Congress is winding down its legislative session, with the last votes before the November election scheduled to be completed next week. The entire focus of the September Congressional agenda has been on security related items in anticipation of the election. Congress will pass a Continuing Resolution before completing its September session, to keep the government running through November 17th and allow for a post election lame duck session to complete appropriations bills and perhaps other unfinished business.

The Congressional agenda related to either WIA reauthorization, or Labor-HHS Appropriations, has been on hold since the end of July. While WIA reauthorization has passed in both the House and Senate, Conference discussions have yet to substantively begin. NWA met with a key House negotiator this past week, who expressed pessimism about the prospects of reauthorizing a bill this year as a result of the slow pace of discussions. At the staff level, while some Committee staff would like to begin Conference negotiations during the October recess, there has been little evidence that the process can actually move forward, as they continue to struggle to find any resolution to the faith based issue.

NWA has been working with the local coalition to create some momentum to move forward with reauthorization this year. We will submit a consensus locals’ position paper for Conference negotiators this coming week, thanking the House and Senate for their protection of the local workforce system in their bills, while also highlighting key issues for locals in Conference. It is important that Conferees receive positive reinforcement for their core House and Senate governance provisions. Groups representing states and other interests are lobbying to change these governance provisions in ways previously rejected by the House and Senate.

It remains to be seen whether House and Senate Conferees will choose to move forward with their negotiations over the October recess. They will need to have a consensus reauthorization bill prepared when they return after the elections, in order to have an opportunity for the limited floor time during the lame duck session.

A key concern for Labor-HHS Appropriators is the overall funding level of the bill in Conference. In the Senate, Senators Specter and Harkin secured an additional $7 billion for Labor-HHS programs in the Budget Resolution, but only received an additional $5 billion when the leadership provided its funding allocations to its Appropriations Subcommittees. In the House Budget, Congressman Mike Castle led a band of moderate Republicans that forced the leadership to provide $7 billion more for Labor-HHS. House Appropriators eventually sliced the $7 billion in additional funding down to $4 billion, but the leadership promised adding an additional $3 billion at some point this year.

Senators Specter and Harkin are greatly concerned that the entire $7 billion will not be allocated to the Labor-HHS Conference Committee. They convened a select number of constituent groups, including NWA, to craft a strategy to secure the entire $7 billion in additional funding for Conference. After consulting with the groups, they agreed to circulate a Dear Colleague letter to request that the Senate leadership increase the bill’s funding by $2 billion. Such funding would result in the level requested by the Specter/Harkin amendment to the Budget Resolution.

These Senators view the Dear Colleague as a mechanism to reengage the 73 Senators who voted for the Specter/Harkin amendment during the October Congressional recess, and will keep this Dear Colleague letter open for signatures through the November elections. They asked for our assistance in circulating this Dear Colleague letter as widely as possible, thus we have sent it to the other national workforce organizations over the past week.

The inclusion of the entire $7 billion for the Labor- HHS bill is very important to the workforce system. Currently, the Senate Labor-HHS bill provides $1 billion more overall funding than the House bill, of which $420 million is targeted for WIA programs when including the rejection of the House WIA rescission. Our best opportunity for Labor-HHS Conferees to reject the House rescission is by having additional funding in the bill. This will ensure that they do not have to reduce funding for one program in order to pay for increases to another.

The task of adding money to the Labor-HHS bill became even more daunting this week, as Congressional negotiators in the Defense Appropriations Conference bill agreed to the Administration’s demand of adding $5 billion to the bill in order to avoid a veto. Overall discretionary spending will remain at the same level. This means that the unfinished appropriations bills will have to be cut after the election by a total of $5 billion to make up for the increase to the Defense bill. One possible mechanism already being discussed by Appropriators to supplement this shortfall is an across the board cut to all discretionary programs.

As a result, we have asked the workforce system to focus on two requests to their Senators over the next few weeks. First, by supporting the Specter/Harkin Dear Colleague -- particularly if your Senator is a Republican. A list of the Senators who voted for the Specter/Harkin budget amendment is attached. Second, asking Senators for their help in rejecting the proposed House WIA rescission in the Labor-HHS Conference.

There has already been significant enthusiasm for the Specter/Harkin Dear Colleague, as thirty-nine Senators signed the letter in its first four days of circulation. However, the leadership has fought to maintain tight overall funding throughout the entire Appropriations process. Tremendous pressure from fellow Senators will be required to get the leadership to not only preserve current Senate funding levels, but also allocate additional funding for Labor-HHS.

Our best chance to defeat the rescission is by ensuring the bill is adequately funded. A Labor-HHS bill that is under funded greatly increases the chances that the House rescission will be enacted.

Why not act today and complete your conference registration form. Our application is online and you can find it on our website at: ww w.nwaonline.org Please act today.

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