Congress tackles spending, policy and candidate protections on the road to the August recess

Been a hectic week on the political side of government. The 2024 election is in full swing as one party hosts its convention, and with an attempt on a candidate’s life, you know members of Congress are going have questions for the agencies in charge of protection. Meanwhile, there’s other legislation that could have an impact on other federal activities. To help break it all down for the Federal Drive with Tom Temin, Federal News Network Executive producer Eric White welcomes Deputy News Director Loren Duggan.

Interview Transcript: 

Eric White  Of course. So yeah, let’s start with the big news. We’ve seen some inquiries come in already, regarding Congressional investigations into just what happened on the security breakdown front, with the attempt on presidential candidate, well former President Donald Trump, what’s the latest? And what are members of Congress saying?

Loren Duggan  Well, they’re hitting the ground running on this one that they haven’t been in session since the assassination attempt. But tonight, Monday night is going to be the first hearing on this and it’s a committee that called the Secret Service Director to come and provide answers. Members got briefings wherever they were last week, whether they were at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee or back home for the Democrats. Both sides got at least some briefing from the administration. But now we’re going to see this hearing stage start, where she’s going to have to answer questions in an open forum and provide information there. So, it’s the first of several hearings, we will see Christopher Wray, the FBI Director up later this week, probably asking questions about what the agency may have known about the shooter. And then there’s also been invitations for the DHS Secretary who oversees the Secret Service as part of his job. So, lots of questions coming from lawmakers about what happened, what the breakdown in security was, and probably what lessons can be learned. And we’ll probably hear, I think, maybe some calls for resignations, or for some sort of consequence here over the course of the week.

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Eric White  Yeah, we’ve already seen them come through for Kimberly Cheatle, she’s the director of the US Secret Service. And she’s held steadfast that she’s not going to step down. And really, she’s kind of putting Congress on notice saying, Hey, we’ve been stretched thin for a while. And we’ve been telling you this, and this is the kind of thing that’s going to happen. If you don’t give us what we need is that kind of what we’re probably going to hear from her.

Loren Duggan  We may hear some of that, you know, I’m sure she’ll try to explain what the posture was going into that event and, and what she knows, and probably what their relationship was with other law enforcement on the ground there in Pennsylvania. So, we’ll probably hear a lot about that. I’m sure money will come up. And there might be a monetary question to deal with here. At some point, normally, in an election year, they step up protection, because they have whoever the sitting president is, and then whoever the president, potential candidates might be. So, I’m sure we’ll get some questions around that and some discussion, too.

Eric White  All righty. So back to policy matters, something a little bit less dreary. Members of Congress and agencies are still kind of trying to figure out what exactly the Supreme Court’s ruling on the chevron doctrine and which virtually made it powerless. And what that means for agency activities going forward. We’ve seen members of Congress trying to inquire with agencies on whether or not it will affect their agendas. What are the latest stances from members of Congress who are either celebrating it or not happy with it?

Loren Duggan  Well, a hearing this week that I think is interesting is Congress asking, What does this mean for Congress, the House Administration Committee, which oversees the operations of the House of Representatives is having a hearing looking for what this means for lawmaking going forward? How specific do you need to be what does it mean, because the idea of Chevron was, if there’s a law, that somewhat ambiguous course would give deference to agencies? Well, if you’ve gotten rid of that changes the dynamic maybe you have to be more prescriptive in your rulemaking or in your lawmaking, so that the rulemaking will be on solid footing. So that’s the question Congress is confronting right away. And I think this has a long tail as agencies get back to Congress on how they’re going to approach it and what approach they’re going to take to writing rules and defending them in court. Because those are really the different fronts here. This ruling has effects on all three branches of government in very different ways.

Eric White  Yeah. Could mean some longer hours and longer bills written by those staffers, right. Absolutely.

Loren Duggan  And perhaps getting more staff or tapping expertise and other places to get there. So yeah, a lot to figure out how this is really going to work going forward. Right? Well, the two chambers are working on their different bills in the House Committee has done all 12 At this point, set them all to the floor. And they’re going to take up four of them this week, including I know your listeners care about the financial services general government bill because that has some of the matters that touch more broadly on the federal workforce. So that’s one of the four that will come up. And in general, the House appropriators are looking for places to cut to keep spending down. And on the Senate side, there’s a little bit more openness to spending more. So, as we see the Senate Appropriations Committee continue to work. They’re scheduled to do I think it’s four bills on Thursday, keep this progress going, perhaps by the August recess, which is only a couple of weeks away, we’ll have an idea what the House and Senate positions are. And then that will lead to the real discussions on these things later in the year when they figure out and have to come to an agreement on how much to spend in total, then what to give to the agencies. But we are seeing a lot of flashpoints, especially in the house on agencies they want to cut or officials whose salaries they want to reduce to $1 as a punishment for, you know, what their policies have been or their approach to policy matters. So, a lot to walk through and get through in these bills. But this isn’t the final word on this subject.

Eric White  We’re speaking with Bloomberg government’s Loren Duggan. So other funding matters that are on the House floor and the Senate is discussing them as well. Why don’t we just go through some of the major spending bills that are being debated currently and what they mean for potential agency funding matters.

Loren Duggan  Let’s zero in on probably the, well, no, probably it is the largest spending bill every year. And that’s the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act, there’s always a couple of issues that stick out when this debate happens. What are the sticking points this time around? Is it going to be you know, providing reproductive services again? Or is it going to be the use of drones over in the Middle East? What’s, what’s the goings on right now with that? all that might come into play and the bill, the house has already passed its bill, it started out very bipartisan, but all the social writers, the kind of things you talked about were tacked on to that bill and eroded the Democratic support pretty significantly on the House version, the Senate version has come out of committee and could come up maybe before the August recess or later in the year, they’re trying to figure that out. I think a challenge there might be more than 840 amendments have been filed to it on things that don’t directly affect defense. But because defense is so far-reaching things like AI policy and other matters, they might want to tack on to that the Water Resources Development Act. That could be the real challenge, getting it through the Senate. It’s just how do you deal with all these amendments moving forward. And the other issue is going to be the top line on the defense bill. The Senate side did authorize more money in their bill. But the chairman who wrote the bill, Jack Reed actually voted against it in committee because he didn’t like that spending level. So, a lot to work through here on the spending picture on both the authorization and appropriation side. But that’s one of the core things Congress does every year. And this year is no different in the level of interest in work being put in.

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Eric White  There’s also a few bills that will have a direct effect on federal workers themselves. One regarding telework and the other one regarding An act that maybe some federal workers have neglected to take part in because of the rules surrounding the substance that is in question. What can you tell me about the two bills that you know that I’m nodding towards here?

Loren Duggan  Well, the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which also does a lot of work on government efficiency and matters like that is doing one is the telework Transparency Act. And that’s just trying to get agencies to be more upfront about what their policies are and how they monitor employee use of telework. So, kind of wading into that debate that has been going on obviously, for a long time now. The other bill you mentioned is what’s known as the Doobie Act, which some staffer worked hard to come up with an acronym that would be D O B I E. But the idea there is that if you have past marijuana use, it shouldn’t be an obstacle to you passing a security clearance or getting a job. Now, if you have other issues, then those issues can come to bear. But that can’t be the sole reason you’re denied federal employment and the chair of the committee, Gary Peters is pushing forward that legislation along with a lot of other bills at this markup this week.

Eric White  Yeah. And for those of you who live outside the Beltway, that’s kind of a big deal. Because Maryland recreational is already legal, DC semi recreational is legal. And Virginia is on its way as well. So that’s going to be a big deal for potential federal workers of the future.

Loren Duggan  Absolutely. And with a push to you know, change the scheduling of cannabis and marijuana that’s also going to feed into this as well. So, a lot leading to that bill, which some are going to refer to as common sense legislation at this point.

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