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The House and Senate are in session. This week marks the final week Congress is in session before the month-long August recess begins.
Appropriators have released the bill text and summaries of all 12 spending bills in the House, with only the Labor-HHS-Education and Commerce-Justice-Science bills awaiting full committee markups. This week, lawmakers in the House are preparing floor votes on the FY24 Agriculture-FDA (H.R. 4368) and Military Construction-Veterans Affairs (H.R. 4366) spending bills during the week of July 24. The White House shared two “Statements of Administration Policy” for the MilCon-VA and Agriculture-FDA Appropriations bills, stating President Biden would veto the bills if they were to make it to the President’s desk. On Thursday, Senate appropriators will complete full markups of their versions of the FY24 Defense, Interior & Environment, Labor-HHS-Education, and Homeland Security bills, completing markups of all 12 spending bills before the start of the August recess. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) shared his prediction of a continuing resolution beginning October 1 spanning several months, coupled with an emergency supplemental spending bill.
The House will consider 13 suspension bills, including the First Responder Access to Innovative Technologies Act (H.R. 3254), which amends the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to establish a process to review applications for specific grants to purchase equipment or systems that do not meet or exceed any applicable national voluntary consensus standards. The Senate plans to vote on their version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2024 (S. 2226) this week. First, the Senate will consider several outstanding amendments. The legislation authorizes $876.8 billion in discretionary military and national security spending.
For the remainder of the week, the House will hold several hearings, including an Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the “Generational Learning Loss: How Pandemic School Closures Hurt Students.” In the Senate, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on “Reforming the Process for Permitting Electric Transmission Lines, Pipelines, and Energy Production on Federal Lands,” a Senate Budget Committee hearing on “Beyond the Breaking Point: The Fiscal Consequences of Climate Change on Infrastructure;” and an Environment and Public Works Committee hearing examining “Solutions for Single-Use Waste: Expanding Refill and Reuse Infrastructure.”
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