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By Meghan Shea
Read this blog from The Corps Network’s Government Relations Team about recent updates from Washington and what they mean for the Service and Conservation Corps community.
Fiscal Year 2025 Appropriations
As Congressional August Recess approaches, below is a review as to the status of appropriations bills in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
House of Representatives
- The House passed all twelve of its appropriations bills out of the full committee. Currently, only five of these bills have been passed on the House floor. Last week, the House planned to hold floor votes on several funding bills, but ultimately House Republicans decided to hold off on these plans when it became clear that they did not have the votes to approve the measures. The chamber decided to begin their August recess a week early and left Washington, DC, last Thursday morning.
- The House’s Labor, Health and Human Services Subcommittee funding bill, which funds the Department of Labor (DOL) and AmeriCorps, contains an 11% funding cut below its Fiscal Year 2024 enacted level. The full committee mark can be found here and the bill report can be found The bill, as written, would eliminate funding for AmeriCorps State and National, AmeriCorps NCCC, and the National Service Trust that funds the Education Awards. The bill would also eliminate funding for DOL’s Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act Youth Job Training and includes severe cuts for the Registered Apprenticeships program as well.
- The House’s Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies funding bill, which funds the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Forest Service, includes funding of $38.5 billion. This is $72 million below the Fiscal Year 2024 enacted level and $4.4 billion below the President’s budget request. The bill provides $2.75 billion for the Wildfire Suppression Operations Reserve Fund. The full committee mark can be found here and the bill report can be found here. Section 448 of the bill states the following: “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used for the American Climate Corps.” Rep. Neguse (D-CO) introduced an amendment to the House Rules Committee that would have stripped this section from the bill.
Senate
- The Senate has begun marking up their twelve annual funding bills in the full Appropriations Committee. Their subcommittee allocations were set higher than those made by the House. They set a 3.4% increase (nearly $30 billion) for defense programs and a 2.7% increase (around $20 billion) for non-defense programs. In comparison, the House Appropriations Committee cut non-defense programs by 6-7 % (11% in the Labor, Health and Human Services bill) and followed the 1% increase for defense programs as set by the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.
When both chambers return to D.C. in September, they will need to begin work on a Continuing Resolution to keep the federal government funded beyond the end of the fiscal year on September 30. They will then go into recess for the month of October and return after the November elections to finish Fiscal Year 2025 appropriations. Whether there will be an omnibus bill or a possible Continuing Resolution that sees us into January of 2025 will likely depend on the outcome of the November elections.
American Climate Corps
In June, several virtual swearing-in ceremonies for American Climate Corps members were held. The first one was held on June 18. TCN understands that more than 110 attendees registered but it is believed that more participated. Senator Ed Markey was the special guest at the first event, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland was the special guest at the second event, and AmeriCorps CEO Michael Smith was the special guest at the third event. Later in June, the Biden Administration began requesting information to highlight projects being done by ACC participants. TCN circulated a form for Corps to share information about their ACC projects. AmeriCorps along with STEM Next has hired one ACC staffer and is in the process of hiring two additional roles: Strategic Advisor for Partnership Coordination, and Strategic Advisor for Workforce Development.
Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act
In April, the House voted to pass “A Stronger Workforce for America” Act by a vote of 379-26. This bill is meant to modernize WIOA, which was originally authorized in 2014. WIOA is designed to help job seekers access employment, education, training, and support services to succeed in the labor market and to match employers with the skilled workers they need to compete in the global economy. Earlier this month, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee held a full committee hearing on WIOA to give more information on the bill to the public and allow Senators to share some of their priorities for this legislation. Last Friday, the Senate released a discussion draft of their WIOA bill linked here. A section by section breakdown of the bill can be found here. Some the key changes in the Senate discussion draft include:
● Renaming the term out-of-school youth (OSY) with “Opportunity Youth” and incorporating youth experiencing homelessness, foster care youth, and justice involved youth as opportunity youth (ages 16-24)
● Maintaining the current 75/25 opportunity youth/in-school youth funding ratio
● Requiring that 10% of youth formula funding go towards youth apprenticeships
● Streamlining the determination of homeless or foster youth status to match the process described in section 479D of the Higher Education Act
● Creation of the Youth Apprenticeship Readiness Grant – a competitive grant to develop new or expand existing pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeships that serve youth age 16-24
It is still unclear when this bill will go to the Senate floor. TCN submitted feedback on the discussion draft to committee staff and to offices of members of the Senate HELP Committee. The Committee hopes to markup the bill by August.