In a gridlocked Congress, massive spending bills are sometimes the only way for legislators to get their policy priorities into law. And this one is no exception.
With the spending portion alone clocking in at around 2,009 pages, and tax breaks accounting for another 233 pages, this one’s a doozy. Altogether, experts estimate it will include $1.1 trillion in its spending package, and $629 billion worth of tax breaks. But what else are lawmakers passing through today?
Reauthorizing the Zadroga Act
Starting off with the good news: Three months after the old act expired, lawmakers have finally agreed on a way to extend the Zadroga Act, enacted in 2010 to pay for the healthcare of 9/11 first responders and residents of lower Manhattan afflicted with various illnesses contracted that day. And it’s a pretty good get: The act will extend the medical care through the World Trade Center Health Program to 2090, while the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund gets an extension for five more years, and an additional $4.6 billion to pay claims.
It’s hard to imagine anyone being on the other side of this issue, but Troy Rosasco, author on the 9/11 Cancer Compensation Claims Info blog, says it’s no longer just on the minds of New Yorkers.
“Since 9/11, people have moved to all 50 states,” said Rosasco. “It’s really become a national issue, because there are residents in all 50 states, and that’s why the majority of both sides of Congress will support this…It’s one of those things that in the light of what has happened just recently in Paris and San Bernardino, we remember more closely that [9/11] was an act of terrorism, and this law that was meant to help victims of terrorism we’re still seeing suffer today…For all the criticism Congress sometimes gets, this is one area where both houses of Congress came together to do the right thing.”
CISA makes it through
That’s right, the long negotiated and debated Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) has been included in Division N of the Omnibus Appropriations Act.
This won’t be a popular move amongst privacy advocates, who have been fighting the Act essentially all year. Originally their objection was that the language of the bill left the door open for more intense surveillance, similar to the NSA’s recently (mostly) debunked program. But the most recent draft of the bill raised even more alarm bells, when privacy advocates saw that crucial privacy provisions had been stripped. As The Verge reports:
CISA has been widely criticized since it was first introduced to congress in 2014, with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) calling it “a surveillance bill by another name.” The bill would make it easier for private sector companies to share user information with the government and other companies, removing privacy and liability protections in the name of better cybersecurity. But critics like Wyden say removing those protections would turn internet backbone companies into de facto surveillance organs, with no incentive to protect users’ privacy.
In many ways, the bill currently facing the House is even more invasive than previous versions, stripping out crucial provisions that prevented direct information-sharing with the NSA and mandated that data be anonymized before being widely distributed. “It’s clear now that this bill was never intended to prevent cyber attacks,” said Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future, which has campaigned vigorously against the bill. “It’s a disingenuous attempt to quietly expand the US government’s surveillance programs.” At the same time, a number of industry groups have applauded the bill, including the Financial Services Roundtable and Retail Industry Leaders Association.
Now attached to a “must-pass” bill, it’s likely CISA will be coming soon to an Internet outlet near you.
Affordable Care Act faces cuts
Good news for people who love Affordable Care Act delay news: Delays to the Act’s taxes on the so-called “Cadillac” health plans and medical devices are coming. As in, see you around 2020, says Damian Myers for Proskauer’s ERISA Practice Center Blog:
Among other things, the 2016 Consolidated Appropriations Bill would delay the effective date of the controversial 40% excise tax on high-cost health plans (commonly referred to as the “Cadillac Tax”) for two years. The bill would also make the Cadillac Tax a tax-deductible expense. The tax (which was described in detail here and here) was set to become effective in 2018, and many employers have already started implementing plan design changes in an effort to mitigate the impact of the tax. Assuming the bill is signed into law, employers and other health coverage providers can pause these efforts.
And that’s just the first in this tax’s line of problems, as Myers notes the Cadillac Tax remains under heavy political scrutiny, especially from all presidential candidates.
And the ACA’s troubles don’t end there with the omnibus bill: A provision unveiled late Tuesday night would prevent the administration from shifting other funds into an ACA program known as risk corridors, meant to shield insurers from heavy losses in the early years of the law. With the program having only taken in enough to pay out a small fraction of the amount requested, Republicans are clear that they won’t “bailout” health insurers under the ACA.
Crude Oil Sales
But what’s being touted as the biggest win for Republicans? A repeal of a decades-old ban on exporting crude-oil. In place for 40 years, lifting the ban won’t have an immediate effect in the oil industry, but could be a game-changer in the longer term. And as the bottom lines of domestic energy producers improve, some say it would give the U.S. added leverage in disputes with oil-rich nations.
But even in a bill this big the victory couldn’t be completely unfought, and as The Wall Street Journal reports, it comes at some environmental concessions:
The deal would lift the ban, a priority for Republicans and the oil industry, and at the same time adopt environmental and renewable measures that Democrats sought. These include extending and then phasing down wind and solar-tax credits; reauthorizing for three years a conservation fund; and excluding any measures that block major Obama administration environmental regulations.
By design or not, the agreement hands the oil industry a long-sought victory within days of a major international climate deal that is aimed at sharply reducing emissions from oil and other fuels, a deal opposed by the industry and one that will arguably require its cooperation.
Money back in research
The bill will make room for a major increase in research funding at the National Institute of Health. It will account for an extra $2 billion in funds for a total of $32 billion. And that’s a whole different atmosphere than research advocacy groups are used to seeing, who have lost 25 percent of their purchasing power since 2003.
“People are saying ‘Enough, we have got to find answers and even if it means we’re gonna spend more money than some would like’ … it’s worth doing,” said Mary Woolley, president of Research!America, in The Atlantic. According to Woolley, in the wake of 9/11 a lot of their reserach funding got crowded out by research and defense. “We took our eyes off the ball collectively on focusing on making sure that research for health—and I would say science broadly for that matter—was adequately supported.”
For now, at least, Planned Parenthood comes out unscathed, with a House vote to unravel the healthcare provider’s funding due in January. In the meantime, as Congress works to avoid a government shutdown, there’s plenty of odds and ends being passed through in this massive spending bill, including cats and dogs, salt, and lots of mentions that watching, downloading, or exchanging pornography is not okay at work.