IAWP LEGISLATIVE INFORMATION July 2005 Archives Home Page ***Weekly Update*** From Legislative Committee Chair: Todd Kolden, Aberdeen Central Office Week of July 7, 2005 CONGRESS EXTENDS WELFARE LAW THROUGH SEPTEMBER 30 Congress this week approved its 10th short-term extension of the 1996 welfare law (P.L. 104-193), extending program operations through September 30. Congress has been unsuccessful in shepherding a legislative rewrite of the welfare law since its sunset on September 30, 2002, predominately because of disagreements over recipients' work requirements and child care funding. This year, the Senate Finance Committee approved its welfare bill (S. 667) in March sending it to the Senate floor where it is awaiting consideration. The House, which last year was successful in approving its welfare bill early in the session, only has moved its bill (H.R. 240) through the authorizing Subcommittee. The House bill still must be approved by the full House Committee on Ways and Means and be approved on the floor. It is unclear when the House and Senate bills will be considered as Congress will focus its two months of scheduled session time on approving appropriation bills before the start of 2006 federal fiscal year on October 1. Congress is in summer recess throughout the month of August. SENATE COULD TAKE UP WIA BILL IN JULY According to Administration officials and various stakeholder groups monitoring reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act, the Senate majority party leadership could bring its WIA bill (S. 1021) to the floor for consideration before summer recess begins on August 1. Shortly after returning from the week-long July 4 recess on July 10, Senate majority party leadership is expected to consider a resolution naming July "jobs" month and will focus on legislation with a "jobs" theme. Senate majority party leaders have said they will first focus on approval of legislation to reauthorize the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Consideration of S. 1021 could be close behind. The Senate must also find floor time to approve FY 2006 appropriation bills. The Senate Health, Education Labor and Pensions Committee unanimously approved S. 1021 on May 18. The House approved its legislation (H.R. 27) to reauthorize WIA on March 2. Week of July 25, 2005 SENATE PANEL APPROVES FY 2006 LABOR PROGRAM SPENDING BILL A comparison of available session time before the beginning of the federal fiscal year on October 1 to remaining unfinished appropriation bills and other business leads many on Capitol Hill to conclude continuing resolutions (CR) and an omnibus spending bill are on their way. Congress was forced over the past three federal fiscal years to extend federal government operations by CR while it continued negotiating spending levels. Ultimately, Congress decided each of those years to consolidate unfinished spending bills into single omnibus bills to streamline negotiations. The FY 2006 labor program spending bill almost certainly would be part of an omnibus bill because it is unlikely the Senate will have the floor time to consider it independently before October 1. Therefore, it is important to analyze spending levels as they currently stand in the Senate and House bills, because they are the levels used to negotiate final FY 2006 levels in an omnibus bill. Based on Congressional action thus far, it appears more likely than previous years that funding for state Re-Employment Service (RES) grants will be eliminated. Both the House approved spending bill and Senate Appropriations Committee approved bill would cut the $35 million grants requested by the Administration in its FY 2006 Budget request. It also appears likely the Congress will cut the appropriation for the one-stop/America's Labor Market Information System (ALMIS) by approximately 10 percent. The House bill would cut ALMIS by $10 million and the Senate bill would cut the program by $8 million. The House bill would cut WIA programs more than the Senate with combined reductions to the WIA Adult, WIA Dislocated Worker and WIA Youth programs totaling $138 million compared to FY 2005 levels. The Senate bill would cut these WIA programs by only $3 million. A chart comparing FY 2005 final appropriation levels to the Administration's FY 2005 Budget request and FY 2006 levels that would be appropriated under House and Senate bills is included with this Bulletin. The chart is also available on the Workforce ATM by selecting Appropriations on the Subject Locator or by visiting the NASWA Legislative Advocacy page in the Member Services section. Also available on the NASWA Legislative Advocacy page are links to the House and Senate FY 2006 labor program spending bills and their respective committee reports, which provide further details on Congressional intent. ETA PROPOSES RULE CLARIFYING ABLE AND AVAILABLE WORK REQUIREMENT The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has determined a need to adopt a regulation that would clearly set forth its interpretation of the able and available (A&A) for work requirement. A condition of an individual's eligibility for unemployment compensation (UC) benefits is their status as able and available for work. DOL said it has consistently interpreted the provisions of federal law requiring individuals be A&A, but because the requirement is not explicitly stated in federal law or the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), there exists confusion on its validity, scope and application. Announcement of the proposed rulemaking is provided in the July 22 Federal Register. The proposed rule would apply to all state UC laws and programs. Comments on the proposed rule must be submitted on or before September 20, 2005. Week of July 18, 2005 SENATE PANEL APPROVES FY 2006 LABOR PROGRAM SPENDING BILL The Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday unanimously (27-0) approved its FY 2006 Labor, HHS and Education spending bill (H.R. 3010). The bill is now ready for consideration on the Senate floor, which is unlikely to occur before the beginning of the Congressional summer recess on August 1. Overall discretionary spending under the bill totals $145.7 billion or $3.2 billion more than was approved on June 24 by the House. Discretionary spending in the bill is overshadowed by its sum for mandatory programs including Medicaid, Medicare and unemployment insurance (UI) payments totaling $458.3 billion, prompting Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) to express during the mark-up that "discretionary spending is a concept of the past." A review of the Senate Appropriations Committee's report (109-103) released shortly after the spending bill won approval reveals the Committee's philosophy on domestic spending priorities and the commonalities and differences with the spending levels approved earlier in the summer by the House. Differences in spending priorities between the House and Senate will require sorting out after the full Senate sends the bill to a conference committee, not expected to begin until mid-September at the earliest. Following a general statement "that every citizen deserves the right to a basic education and job skills training" the report outlines the specifics on spending for the publicly-funded workforce system. The Senate bill would fund the Employment Service (ES) program at $50 million more than the House approved spending bill, but $35 million less than was appropriated in FY 2005. The Administration's FY 2006 Budget requested a reduction to the ES program by approximately $85 million. The $35 million reduction proposed in the Senate's bill comes from elimination of the Reemployment Services (RES) grants "due to tight budget constraints." The cut to the ES program was first requested by the Administration in its FY 2005 Budget request and was justified by "administrative efficiencies" that it said would result from a consolidation of WIA programs and ES programs in its Workforce Investment Act (WIA) reform package. The Senate Appropriations Committee's report on the spending bill makes clear it did not consider pending legislative action in determining funding levels for WIA programs stating "the Committee is acting on a current law request, deferring without prejudice proposed legislative language under the jurisdiction of the authorizing committees." Spending in the Senate's bill for WIA programs is greater than those in the House bill. Under the Senate FY 2006 spending bill, the WIA Adult program would be appropriated $27.9 million more than the House bill, but $3 million less than was appropriated in FY 2005 for a total appropriation of $893.6 million. The WIA Dislocated Worker program would receive $70.8 million more than House bill for a total FY 2006 appropriation of $1,476 million, the same level as appropriated in FY 2005. The Senate bill would also appropriate in FY 2006 for the WIA Youth program the same amount as was appropriated in FY 2005 for a total of $986 million. This amount is $36 million more than both the House bill would provide and the Administration's FY 2006 Budget requested. Unlike the House spending bill, the Senate spending bill would not rescind $125 million in FY 2005 appropriated funds from the Community Based Job Training Initiative (CBJTI). However, like the House bill, the Senate bill would authorize only half of the Administration's FY 2006 Budget request for the CBJTI program for a total of $125 million, all of which must come from the Secretary of Labor's non-emergency National Emergency Grant (NEG) funds. The Senate report includes language specifying the use of the $125 million for CBJTI to "strengthen partnerships between workforce investment boards, community colleges, and employers, to train workers for high growth, high demand industries in the new economy." The Committee also encourages the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) to consider applications for the solicitation for grant proposals from one-stop career centers and alternative education and training providers in rural areas without community colleges. On other workforce related programs, the Senate's report states it expects no FY 2006 funds shall be used for the personal re-employment account (PRA) initiative unless specifically authorized by law. The FY 2006 Senate bill would appropriate approximately $19.8 million for the prisoner re-entry program, or $15.2 million less than the Administration's FY 2006 Budget request. The Senate bill would, like the House spending bill, authorize the rescission of $20 million in unobligated Health Care Tax Credit (HCTC) funds. The Senate bill includes an appropriation of $55 million for the President's High Growth Job Training Initiative, which must be awarded on a competitive basis. The FY 2006 Senate spending bill would appropriate $2,600 million for state administration of the Unemployment Insurance (UI) program. This amount is $22 million less than would be appropriated under the House bill and requested by the Administration. It is unclear whether this amount would affect the base or above base amounts states receive. The Senate bill appears to have reduced the threshold for the triggering on of contingency reserve funding by reducing the average weekly insured unemployed (AWIU) volume. The Senate Committee report authorizes the use of funds for conducting in-person reemployment and eligibility assessments of UI beneficiaries and preventing and detecting fraudulent claims, but it is unclear how much. The Senate report restates language in the Social Security Act requiring the use of merit based staff in administration of the UI program and indicates it "expects states will use state merit based staffed UI personnel to perform these functions." SENATE CONSIDERATION OF WIA BILL NOT EXPECTED UNTIL AFTER SUMMER RECESS According to Administration officials and various stakeholder groups monitoring reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act, the Senate majority party leadership is not likely to bring its WIA bill (S. 1021) to the floor for consideration before summer recess begins on August 1. The Senate is expected to focus the next two weeks of floor business on consideration of FY 2006 appropriation bills. The Senate has approved four of its thirteen spending bills and must devote considerable time if it wishes to finish remaining bills before the start of the new federal fiscal year on October 1. SENATE CONFIRMS CICCOLELLA AS VETS ASSISTANT SECRETARY The Senate recently confirmed the nomination of Charles (Chick) Ciccolella as the new Assistant Secretary of the Veterans' Employment and Training Service (VETS). Mr. Ciccolella fills the vacancy created when Assistant Secretary Fred Juarbe resigned earlier this summer.