Today in Congress

Recapping yesterday's action:

The House had a short schedule of suspension bills to deal with yesterday, and spent the balance of their time?actually working late into the night?on amendments to the defense appropriations bill. In fact, they worked so late, the staffers who usually post the next day's floor schedule after the House adjourns for the night must have gone home without posting anything. Or so I assume, since there was no schedule posted by the time I gave up waiting at oh-ass-thirty hours, as they probably wouldn't really say in the military.

The Senate? Well, the Senate spent the day waiting for the cloture motion on the motion to proceed to consideration of Harry Reid's "shared sacrifice" sense of the Senate bill. No agreement was reached on it, and really, none ought to be anticipated. Republican foot-draggers insisted they wanted a debate on the budget and debt ceiling, so here it is. Not much reason to think they'd agree to cut it short, even if the end result of cutting it short would actually be beginning the debate on the budget and debt ceiling.

Looking ahead to today:

The House should wrap up that defense approps bill today, finishing up any postponed votes on amendments that might still be pending. After that, they'll probably move right on to another waiting appropriations bill: Energy & Water.

Take note, by the way, that the appropriations bills, written by the appropriations subcommittees bearing the same names, don't correspond to any normal person's intuitive groupings of issue area responsibilities, like, say, housing and urban development. You should take a peek some time at the jurisdiction of each of the subcommittees, just to confuse and anger yourself more about the convoluted ways in which our federal legislature works. Just by way of example, what's the jurisdiction of the Energy & Water Subcommittee?

Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies
Energy and Water Subcommittee Jurisdiction

Department of Energy; Department of Defense--Civil; Department of the Army; Corps of Engineers--Civil; Department of the Interior; Bureau of Reclamation; Central Utah Project; Related Agencies: Appalachian Regional Commission, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, Delta Regional Authority, Denali Commission, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, Tennessee Valley Authority

A lot of us probably didn't even know there were so many independent agencies with jurisdiction over water programs. And the presence of the TVA on the list makes a little more sense out of the energy and water grouping, doesn't it?

Oh yeah, the Senate! Uh, the Senate will vote at 10 a.m. on cloture on the motion to proceed to the Reid "shared sacrifice" bill. If they get 60 votes, they'll likely spend the day trading barbs on the budget and debt ceiling. If they don't get 60, they'll likely spend the day trading barbs on the budget and debt ceiling, while blaming one another for not being able to end debate on whether or not to start debate on a bill that doesn't actually do anything about the budget or debt ceiling, but was offered in order to provide the opportunity demanded to debate the budget and debt ceiling, but to which debate they refuse to proceed.

Today's floor and committee schedules appear below the fold.

Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/OtMokOgKe1M/-Today-in-Congress

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