Inside D.C.

They’re back!

Congress returns from its summer vacation September 8, tanned, rested, its 15% public approval rating in hand – President Obama’s is 46% — and about 45 work days until the scheduled December 18 adjournment of this first year of the 114th Congress.  There’s a whole lot of stuff to get done in that month and a half.

The big day firmly implanted in lawmakers’ minds is November 8, 2016, national election day.  With the entire House, one-third of the Senate and the presidency at stake, for Democrats the prize is four more years in the White House and retaking at least one chamber in Congress. For the GOP, it’s goal is no less than retaining control of Congress and retaking the of big white mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

All but a few non-money bills will be deferred to 2016, as everything is increasingly viewed through the prism of presidential politics.  That doesn’t mean there won’t be a lot of noise made; it just means no substantive action will be taken.

The first wrestling match will be over the continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government operating past September 30.  The issue isn’t whether there will be a CR, but how long that CR will run.  While usually a CR runs until the end of the calendar year – last year’s FY2015 omnibus spending package was approved just before Christmas – there’s buzz about a one-year CR tied to hopes for a successful budget/spending deal.  To get a budget deal, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY), House Speaker John Boehner (R, OH), their Democrat counterparts and President Obama have to agree to a public group hug over how much the government will spend and where it will spend it.  A budget deal notwithstanding and the luxury of kicking FY2016 spending down the road for a full year, don’t count on a 12-month CR, but something long than three months is a possibility.

The House has approved several 12 FY2016 spending bills – though not the agriculture/FDA spending bill – and while committee approval is in hand for Senate bills, that chamber is gridlocked as Democrats, unhappy with too little spending, threaten to filibuster any spending bill brought to the floor.  Further, several of the House and Senate spending bills carry policy “riders” – language unrelated to spending, tacked onto the bill in hopes the President won’t veto a particular package. These add-ons seek to provide relief from a number of contentious, highly political issues, including immigration reform, blocking funding for Planned Parenthood, blocking EPA’s “waters of the U.S. (WOTUS)” rule, taking similar action on the agency’s ozone rulemaking, its greenhouse gas/carbon capture rule on power plants and its Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) authority, and on and on.

Toss into the pot a multi-year reauthorization of federal highway, bridge and urban commuter system programs, action which means finding a way to replenish the near-bankrupt highway trust fund (HTF) without raising the federal gasoline tax.   House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee markup of its reauthorization bill – the Senate approved its bill in July – commences mid-September, with a major push by shippers to include permission to run trucks weighing up to 91,000 pounds – the current federal limit is 80,000 pounds – with six axles on the interstate highway system.

Then the third week in September will be devoted to Pope Francis’ state visit to Washington, including an address to a joint session of Congress.  Ironically, right around the time the Pope is in town Congress will begin debate prior to a sure-to-be-ugly floor vote on the Iran nuclear agreement.  While the media touts President Obama’s “victory” in securing the votes to block negative Senate action on the deal, the possibility of one or more of the President’s “committed” votes switching sides is keeping his aides up at night.

Also on deck is the potential Senate repeal of country-of-origin labeling (COOL) for U.S. meat. The drama again is in the Senate as some lawmakers push for replacing mandatory COOL with voluntary COOL, while the Canadians and Mexicans keep reminding Congress nothing short of full repeal will cut it.  The U.S. and its North American neighbors appear before the World Trade Organization (WTO) September 15-16 to argue whether $3 billion in retaliatory tariffs by Canada and Mexico are justified, so shortly after that meeting, a flurry of activity is expected.

A new Senate bill, Agriculture Committee hearings and a push for early October floor action is the strategy by agriculture and the food industry to get federal preemption of state and local laws requiring the labeling of foods containing genetically modified (GM) ingredients.  On the trade side, should Japan and/or Canada finally cooperate in getting a final TransPacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact, the clock starts ticking on the 60 days of public examination of the agreement, culminating in an up-or-down congressional vote on the merits of the treaty.

With all of that said — and that’s just the list of what agriculture cares about — why does the expression “no rest for the wicked” keep running through my mind?