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NATaT December 2024 Annual Meeting

Jerry B. Crabtree, Heidi Fought (Ohio ED), Past President Neil Sheradin (Michigan Ed), and NATaT President Dave Sanko (PA ED)

NATaT Weekly Legislative Report

December 1, 2025

Congressional Outlook

Following the Thanksgiving holiday, Congress returns with a considerable to-do list. At the top of the agenda for lawmakers to consider is government funding for the remainder of FY 2026, health care, and the FY26 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), among other items. Congress will also face the challenge of limited time: the House has 13 legislative days remaining for the remainder of 2025, while the Senate has 12 days left.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is eager to move quickly to finish FY 2026 appropriations before the current stopgap Continuing Resolution (CR) funding the federal government ends on January 30, 2026. The Majority Leader wants to pair the FY26 Defense, Labor-HHS-Education, Commerce-Justice-Science, Interior-Environment, and Transportation-HUD spending bills into a “minibus” package for Congress to vote on within the next three weeks. To pass the bill quickly, the Senate would need to begin consideration of the package through Unanimous Consent, as both parties in the upper chamber are working to understand pain points and objections from members that would threaten the process of advancing the minibus. One priority for the Senate this week that could prevent the Senate from bringing an FY26 minibus to the floor is a significant backlog of judicial and executive branch nominees for the Trump administration. On the House side, GOP leadership is expected to allow the Senate to work through their version of the minibus before the lower chamber considers the package, which could go into the new year.

As last week’s Legislative Update reported, the deal to end the 43-day government shutdown on November 12 included a three-bill FY26 minibus (Agriculture-FDA, Military Construction-Veterans Affairs, and Legislative Branch), which notably saw the inclusion of earmarks for hundreds of local communities. If Congress moves forward on the next FY26 minibus consisting of the five spending bills mentioned above, the FY26 Energy-Water Development, Financial Services-General Government, Homeland Security, and State-Foreign Operations spending bills would be considered next, likely in January. There is some discussion that the Homeland Security and Financial Services bills could get funded through a full-year stopgap bill given the differences that exist in the bills, however, Congress has until Jan. 30 to decide what to do on those spending bills.

One of the main issues left in the wake of the shutdown and subsequent deal passed by lawmakers is a ground swell of pressure to pass an extension of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) enhanced premium tax credits (EPTCs), which are set to expire after December 31, 2025. As many as 22 million Americans will face significant price hikes to their health insurance premiums unless Congress takes action with considerable time constraints. In the House, multiple members have announced their retirement, shifting the total number of votes needed to pass legislation. While it was previously reported that the White House had planned to share a proposal to address the ACA subsidies before the Thanksgiving holiday, that plan was not made public last week. As promised from the negotiated shutdown deal, senators will vote on Senate Democrats’ proposal to extend the enhanced premium tax credit of the ACA by the end of next week (Dec. 12). No such agreement was negotiated in the House, as Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y) shared a Dear Colleague letter today to stress the importance for the lower chamber to act on the credits before they expire at the end of the year.

Added to the health care issues Congress hopes to address this month is passage of a final version of the FY 2026 National Defense Authorization Act. The bill could receive a vote in the House as early as this week, with the Senate working to pass the bill soon thereafter. Even with the differences in funding between the two chambers versions of the legislation ($925 billion and $893 billion in the Senate and House versions, respectively), Congress has a longstanding history of passing the bill on a bipartisan basis every year, and are on track to do so again in 2025.

The House will be in session through Thursday and will consider 22 bills under suspension of the rules, including the Made in America Manufacturing Finance Act (H.R. 3174), which increases Small Business Administration (SBA) 7(a) and 504 loan limits to small manufacturers, up to $10 million; the HUD Transparency Act of 2025 (H.R. 225), which requires the HUD Inspector General to testify before Congress annually; and the Improving Social Security’s Service to Victims of Identity Theft Act (H.R. 5345), which creates a single point of contact to provide more streamlined support at the Social Security Administration for victims of identity theft.

For the remainder of the week, the House will consider six additional bills, including: the Combating the Lies of Authoritarians in School Systems (CLASS) Act (H.R.1005), which requires federally funded K-12 schools to disclose to the Education Department when they receive funding or enter into a contract with a foreign source that is more than $10,000; the Promoting Responsible Oversight To Eliminate Communist Teachings for (PROTECT) Our Kids Act (H.R.1069), which prohibits federally funded K-12 schools that partner with a Confucius Institute or operate a Confucius Classroom with direct or indirect ties to the Chinese government to receive federal aid; the Transparency in Reporting of Adversarial Contributions to Education (TRACE) Act (H.R.1049), which requires federally funded K-12 schools to inform parents about a school’s involvement with foreign entities upon request; the Small Business Regulatory Reduction Act of 2025 (H.R. 2965), which requires the SBA to ensure each year that its rules and regulations do not result in any new costs to small businesses; the Destroying Unnecessary, Misaligned, and Prohibitive (DUMP) Red Tape Act (H.R.4305), which requires SBA’s Office of Advocacy to establish a public hotline to allow small businesses to notify the office of potentially burdensome regulations; and the Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements (SCORE) Act (H.R.4312), which establishes federal rules governing student-athletes’ ability to profit off of their name, image, and likeness.

The House will hold several committee hearings throughout the week, including an Energy & Commerce (E&C) Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade hearing on 19 bills to address children’s online safety; an E&C Subcommittee on Energy hearing on Securing America’s Energy Infrastructure: Addressing Cyber and Physical Threats to the Grid; a Homeland Security Committee hearing entitled When Badges Become Targets: How Anti-Law Enforcement Rhetoric Fuels Violence Against Officers; a Financial Services hearing to consider 41 bills related to Reducing Government Roadblocks to Housing Supply; a Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing on Unleashing American Energy Dominance and Exploring New Frontiers; and a Ways and Means Subcommittee on Tax hearing on Promoting Global Competitiveness for American Workers and Businesses.

The Senate will also be in session through Thursday and is expected to vote on the nominations of David Bragdon and Lindsey Ann Freeman to be U.S. District Judges for the Middle District of North Carolina, in addition to other judicial and executive nominees. The Senate will hold multiple committee hearings and meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday, including an Energy and Natural Resources (ENR) Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining hearing to receive testimony on 26 bills; a Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Media hearing on Signal Under Siege: Defending America’s Communications Networks; a Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, The Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy hearing on Countering China’s Challenge to American AI Leadership; and a Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing on Making Health Care Affordable Again: Healing a Broken System.

On Tuesday, voters in Tennessee’s 7^th congressional district head to the polls to vote in a special election to determine who will represent the district for the remainder of the 119^th Congress, following the resignation of former Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) in July. Republican Matt Van Epps, former commissioner of the Tennessee Department of General Services, faces off against Democratic state legislator Aftyn Behn in a district President Trump won in November 2024 by 22.3 percentage points.