Quick Fix— The White House is calling for a “swift confirmation” of Brian Quintenz — Trump’s nominee to lead the Commodity Futures Trading Commission — after pushing lawmakers to delay a vote late last month. — August marks a mad dash among all 56 states and territories as they seek to finish revising their applications for a portion of the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program. — President Donald Trump tasked the National Labor Relations Board with “clarifying” the employment status of college athletes, in conjunction with the Labor Department, as part of an executive order signed last week. |
Agriculture— USDA reorganization: Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins will be executing her new reorganization plan, which involves moving more than half of USDA’s Washington-area staff to five new hubs around the country: Salt Lake City; Fort Collins, Colorado; Indianapolis; Kansas City, Missouri; and Raleigh, North Carolina. Employees are expected to get their reassignment details in the coming months.
Most of USDA’s 100,000-person workforce is already based outside of the Beltway, but Rollins has long aimed to relocate even more employees closer to farmers, ranchers and producers. As a result, the department also plans to close nearly all of its buildings in the capital region, including the South building of USDA’s headquarters, the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, the George Washington Carver Center and a Food and Nutrition Services facility in Alexandria, Virginia.
The plan, which has triggered bipartisan blowback, doesn’t include any major personnel cuts. However, Rollins said she expects as much as half of the reassigned D.C. staff won’t relocate to the hubs.
— Food aid slash: Republicans are bracing for questions about their megalaw — which includes cuts to the nation’s largest anti-hunger program — in town halls and district events during their August recess. Meanwhile, Democrats are trying to figure out an effective message on food aid cuts, since most of them won’t take effect until after the midterm elections.
At the state-level, Republican governors and officials are bracing for a tough fiscal picture, since the megalaw will force them to pay for part of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for the first time. The cuts are already threatening local grocery stores and food banks around the country, with business owners worrying that they will lose revenue and their communities will be devastated.
— Trade deals: Tariff uncertainty continues to weigh on farmers’ minds as harvest season looms. President Donald Trump has trotted out several trade agreements with Europe and Japan, but both are light on details.
Some GOP lawmakers are looking for the administration to do more.
“I’m very, very hopeful that we can cut deals with people that are our adversaries,” Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.) told POLITICO earlier this month. “I like the fact that we’ve made a deal with the Philippines and Japan and everything … but we’ve still got to make deals with the Russians and China.” — Jordan Wolman |
Technology— Any movement on approps? Senate Appropriations Committee members cleared their version of the Commerce, Justice, Science, and related agencies government funding measure, which provides money for major federal science and technology programs. Their version rejects the deep funding cuts sought by the Trump administration, and boosts support for export controls and antitrust enforcement.
The House scrapped full committee consideration of its version before August, but a subcommittee advanced its proposal with significant cuts to science programs — albeit smaller than those envisioned by Trump.
These measures are among the most likely to advance through the normal appropriations process, though a fight over the location of the FBI’s headquarters has nearly derailed the bill once.
Other funding fights worth watching in the months ahead include provisions barring TikTok ads on D.C.-area transportation and reversing a decision to relocate the Discovery space shuttle to Texas.
— The state broadband rush: August marks a mad dash among all 56 states and territories as they seek to finish revising their applications for a portion of the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program.
States have 90 days to make changes requested by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who on June 6 announced a sweeping overhaul of the program aimed at cutting red tape and boosting the cost-effectiveness of internet builds. He gave states until Sept. 4 to reapply, scrapping previous approvals granted by the Biden administration.
Telecom observers are already poring through the initial state efforts to ascertain how Lutnick’s changes may affect what types of providers bid on and obtain grant money. His overhaul got rid of the Biden administration’s preference for fiber and put all technologies, including wireless and satellite, in play.
August may also give a sense of how Arielle Roth approaches BEAD as she takes the reins as head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the Commerce agency in charge of the program. She was confirmed 52-41 to the post in late July.
— AI Action Plan rollout: The Trump administration is set to initiate key steps in its sweeping AI Action Plan this month, with one federal deadline and a handful of early implementation efforts due. Most immediately, by Aug. 2, agencies must make recommendations to fast-track environmental permitting for AI-related infrastructure like data centers — marking the first concrete action under the executive order.
Also expected in August is the initial rollout of a request for information led by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy that will focus on identifying regulatory barriers to adopting AI, a potentially significant step toward shaping future deregulatory actions or targeted legislative proposals.
While most provisions in the broader strategy lack fixed timelines, the early weeks of August will serve as a litmus test for how quickly federal agencies align with Trump’s aggressive AI agenda. Key priorities still on the horizon include a global AI export initiative led by the Commerce Department, new procurement guidelines to enforce “unbiased” AI principles in federal systems, and efforts by the Office of Management and Budget to identify and repeal regulatory hurdles across the federal government. — John Hendel, Anthony Adragna and Mohar Chatterjee |
Employment and Immigration— NLRB latest: President Donald Trump tasked the National Labor Relations Board with “clarifying” the employment status of college athletes, in conjunction with the Labor Department, as part of an executive order signed last week.
It is unclear exactly what that will entail as the agency lacks enough board members to issue decisions and other formal actions, but universities and Republican lawmakers are keen on ensuring that players cannot exert labor rights or unionize.
The NLRB may have to act quickly as it is scheduled to lose Chair Marvin Kaplan when his term expires on Aug. 27. That would leave the board with just one remaining member, Democratic-appointee David Prouty, after Trump removed former Chair Gwynne Wilcox in January.
Trump recently nominated Boeing attorney Scott Mayer and former longtime NLRB staffer James Murphy, but he will have to put forward two more candidates once Kaplan exits — assuming Wilcox does not prevail in her quest for reinstatement with the courts.
Even if the Senate restores a quorum with Mayer and Murphy on the five-seat board, the members may be limited in how quickly they can unwind the Biden-era NLRB’s pro-union bent.
The board has a longstanding practice against issuing precedent-setting rulings unless there are at least three votes in support of doing so. Unless Prouty joins with them to undo decisions he previously signed onto — which is unlikely — the GOP board members would still need a forthcoming nominee to arrive before they could fully take the reins.
— In other news: Beyond the board members, Trump’s pick to serve as NLRB general counsel, Crystal Carey, is facing skepticism from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) — a potentially key vote on the Senate HELP Committee. That has complicated her path to confirmation.
And the Senate has a backlog of more than 100 nominees awaiting floor votes, including a number of Trump’s candidates for positions at the Labor Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. — Nick Niedzwiadek |
Tax— Looking for the next? It’s not even been a month since President Donald Trump signed the GOP megabill, which extended the expiring portions of his 2017 tax cuts and enacted new tax relief on top of it.
Republicans and Democrats quickly have pivoted into trying to win the political war over the new law, which isn’t starting out particularly popular.
Meanwhile, discussions are already popping up about when a next tax bill might materialize, while there’s also questions about when the Trump administration might offer guidance on some of the megabill’s new tax provisions.
— Taxpayers and businesses have reason to want some quick advice from the IRS and the Treasury Department on new policies like cutting taxes on tipped income and overtime pay.
Republicans ensured that those provisions would be in place for 2025, in an effort to ensure that voters saw benefits from the megabill before next year’s elections.
They also did that for new deductions for seniors and the interest on car loans, as well as expansions of the previous standard deduction and Child Tax Credit.
Experts have long worried that scrapping taxes on tips and overtime pay would open avenues for abuse, with employees having new incentive to seek to reclassify their regular income as either gratuities or extra hours.
Republicans put guardrails on how those incentives can be claimed in the megabill, but the executive branch has lots of unanswered questions to deal with on what income qualifies for those tax breaks.
— Looking ahead, there’s already chatter about Republicans passing a second tax bill on their own in the coming months, or a bipartisan measure that would include Democrats’ priorities as well.
Congress has a lot of other issues hanging over it, including an upcoming government funding deadline.
Still, some Republicans are starting to discuss what tax measures they might want to see in a second budget reconciliation package that they could pass without Democratic assistance.
For their part, Democrats might not be willing to work across the aisle with Republicans, after the bruising battle over the megabill. But they have plenty of incentive to do so — an expansion of tax credits for buying health insurance is slated to expire at the end of the year, and Democrats will need a deal with Republicans to extend them.
How feasible that might be — and what tradeoffs might be required — is another question. Some GOP lawmakers are dead-set against keeping the larger credits, while others might be more open to it because of concerns about the blowback from the megabill’s new limits on Medicaid.
Some tax proposals could be in play for either a GOP-only bill or a bipartisan measure — including legislation that would reverse a change from the megabill that only allows gamblers to deduct 90 percent of their losses, instead of the previous 100 percent. — Bernie Becker |
Energy— GOP’s megalaw messaging dilemma: Republicans returned to their districts for August recess after passing their sweeping spending law, setting up the first test of how they’ll message the new clean energy rollbacks to their constituents.
President Donald Trump’s efforts to suffocate new solar and wind projects — including clamping down on tax credits and restricting permitting — is threatening to overshadow the GOP’s preferred messaging that their megalaw will unleash domestic energy production, largely fossil fuels. |
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That could challenge swing district Republicans who signed onto letters to protect tax credits that have supercharged energy and manufacturing investments in their states, but ultimately voted for the megalaw.
To manage the fallout, some Republicans plan to meet with project developers over recess to get a sense of how the changes to tax credits are impacting them. — Josh Siegel |
Education— Debates on higher ed: Now that President Donald Trump has signed his domestic policy megabill into law, it’s time to hammer out the details of implementing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s provisions for higher education programs.
Starting Aug. 7, the Education Department will host public hearings to sort out changes to federal student loan and Pell Grant programs as part of a negotiated rulemaking process intended to propose new regulations for colleges and universities.
Two committees of negotiators — which include people from organizations that represent employers, legal assistance groups, and schools — have a significant list of topics to address during sessions scheduled to stretch between September and early next year.
They need to consider how to phase out graduate and professional PLUS loans; establish new annual loan limits for graduate and professional students and parent borrowers; and simplify student loan repayment plans.
They will also discuss potential rules that could jeopardize schools’ ability to access student loans if graduates from certain programs go on to earn low wages, in addition to eligibility requirements for a new Pell Grant initiative for short-term programs.
Financial aid administrators have not yet been selected to serve on the rulemaking committees, though other representatives can select a financial administrator to serve as their negotiator. — Juan Perez, Jr. |
Transportation— Appropriations: The August recess will be sleepy, but appropriators in both the House and Senate will be gearing up to attempt to reconcile differences between their two versions of the annual DOT spending bill. Both have been approved in committee, H.R. 4552 and S. 2465, respectively, but there are major issues to work out, including the House GOP’s attempt to redirect more than $4 billion in 2021 infrastructure law funds to use for their new legislation. The Senate has proposed $109.8 billion in total budgetary resources for DOT, while House Republicans are pushing for $4.7 billion less than that — and they want to gut some transit and rail grant programs.
— Hearing fallout: Startling details from the independent National Transportation Safety Board’s dayslong hearing into the January midair collision in Washington will reverberate for months, and likely years, to come. In the immediate weeks ahead, the revelations are bound to spark further scrutiny of the Army and Federal Aviation Administration — including why a risky helicopter route in the airspace wasn’t previously moved — and draw more attention to legislation introduced in Congress seeking to address the catastrophe, including a new aviation safety bill from Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas). At least one lawsuit related to the crash is expected to be filed in August, too, by a law firm representing some victims’ families. — Sam Ogozalek |
Health Care— So what’s ahead for Congress? Conventional wisdom in Washington is that Republicans are likely to pursue another reconciliation bill this fall, and there is a good chance it will have some health items.
House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington of Texas has suggested addressing site-neutral payment cuts for drug administration. This would ensure Medicare payments to outpatient hospital clinics are lowered to meet rates for independent clinics. And Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) has told reporters he would like a second reconciliation bill to target federal Medicaid expansion funding.
Republicans will likely be wrapped up in spending talks when they return after the August recess as government funding runs out at the end of September.
Even if a reconciliation bill doesn’t happen, there will likely be a push for a standalone health package. This would likely resemble a package crafted at the end of December that included reforms to pharmacy benefit managers and price transparency.
Other issues to track:
— ACA subsidies: The Affordable Care Act’s enhanced premium tax credits are set to expire at the end of 2025 unless Congress acts. The subsidies have helped drive record Obamacare enrollment over the past few years and made the ACA a lucrative business for health insurers. But experts have warned that progress could flip if the policy lapses — leading to millions losing health insurance.
— About priorities: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has proposed several major regulations regarding payments for doctors and outpatient care. Those rules and others on the way offer an early look at the regulatory priorities under Administrator Mehmet Oz’s leadership.
— Model way: University groups are developing a new model university to calculate the indirect costs the National Institutes of Health pays grantees for administrative and facilities expenses. Does Congress buy into the new model, and who does it benefit? — Pro Health Care Team |
Defense— Defense policy debate awaits: The House and Senate punted debate on their versions of the National Defense Authorization Act until September. Leaders in both chambers are eyeing the defense policy legislation as a top agenda item when they’re back from August recess.
But that doesn't mean all the work on the must-pass defense bills is on hold.
The congressional recess this month will give staffers on the House and Senate Armed Services committees time to begin ironing out the differences in the competing bills. That preliminary work will reduce the number of issues lawmakers will need to reconcile once the two chambers pass their defense bills and begin negotiating a compromise. — Connor O'Brien  |
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