Month: July 2020

Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) Update

Congress has managed to hold to a two-year reauthorization schedule for the last three Water Resource Development Acts (2014, 2016, and 2018) and it looks like they are on track to increase that streak to four this year. This past Wednesday, the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee voted unanimously to move H.R. 7575 The Water Resources Development Act of 2020 (WRDA 2020) out of committee. The bill is now headed to the House floor.

WRDA bills provide authority for the U.S Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to conduct projects and studies. They have historically included (or been packaged with bills including) other water-related provisions such as drinking water programs and water infrastructure funding mechanisms.

This year’s House WRDA bill would provide around $8.6 billion in funding for 34 USACE projects. This is notably more than five times as many projects as were approved by WRDA 2018. The bill would authorize 35 new USACE studies and calls for 41 ongoing studies to be expedited. In addition to project authorizations, the bill includes three other significant provisions shared more in detail below:

Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund “Unlocked”

The House bill would “unlock” $10 billion in funds held in the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund (HMTF), allowing that money to be spent on dredging and port projects. This has been a longtime aim of Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio (D-OR). HMTF funds were partially unlocked earlier this year in the CARES Act, but annual expenditures from the fund were capped at the amount of the previous year’s HMTF revenue. WRDA 2020 would expand on this by allowing access to additional funds from the existing HMTF balance.

Inland Waterways Trust Fund Cost Share Reduced

WRDA 2020 would reduce the share drawn from the Inland Waterways Trust Fund to 35% from the current 50% for lock and dam projects on rivers. This would increase the Treasury’s general fund cost share for these projects from 50% to 65%. Theoretically this reduction of trust fund spending will allow trust fund dollars to fund more projects. This change notably is not permanent and would apply only to projects beginning before the end of 2027.

An Increasing Focus on Resilience and Environmental Justice

This year’s WRDA is crafted with an increasing focus on disaster resilience and consideration of communities impacted by flooding and other water-related dangers. Of the 34 projects approved for USACE work, seven are for flood management and two others are for flood reduction with ecosystem restoration components. The bill also reaffirms a commitment to using natural and nature-based solutions and authorizing projects and studies for communities facing repetitive flooding events. The bill also includes PFAS provisions, increases minority community and tribal input on projects, and aims to address affordability issues for disadvantaged communities.

What’s Happening in the Senate?

The Senate’s 2020 WRDA proposal has been voted through the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee but has not yet received a floor vote. The Senate’s proposal comprises two bills: one for USACE entitled America’s Water Infrastructure Act (AWIA) of 2020, and another for drinking-water authorizations and provisions called the Drinking Water Act of 2020. The Senate proposal, like the House bill, was developed using a bipartisan approach and has broad support on both sides of the aisle.

What’s Next for WRDA?

With bipartisan proposals already out of committee in the House and Senate and plenty of pressure to stick to the two-year authorization cycle, the outlook looks bright for WRDA 2020. As broader infrastructure packages like the Moving Forward Act remain mired in partisan debate, WRDA presents an opportunity for Republicans and Democrats to find common ground on infrastructure investment. Expect to hear more on WRDA once Congress returns from their August recess.

For further reading, check out the House bill text, fact sheet, and section-by-section summary; the Senate AWIA text, fact sheet, and section-by-section summary; and the Senate Drinking Water Act text and section-by-section summary.

Summer Federal Appropriations Update

As we approach the dog days of summer, the federal appropriations process is finally heating up. This follows several months of being on hold as Congress tried to address the growing coronavirus pandemic, the staggering drop in unemployment, and cries for action regarding racial injustice and police brutality.

With Election Day less than four months away, several critical questions remain. Will Congress finish its consideration of all twelve appropriations bills before the September 30th fiscal year (FY) 2021 deadline? What are the chances of a continuing resolution and what length will it be? And what impact will the election results have on how the appropriation process plays out? We will consider these questions and more below.

What is happening in the House?

After months on hold because of the focus on coronavirus and police reform packages, the House is now pushing through their appropriations markups at lightning speed. The full Committee passed their FY 2021 302(b) subcommittee allocations last week along with five appropriations bills: Agriculture-Rural Development-FDA, Interior-Environment, Military Construction-VA, Legislative Branch, and State-Foreign Operations. The Committee wrapped up their consideration and approval of the remaining seven bills this week: Commerce-Justice-Science, Defense, Energy-Water Development, Financial Services-General Government, Homeland Security, Labor-HHS-Education, Transportation-HUD.

Initial reports are saying that Agriculture-Rural Development-FDA, Interior-Environment, Military Construction-VA, and State-Foreign Operations bills will be combined into a minibus package and considered on the floor late next week. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) indicated that he wants the House to approve all twelve bills on the floor by the end of July. However, the Homeland Security bill might be held back because of concerns from progressive Democrats about funding levels for customs and border protection and immigrations and customs enforcement.

It is worth noting that these bills will probably be passed mostly or entirely along party lines. Since the Senate must reach a 60-vote threshold to end debate on appropriations bills, whereas the House only needs a majority vote, the Senate has to forge bills that are more bipartisan. This means that these more partisan House bills are likely to sit and not be taken up by the upper chamber for serious consideration.

What is happening in the Senate?

Unlike in the House, crickets can be heard in the Senate Appropriations Committee. The Committee has held just two hearings since March, and both were on issues unrelated to the FY 2021 appropriations process.

It was reported several weeks ago that partisan disagreements on police reform and COVID-19 spending is to blame for the delay of Senate appropriation bill markups. Ranking Member Patrick Leahy (D-VT), noting that offering amendments was a key concern for Democrats, said “There is bipartisan agreement that we need to address the COVID-19 pandemic. And if we want to truly address the issues of racial injustice that George Floyd’s tragic death has brought to the surface… we need to appropriate money for programs that advance these issues.” Committee Republicans, led by Chairman Richard Shelby (R-AL), felt that these issues should be addressed outside of the appropriations process.

Markup notices for their appropriations bills were reportedly postponed due to these disagreements. While it is very likely that most of their bills are already drafted, we probably will not see any markups until the Committee leadership can agree to move forward in a bipartisan way.

What is going to happen next?

There is one thing that is all but guaranteed: there will be a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the federal government open past the September 30th deadline. Between the upcoming August recess and the desire of members to be home to campaign for competitive races, there are not a lot of congressional workdays left on the calendar.

This continuing resolution will likely be a short-term, stopgap solution just to get Congress through the FY 2021 deadline and election season. Although a specific date is hard to determine, it would likely extend current federal funding levels to at least early to mid-December.

The election outcome is also likely to influence how the federal appropriations wraps up. History tells us that during an election year, lawmakers are likely to hold an average of seven appropriations bills over until the next calendar year. They say to the victor goes the spoils – as well as the incentive to shape the final bills once the winning party takes control. If the Democrats win the presidency and/or the Senate, we can certainly expect them to punt the bills into 2021 when they will have more influence over the process.  

Stay tuned to eRegions, Transportation Thursdays and the Regions Lead blog for the latest federal appropriations updates.

The Affordable Care Act Is More Important Now Than Ever

There is clear evidence that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is making a tremendous difference in the lives of tens of millions of Americans who are unemployed and in need of accessible quality health care during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In March the number of unemployed individuals rose sharply from 5.7 million to 23.1 million[1] and 17.1 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits[2] as state and local officials ordered bars and restaurants, offices, manufacturing plants, schools, gyms, and other public and private facilities to shut down in the wake of the sudden spread of the novel coronavirus. 

By May 2, more than 33 million people had filed for unemployment insurance.[3]  Of those, the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) estimated that as many as 27 million unemployed workers had lost their health insurance.[4]  For many of those individuals, the only accessible or affordable health insurance was available through two federal programs: Medicaid (including Medicaid Expansion) and the ACA’s insurance marketplaces. 

According to KFF, more than 21 million, or 77 percent of all Americans who were laid off, were eligible for either Medicaid (12.7 million) or an ACA insurance plan (8.4 million). Without these programs, millions of Americans would have had no way of paying for or accessing quality healthcare.

Unfortunately, six million Americans are not able to access either no cost or low-cost health insurance, and there appears to be no easy fix. This gap was created by states that chose not to take advantage of the ACA’s Medicaid Expansion program, even though their share of the cost would be low. Under Medicare Expansion the federal government paid 100 percent of the cost of coverage from 2014 to 2016, 95 percent in 2017, 94 percent in 2018, and 90 percent in 2020 and every year thereafter.[5]

The Medicaid Expansion was designed to fill the gap between regular Medicaid and ACA marketplace insurance programs. This ongoing gap in coverage — especially for lower income individuals and their households — required a fix, according to Democrats. In late June the House of Representatives adopted H.R. 1425, the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Enhancement Act of 2020,” to help address this issue. 

If H.R. 1425 were to become law, it would address the Medicaid/ACA gap in coverage by making subsidized or free health insurance and care available to those who currently cannot obtain coverage through Medicaid, Medicaid Expansion, or the ACA marketplaces. However, the chances of that happening are next to nil. 

Republicans opposed the bill as another tax and spend effort by Democrats. Senate Republican leadership has indicated that they will not allow the bill to come to the Senate floor, while the White House issued a veto threat should the bill reach the president’s desk. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), the ranking member of the House Education and Labor Committee, called the bill “misguided” and argued that it would “contribute to already skyrocketing healthcare costs, and double down on the many failures of the Affordable Care Act or ACA.”[6]

At the same time, the administration has asked the Supreme Court to strike down the ACA as unconstitutional. If the Supreme Court agrees with the administration, the 28 million Americans who are covered by Medicare, Medicare Expansion, and the ACA would lose their benefits.

Without the ACA, 28 million Americans would have to rely on emergency rooms and other urgent healthcare facilities that are extremely expensive and are generally not able to address their individual, long-term healthcare needs. States and counties, generally the healthcare providers of last resort, would be saddled with the cost of healthcare for these 28 million Americans, placing further financial burdens state and local budgets that are already stretched thin due to the pandemic. Additionally, the loss of these health insurance programs would have the most negative impact Black and Latinx communities. It would substantially increase the healthcare disparities that already exist between people of color and their white counterparts. It would also contribute directly to the disproportionate number of coronavirus cases and deaths among people of color because of their more limited access to healthcare options. 

Without the Affordable Care Act and its related programs, including Medicaid Expansion and health insurance through marketplaces, tens of millions of Americans would be without access to affordable insurance and quality healthcare. The failure to maintain or expand the ACA could have very negative consequences for all our communities.

[1] Bureau of Labor Statistics, February through July, 2020.

[2] Washington Post, U.S. now has 22 million unemployed, wiping out a decade of job gains, April 16, 2020.

[3] ABC News, 3.2 million more people file for unemployment, bringing coronavirus crisis total to over 33 million, May 7, 2020.

[4] Kaiser Family Foundation, Eligibility for ACA Health Coverage Following Job Losses, May 19, 2020.

[5] Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Medicaid Expansion Continues to Benefit State Budgets, Contrary to Critics’ Claims, October 9, 2018.

[6] Committee on Education and Labor Republicans, Press Release:  “Foxx Opposes Democrats’ Socialist Health Care Scheme,” June 29, 2020.