On October 27, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius responded to governors’ request for an administrative solution to the erroneous payments made by state Medicaid programs for benefits that should have been provided by Medicare – referred to as the Special Disability Workload or SDW. In her letter to governors, the Secretary stated that she explored the option to use Medicare and/or Medicaid demonstration authorities to resolve the issue but determined that she does not have the statutory authority to do so.

On October 27, the House approved H.R. 674, 405-16, which would repeal the three percent withholding requirement on payments due to vendors that provide goods and services to state and local governments. Enacted in 2006, implementation of this provision has been delayed until 2013 through a series of temporary postponements. The purpose of the withholding requirement was to ensure that all vendors remitted taxes owed. However, the costs to all governments from implementing the requirement are projected greater than the total revenues collected.

On October 27, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) announced that the across-the-board cuts that would automatically occur if the Joint Select Committee (supercommittee) was unable to approve a federal deficit reduction plan of at least $1.2 trillion would be an unacceptable outcome. Specifically, he noted in reference to the Department of Defense that military accounts “have taken more than their fair share of the hits” this year.

The Senate is set to approve the first FY 2012 “minibus” (H.R. 2112) this week, possibly as early as tomorrow. The "minibus" includes FY 2012 appropriations bills for the departments of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture and Commerce-Justice-Science. House appropriators hope to move quickly to a conference on the Senate version of the minibus but have not ruled out adding other spending bills to the package.

The Senate is set to resume work on the “minibus” fiscal 2012 measure (HR 2112). The chambers could convene a conference committee on the minibus as early as this week. The Senate Judiciary Committee marks up a bill to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between one man and one woman.

The House takes up bills on proposed changes to Securities and Exchange Commission rules designed to make it easier for small companies to raise money.

On December 6, Department of Agriculture (USDA) Under Secretary Kevin Concannon announced a new range of tactics to improve program integrity of USDA's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – formerly known as food stamps. Actions USDA announced to further reduce SNAP fraud include:

On December 8, the House passed H.R. 1633, which would limit the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to include agricultural dust in its regulation of Particulate Matter (PM) through the Clean Air Act. Particulate Matter is one of the criteria pollutants for which EPA must develop National Ambient Air Quality Standards which are updated every five years and currently include agricultural dust.

On December 7, the House passed the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act (REINS) (H.R. 10). The act would require Congress to vote before the regulation could take effect if the regulation would have an economic impact of more than $100 million or have “significant adverse effects on competition, employment, investment” or other economic issues. Although a companion bill (S. 299) was introduced in the Senate by Senator Ron Paul (R-KY), it is unlikely to move forward.

Links: H.R.10