The House and Senate are out this week.
CONGRESS: The House returns February 1 and is then scheduled to recess after votes on February 9. No floor votes are scheduled from February 10 through February 27. However, that will likely change if action is needed on legislation that would extend federal government funding beyond the February 18 expiration of the current continuing resolution. After this week’s recess, the next break for the Senate is the Presidents’ Day recess from February 21 to 27. With President Joe Biden's State of the Union speech scheduled for March 1, Biden and the Democratic leadership in Congress are expected to drop a scaled-back version of the House-passed $2.2 trillion Build Back Better Act, but talks have yet to resume with the Democrats struggling to coalesce around an agenda headed into the November midterm elections.
COMPETITIVENESS LEGISLATION: House Democrats could unveil a competitiveness measure today or tomorrow designed to be a counterproposal to the Senate’s U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (USICA). The House legislation will include proposals from at least three committees – Science, Space, and Technology; Energy and Commerce; and Education and Labor – and could also include trade provisions from the Ways and Means Committee and possibly language from the Foreign Affairs Committee.
The House has already passed related legislation dealing with R&D and funding for the National Science Foundation, so the next step for the competitiveness package will be a conference committee to resolve differences between the House and Senate. One area of agreement is that the measure should include an investment in semiconductor chips. USICA, which the Senate approved in June on a bipartisan vote of 68-32, would provide $52 billion over five years to fund the CHIPS Act that was enacted last year.
RETIREMENT SAVINGS: House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal (D-MA) and Ranking Member Kevin Brady (R-TX) are optimistic that the House will soon take up legislation referred to as SECURE 2.0 that their panel unanimously approved last May. Among other things, the bill would require employers to automatically enroll employees in their 401(k) plans when they become eligible (although employees may opt-out). The wide-ranging measure also includes provisions that would raise the age requirement for persons to take required minimum distributions from their retirement plans and allow employers to make matching contributions to an employee’s retirement fund based, in part, on the employee’s student loan payments.
The House Education and Labor Committee also has jurisdiction over certain retirement issues and unanimously approved legislation in November, the RISE Act, that is expected to be combined with SECURE 2.0 for floor consideration. Action in the Senate committees could take place in late spring or early summer.
