Washington Update

Agency Funding State of Play
In late January, the White House rescinded an Office of Management and Budget directive that instructed federal agencies to pause grants, contracts, and loans while the administration conducted a review of spending to ensure alignment with recent executive orders. The rescission came soon after the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island issued a temporary restraining order directing federal agencies to “not pause, freeze, impede, block, cancel, or terminate Defendants’ compliance with awards and obligations” of federal grants.

Why It Matters: While the White House rescinded this sweeping action, multiple executive orders impacting agency funding remain. Executive orders aiming to eliminate federal funding for climate policies, “DEI” related activities, foreign aid, and other policy areas continue to impact spending at federal agencies.

As a reminder, APLU developed a list of the EOs of most significant impact to public research universities.

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
In response to the January 20 executive order “Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid,” the Secretary of State’s office issued a memo on January 24 halting all foreign aid operations globally for 90 days to conduct a review of programs’ strategic alignment with overall administration goals. While this memo’s blanket work stop has softened slightly, with waivers issued to allow life-saving programs to resume, the majority of USAID and USAID-funded programming has halted, resulting in escalating layoffs and furloughs at USAID headquarters, missions, and contractors in and beyond Washington. The administration’s stated goal has been to fold the majority of USAID programming into the Department of State, leaving just 294 staff at USAID. That effort, per Devex, has been temporarily halted through February 14 by federal court action.

What’s New: On February 6, APLU sent a letter with House and Senate State and Foreign Operations appropriators seeking support as part of an effort to gain expedited review for these programs currently under a work stop. The letter urges the appropriators to ensure this work can receive expedited review and can resume. APLU’s letter cites as an example the importance of Feed the Future Innovation labs, a flagship partnership between USAID and U.S. universities focused on accelerating research in agriculture.

House Republicans Reintroduce and Pass DETERRENT Act Through Committee
The DETERRENT Act passed out of the House Committee on Education & Workforce this week on a party line vote. This legislation would substantially modify the requirements of Section 117 of the Higher Education Act (HEA), which governs the reporting of foreign gifts and contracts.

Of greatest concern to APLU, the legislation inappropriately expands the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) authority to review scientific research contracts, which are not under the department’s jurisdiction, to address research security concerns around foreign malign influence.

ED does not have the expertise to perform such reviews, and the creation of such a process is both duplicative and unnecessary given the resources invested in federal science agencies. Many research agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Defense, National Science Foundation, and National Institutes of Health have all recently strengthened research security and foreign partnership reporting requirements.

Universities have dedicated substantial resources to comply with new research security requests in good faith. Yet, the legislation introduces duplicative processes, without respect for ongoing collaborations between academia and research agencies.

The bill was first introduced in the 118^th Congress and passed the House but was not considered by the Senate. The new version of the bill was rushed to markup less than a week after being reintroduced in the 119^th Congress by Representative Michael Baumgartner (R-WA) and Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-MI).

Committee Perspective: A press release, bill summary, and fact sheet are available on the House Education & Workforce Committee website.

On February 11, APLU signed on to a community letter underscoring concerns that the DETERRENT Act would create significant barriers to conducting critical research and put in place expansion of data collection by ED without ensuring relatedness to national security threats. The letter outlines additional concerns to institutions of higher education, including:

• A provision to lower the Sec. 117 foreign gift reporting threshold to $50,000 and $0 for gifts or contracts from countries or entities of concern
• A requirement that prohibits institutions from entering into any contracts with any foreign entities of concern or countries of concern unless they receive a waiver from the Department of Education
• A provision requiring certain institutions to maintain a publicly available database on their institutions’ website tracking individual foreign gifts or contracts to covered faculty and staff and expands fines for non-compliance with each of the new 117 sections

APLU continues to engage the membership in the association’s advocacy efforts on the legislation.

Reconciliation Update
This week, the House and Senate Budget Committees were set to review their chamber’s budget resolution, which would include instructions on reducing spending and extending expiring tax provisions, both of which are key priorities of the Trump administration. The Senate Budget Committee advanced their budget resolution containing reconciliation instructions focusing on border security, defense, and energy out of committee on a party-line vote Wednesday evening. The package authorizes $85.5 billion in new spending and directs committees to identify offsets in other funding areas that fully cover the new spending. A timeline for floor consideration has not been set.

In the House, the Budget Committee scheduled a markup on February 13 to review their budget resolution, which would enable up to $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, reduce spending by at least $1.5 trillion over the next decade, and include $300 billion in new border and defense spending. The Budget Committee published a webpage with a variety of resources on the resolution, including one pagers, a section by section breakdown, and an executive summary.

Whereas the Senate budget resolution instructed most committees to identify at least $1 billion in savings, the House version provided its committees with more specificity. Under the House resolution, the Committee on Agriculture is directed to find at least $230 billion in savings, the Committee on Education and Workforce $330 billion, and the Committee on Ways and Means $4.5 trillion, among others. The House is likely to use savings found in the College Cost Reduction Act (CCRA) as their basis for savings within the Committee on Education and Workforce. While CCRA identifies $250 billion in savings, eliminating the SAVE student loan repayment plan was recently re-scored by the Congressional Budget Office to save $210 billion, up from $130 billion. This likely explains the difference in savings between the two bills.

To enact a reconciliation package, the chambers must reach agreement on a budget resolution. The Senate prefers a two-bill approach, with the first bill focusing on defense, energy, and border security provisions, and the second bill extending expiring tax provisions. This approach is at odds with the House’s preference for one bill. Disagreements remain over the total amount of savings to be generated through the reconciliation package, with the House Freedom Caucus supporting cuts beyond what House Leadership and the Budget Committee has previously considered. While the cost of extending existing tax provisions is $4.5 trillion, President Trump has spoken in support of new tax breaks totaling over $11 trillion.

In January, Punchbowl News published a document from the House Budget Committee providing a list of offset options under consideration for a reconciliation package. APLU pulled provisions of most direct impact to higher education to create a shorter list, including the elimination of the Grad PLUS loan program and “risk sharing” which imposes penalties on institutions based on a number of criteria related to tuition levels and student outcomes.

Trump Administration Reverts to 2020 Title IX Rule
On January 31, ED announced the Office of Civil Rights will return to enforcing the Trump Administration’s 2020 Title IX Rule. Following the announcement, ED released a Dear Colleague Letter clarifying that open investigations will be reevaluated for consistency with the 2020 Title IX rule.

ED published resources pertaining to the 2020 Title IX rule, including a fact sheet and summary of major provisions.

Trump Issues Executive Order: “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports”
On February 5, President Trump issued an executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.” The new executive order directs the Secretary of Education to enforce Title IX “to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports” and calls for collaboration with athletic organizations and state officials to uphold sex-based sports classifications. The order also directs all executive departments and agencies to rescind grant funding for institutions that fail to comply.

Nominations of Interest
Earlier this week, President Trump sent additional nominees to the Senate for approval, including key positions of importance to public research universities.

Mary Christina Riley to be Assistant Secretary for Legislation and Congressional Affairs, Department of Education
 
 

Scott Hutchins to be Under Secretary of Agriculture for Research, Education, and Economics

Nicholas Kent to be Under Secretary of Education

Jennifer Mascott to be General Counsel, Department of Education

Kimberly Riche to be Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, Department of Education