Below is this week’s congressional update by BakerHostetler’s Federal Policy team. We’ll continue to post in weeks when both chambers of Congress are in session.
HEADLINES
- President Joe Biden is considering potential nominees to the Supreme Court after Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement announcement – a gift to Biden and congressional Democrats after a politically brutal stretch of several months.
- The Senate is reportedly close to agreement on legislation to impose sanctions on Russia for its threat towards Ukraine.
- Congress must also confront a government funding deadline in three weeks, February 18.
HOUSE
- The House is in session tomorrow through Friday. They will take up their version of legislation to counter China economically, after the Senate passed its version last year.
- The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday will hold a hearing on the American Music Fairness Act.
- The Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee will hold a hearing with senior leadership from the Food and Drug Administration on reauthorization of the industry’s user fees.
- The current schedule of committee activity can be found here.
SENATE
- The Senate plans to continue votes on Biden’s judicial nominees.
- Shalanda Young, Biden’s nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget, will appear at nomination hearings tomorrow with both the Senate Budget Committee and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
- Also Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights will hold a hearing titled “Breaking the News – Journalism, Competition, and the Effects of Market Power on a Free Press.”
- The full schedule of committee meetings can be found here.
WHITE HOUSE
- Biden today will host Qatar’s emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani at the White House.
- The president on Thursday will visit New York to discuss a strategy to address urban violent crime with new Mayor Eric Adams.
The 2022 Winter Olympics begin Friday in Beijing – no officials from the United States will attend as the administration joins several other nations in a diplomatic boycott of the Games over the Chinese government’s human rights abuses.
[View source.]
