This Week on the Hill: High-profile Agenda Items Headline Congressional Floor Action

Congress will gear up for another hectic work session this week as both chambers have teed up high-profile legislative items for 2019. When the House returns Tuesday, lawmakers will finish roll call votes on dozens of amendments to the first “minibus” package consisting of the Labor-Health and Human Services-Education, Energy and Water Development, Defense, and State-Foreign Operations spending bills. Once the four-bill measure clears the lower chamber, the House will take up a second minibus (text; amendments) which includes the Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS), Interior-Environment, Military Construction-Veterans’ Affairs (VA) and Transportation-Housing and Urban Development (HUD) spending bills.

In addition to its work on appropriations, the House is also expected to pass a suspension bill (H.R. 3253) out of the Energy and Commerce Committee that provides extensions for certain Medicaid programs. This includes extensions for: (1) the Money Follows the Person Rebalancing Demonstration; (2) protections for Medicaid recipients of home and community based services against spousal impoverishment; and (3) the Community Mental Health Services Demonstration Program. The bipartisan measure would also seek to prevent low rebates under the Medicaid drug rebate program, and would boost funding for the Medicaid Improvement fund.

Meanwhile, the upper chamber will return this afternoon to resume consideration of five pending presidential nominations, starting with the nomination of Sean Cairncross to be Chief Executive Officer of the Millennium Challenge Corporation. Following consideration of the nominations, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is expected to queue up the Senate’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for consideration. A vote on the motion to proceed with the $741 billion measure is expected on Wednesday.