With the House out this week on recess, the Senate will continue confirming President Trump’s nominees and will likely advance its FY2025 budget resolution after enduring dozens of amendment votes on the floor in “vote-a-rama.” Meanwhile, President Trump will sign additional Executive Orders today at 1:00 PM EST from Mar-a-Lago. This memo provides an update on these issues, plus imminent Congressional Review Act action, President Trump’s trade policy, and recent Administration actions of note. As always, please let us know if you have any questions.
Senate Confirming More Trump Nominees
President Trump’s Cabinet is on track to be fully in place by the beginning of March, testament to the highly coordinated effort between the Trump Administration (especially “sherpas” and the Office of Legislative Affairs) and Senate Majority Leader Thune. Tonight, the Senate will confirm Howard Lutnick (Commerce), Kelly Loeffler (SBA) tomorrow, and Kash Patel (FBI) on Thursday. We also expect action soon on Jamieson Greer (USTR), Daniel Driscoll (Secretary of the Army), and possibly Elise Stefanik (UN).
Also this week, several nominees will receive their confirmation hearings, including Lori Chavez-DeRemer for Secretary of Labor (Thursday/HELP), OMB Deputy Director Dan Bishop (Thursday/HSGAC), and DHS Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar (Thursday/HSGAC). In the case of Chavez-DeRemer, there is at least one Republican opposed to her nomination (Senator Rand Paul) and possibly others given her past support for the PRO Act; while some Democrats have signaled an openness to her nomination, it is unclear if support will materialize. Also on Thursday, HELP will report out Linda McMahon (Education), who we expect to be confirmed by the Senate next week.
Senate Budget Resolution Likely on the Floor this Week
As soon as tonight, the Senate will begin processing its FY2025 budget resolution, which was reported out of the Senate Budget Committee last Wednesday on an 11-10 vote. Unlike the House GOP’s approach-which seeks to craft one reconciliation bill that would encompass border security, defense spending, tax cuts, mandatory spending reductions and possibly the debt limit-the Senate’s FY25 Budget Resolution is narrowly tailored for the purposes of providing up to $345 billion for border security ($175 billion) defense spending ($150 billion), and Coast Guard spending ($20 billion).
While the budget resolution does not craft policy in and of itself and doesn’t mandate the cost of the legislation be fully offset, Senate Republicans intend to fully offset the cost of the legislation by reducing mandatory spending and raising some non-tax revenue. Areas that are notionally targeted include student loans, domestic energy production, and some narrow health care provisions. In all, the Senate’s budget gives reconciliation instructions to nine committees, who must assemble policy options to meet their budgetary targets by March 7.
To advance the reconciliation process, both the House and Senate must first enact identical budget resolutions. The Senate aims to begin that process this week, with the House out of town. It is worth noting again that at this moment the House is moving in a different direction, having passed a dramatically different budget resolution out of the House Budget Committee that aims for a “one bill” reconciliation strategy that addresses the TJCA. The House/Senate one bill/two bill dynamic will have to be sorted before real legislating can begin.
Senate Floor Process/Vote-a-Rama:
Budget rules allow up to 50 hours of debate of the budget resolution, equally divided. Either side can yield back time as it sees fit. While amendments may be offered and voted on during the debate, doing so requires consent of all members to lock in time agreements. However, at the end of the 50 hours, the Senate will begin its “vote-a-rama” with dozens of amendment votes on a wide range of topics. We expect the vast majority, if not all amendments offered on the floor to be from Democrats, and for the vast majority (if not all) of these amendments to fail. Republicans may offer side-by-side amendments as an alternative to Democratic amendments. Additionally, note that amendments to the budget resolution do not make law, and many do not directly impact the budget. Instead, these “messaging amendments” are usually drafted as “deficit neutral reserve funds” that act as a sense of the Senate. Still, votes on amendments during vote-a-rama can be an important measure of support or opposition for a particular policy. Possible amendment topics include:
- Health Care: prescription drugs, IRA negotiation, Medicaid/Medicare, nursing homes, medical research, premiums, ACA tax credits
- Cost of Living: groceries/eggs/rent, inflation
- DOGE: IRS, USAID, CFPB, USDA, HHS/NIH, FAA, Treasury (access to taxpayer information)
- Impoundment/Spending Freezes
- Federal Workers: layoffs, schedule F
- Education: student loans, abolishing Department of Education
- Taxes: corporate tax, loopholes for the wealthy
- Agriculture: SNAP, avian flu, food safety workers,
- Energy: fossil fuels, cut to renewable energy, climate change, IRA spending
Congressional Review Act Action Beginning Soon
Next week, we expect to see initial action on Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolutions of disapproval in both chambers. The CRA allows the GOP trifecta to repeal certain Biden-era regulations on a simple-majority basis. In 2017, President Trump signed 16 CRA resolutions of disapproval into law. This Congress, Republican leadership is hoping to enact between 10-15 CRAs, reflecting a reality that there are fewer salient regulations to repeal and that slim margins (especially in the House) will govern their use of the CRA.
Committees in the House will vote on CRA resolutions of disapproval, while Senate committees will not. The Senate can process CRA resolutions of disapproval quickly because only up to 10 hours of debate is allowed, followed by a simple majority vote. This expedited process gives Senate leadership the ability to scheduled CRA resolutions while at the same time processing nominations and other business.
Likely Initial Targets:
- S.J.Res 12/H.J.Res 35 (Hoeven/Pfluger) – methane [House will pass next week]
- S.J.Res. 4/H.J.Res 20 (Cruz/Palmer) – DOE standards for gas-fired water heaters [House will pass next week]
- S.J.Res. 11 (Kennedy) – BOEM “Protection of Marine Archaeological Resources”
- S.J.Res 13 (Kennedy) – OCC Bank Merger Act reviews for small/medium-sized banks
We expect additional CRA targets to be announced by GOP leadership in the coming days.
Trump Administration – Recent Actions of Note
White House:
EO – Establishing the National Energy Dominance Council
EO – Establishing the President’s MAHA Commission
Memo – Reciprocal Trade and Tariffs
Proclamations – Steel tariffs and Aluminum tariffs
Hires – Office of Legislative Affairs
NLRB: Memo – withdrawal of ~30 Biden General Counsel memoranda
USDA: Secretary Brooke Rollins “Day One” actions
Trump Administration Trade Update
Last week saw another flurry of activity on the trade front from the President with the issuance of his “Fair and Reciprocal Plan.” The directive calls for Treasury, Commerce, DHS, OMB, USTR, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, and the Senior Counselor to the President for Trade and Manufacturing to assess what countries and products the President should consider levying reciprocal tariffs against and detail to the President remedies with each trading partner. The work is to be collected by Commerce and USTR following the submission of reports due under the America First Trade Policy Memorandum and could be completed as soon as April 2.
Meanwhile, additional actions have previously been announced with the upcoming deadlines:
- March 4: Canada and Mexico 25% tariff review period ends
- March 12: 25% steel and aluminum global tariffs go into effect (no exemptions or exclusion process)
- April 1: America First Trade Policy memo reports due
As a reminder, an additional 10% tariff levy on all Chinese imports has already gone into effect and there has been no movement yet on the two countries reaching a deal. The President’s repeal of de minimis treatment of packages from China, however, has been suspended. Issues involved in the negotiations are likely to include China’s implementation of the Trump 1.0 Phase I deal, sale of TikTok, repeal of PNTR, and further action by Treasury on an outbound investment regime (e.g., export controls) that was created under the Biden Administration’s August 2023 EO.
Finally, the President and his Administration have signaled more actions to come, including penalties for BRICS countries developing their own currency, tariffs on foreign cars, a possible free trade agreement with Argentina and/or the UK, retaliation against the EU for its ESG regulations as well as its VAT, and countries that run large trade deficits with the U.S. (e.g., Brazil, EU, India, South Korea, Vietnam).
As a macro strategy, the President views economic security as national security and the current trade deficit as unsustainable. Not only can tariffs act as leverage and drive market access, but they are also a means to right-size the trade deficit and add revenue to the Federal budget baseline.
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