This Week in Congress

Senate

This week the Senate continued to work on U.S. district judge nominations, and a bill creating a special envoy tasked with encouraging more countries to recognize Israel.

House

The House passed several bills including legislation that requires that any regulation with an annual economic impact higher than $100 million receive congressional approval; and a resolutions prohibiting the Energy Department from banning gas stoves.

Appropriations

House

This week the House Appropriations Committee approved FY’24 subcommittee allocations along party lines at funding levels lower than the bipartisan caps provided in this month’s debt limit suspension law. The 33-27 vote came only after a heated partisan exchange that delayed proceedings Wednesday night, when Democrats accused the GOP majority of reneging on the bipartisan spending and debt limit deal enacted two weeks ago. That debate, which resumed Thursday morning, exposed a rift between the parties over how the law’s spending caps should be interpreted. Chair Granger, R-Texas, is writing spending bills to the FY’22 levels, instead of the $1.59 trillion level agreed upon in the debt limit package. Democrats used the markup session to vent their anger over the GOP decision. Granger said that while the debt limit deal set a topline spending limit, it did not require the committee to spend all the way up to that level.

The House has already marked up several bills, including Agriculture; Military Construction-VA; Homeland; Energy and Water; Legislative Branch and Defense.

Press releases, bill summaries and reports are available here

Veterans Access to Abortion and Gender Affirming Care

The Military Construction VA bill that was marked up this week contains a provisions that would ban abortion procedures, except in cases of incest, rape, or life of the mother; prohibits diversity, equity, and inclusion training and implementation; prohibits funding for hormone therapies or surgeries for gender-affirming care; protects Americans against religious discrimination; and allows only certain flags to be flown over VA facilities. The provisions contained in the legislation are unlikely to receive Senate support or be signed into law by the President.

The press release and summary of the Military Construction/VA bill can be found here

Senate

The Senate appropriators are moving forward with their FY’24 which will begin on June 22 with markups of Agriculture and Military Construction-VA bills. Appropriations Chair Murray and ranking Republican Collins. Murray and Collins will write their bills to the spending caps agreed to the debt limit deal which sets spending caps at the FY’23 level and allows for growth in defense, military construction and VA as outlined in the debt limit deal.

Disease Intervention Specialist (DIS)

NCSD continues to gather information on the impact of the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) on DIS workforce funding. President Biden signed the FRA on June 3. At stake are the remaining $400 million available for the next two years for disease intervention specialists/contact tracers that was appropriated in the American Rescue Plan Act. If the Administration cannot fund the remaining $400 million appropriated for years 4 and 5, it will NOT impact years 1 through 3 of the DIS funding that has already been distributed to jurisdictions. NCSD continues to meet with CDC, White House, and HHS officials to discuss the impact the loss of the year 4 and 5 funds would have on the nation’s health, and to ensure jurisdictions have the funding the need to support the DIS workforce.

Other Legislative Happenings Around the Nation

Obamacare

The government can keep enforcing “Obamacare” requirements that health insurance plans cover preventative care — such as HIV prevention, some types of cancer screenings and other illnesses — while a legal battle over the mandates plays out, under a court agreement approved this week. The pact approved by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals preserves — at least for now — cost-free preventive care coverage for millions of Americans under the Affordable Care Act.

New CDC Director

President Biden plans to name Dr. Mandy Cohen, a former North Carolina health secretary who steered her state through the tumultuous first two years of the coronavirus pandemic, as the next Director of the CDC. Cohen, a Yale-trained internal medicine physician with a master’s degree in public health from Harvard has held high-level health administration jobs at both the federal and state level. The article can be found here

Abortion

World Health Organization (WHO) Handbook on Abortion Care

The WHO released a new handbook for health workers to help them deliver quality abortion services for women and girls. The publication provides detailed clinical advice to support implementation of WHO’s consolidated guidance on abortion care, published in 2022. Clinical services relating to abortion include not only the procedure itself, but also the provision of information and counselling, pain management and post-abortion care, including contraception. In line with WHO’s updated recommendations, the Clinical practice handbook for quality abortion care additionally provides expanded guidance on how health workers can support self-management approaches, and telemedicine, where this is available.

Florida

Floridians Protecting Freedom has collected over 130,000 signatures since early May for their petition to place a constitutional amendment protecting abortion access on next year’s ballot. Why it matters: If the effort is successful, it could have massive implications for reproductive health care in the South, where nearby states have bans that have forced abortion clinics to close.

Illinois

The number of patients seeking abortions from Planned Parenthood of Illinois increased dramatically since last June after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The amount of patients seeking both medication and procedure abortions rose 54% in the last year, Planned Parenthood reported on Monday. Patients needing financial and travel help also more than doubled in that period.

Indiana

A controversial Indiana law once championed by Mike Pence could end up protecting abortion access in the state if a lawsuit filed by the ACLU is successful. Last week, a superior court judge granted class action status to a suit seeking to strike down the state’s near-total ban on abortion on the grounds that it violates Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which then-Governor Pence signed into law in 2015.

Iowa

An Iowa court ruling could outlaw most abortions in the state or keep the procedure legal up to 20 weeks of pregnancy, at least for now. Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds aims to reinstate the blocked 2018 “fetal heartbeat” law that does not allow abortions once cardiac activity can be detected, usually around six weeks of pregnancy and before many women know they are pregnant. Currently, abortions are allowed up to 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Nebraska

The Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit arguing the Nebraska bill is unconstitutional because it combined an abortion ban with a ban on gender-affirming care has been continued for another month.

North Dakota

A former North Dakota abortion provider challenged one of the nation’s strictest abortion laws this week, arguing the law “fragrantly violates” a court ruling supporting the right of patients in the state to obtain the procedure to preserve their life or health. The lawsuit initially filed last year by what was the conservative state’s sole abortion provider seeks to block a law recently approved by the Republican-led legislature and signed by Gov. Doug Burgum. The law outlaws all abortions except in cases where women could face death or a “serious health risk” or pregnancies caused by rape and incest, but only in the first six weeks, when many women often don’t know they are pregnant. (Dura, 6/12)

Ohio

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that a ballot measure at the center of an abortion fight in the state needed to be partially rewritten ahead of an August election, but also ruled against Democratic litigants on some of their key requests. Ohioans will be heading to the polls Aug. 8 to weigh in on a proposed constitutional amendment that would, if passed, require at least 60 percent of voters to pass any amendment to the state’s constitution — up from a simple majority.

Oregon

Republicans in the Oregon Senate have stalled the Senate by walking out since May 3, partly over a House bill on abortion, gender-affirming care and other reproductive rights. Democrats are considering softening language that would allow a child of any age to receive an abortion without parental consent.

Utah

There’s now one fewer place to access abortion in Utah after Planned Parenthood closed its only clinic outside the Salt Lake City metropolitan area. The Planned Parenthood Association of Utah said that the Logan clinic has long been staffed with one provider, who left to take another position in March. The northern Utah city of 52,000 is home to Utah State University and about 20 miles from Idaho, where abortions have been banned except for in cases of rape or incest since last year.

Transgender Care

Indiana

Indiana’s legislature trampled upon the rights of young transgender patients and their parents with a new law aiming to ban them from accessing puberty blockers, hormones, and gender-affirming surgeries, an attorney told a federal judge.  The judge made no immediate ruling after hearing about 90 minutes of arguments from the Indiana attorney general’s office and the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, which is seeking a preliminary injunction that would stop the law from taking effect July 1. The group filed its lawsuit, on behalf of four transgender patients and an Indiana doctor who provides transgender medical treatment, within hours after Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb signed the bill April 5.

Children’s Hospitals Graduate Medical Education Funds

House Republicans want to cut federal funding for U.S. hospitals that participate in the Children’s Hospitals Graduate Medical Education program if the hospitals participate in gender-affirming care on minors. The program, which gave about $356 million to 59 U.S. hospitals in FY’22, helps train more than half the nation’s pediatricians. Opponents of the bill are adamant that the measure would negatively affect pediatric training programs, with children’s hospital groups stating they do not support tying training funds to any prohibition of health care services. U.S. Representative Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), the lead sponsor of the proposed measure, wants to specifically ban funds for hospitals that offer hormone treatments and surgeries for any patient under 18. However, the measure could threaten efforts to reauthorize the program which is set to expire at the end of September. While the measure could pass along party-lines in the House, it is likely to fail in the Senate.