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Capitol Insider, 6/4/07

Submitted by Shelley Joyce on Fri, 06/15/2007 - 10:30am.

Capitol Insider

A partnership of the Arc of the and United Cerebral Palsy
Vol. 12, issue 22 
June 4, 2007  

Major events ahead:

 Appropriations – FY 2008

June is set to be a hectic month for the House and Senate Appropriations Committees.  Both houses expect to pass several FY 2008 appropriations bills before the Independence Day recess, which is four weeks away.  This will be a very busy week for House appropriators.  The so-called 302 (b) allocations will be made on Tuesday.  These allocations set the amounts available to spend by each of the twelve appropriations subcommittees.  Four FY 2008 appropriations bills are scheduled for votes by the full Appropriations Committee, and four others, including the bill that will fund the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education (L-HHS-ED) will be marked up in Subcommittee.  The L-HHS-ED bill is set for markup on Thursday, June 7.  The HUD/Transportation appropriations bill is set to be marked up next week.  The Senate, meanwhile, expects to start FY 2008 appropriations subcommittee markups next week.

 No Child Left Behind Act

The House Education and Labor Committee holds another in a series of hearings on Thursday in preparation for a mark up to reauthorize the No Child Behind Act (NCLB).  Action by the committee on NCLB may occur later this month.

 Health Care 

Reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) will be a priority for House and Senate Committees in June.  Thus far, three major bills have been introduced to reauthorize the program, which expires on September 30:

  1)   S. 1224, introduced by Senate Finance Committee members John D. Rockefeller (D-WV) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), that would increase SCHIP spending to $15.4 billion per year by 2012 and then increase each subsequent year at a rate pegged to the growth of health care costs and child population.  This proposal was drafted to conform to the FY 2008 Budget Resolution’s SCHIP reserve fund of $50 billion over five years;

      2)   H.R. 1535/S. 895 introduced by House Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell (D-MI) and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) that would allow states to expand eligibility to families earning up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level ($82,600 for a family of four) – a third more than the Rockefeller-Snowe bill. 

 

  3)   H.R. 2147/S. 3164 introduced by Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) and Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) that would provide $7.5 billion per year, plus increases linked to growth in health care spending and child population.  Although SCHIP is not technically an entitlement program, Congressional conservatives are concerned that expanding SCHIP will add to the federal deficit.

 Announcements

The Department of Education released a booklet entitled “Learning Opportunities For Your Child Through Alternate Assessments.”  This 28-page booklet introduces parents to the "big ideas" contained in school improvement efforts under NCLB and IDEA, and provides them with the information they need to help ensure that their children can benefit from these efforts. To access the booklet, go to:  http://www.ed.gov/parents/needs/speced/learning/index.html

 

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