House and Senate Cloakroom: July 12 – July 16, 2010

House Cloakroom: July 12 – July 16, 2010

Analysis:

Coming out of the July 4^th recess week, the House will return to action on Tuesday for legislative business and a number of bills under suspension. Overall, it will be a light week with several parks and lands bills as well as setting a federal telework policy and extending the flood insurance program.

Major Floor Action

• H.R. 5114 – Flood Insurance Extension
• H.R. 1722 – Federal Telework Policy

Major Committee Action:

• The House Homeland Security Committee Subcommittee on Management, Investigations, and Oversight will hold a field hearing on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Chain of Command. The Heritage Foundation has recently sent down a team of respected energy, environment, homeland security and response experts to investigate what is and is not working and what more needs to be done.
• The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will hold a hearing on the implementation of Iran sanctions.
• The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law will hold a hearing on the ethics of immigration policy overhaul.

Senate Cloakroom:  June 21–25, 2010

Analysis:

The Senate will return from its July 4^th recess on Monday to continue to debate the Extenders bill, a revised version of the previous bill.  Its passage would result in tax increases of over $50 billion dollars. Also on the agenda is the Small Business Lending Fund Act, a measure intended to increase bank lending to small businesses.

Major Floor Action:

• H.R.4213: Tax Extenders bill
• H.R.5297: Small Business Lending Fund Act of 2010

Major Committee Action:

• The Senate Judiciary Committee will possibly vote on the pending nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to be an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court.
• The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a hearing on Afghanistan with Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke testifying.
• The Senate Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing on sustaining nuclear weapons under the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). The Honorable Jim Talent recently wrote a blog post on The Foundry regarding the importance of this debate and the weaknesses of this treaty.