HOUSE and SENATE

The House has finished considering amendments to the Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (LHHS) appropriations portion of a larger four-part appropriations bill (H.R. 2740). The overall measure combined LHHS with the Defense, Energy and Water, and State and Foreign Operations appropriations bills into one package for full House consideration (the Legislative Branch appropriations bill was removed from the original package). The House is scheduled to continue debating amendments on other sections of the bill and vote on final passage next week.

ADMINISTRATION

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) related to accreditation and State authorization. The proposed rule is the product of a consensus agreement by the recent negotiated rulemaking committee.

The White House issued a veto threat for the House’s FY2020 appropriations package that includes the LHHS appropriations bill.

ED sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) encouraging FCC to maintain the education component of the Educational Broadband Spectrum (EBS), in response to a recent FCC NPRM that proposes to lift the educational requirement for the spectrum.

The U.S. Department of Treasury published a final rule that prevents taxpayers from avoiding the State and local tax (SALT) deduction cap in States where State and local taxes can be counted as charitable contributions. The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) also released guidance saying that taxpayers who make charitable contributions and are prevented from taking a full charitable tax deduction because of the final regulations can choose to take a State and local tax deduction up to the amount of the State tax credit, so long as they are under the SALT cap.

EVENTS

Penn Hill plans to provide clients with summaries of the following events next week:

• June 19: House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee hearing on “Examining Mid-Semester School Closures Impact on Student Veterans” at 10:00am
• June 19: House Education and Labor Committee hearing on “Innovation to Improve Equity: Exploring High-Quality Pathways to a College Degree” at 10:15am

GRANT OPPORTUNITIES 

Penn Hill Group provides a list of grant opportunities and summaries for select grants. Please visit our website for more information.