Congressional Schedule - Friday August 1, 2014
The House is once again trying to pass a $659 million emergency supplemental bill that would provide stepped up funding for federal agencies to deal with the flood of unaccompanied immigrant children across the U.S.-Mexico border as they flee violence in Central America.
A new bill being considered would change a 2008 anti-trafficking law to limit the president's executive order on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). It would also provide an additional 35 million in funding for the national guard, and it would allow unaccompanied minors from Central America to be held in custody rather than being released to relatives here in the U.S.
Republican leaders in the chamber pulled the bill just after lawmakers debated it, and in one of his first actions taking over as Majority Leader, Representative Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) disappointed fellow legislators by announcing they'd be back on Friday. The announcement drew vocal displeasure from rank-and-file members in the chamber.
The House Rules Committee met late Thursday to approve a rule allowing same-day consideration of a revised bill today.
Even if the chamber ends up passing its own legislation, it faces an uncertain future in the Democrat-controlled Senate, where a much larger $3.6 billion bill, including funds to help replenish Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system and to fight Western U.S. wildfires was sidelined by a procedural vote that would have waived a budgetary point of order.
Senators debated that bill earlier on Thursday.
Following the procedural defeat of the supplemental, senators moved on to approve the conference agreement between House and Senate lawmakers on a bill that would overhaul the Department of Veterans Affairs and its health care delivery for former soldiers. The measure, which would provide billions to establish a new program tapping private providers to care for veterans living more than 40 miles from the nearest VA-administered facility, now goes to President Obama for his signature.
Senators also voted to agree to the original House version of a bill that will supplement federal fuel taxes to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent through the spring. Senators voted Wednesday to modify that patch so it would last only through the end of the year, but the House voted to disagree to those changes on Thursday, effectively ending the standoff.
A final procedural vote on the nomination of Jill Pryor to be a U.S. Circuit Judge for the Eleventh Circuit closed out the Senate's business on Thursday. Leader Reid said a vote on Pryor's nomination will be the chamber's first post-recess action when it returns September 8.
The Senate returned at 11 a.m. for a period of morning business and is expected to adjourn at 2 p.m. eastern.