No rest for Senate as strong focus remains on US-China relations

Spring is in the air and, for Congress, the spring recess is fast approaching.

Before they head home for the upcoming District Work Period (March 29, 2021 through April 9, 2021), the House plans to focus on a full slate of significant bills while the Senate continues to process nominations.

House and Senate Floorcast

Having completed work on the American Rescue Plan (P.L. 117-2), the full House now is planning to consider key bills dealing with immigration reform (H.R. 6, the “American Dream and Promise Act of 2021” and H.R. 1603, the “Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2021”); reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act (H.R. 1620); preventing a sequester from reducing Medicare payments (H.R. 1868); and removing the deadline for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (H.J. Res. 17).

Meanwhile, the Senate will continue to work on pending nominations. Having approved the nomination of Congresswoman Deb Haaland, as Secretary of the Department of Interior on March 15, 2021, the Senate will continue the consideration of Xavier Becerra to be Secretary of Health and Human Services; Isabella Guzman to be Administrator of the Small Business Administration; Marty Walsh to be Secretary of Labor; and Katherine Tai to be United States Trade Representative.

A complete update on nominations can be found here.

Committees in both chambers will continue their work with an eye toward another busy legislative session leading into the Memorial Day break.

China Omnibus

Escalating, and bipartisan, concerns over U.S.-China relations will continue to dominate the work of several House and Senate committees.

In February, President Biden issued an Executive Order establishing a policy to strengthen the resilience of America’s supply chains.

He pointed to the fact that “pandemics and other biological threats, cyber-attacks, climate shocks and extreme weather events, terrorist attacks, geopolitical and economic competition, and other conditions can reduce critical manufacturing capacity and the availability and integrity of critical goods, products, and services” and called upon his National Security and Economic Policy agency heads to coordinate internally and with external stakeholders to identify risks in key supply chains and make recommendations for legislative, regulatory, executive, and policy actions to remedy those risks.

Hearings this spring in several committees will focus on the specific areas articulated in the Executive Order, including supply chains for the defense industrial base; public health and biological preparedness industrial base; information and communications technology (ICT) industrial base; energy and sector industrial base; transportation sector base; and agricultural commodities and food products.

The Senate may be contemplating a “China omnibus” package to ensure American research and innovation keeps up with China and other nations given the push to strengthen American supply chains and to prevent technology transfers.

A key piece of this package will be the bipartisan Endless Frontier Act which is a $110 billion package to invest in more technology research to spur more American technology innovation. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Senator Todd Young (R-IN) authored the bill in the Senate. Representatives Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Mike Gallagher (R-WI) have introduced a similar bill in the House.

Specifically, the bill would create a DARPA-like technology directorate at the renamed National Science and Technology Foundation (currently National Science Foundation) to research AI, high-performance and quantum computing, semiconductors, robotics and advanced manufacturing, advanced communications technology, and biotechnology.

The bill also would create regional technology hubs. The increased research funds could also go to universities and their public-private sector partnerships. While the Endless Frontier Act would be considered by the Senate Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over NSF and science funding, another bill, the America LEADS Act, authored in the last Congress by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and 13 other Democratic Senators, also could be a candidate for a comprehensive China package.

That bill not only would invest in U.S. research and technology capabilities, but it also would address U.S. diplomatic strategy and other international security and foreign policy issues in the region. It is possible that a Senate package could come together for floor action before the summer.

Infrastructure Update

Following the enactment of the American Rescue Plan Act, the Chairmen of key House Committees will be engaging with their Republican counterparts over the next few weeks to see if they can come together on a bipartisan infrastructure package.

The Biden Administration is hopeful that an infrastructure bill can garner bipartisan support in the House and Senate and be processed via regular order in the House and Senate (the latter which will require at least 60 votes on the Senate floor). We expect the President also will pivot from “rescue” to “recovery” and begin to unveil more of the details in his “Build Back Better” plan later this Spring.

While the composition of an infrastructure package still is under development, House Democrats have introduced several measures that could inform and ultimately be included in any final package, including:

• House Committee on Ways and Means’ “Growing Renewable Energy and Efficiency Now (GREEN) Act” which uses of the tax code to expand the use of renewable energy to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
• House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s “Leading Infrastructure For Tomorrow’s America Act” (LIFT America Act), which authorizes more than $312 billion in investments for clean energy, energy efficiency, drinking water, broadband, and health care infrastructure.
• House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s “Climate Leadership and Environmental Action for our Nation’s (CLEAN) Future Act,” which sets economy wide targets to achieve net zero greenhouse gas pollution no later than 2050.
• House Rural Broadband Task Force’s “Accessible, Affordable Internet for All Act,” which authorizes over $94 billion to ensure unserved and underserved communities have affordable high-speed internet access.

Elements of these bills were included in the “Moving Forward Act” (H.R. 2), the $1.5 trillion proposal passed by the House in the last Congress that also contemplated significant investments in roads, bridges, transit, rail, schools, housing, broadband, drinking and wastewater systems, postal service, clean energy sector, and health care infrastructure.

The House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has announced that it intends to move its highway bill later this spring and will build the “Moving Forward Act,” from last Congress and Members have been advised to submit their surface transportation policy priorities by April 14, 2021. The House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure will also hold its Member Day hearing on April 14, 2021, to dovetail with the submission deadline.

Work also is underway in the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works on its version of a surface transportation reauthorization bill, which must be completed before current programs and funding expire on September 30, 2021.

The Senate EPW Committee has asked that Senators submit their respective surface transportation policy priorities for the surface transportation bill by March 19, 2021. They are expected to start from the ATIA (America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act, S. 2302) that EPW reported out unanimously in 2019, but Chairman Tom Carper (D-DE) has said he intends to be more ambitious this year on the climate portion of the package.

Both the House and Senate Committees have been directed to report out their versions of the surface transportation reauthorization in advance of the Memorial Day recess and Chairman Carper has indicated a desire to have legislation ready for the President to sign before Labor Day.

Questions remain, however, regarding the scope of the package (surface transportation, climate, energy, housing, etc.) and how the cost of any, or all, of that package will be offset. Failure to agree on scope and payfors could fracture the hope of moving a bill with bipartisan support, possibly forcing Democrats to consider using the budget reconciliation process again and confronting – again – the challenges inherent in crafting complex legislation under very restrictive budget rules.