THE DAILY WHIP: THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2015

Complete Consideration of House Amendments to Senate Amendments to H.R. 22 – DRIVE Act (Transportation and Infrastructure).  This measure would replace the Highway policy in the Senate passed, DRIVE Act, with the text of H.R. 3763, as reported from the Transportation and Infrastructure committee. H.R. 3763 is a bipartisan bill that provides $325 billion to reauthorize federal-aid highway and transit programs for six years. 

Although the measure does not provide highway funding levels that are robust enough to meet our infrastructure needs, it enables state and local governments to undertake large-scale projects which were not possible under the short-term, stop gap measures previously used to fund our country’s transportation system.  The measure improves the movement of goods by establishing a nationally significant freight and highway projects program and providing $500 million in freight rail projects.  Additionally, it increases American manufacturing by strengthening Buy America requirements and raising the domestic content threshold of transit buses and rail cars from 60% to 70%.

This measure combines the Highway policy in H.R. 3763 with the offsets contained in the Senate passed transportation funding bill. The offsets include a proposal to cut the six percent dividend paid to banks on investments in the Federal Reserve to 1.5% while exempting institutions with $1 billion or less in assets and require the Secretary of Energy to draw down and sell 101 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. In addition, the Senate-passed transportation funding bill includes a four year reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank, identical to the legislation that passed the House last week by a vote of 313-118. 

The Rule provides for no further general or amendment debate.

The following amendments have recorded votes pending as of last night:

      Schakowsky Amendment
      Mullin Amendment
      Burgess Amendment
      Neugebauer Amendment

Bill Text for House Amendments to Senate Amendments to H.R. 22:
PDF Version

Suspension (1 bill)

1. S. 1356 – National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016, as amended.  This bill authorizes $599 billion for the Pentagon and defense-related programs for FY2016.  This bill is an updated version of the NDAA conference report agreed to by the House on October 1 and vetoed by the President on October 22 because of its reliance on budget gimmicks to fund core defense needs.   The current bill reflects last week’s budget agreement that raised the spending caps for both defense and non-defense discretionary spending for two years.  It authorizes $715 million for Iraqi forces fighting the Islamic State, $406 million to train and equip Syrian opposition forces and $300 million for lethal weapons for Ukraine. It also modifies the military retirement system, blocks the Pentagon from retiring the A-10 Warthog aircraft and authorizes $11 billion for the F-35 Fighter.  It includes an overall $5b reduction in various accounts identified by the defense committees to meet the overall numbers of the budget agreement. 

Motion to go to Conference on House Amendment to Senate Amendment to H.R. 22– DRIVE Act andDemocratic Motion to Instruct Conferees