The House is scheduled today (Monday) to consider a bill to ban plastic microbeads from cosmetic products: H.R. 1321 - the Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015. The bill would require the manufacturing of plastic microbeads to stop by July 1, 2017, and the delivery of new cosmetic products containing microbeads to end by July 1, 2018. Microbeads have been found in rivers and lakes in developed areas around the world, raising environmental degradation concerns among scientists and environmental organizations.

 

For more information, contact Mark Gorman , Policy Analyst at the Northeast-Midwest Institute.

Lawmakers in both the House and Senate will spend much of the week rushing to conclude negotiations on an omnibus 2016 fiscal year spending bill by Friday, December 11, when the current funding authority expires.  If reaching a deal before this Friday's deadline looks unlikely, lawmakers could pass another short term spending extension (a short-term Continuing Resolution). A last-ditch safety net to avoid government closure may be to simply extend current funding levels for the remainder of the 2016 fiscal year (a long-term Continuing Resolution).

Regionally-relevant Committee activity this week includes:

 

Tuesday, December 8

• House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Research and Technology hearing on the "Future of Biotechnology: Solutions for Energy, Agriculture and Manufacturing"; 10:00 AM, room 2318 Rayburn House Office Building.

• Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee legislative hearing to examine S. 2257 - the National Park Service Centennial Act, a bill "to prepare the National Park Service for its Centennial in 2016 and for a second century of protecting our national parks' natural, historic, and cultural resources for present and future generations"; 10:00 AM, room 366 Dirksen Senate Office Building.

• House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing "examining the (Department of Interior's proposed) Stream Protection Rule"; 2:00 PM, room 2154 Rayburn House Office Building.

• House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing entitled "Moving Ahead For Progress In The 21st Century (MAP-21) Program Consolidation" (MAP-21 creates a streamlined and performance-based surface transportation program and builds on many of the highway, transit, bike, and pedestrian programs and policies established in 1991); 2:00 PM, room 2247 Rayburn House Office Building.

Wednesday, December 9

• Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee meeting to consider several pieces of legislation, including:  S. 1886, the Coordinated Ocean Monitoring and Research Act, S. 1935, the Waterfront Community Revitalization and Resiliency Act of 2015, and S. 2276, the SAFE PIPES Act; 10:00 AM, room 253 Russell Senate Office Building.

For more information, contact Mark Gorman , Policy Analyst at the Northeast-Midwest Institute.

House and Senate conferees finalized a  $305 billion transportation bill  last week (the FAST Act) . The bill moved quickly through both chambers on its way to the President, who signed the measure on December 4, the latest highway spending deadline. Passage ends a succession of 36 short-term extensions over 20 years, and provides authority for surface transportation spending through 2020. 

The bill protects funding for mass transit, and increases money for pedestrian and bicycle programs, while adding new safety requirements for crude-by-rail shipments. Also agreed to is language allowing municipalities to use federal infrastructure and tax-exempt municipal bonds to finance upgrades to drinking and wastewater infrastructure (striking a 2014 Water Resources Reform and Development Act provision barring cities from combining the two funding mechanisms). 

The bill also includes language from the proposed  Federal Permitting Improvement Act (S. 280) , revising the process for federal approval of major infrastructure projects by establishing best practices, requiring coordination of federal agency review of projects, and shortening the period for challenges to final decisions for issuing project permits. Also approved was a Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) amendment that will require transportation planning agencies to study and provide for the mitigation of stormwater runoff impacts before construction. 

The highway legislation reverses $3 billion in cuts to crop insurers that were included in the two-year budget agreement by finding offsets to those cuts within the dividend that the Federal Reserve pays to banks. Although the federal crop insurance program cost an average of $3.4 billion annually from fiscal years 2003 through 2007, it ballooned to an average of $8.4 billion annually in subsequent years through fiscal year 2013. So, crop insurance reform efforts  are very likely to continue. The bill is free from unrelated riders, except for one reauthorizing the U.S. Export-Import Bank.

For more information, contact Mark Gorman , Policy Analyst at the Northeast-Midwest Institute.