Dear Colleagues, Apologies for delays in getting CEF updates out this week and last. Since I’m behind, I figure the most useful thing to do is to pick out the critical pieces of info from those updates and edit out the non-essential stuff. So what follows here is an edited compilation of Sheryl’s updates since 1/18, with some of my notes mixed in: January 18 Congressional Committee rosters nearly complete – Committee rosters are nearly complete for House and Senate Appropriations and Budget Committees and the Senate HELP and House Education and the Workforce Committees (House Democrats still have a few more appointments to make). The attached list of these six committees’ membership as of today highlights the members who are new to the committees. Betsy DeVos confirmation hearing notes – Attached is a summary put together by ACG that highlights some of the main points made during the hearing. Mick Mulvaney confirmation hearings for OMB Director — Hearings held on January 24 on the nomination of Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) to be director of the Office of Management and Budget. The Budget Committee hearing in the morning, and the HSGAC hearing is scheduled that afternoon. The OMB director has enormous influence on the spending decisions in the President’s budget request, and Rep. Mulvaney has been an outspoken opponent of government spending. Mulvaney hearing was interesting — and contentious. Sen. McCain was particularly testy over Mulvaney’s record in the House of opposition to increased military spending. Good summary article here: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/01/24/john_mccain_mick_mulvaney_spar_in_omb_hearing.html January 19 Trump 2018 budget to slash spending – The Hill reported this day that the Trump Administration’s fiscal year 2018 budget request will dramatically cut domestic discretionary spending by even more than the conservative Republican Study Committee’s (RSC’s) budget that failed to pass the Republican House. Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC), the nominee for Director of the Office of Management and Budget, is a founder of the RSC and pushed its budget. Reportedly the 2018 budget outline, likely to be released near the end of February or early March, will be based on a 2017 budgetproposal by the Heritage Foundation that includes the following education-related proposals: Eliminate competitive and project grant funding under the Every Student Succeeds Act (cuts $1.5 billion) and reduce Education’s formula funding by 10 percent (cuts $2.3 billion) Eliminate job training programs under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (cuts $3.4 billion) Phase out Head Start, cutting funding by 10 percent each year (cuts $935 million the first year) Require the use of so-called “fair value accounting” for credit programs such as student loans; this has the effect of making loan programs appear to be more expensive than they are under the current credit scoring laws. Eliminate the cap on Coverdell Savings Accounts Although the report on the Trump budget does not list education cuts, it apparently will cut spending by $10.5 trillion over ten years through steep cuts to the Commerce, Energy, Transportation, Justice, and State Departments. January 24 Trump issues freeze on all regulatory actions – In one of the first official actions on Friday, the Trump administration issued a memorandum asking all federal agency heads to stop advancing all regulations that have not yet been published in the Federal Register, and to postpone for 60 days enactment of all published regulations that are not yet in effect. The regulatory pause applies to the accountability rule under ESSA, and also appears to apply to borrower defense-to-repayment regulations, which has an effective date of July 2017, but NOT teacher preparation regulations, because while they are also not fully in effect until July 2017, those regulations have three effective dates – the first was on November 16, 2016, so the regulation is effective now, with two other pending effective dates. Previous administrations have issued similar regulatory freezes in the past. DeVos vote – As Democrats continue to argue that they haven’t had enough time to review Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos’ ethics paperwork, Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) has announced that the HELP Committee’s vote on DeVos’ nomination will be pushed back to Tuesday, January 31st at 10 am. Senate Democrats are also continuing to push for another hearing on the nomination, but a spokesperson from Chairman Alexander’s office stated that only one hearing will be held. Senate Democrats propose education funding in $1 trillion infrastructure plan – On this day Senate Democrats announced a $1 trillion infrastructure plan that they say will create over 15 million new jobs. Below are excerpts describing education-related pieces of the proposal. A one-pager and the full blueprint are attached. January 27 (today) Budget Committee budget process proposals – Here is the House Budget Committee Democratic staff’s analysis <https://democrats-budget.house.gov/publications/report/price-budget-process-proposal-would-cost-dearly> of the impact of Republican budget process proposals. (The Republican perspective is online here <http://budget.house.gov/budgetprocessreform/>.) List of White House staff – Attached is an unofficial list of new White House staffers. We’re working to pull together what we know about new staff at the Department of Education, which is certainly still in flux. Trump Administration infrastructure priorities – Here is a link from McClatchy News Service and the Kansas City Star to a list of 50 top infrastructure priorities of the Trump Administration (no school renovation on this list!). http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article128492164.html Finally — and the last one is just from me — but for those who follow the budget process closely, I recommend this article on the Republican debate on tax cuts and offsets: http://www.rollcall.com/news/republicans-balancing-budget-challenge There is definitely a split among Republicans regarding spending... Jeff Jeff Carter — Advisor, National Coalition for Literacy www.national-coalition-literacy.org jcarter@literacypolicy.org or jeffcrtr@gmail.org Personal Twitter: @jeffcrtr | literacypolicy.org |national-coalition-literacy.org Cell: (202) 374-4387