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Senate
Completes Labor-HHS Bill - Miers Withdrawl Slows Conference
Negotiations
Bill
provides protection against efforts to redesignate local workforce
areas
Senate
Labor-HHS Floor Action Completed
The
Senate Labor-HHS bill was completed last night 94-3, after four days
of contentious debate. The Senate bill is the high water mark for
funding of the programs within its allocation, as the bill moves to
the House-Senate Conference with the House passed bill providing
$3.3 billion less in overall funding.
The
withdrawal of the Harriet Miers nomination slows the fast track of
the Labor-HHS Conference. Key Senate insiders informed NWA before
Miers withdrew that Senate Chairman Specter intended to complete the
Conference before he began the confirmation hearings for Miers on
November 7. However, with the withdrawal of the Miers nomination,
the Conference will likely stretch to 2-3 weeks. We still expect
that the Conference will be completed before the Continuing
Resolution expires on November 18.
Key
House and Senate Appropriators tell NWA that they expect a
contentious Conference due to the tremendous funding gap between the
two bills, requiring Conferees to make many painful funding
decisions, with no easy roadmap to completion. The good news for the
workforce system is that the difference in the funding levels
between the House and Senate for WIA is relatively small, just over
$100 million apart. However, there may be two across the board
cuts necessary to bring the appropriations bills to completion.
First,
Labor-HHS Conferees are discussing using an across the board cut to
fall within the overall funding ceiling in the bill. Second, the
House Republican Study Committee, the conservative wing of the
party, is proposing another across the board cut, that could be as
much as another 2%, to pay for a portion of the Katrina related
costs. President Bush and the House leadership are supportive of
this approach
This
combination of across the board cuts could end up as a sizable cut
to overall funding levels in the bill.
A
bipartisan Enzi/Kennedy effort resulted in the insertion of language
in the Labor-HHS bill to protect the local system from the
Administration's efforts to encourage states to redesignate their
local workforce areas. NWA met with key authorizing and
appropriations staff urging them to prevent local areas from being
redesignated in the midst of the reauthorization process. HELP
Committee Chairman Enzi and Ranking Member Kennedy led the effort to
close the administrative loophole being used by DOL to allow states
to redesignate local areas, an approach rejected in both the House
and Senate WIA reauthorization bills.
The
language in the Senate Labor-HHS bills halts states from making any
new attempts to redesignate until WIA reauthorization is
completed.
It does contain a grandfather provision, so that states that have
already in the redesignation process (Idaho, Montana, and Indiana)
will not be required to return to their previous governance
structure, but the rest of the local system around the nation will
be protected.
DOL
and the Governors fully engaged in efforts to block this amendment.
However, Chairman Enzi and Ranking Member Kennedy once again chose
to protect the local workforce system in the face of these
objections.
Governors
may still move to a single state system if it follows the
requirements of WIA,
they need to have agreement of all local areas in the state or if
local areas are not performing well or with fiscal integrity. The
Labor-HHS language ensures that states cannot try to redesignate in
avoidance of these requirements
An
amendment proposed by Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) to increase funding
for ETA's community college grants from the $125 million funding
level in the Senate Labor-HHS bill to the President's $250 million
request level was withdrawn from floor consideration. This amendment
caused heartburn for the workforce community, as it paid for the
funding increase in part by reducing funding for the dislocated
worker formula funding by $45 million. However, Cornyn's amendment
also increased overall funding for ETA by $80 million by using other
non- ETA offsets to pay for the remainder of his amendment, making
it difficult for many workforce supporters to actively oppose
Cornyn's amendment.
The
House and Senate are at odds over predictions for adjournment for
the year. The House leadership, which is pressing for a broader
reconciliation package than in the Senate, believes that the
Senate's November 18th adjournment date is unrealistic. House
leaders are expecting to return in December to complete its
business. Key Senate leaders tell NWA that they will complete
their business in November and will not be returning to Washington
in the month of December.
Under
the Senate's tight timetable, it is unlikely that WIA
reauthorization will receive floor consideration this year. However,
some Senators have not given up hope for its completion. House
Subcommittee Chairman McKeon remains open to moving to a WIA
House-Senate Conference at any time.
This year's conference feature's keynote
speaker Headrick Smith. Smith's dynamic view on the future of
workforce development in our current administration is one that you
won't want to miss.
You'll
also want to be there for new ideas on energizing your local are's
workforce development efforts.
Go
to our wesite for more information and a look at the
conference
agenda.
Gazelle:
ITA and Support Service Tracking for Workforce Development
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