CONGRESS

The House Appropriations Committee announced that the portal Members use to file programmatic, language and Community Project Funding requests will open up on April 14 for fiscal year (FY) 2026 filings. Submissions for the House Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee are due May 23.

The Senate Budget Committee released an updated version of its budget resolution text and began the process of considering the measure on the Senate floor.

The Ranking Members of the House and Senate Budget Committees sent a letter to the U.S. Government Accountability Office requesting an investigation of various Trump Administration directives and their consistency with the Impoundment Control Act.

ADMINISTRATION

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) sent letters to State education agencies (SEAs) requiring that they report on their state overall and collect responses from their local education agencies (LEAs) certifying their compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard Supreme Court decision as a condition of receiving Federal financial assistance.

ED’s Office of Postsecondary Education announced its intention to host public hearings and establish one or more negotiated rulemaking committees to prepare proposed regulations on Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), Pay As You Earn (PAYE), Income Contingent Repayment (ICR) and other “topics that would streamline current federal student financial assistance programs.”

ED announced the retirement of Chief Operating Officer for the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) and former Acting U.S. Secretary of Education Denise Carter. In her place, Acting Under Secretary James Bergeron will serve as Acting Chief Operating Officer for FSA.

ED revoked waivers to California and Oregon colleges and universities that allowed them to use Federal TRIO funds to support undocumented students.

ED sent guidance to Chief State School Officers regarding the importance of applying the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) in a way that “uphold[s], not thwart[s], parents’ rights.”

ED sent guidance to Chief State School Officers providing that the liquidation period for remaining COVID relief funds will end on March 28, 2025, but permitting appeals of this decision on an individual project-specific basis.

ED sent guidance to Chief State School Officers to provide information regarding how States can use Federal formula funds under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) to support elementary and secondary school educational choice initiatives.

ED and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) launched a “Title IX Special Investigations Team.”

U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi directed the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division to begin compliance review investigations into admissions policies at Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Los Angeles and University of California, Irvine over their alleged use of “DEI discrimination.”

White House Budget Director Russ Vought sent a letter to Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Committee Patty Murray (D-WA), sharing that the Office of Management and Budget “will no longer operate and maintain” the publicly available system that shows how the budget office is directing agencies to spend Federal dollars.

At least seven agencies, including the Departments of Defense, Agriculture, Energy, Housing and Urban Development and Transportation, as well as the Small Business Administration and the General Services Administration, made a new round of offers for Federal employees to leave their jobs, using the Deferred Resignation Program.

President Trump sent several new nominations to the Senate, including David Brian Castillo as Chief Financial Officer, Anthony D’Esposito as Inspector General and Andrew Rogers as Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced a reduction in workforce of approximately 10,000 full-time employees.

The National Museum and Library Services Board wrote a letter to Acting Director Keith E. Sonderling, requesting clarification about the recent decision to place the staff of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) on administrative leave, effective March 31, 2025, and other matters.

IMLS grants were terminated and work approving Federal grants for State, local and academic libraries was halted.

Staff of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) were informed by email that they were being placed on administrative leave.

COURTS

A Federal appeals court ruled that restrictions on the president’s power to remove officers of the executive branch are unconstitutional.

EVENTS

Penn Hill Group plans on providing clients with a summary of the following events next week:

April 8: House Education and Workforce Subcommittee Hearing titled “Game Changer: the NLRB, Student-Athletes, and the Future of College Sports.”

April 8: House Ways and Means Subcommittee Hearing titled “Government Watchdog Findings: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Program In Need of Reform, Better State Accountability, and Fraud Protection.”

April 9: Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Markup of S. 588, the Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2025; S. 163, the Protecting Students on Campus Act of 2025; and S. 932, the Give Kids a Chance Act of 2025.