THE DAILY WHIP: WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 2015

**Members are advised that following last votes, the House is expected to complete consideration of amendments to H.R. 2822.  Any recorded votes requested will be postponed until tomorrow.

H.Res. 347 – Rule providing for consideration of both H.R. 5 – Elementary and Secondary Education Reauthorization Act (Rep. Kline – Education and the Workforce)  and H.R. 2647 – Resilient Federal Forests Act (Rep. Westerman – Agriculture/Natural Resources) (One Hour of Debate). The Rules committee has recommended one Rule which provides for consideration of 2 bills.

For H.R. 5, the Rules Committee has recommended a second Rule that would provide for further consideration of the bill. The Rule provides for no general debate, but makes in order 4 amendments. Under the previous Rule for H.R. 5, which was adopted on February 25^th one motion to recommit, with or without instructions was also made in order.

For H.R. 2647, the Rules committee has recommended a structured Rule that provides for one hour of general debate with 30 minutes equally divided and controlled by the Chair and Ranking Member of the Committee on Agriculture and 30 minutes equally divided and controlled by the Chair and Ranking Member of the Committee on Natural Resources.  The Rule allows one motion to recommit, with or without instructions, and it also waives all points of order against the legislation.

The Rules Committee rejected a motion by Ms. Slaughter of New York to consider both bills under an open Rule. Members are urged to VOTE NO.

Complete Consideration ofH.R. 5– Elementary and Secondary Education Reauthorization Act (Rep. Kline – Education and the Workforce).  This bill reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) for fiscal years 2016 through 2021, followed by an automatic reauthorization through FY2022. It authorizes $116.5 billion in funding through FY2021 for ESEA programs, flat funding these programs at $23.3 billion per year, the FY2015 appropriated level, without allowing room for even inflationary adjustments despite a combined projected 14% decrease in purchasing power due to inflation and 3.2 million student enrollment increase before 2021.

The bill makes several detrimental funding changes to programs in ESEA. It combines the funding for all programs and subgroups included in Title I (Improving the Academic Achievement of the Disadvantaged) of ESEA into a block grant called Local Academic Flex Grants. States and local districts are allowed to use these grants for any activity authorized under Title I at any school that receives Title I funds. The bill requires that 10% of the Local Academic Flex Grants be used for private sector schools. The bill also eliminates the poverty threshold requirement of current law, which states that if the percentage of students living in poverty in a particular school is less than 40, Title I funds must be spent on programs targeting those low-income students specifically. Further, it includes a portability of Title I funds provision that will divert and dilute limited funds from high-need schools or districts with a high concentration of poverty. These three changes would have the effect of allowing funds to be diverted away from schools with the highest poverty and allows districts to send less money to low-income schools and more money to wealthier schools. Lastly, H.R. 5 block-grants all funding for special populations such as English learners, migrant students, Native students, and at-risk students, and allows those funds to be spent outside of those populations.

The bill eliminates supports for teachers and eliminates collective bargaining protections in current law. H.R. 5 repeals the highly-qualified teacher requirement (under current law, in order to be deemed a highly qualified teacher, public school teachers must hold at least a bachelor's degree, have obtained full state certification or have passed the state teacher licensing examination, and hold a license to teach), as well as the requirement that qualified teachers be equitably distributed so that some areas are not disproportionately served by unqualified teachers. This allows funding for teacher supports to be shifted away from the poorest schools to wealthier ones. It also eliminates the requirement to ensure quality professional development for teachers, only assessing them for hiring or firing, and eliminates dedicated funding for this purpose.

The bill also weakens protections for students with disabilities and fails to ensure that all children receive quality education. H.R. 5 eliminates the 1% cap for the number of students allowed to be assessed under alternative standards. This would permit all students with disabilities to be held to lower standards and given different assessments, effectively allowing those students to be educated in a lesser system. Further, it removes limits on the numbers of students who can be diverted into this alternate system, creating a perverse incentive to over-identify children for special education as a way to improve the average performance score of those students who remain in the regular assessment system. Finally, the bill removes graduation rates as an accountability measure, again creating a perverse incentive to encourage lower performing students to drop out.

Instead of improving standards and accountability to ensure that students are college or career ready, H.R. 5 removes accountability provisions that ensure all students receive a quality education. The bill allows states to weaken standards, weaken the assessment process, and institute weak accountability systems that would not require performance targets for student achievement, specific actions to improve low performance, or consequences if schools do not improve. Lastly, the White House has issued a SAP stating that the President’s senior advisors would recommend that he veto this bill. 

There is no question that the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is overdue for an update. However, instead of fixing the problems and improving quality and testing provisions, H.R. 5 would provide inadequate funding and move backward on equity and accountability, harming the education of our nation’s children. Members are urged to VOTE NO.

As of February 27th the House had completed all general and amendment debate on H.R. 5. Members are advised that the House will vote on all amendments, motion to recommit and passage of H.R. 5 today. 

The Rule, which will be adopted today, provides for no further general debate and makes in order 4 amendments, each debatable for 10 minutes, equally divided between the offeror and an opponent.  The amendments are:

Rokita/Grotham Amendment.  Shortens the authorization for the underlying bill from fiscal year 2016 through 2021 to 2016 through 2019.
Walker/DeSantis Amendment.  Adds A-PLUS, (Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success) which would send federal funding back to states in the form of block grants and allow states to direct that funding to any education purpose under state law for both public and private schools.
Salmon Amendment.  Allows parents to opt their student out of the testing required under this bill and exempts schools from including students that have opted out in the schools' participation requirements.
Polis Amendment.  Requires states to have college- and career-ready standards and set performance, growth, and graduation rate targets for all student subgroups. The amendment also includes performance targets for English language learners and students with disabilities.

As of February 27th the following amendments had recorded votes pending:

Rep. Zeldin Amendment
Rep. Hurd Amendment
Rep. Grayson Amendment
Rep. Wilson (FL) Amendment #33
Rep. Carson Amendment
Rep. Brownley Amendment
Rep. Loebsack Amendment
Reps. Polis/Meng/Hanna Amendment
Rep. Thompson (MS) Amendment
Rep. Scott (VA) Amendment

Bill Text for H.R. 5:
PDF Version

Background for H.R. 5:
House Report (HTML Version)
House Report (PDF Version)
CRS Report: ESEA Reauthorization Proposals in the 114^th Congress: Selected Key Issues

Continue Consideration of H.R. 2822– Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016 (Rep. Calvert – Appropriations). H.R. 2822 provides approximately $30.17 billion in discretionary budget authority for FY 2016, which is $246 million (0.8%) below FY 2015 levels and $2.038 billion below the President’s request. 

The bill provides $7.4 billion in funding for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a cut of $750 million below the FY 2015 enacted level and $1.2 billion below the President’s request.

In addition to drastic cuts to the EPA, the bill contains numerous controversial, poison-pill environmental policy riders, including a prohibition on the implementation of the final rule to clarify federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act as well as riders prohibiting forthcoming regulations by EPA on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants (the Clean Power Plan) and any changes to the definition of “fill material” and “discharge of fill material” under the Clean Water Act.  The bill would also prohibit the use of the social costs of carbon in rulemaking related to regulating greenhouse gases. With respect to the Interior Department, the bill contains additional riders to prohibit funding to write a rule to list the sage grouse and to require the delisting of grey wolves under the Endangered Species Act, to block new rules that would protect streams from mining pollution, and to prohibit the use of funds to implement new rules on hydraulic fracking on public lands.

The result of these cuts, consistent with Republicans’ dangerous budget’s policy of maintaining sequester level spending caps,  and poison-pill riders is a bill which is not a serious attempt to fund the Department of the Interior, but, rather, is just another in a long line of Republican attacks on the EPA. By insisting on these funding levels while restricting the ability of the EPA to reduce carbon emissions and protect the environment, House Republicans are endangering our nation’s air, water and public health. For these reasons, the Administration issued a SAP stating that, should it reach his desk, the President’s advisors would recommend he veto this bill. Members are urged to VOTE NO.

The Rule, which was adopted on June 24^th, provides for no further general debate and makes in order any amendment offered that complies with the House Rules.  Additionally, the Rule provides for 10 minutes of debate per amendment equally divided between the proponent and an opponent and up to 10 pro forma amendments for the purpose of debate offered by the Chair and Ranking Member or their designee.

Members with amendments at the end of the bill should be prepared to offer them today.

The following amendments have recorded votes pending: 

Rep. Garamendi Amendment
Rep. Capps Amendment 
Rep. Sablan Amendment
Rep. Castor Amendment
Reps. Grijalva/Lowenthal Amendment #1
Rep. Tsongas Amendment #1
Rep. Grijalva Amendment #2
Rep. Polis Amendment #1
Rep. Edwards Amendment 
Rep. Lawrence Amendment
Rep. Polis Amendment #2
Rep. Tsongas Amendment #2
Rep. Grijalva Amendment #3
Rep. Beyer Amendment
Rep. Blackburn Amendment
Rep. Pearce Amendment
Rep. Hardy Amendment 
Rep. Zinke Amendment
Rep. Garamendi Amendment #2
Rep. Newhouse Amendment
Rep. Rouzer Amendment
Rep. Hudson Amendment
Rep. Goodlatte Amendment
Rep. Westmoreland Amendment
Rep. LaMalfa Amendment

Bill Text for H.R. 2822:
PDF Version

Background for H.R. 2822:
House Report (HTML Version)
House Report (PDF Version)

Suspensions (2 bills)

1. H.Res. 310– Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding Srebrenica (Rep. Smith (NJ) – Foreign Affairs)
2. H.Res. 337 – Calling for substantive dialogue, without preconditions, in order to address Tibetan grievances and secure a negotiated agreement for the Tibetan people, as amended (Rep. Engel – Foreign Affairs)

TOMORROW’S OUTLOOK

The GOP Leadership has announced the following schedule for Thursday, July 9: The House will meet at 12:00 p.m. for legislative business. The House is expected to consider H.R. 2647 – Resilient Federal Forests Act (Rep. Westerman – Agriculture/Natural Resources).  The House is also expected to complete consideration of H.R. 2822.