Both chambers are in session this week.
Senate Republicans will continue to revise the House-passed reconciliation package. Disagreements remain over the overall size of the package as well as a host of outstanding issues that need to be resolved, including Medicaid reform, repealing the clean energy tax credits, and the SALT deduction included in the House bill. Additional Senate committees will release text this week, but the Senate Finance Committee’s tax and health care sections are not expected to be unveiled until early next week.
In the House, appropriators will work on fiscal year 2026 government funding, with markups slated for the Military Construction-Veterans Affairs, Agriculture-FDA, Homeland Security, and Defense spending provisions.
The lower chamber also intends to vote this week on a recissions package the White House sent to Congress that would claw back $9.4 billion in funding from the United States Agency for International Development, National Public Radio, and the Public Broadcasting Service. Some Republican Senators have expressed concerns that the package includes cuts to the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Both chambers must pass the rescissions within the next 45 legislative session days, or else the request is automatically rejected.
Further, the House will hold votes on legislation that would block noncitizens from voting in Washington, D.C., elections (H.R. 884), require the district to comply with federal immigration law (H.R. 2056), and raise standards for disciplining D.C. police officers (H.R. 2096), as well as Senate-passed legislation to permanently designate fentanyl-related substances as Schedule I drugs (S. 331).
The upper chamber will resume consideration of Brett Shumate to be an assistant attorney general and David Fotouhi to be deputy administrator of the EPA. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has also filed cloture on the nominations of Stephen Vaden to be the deputy secretary at USDA and Andrew Hughes to be deputy secretary of HUD.
Several of President Trump’s Cabinet secretaries will continue testifying before Congress this week regarding their agencies’ budgetary requests for FY 2026.
Separately, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will meet with their Chinese counterparts in London on Monday to discuss ongoing trade negotiations between the two countries, specifically focusing on export controls and rare earth minerals.
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