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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

January 21, 2026

Congressional Outlook

The House is in session this week, while the Senate is in recess until Monday, January 26. The House is looking to finalize the remaining four Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 spending bills before the current stopgap Continuing Resolution (P.L. 119-37) temporarily funding the federal government expires on January 30.

House and Senate Republican and Democratic leadership released the final, conferenced FY 2026 minibus text early Tuesday morning. The 1,059-page legislation includes the Defense; Labor-Health and Human Services-Education; Homeland Security; and Transportation-Housing and Urban Development spending bills, in addition to numerous short-term authorization extensions (through Sept. 30, 2026) of programs set to expire on Jan. 30, like the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program. The Defense spending bill provides $839 billion in total funding; the Labor-HHS-Education spending bill provides $224 billion in total funding; the Homeland Security spending bill provides $64 billion in total funding; and the T-HUD spending bill provides $113 billion in total funding, making it the largest of the minibus packages ($1.2 trillion in total funding) that Congress is advancing this fiscal year. The package includes several thousand FY26 Community Project Funding (CPF)/Congressionally Directed Spending (CDS) earmark requests, totaling more than $4 billion, submitted by Members of Congress last Spring and approved by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees last summer and fall. The lists of final, approved FY26 CPF/CDS requests under the Labor-HHS-Education, Homeland Security, and T-HUD spending bill accounts are available here, here, and here, respectively.

Even though leaders and negotiators involved in the conversations have referred to the legislation as having been “negotiated and delivered on a bipartisan, bicameral basis,” House GOP leadership has already shifted its approach regarding the way the chamber will vote on the legislation this week. As Democrats continue to push for limitations and accountability to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), House Republicans have agreed to hold separate floor votes on the FY26 Homeland Security spending bill (H.R. 7147) and the other three spending bills (H.R. 7148). The House Rules Committee is meeting Wednesday afternoon to finalize the rule for the package, potentially opting for a final vote on the separate packages of spending bills on Thursday, before repackaging the bills together and sending it over to the Senate for final approval next week.

Upon returning next week, the Senate will need to take up the House-passed two-bill minibus package which includes the FY26 Financial Services-General Government and National Security-Department of State spending bills (H.R. 7006) and the final four-bill FY26 minibus described above. It appears likely that the House will package the final two minibuses together into a larger six-bill minibus, making the road easier for the Senate to pass the bill with the goal of sending the remaining six FY 2026 spending bills to President Trump’s desk for signature ahead of the Friday, Jan. 30 funding deadline.

The Republican Study Committee (RSC) released a blueprint last week for a second budget reconciliation bill in FY 2026 that Republicans could pass without Democratic votes. The goal would be to tackle affordability issues. The framework, titled “Making the American Dream Affordable Again,” includes housing reforms designed to make homeownership more accessible, health care changes like restructuring Affordable Care Act subsidies so they work more like health savings accounts instead of going directly to insurance companies, and cuts to regulations meant to increase energy production. The RSC asserts that their legislation, as presented in their framework, would net $1 trillion in deficit reductions, touting that 70 percent of the proposal items exist in bills already introduced in Congress and have a cost score attached to the provision.

The House will be in session through Friday and is considering eight bills under suspension of the rules, including the AI for Main Street Act (H.R. 5764), which requires Small Business Development Centers to assist small businesses in evaluating best practices for artificial intelligence; the Artificial Intelligence Wisdom for Innovative Small Enterprises (AI-WISE) Act (H.R. 5784), which requires the Small Business Administration (SBA) to establish and maintain educational resources and modules on AI tools; the 504 Program Risk Oversight Act (H.R. 5788), which requires the SBA to annually conduct a risk analysis of all loans guaranteed under the 504 loan program; and the Veterans Scam And Fraud Evasion (VSAFE) Act of 2025 (H.R. 1663), which establishes a Veterans Scam and Fraud Evasion Officer within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to be responsible for fraud and scam prevention. The chamber will also consider three bills pursuant to a rules, including the Supporting Pregnant and Parenting Women and Families Act (H.R. 6945), which provides statutory authority for states to use Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funding to pregnancy centers that “support protecting the life of the mother and the unborn child” and offer pregnancy education, testing, diapers, and baby clothes; the Pregnant Students’ Rights Act (H.R. 6359), which requires each institution of higher education (IHE) that participates in federal student aid programs to provide certain information to prospective and enrolled students on the rights and resources for pregnant students; and a Congressional Review Act (CRA) disapproval resolution (H.J. Res. 140) nullifying a January 2023 Bureau of Land Management rule that withdraws approximately 225,504 acres of National Forest System lands in Cook, Lake, and Saint Louis counties, Minnesota, from disposition under federal mineral and geothermal leasing laws. The House may also consider H. Con. Res. 68, which requires the removal of U.S. Armed Forces from Venezuela unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific statutory authorization for use of military force.

The House is holding numerous committee hearings and markups over the course of the week, including a Homeland Security Committee hearing on Oversight of the Department of Homeland Security: CISA, TSA, S&T; a Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance hearing covering When Public Funds Are Abused: Addressing Fraud and the Theft of Taxpayer Dollars; a Financial Services Committee hearing on Oversight of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Federal Housing Administration; an Oversight and Government Reform Committee markup of two resolutions holding former President Bill Clinton and Secretary Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress for refusing to appear before the committee regarding its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein; a Budget Committee hearing on Reverse the Curse: Skyrocketing Health Care Costs and America's Fiscal Future; a Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight hearing on Embedded Threats: Foreign Ownership, Hidden Hardware, and Licensing Failures in America’s Transportation Systems; a Ways and Means Subcommittee on Work and Welfare hearing on Strengthening the Child Support Enforcement Program: Status, Challenges, and Opportunities for Modernization; an Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs hearing on Housing Affordability: Saving the American Dream; an Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on Lowering Health Care Costs for All Americans: An Examination of Health Insurance Affordability; and a Ways and Means Committee hearing with health insurance CEOs.