Congress’ do-later items now due
Lawmakers face deadlines on DACA, health, shutdown
WASHINGTON — Congress faces looming deadlines this month on difficult issues, including how to fund the government and avoid a shutdown, stabilizing the nation’s health insurance program for poor children, and whether to shield young illegal immigrants from deportation.
Also on the agenda is emergency relief for regions upended by last year’s natural disasters, a key national security program and the fate of an agreement to stabilize health insurance markets under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Officials in both parties hope to make progress by Jan. 19, when a short-term government funding bill that Congress passed last month expires. The Senate returns Wednesday, and the House returns next Monday.
“Some of these things they’re talking about are huge, contentious issues,” said Jane Calderwood, who served as chief of staff for then-Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. “I can’t imagine it’s doable, and certainly not doable in a thoughtful way.”
Jim Manley, who served as an aide to then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said, “I’m not sure I’ve seen anything like it, at least in recent years, where so much high-profile stuff has to be done right out of the gate.”
On Wednesday, senior congressional leaders from both parties will meet at the Capitol with White House budget director Mick Mulvaney and legislative-affairs director Marc Short to renew talks on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which expires March 5. In September, President Donald Trump decided to sunset the program — started under President Barack Obama — that protects 700,000 young illegal immigrants from deportation. Opponents of the program argue that it could not survive a legal challenge.
Congressional Republicans and the White House have demanded that any deal to protect these immigrants include stronger border enforcement. Congressional Democrats say they can help find additional funding for border security, but they have ruled out funding the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border that Trump promised during his presidential campaign. Democrats are under intense pressure from Hispanic lawmakers and liberal activists to reject any government funding deal that does not resolve the issue.
But congressional Republicans also face pressure from conservative lawmakers and activists not to find protections for illegal immigrants. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, an immigration hawk, said last month that he urged Trump in a private phone call not to renew the program.
“Granting amnesty rewards lawbreakers and destroys the rule of law,” King said.
Lawmakers will also have to agree to new government funding levels or pass another short-term extension of spending limits — known as a continuing resolution — by Jan. 19.
Failure to do so would cause a government shutdown, which would cost the economy about $6.5 billion every week it lasts.
Lawmakers also will have to increase the debt ceiling by March, when the Treasury Department can no longer meet the federal government’s financial obligations without additional borrowing, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Similarly unresolved is the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which 9 million children use to help meet their medical costs. Right before the Christmas break, Congress designated $3 billion to prevent 1.9 million children from losing coverage this month, according to the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute. But that temporary solution keeps the insurance funded for only three more months, and state health programs throughout the country have begun notifying families that funding could expire.
In November, House Republicans passed a bill to fund the Children’s Health Insurance Program, but Democrats argued that the measure did so by removing money from a public-health preventive-care fund set up under the Affordable Care Act. Democrats want to fund the insurance without cutting funding for other federal health programs.
The law authorizing the government to obtain communications of foreign intelligence targets without an individualized warrant — a process that also collects the emails and phone calls of any Americans in communication with the foreign targets — is set to expire on Jan. 19. The program, originally set to end on Jan. 1, was extended for three weeks at the last minute before the Christmas recess.
Intelligence officials have said that under the law, existing court orders allowing surveillance will remain in effect until April. Security hawks and the intelligence community have defended the law as an essential safeguard against terrorism and a valuable tool for gathering foreign intelligence, while civil-liberty advocates say it creates the potential for abuses of government power.
Before the Christmas break, the House approved an $81 billion relief package for victims of recent hurricanes and wildfires in California. Democrats criticized that plan as inadequate, particularly for the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, which are still struggling with widespread power failures. Democrats in the Senate rejected the House package right before the Christmas recess, but members of both parties agree on the imminent need to allocate emergency funding.
Disaster funding “may have to slip to next year,” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in December. “I think we can work it out in a bipartisan way. I certainly do. But just jamming it through without consulting us and not being fair to so many other parts of the country doesn’t make sense.”