Schedule:

The House and Senate are in session this week.

House:

The House is back in session on Monday. Legislative business begins at 2:00 pm. Votes are postponed until 6:30 pm. There are 38 bills on the suspension calendar for Monday and Tuesday. We’ve taken the liberty of leaving out the super important post office and federal building namings from the list.

• H.R. 1376, Electronic Message Preservation Act
• H.R. 5415, GAO-IG Act
• H.R. 4446, To amend the Virgin Islands of the United States Centennial Commission Act to extend the expiration date of the Commission, and for other purposes
• House Amendment to S. 899, Veterans Providing Healthcare Transition Improvement Act
• H.R. 3076, CASES for Constituents Act
• H.R. 66, Route 66 Centennial Commission Act
• H.R. 3906, Innovative Stormwater Infrastructure Act
• H.R. 5846, Promoting Flood Risk Mitigation Act
• S. 490, To reinstate and extend the deadline for commencement of construction of a hydroelectric project involving the Gibson Dam
• H.R. 5333, Over-the-Counter Monograph Safety, Innovation, and Reform Act
• H.R. 5554, Animal Drug and Animal Generic Drug User Fee Amendments
• H.Res. ___, Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Nation now faces a more complex and grave set of threats than at any time since the end of World War II, and that the lack of full, on-time funding related to defense activities puts servicemen and servicewomen at risk, harms national security, and aids the adversaries of the United States
• H.Res. ___, Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States Marine Corps faces significant readiness challenges and that budgetary uncertainty impedes the Corps’ ability to meet ongoing and unexpected national security threats, putting United States national security at risk
• H.Res. ___, Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States Navy’s total readiness remains in a perilous state due to high operational demands, increased deployment lengths, shortened training periods, and deferred maintenance all while the Navy is asked to “do more with less” as financial support for critical areas waned in the era of sequestration and without consistent Congressional funding
• House Amendment to S. 488, JOBS and Investor Confidence Act
• H.R. 1037, To authorize the National Emergency Medical Services Memorial Foundation to establish a commemorative work in the District of Columbia and its environs, and for other purposes
• H.R. 3777, Juab County Conveyance Act
• H.R. 4032, Gila River Indian Community Federal Rights-of-Way, Easements and Boundary Clarification Act
• H.R. 4645, East Rosebud Wild and Scenic Rivers Act
• H.R. 4819, DELTA Act
• H.R. 5105, BUILD Act
• H.R. 3030, Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act
• H.R. 4989, Protecting Diplomats from Surveillance Through Consumer Devices Act
• H.R. 5480, Women’s Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment Act

The Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for FY 2019, H.R. 6147, will be considered this week. Division A of the bill is the Interior and Environment appropriations bill. Right at 170 amendments have been filed. Division B is the Financial Services appropriations, to which 85 amendments were filed. The House Rules Committee will meet today at 5:00 pm to begin consideration of the amendments, which can be viewed here. There are at least a few amendments FreedomWorks will score, including the amendment to defund the recently passed D.C. ballot initiative to increase the minimum wage for wait staff to $15 per hour and amendment to defund the horrible D.C. individual mandate for health insurance.

The other rule bill on the floor this week is H.Con.Res. 119, which is a sense of the Congress resolution that a carbon tax would hurt the United States economy. Some libertarian think tanks have backed a revenue-neutral carbon tax as a free market solution to address concerns about climate change. The concern, though, is that such a tax wouldn’t be revenue neutral because other forms of taxation that would have been phased out or reduced to accommodate for a carbon tax will remain on the books, resulting in higher taxes overall.

The Judiciary Committee will explore content filtering practices of social media platforms on Tuesday at 10:00 am. Representatives from Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are slated to testify. The Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade will hold a hearing on Wednesday at 2:00 pm to examine the impact of tariffs on agriculture industry and rural communities. The Oversight and Government Reform Committee will mark up several bills, including the Modern Employment Reform, Improvement, and Transformation (MERIT) Act, H.R. 559, on Tuesday beginning at 1:00 pm.

The full committee schedule can be found here.

Senate:

The upper chamber will begin the week at 3:00 pm today with the consideration of Scott Stump as the Assistant Secretary for Career, Technical, and Adult Education at the Department of Education. There could be motions to go to conference on the National Defense Authorization Act, H.R. 5515, and the Farm Bill, H.R. 2.

Judge Brett Kavanaugh will be spending a lot of time on the Senate side of Capitol Hill. He’ll be meeting with senators from both parties, answering questions about cases that may come before the Supreme Court, as well about his judicial philosophy. The Senate Judiciary Committee hasn’t scheduled hearings yet but will within the next few weeks. In the meantime, Senate staffers and outside groups will spend much of their time digging through Judge Kavanaugh opinions, dissents, and other writings. We did some digging of our own last week. Find out what we learned here.

The Environment and Public Works Committee will examine of a discussion draft of the Endangered Species Act Amendments on Tuesday at 9:45 am. The Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee will hold a hearing to how to eliminate excess healthcare spending on Tuesday at 10:00 am. The Judiciary Committee will look at federal investment in DNA analysis on Wednesday at 10:00 am.

The full committee schedule can be found here.