working on judicial nominations. The chamber will consider Jamar K. Walker to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia, Jamal N. Whitehead to be United States District Judge for the Western District of Washington, Araceli Martinez-Olguin to be United States District Judge for the Northern District of California, and Margaret R. Guzman to be United States District Judge for the District of Massachusetts.
The House met at 10:00 A.M. for morning hour and noon for legislative business and is expected to consider H.J. Res. 30 – Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of Labor relating to “Prudence and Loyalty in Selecting Plan Investments and Exercising Shareholder Rights” which is a measure targeting the Labor Department’s ESG rule. The House is also expected to begin consideration of H.R. 347 – REIN IN Act, which requires the Office of Management and Budget and the Council of Economic Advisers to provide an inflation estimate for each executive order that is projected to cause an annual gross budgetary effect of at least $1 billion.
Budget negotiations are expected to continue this week in advance of President Joe Biden releasing his budget next week. Legislators are in the midst of negotiating a federal budget and seeking to avoid a potential default on the national debt. The White House has called for the debt ceiling to be raised and President Biden is refusing to negotiate over the matter, a stance that the White House says has not changed. White House officials accused Republicans of threatening an “economic catastrophe” for the sake of their proposed budget cuts while the House Budget Committee earlier this month released a list proposed areas to cut “wasteful, inefficient and unnecessary federal spending” in order to address the national debt. These proposals included capping the extended ACA subsidies that were put in place by the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act, though analysts are skeptical over whether this measure would gain majority support among Republicans at this point. As negotiations play out, President Biden will visit with House and Senate Democrats. He’ll speak on Wednesday in Baltimore at a House Democratic retreat and meet with Senate Democrats at a luncheon on Thursday.
There are a half dozen hearings on the Hill today about either China or Ukraine. The Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, is gearing up for the panel’s first primetime hearing tonight where it plans to lay out “Why the Chinese Communist Party is a threat someone in Northeast Wisconsin should care about.” Today’s other hearings include a House Armed Services Committee hearing on oversight of aid to Ukraine, featuring testimony from Pentagon Inspector General Robert Storch, DoD policy chief Colin Kahl and Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims of the Joint Staff. It’s the first public hearing under the GOP majority on aid to Ukraine. The House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee meets at 2 P.M. on Ukraine aid with testimony from Sims and Celeste Wallander, the Pentagon’s top international security official. On the Senate side, the Senate Armed Services Committee also holds a hearing on the conflict in Ukraine at 9:30 A.M. and the House Foreign Affairs Committee hears testimony from administration officials on the “generational challenge” of the Chinese Communist Party at 10 A.M. The same panel will mark up a bill at 2 P.M. on holding China responsible for the surveillance balloon.
