Week Ending June 15, 2018

  • Bipartisan Farm Bill Moving in the Senate, Pending Re-vote in the House
  • House GOP Abandons DREAMers, Protects Vulnerable Republicans Instead
  • House Labor-HHS Bill Shortchanges Working Families; Funding Bills Continue to Advance
  • Democrats Introduce Workers’ Freedom to Negotiate Act
  • Congress Acts on Opioid Crisis
  • Trump Administration Attacks Protections for People With Pre-Existing Medical Conditions

Bipartisan Farm Bill Moving in the Senate, Pending Re-vote in the House

The Senate Agriculture Committee approved with nearly unanimous support its bipartisan version of the farm bill (S. 3042), a stark departure from the very partisan House version (H.R. 2) The bill rejected the House bill’s harsh work for eligibility for enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), as well as cuts to the program The bill makes targeted investments in SNAP to help seniors, people with disabilities and members of Native American tribes. It would also continue to expand the 2014 job training pilot for beneficiaries.

No amendments were offered during committee consideration to change or harm SNAP, a major victory. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) had filed an amendment to mirror the outsourcing amendment to H.R. 2 championed by Rep. Faso. This amendment would strip the merit-staffing requirement to conduct SNAP eligibility determination and could be raised during a floor vote.

S. 3042 could move quickly to the Senate floor for a vote as early as next week, and possibly before the July recess. AFSCME supports the Senate bill’s bipartisan approach to protect SNAP, and strongly opposes the Ernst amendment.

The House is also attempting to re-vote on H.R. 2, which failed in May. AFSCME strongly opposes this harsh bill.

What you need to know: The Senate Farm bill is a bipartisan bill that protects SNAP, but the House bill (H.R. 2) is very harmful and will take nutrition assistance away from 2 million individuals. Congress should also reject any attempt to remove merit staffing requirements from SNAP.

Please call your member of the House of Representatives at 1-877-582-2913 and urge them to vote NO on H.R. 2, the Farm Bill.

We must block this bill from moving forward with harmful changes to SNAP that include promoting SNAP outsourcing, the displacement of public workers and elimination of food assistance for two million vulnerable Americans.

House GOP Abandons DREAMers, Protects Vulnerable Republicans Instead

The GOP reached a plan to bring two partisan immigration bills to the House floor next week, Securing America’s Future Act ( H.R 4670) and a not-yet-released bill led by Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), rejecting a bipartisan path forward to address Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Instead, H.R. 4670 and the Ryan bill will phase out diversity and family unification visas, fund a border wall, and codify the Trump administration’s new and cruel practice of separating immigrant families seeking asylum by taking young children away from parents and placing them in detention centers. The group of moderate Republicans involved in the discharge petition effort to push for votes on four bills, including the DREAM Act, have peeled away from that bipartisan effort and have agreed to this new course.

What You Need to Know: The GOP’s deal to vote on two partisan immigration bills abandons DREAMers and a path to citizenship. Instead, these votes are intended to give vulnerable, moderate Republicans election-time cover while giving anti-immigrant Republicans their demands on border enforcement.

AFSCME opposes both proposals because they split families apart and continue to politicize the lives of people who are American in every sense except on paper.

Democrats Introduce Workers’ Freedom to Negotiate Act

As workers face increasingly hostile, partisan attacks on their rights to organize, bargain collectively and earn living wages, House and Senate Democrats have stepped up strongly to protect them by introducing the Workers’ Freedom to Negotiate Act (H.R. 6080). The bill would strengthen workers’ freedom to join unions and negotiate collectively to win better pay and conditions, stiffen penalties on corporations, protect workers’ right to strike, streamline procedures to secure worker freedoms, and protect the integrity of union elections. Importantly, it would ensure that more unions can collect fair share fees and closes current labor law loopholes. AFSCME strongly supports this legislation.

What You Need to Know: The bill is an important step to restore fairness to an economy rigged against workers.

Congress Acts on Opioid Crisis

Both chambers of Congress are focusing on legislation to address the opioid epidemic. The House of Representatives easily passed more than three dozen bills, but most of them do not provide needed investments for comprehensive treatment, prevention or support for the behavioral health care workforce on the frontlines. H.R. 5102 is the exception and creates a new $250 million loan repayment program for substance use disorder treatment workers. AFSCME strongly supports efforts to alleviate student loan debt for all public service workers, including this bill which will help behavioral health care workers.

The Senate Finance Committee approved the Helping to End Addiction and Lessen (HEAL) Substance Use Disorders Act, which increases Medicare’s role in preventing opioid addiction and would create a demonstration for opioid use disorder treatment services for up to 2,000 Medicare beneficiaries. The bill would also create an option for state Medicaid programs to provide residential pediatric recovery for infants with exposure to opioids or other substances. The services covered would include treatment for mothers and other caretakers to encourage bonding and caring for these infants. The bill could be included in a broader opioid package soon.

What You Need to Know: Following the House’s passage of H.R. 5102 to provide loan forgiveness to behavioral health care workers focused on substance abuse treatment and prevention, AFSCME is focusing on securing Senate approval and full funding.

House Labor-HHS Bill Shortchanges Working Families; Funding Bills Continue to Advance

Congress continues to move full steam ahead to pass all 12 annual funding bills before the end of the fiscal year on September 30, as it attempts to avoid a pre-election shutdown. Most bills appear on track to be approved in full committee before the July 4 recess, but the path to finalizing bills is unclear.

The House Labor, Health, Human Services and Education Appropriations (Labor-HHS) Subcommittee approved its bill for fiscal year 2019, in a party-line split. As Ranking Democrat Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) noted, the bill “shortchanges workers, students, families, and everyone in between.” The bill is flat-funded, despite an $18 billion boost in domestic spending for fiscal 2019. Based on its size, a fair increase would have been $5.5 billion. As a result, $89 million was cut from the Department of Labor, $216 million was cut from the Employment and Training Administration, $168 million was cut from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, $196 million was cut from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), $332 million was cut from the Social Security Administration. Many programs were frozen at current levels, including Title I education grants, Title II grants for school employee training and class-size reduction, and the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG). Flat funding is essentially a cut, because annual inflation increases program costs and expenses. Susan Harwood Training Grants were eliminated. A few programs received modest increases, including an additional $50 million for Head Start, $50 million for IDEA special education grants, and $35 million for the Community Services Block Grant. While these cuts and insufficient funding levels are harmful, the bill rejected the deeper cuts proposed by the Trump budget.

A handful of programs received substantial increases, including an additional $1.25 billion for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and an additional $500 million for the Substance Abuse Block Grant.

These harmful cuts and insufficient investments in job training, worker safety, health services and education are compounded by numerous harmful, partisan policy “riders,” including proposals to prohibit implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), to deny collective bargaining rights to workers on tribal lands, to prohibit the NLRB from applying its current standard for determining when two or more employers are joint employers, and more. These riders also make the bill needlessly more controversial and will delay its passage.

The Senate is scheduled to create its Labor-HHS bill at the end of the month and has allocated an additional $2 billion more than the House. AFSCME strongly opposes the House Labor-HHS bill and urges the Senate to keep its bill free of poison pills and adequately fund programs important to working families.

What You Need to Know: The House Labor-HHS bill shortchanges needed investments in job training, worker protections, health services, education and includes harmful, controversial policy riders that will harm working families. AFSCME opposes this bill.

In additional funding news, the Senate Appropriations Committee diverged course from its House counterpart by maintaining $8.06 billion for EPA, equal to the level enacted in the fiscal 2018 appropriation. This includes level funding for the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds, which the House had cut by $300 million. States and localities use these grants for water infrastructure projects. Additionally, the Water Infrastructure Finance Act (WIFIA) program is funded at $63 million, which the House increased by $12 million. The Senate also increased funding for grant programs that help states implement environmental protections by $17 million.

Trump Administration Attacks Protections for People With Pre-Existing Medical Conditions

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) changed the rules for insurance coverage for 133 million Americans with pre-existing medical conditions. Previously, insurance corporations could deny coverage, charge high prices, offer coverage that excluded pre-existing conditions, and impose annual and lifetime limits on coverage. This protection is being challenged by the state of Texas in a case pending in federal court. This loss of protection would harm people with pre-existing conditions who currently have employer-sponsored coverage if they lose or leave their jobs, as they may not be able to access individual market coverage. Democratic attorneys general from 17 states, led by California, are opposing this attack to preserve the ACA and protect the individuals who rely on its coverage.

What You Need to Know: Trump assured his support for preserving the ACA’s protection of people with pre-existing conditions in multiple campaign promises that he repeated during the ACA repeal efforts in Congress. In a total reverse course, the president broke these promises when his administration not only failed to defend these protections but urged the court reviewing the Texas case to declare these protections unconstitutional, allowing insurers to once again charge women, older people, and people in certain occupations higher premiums.

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