This Week in Congress

House and Senate

The House and Senate were in session this week and continued to mark up appropriations bills, the Federal Aviation Administration authorization, the National Defense Authorization Act, and to approve nominations for Federal agency positions and district judges.

Appropriations

Transportation-HUD

The markup of the House FY’24 Transportation-HUD bill descended into chaos this week over LBGTQ earmarks. House Republicans struck $3.6 million for three Democratic earmarks that would have provided services to the LGBTQ community. The projects were eliminated as part of a Republican amendment that contained a range of GOP cultural priorities, including a provision that would ban flying gay pride flags over government buildings. Rep. Pocan said the committee’s move to strip the earmarks was “bigoted” and described his own experience getting attacked leaving a gay bar that left him unconscious. “This is what you guys do, by introducing amendments like this,” Pocan, D-Wis., said. “Taking away from people’s earmarks is absolutely below the dignity of Congress, and certainly the Appropriations Committee.”

The article can be found here

The press release, bill text, summary and amendments can be found here

The minority views on the bill can be found here

LHHS

The House Full Appropriations Committee and the Senate Appropriations subcommittee are both expected to hold markups on July 27 on the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education bill. The House Subcommittee recommended $174.3 million for STI Prevention in FY’24. The Senate has yet to provide any details on their recommendations for FY’24.

House LHHS

The House Subcommittee recommended total funding of $163.0 billion, a cut of $63.8 billion or 28 percent below last year’s funding. The language provisions and detailed tables will not be available until after the full committee meets on July 27.

The House Republican press release, summary and bill text can be found here

The House Democratic summary can be found here

Letter to CDC Director Cohen

NCSD sent a letter to CDC Director Cohen requesting a meeting to discuss current and future funding issues, and DIS.

The letter can be found here

Washington Post Op-Ed

Mandy Cohen, President Biden’s new CDC Director is exactly the right person to lead the agency through a critical inflection point. Cohen’s most directly relevant experience is leading North Carolina’s health agency for five years. In addition to spearheading the state’s coronavirus response she also helped to expand Medicaid, combat the ongoing opioid crisis, and devised innovative ways for insurance to cover social needs such as housing and transportation.

The Op-Ed can be found here

Other Legislative Happenings Around the Nation

Syphilis Outbreak

The Houston Health Department has reported a syphilis outbreak, with an increase of 128% among women and a ninefold increase in congenital cases in the city and the Harris County area since 2019.

The article can be found here

Abortion

President Biden’s HIPPA Expansion for Abortion

The Biden administration’s effort to protect abortion rights is under fire from Republicans who accuse the President of overreaching — and from Democrats who call it too weak. The Department of Health and Human Services is preparing to release a final rule later this year that would expand the protections under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) with the goal of shielding people who seek, obtain, or provide abortions from red state probes. The effort is one of the major steps the administration has taken to defend abortion rights since the Supreme Court ended Roe v. Wade. Conservatives, including Republican attorneys general and former Trump administration officials, say the move would violate states’ rights as well as the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, and would trigger a lawsuit.

The article can be found here

Department of Defense

The Defense Department has no plans to stop covering the travel costs of female troops who seek abortions across state lines, despite protests from a Senator Tuberville who has blocked hundreds of military promotions over the issue, Army Secretary Wormuth, said “I see this, and I think the (defense secretary) does as well, as taking care of our soldiers, and it’s the right thing to do, and I don’t think we’re going to change it.”

Iowa

After Iowa’s Republican governor signed a new abortion ban into law making it illegal to obtain an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, a district judge put the ban on hold. The judge stated that the new ban would be suspended while the larger legal case against it moved forward. He said in his ruling that the plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit against the ban, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood, and other abortion providers, were likely to succeed on the merits of their case.

Maine

Maine will soon expand abortion access, joining a half dozen states that leave it to doctors and patients to make the decision without restrictions on timing. Democratic Gov. Janet Mills signed a bill into law that allows abortions at any time if deemed medically necessary by a physician, making the law one of the nation’s least restrictive. The previous law banned abortions after a fetus becomes viable outside the womb, at roughly 24 weeks, but allowed an exception if the patient’s life is at risk.

Missouri

The Missouri Supreme Court ordered the Republican attorney general to stand down and allow an initiative petition to legalize abortion in the state to move forward. Supreme Court judges unanimously affirmed a lower court’s decision that Attorney General Andrew Bailey must approve the cost estimate provided by the auditor, despite Bailey’s insistence that the cost to taxpayers of restoring abortion rights could be as much as a million times higher than what the auditor found.

LBGTQ Issues

Drug Shortages

The worst drug shortage in a decade is disrupting gender-affirming care, as scarce supplies of injectable estrogen prevent some transgender women from obtaining hormone therapy. A lack of access to estrogen products can affect trans patients in different ways: putting some through early onset menopause, reversing certain physical changes from their transition or causing them to experience anxiety and depression.

Arizona

A federal judge temporarily blocked Arizona from enforcing a law banning transgender girls from playing on girls’ school sports teams. The Tucson judge granted a preliminary injunction to allow processing of a lawsuit filed on behalf of two transgender girls against the state’s “Save Women’s Sports Act,” which was passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature last year.

Kansas

A federal judge is considering Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s arguments that a new Kansas law rolling back transgender rights doesn’t bar the state from changing the sex listing on transgender people’s birth certificates. A U.S. District Judge ruled that Kelly’s office can defend her administration’s policy of changing birth certificates and accepted its “friend of the court” arguments. The state’s Republican attorney general argues that a law that took effect July 1 prohibits such changes and requires the state to undo previous ones.

Louisiana

Louisiana’s Republican-dominated Legislature overturned Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards’ recent veto of a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors. Louisiana, where the ban is scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1, 2024, will join 20 other states that have enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care, which includes puberty-blockers, hormone treatment and gender-reassignment surgery. Most of those states now face lawsuits, and in some places the bans have been temporarily blocked by federal judges.