Proposed changes to higher education policy in congressional Republicans’ tax and spending bill could weaken protections for student borrowers, advocacy groups say.  (Photo illustration via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The massive tax and spending package U.S. House Republicans narrowly advanced last week could hinder accountability for for-profit colleges and weaken student-borrower protections, student advocates say.

The bill, now headed to the Senate, calls for sweeping changes to education policy under what GOP lawmakers deem “regulatory relief.” 

That includes eliminating a rule governing for-profit schools, removing “gainful employment” as a goal for colleges receiving federal funds and hindering consumer protections for borrowers defrauded or facing school closures.

GOP lawmakers are aiming to slash billions of dollars in federal spending to offset the cost of President Donald Trump’s tax cuts, border security and defense spending through the complex budget reconciliation process, which allows Congress to skirt the Senate’s 60-vote threshold that generally requires bipartisanship. The package, which the House passed 215-214 last week, will likely undergo significant changes in the Senate.

The House Committee on Education and Workforce’s portion of the reconciliation package also includes significant changes to how student loans are repaid, cuts to federal student aid and new eligibility requirements for the Pell Grant, a government subsidy that helps low-income students pay for college.

Student advocates and congressional Democrats have opposed the bill, emphasizing the impact of the proposed changes on higher education affordability and access as well as the weakening of protections for defrauded borrowers and fewer guardrails to hold for-profit schools accountable. 

Kyle Southern, associate vice president for higher education quality at the Institute for College Access & Success, said the bill would “put higher education further out of reach for low-income students, students of color (and) many first-generation students.”

“It would also make it a riskier investment, because it … weakens or rolls back many critical student protections that have been put in place as guardrails to help ensure the quality of post-secondary programs across sectors,” he said.

The nonprofit advocacy group aims to advance affordability, accountability and equity in higher education.

Here’s a closer look at the bill’s key education provisions related to institutional accountability and borrower protections:

Repealing the 90/10 rule

The bill repeals the Education Department’s “90/10 rule,” which requires that at least 10% of the money for-profit institutions receive derives from non-federal sources.

The regulation initially did not apply to student veteran benefits, creating a loophole that pushed for-profit schools to target veterans in their programs.

Though Congress did eventually close the loophole in a provision of the massive COVID-19 relief package Congress passed in 2021, the current bill would slash the rule altogether.

Carrie Wofford, president of Veterans Education Success, said the 90/10 rule “stops federal funds from being used to prop up otherwise failing college companies.”

Wofford said “it’s very shocking and upsetting to all the veterans and military leaders who worked for a decade to get this done and had a bipartisan agreement and had Republican leadership completely signing off,” referencing the efforts to close the earlier loophole.

Veterans Education Success, a group which advocates for the rights of student veterans, service members and their families, wrote to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions last week urging the panel to not include the repeal of the 90/10 rule in the chamber’s version of the bill.

Gainful employment

The bill would also strike the phrase “gainful employment” from several definitions within the Higher Education Act, a law providing financial assistance for students and higher education institutions.

As the Institute for College Access & Success notes in a fact sheet, the Gainful Employment rule, an Education Department regulation, helps “ensure that career education programs receiving federal student aid prepare students for gainful employment in a recognized occupation” and aims to “protect students from low-value programs that leave graduates with unaffordable debt and poor job prospects.”

Striking the term from the definitions likely sets the stage for the Education Department to rescind the rule, according to Sarah Austin, a policy analyst at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.

“Presumably, what we kind of took (striking the phrase) to mean is that that would lead to them rescinding gainful employment rules because the definitions in statute were what they’ve always kind of used as showing their legal authority to regulate on gainful employment,” Austin said.

“Without those definitions in there, not only does that seem to say that they would not have these gainful employment regulations, but also would kind of stop future administrations from having any sort of gainful employment framework because the definitions are not even in the Higher Education Act anymore.”

Borrower protections

As for borrower protections, the bill would also repeal 2022 versions of the Closed School Discharge and Borrower Defense to Repayment rules, reverting to what they looked like before the Biden administration.

While the Closed School Discharge rule provides debt relief to a borrower whose school shuts down, the Borrower Defense to Repayment provision helps forgive debt for students whose institution defrauded them.

Austin said that “with the 2022 rules, there was automatic closed school discharge, so if a school closed, a borrower may be entitled to have their loans automatically discharged, not require any action on their behalf, where the prior set of rules, they would actually have to apply for the closed school discharge, so this would be reverting back to that if it was to move forward as law.”

Under the bill, the Borrower Defense to Repayment provision would fall back to a 2019 rule that then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos put into place.

Southern, of the Institute for College Access & Success, said that 2019 rule “made the process essentially so onerous and arbitrary that qualifying people would not be able to receive the relief that federal law entitles them to.”

At a farm market in St. Petersburg, Florida, SNAP recipients were able to use their Electronic Benefits Transfer cards for food. (Photo by Lance Cheung/USDA).

The massive tax and spending bill passed by U.S. House Republicans would likely result in 3.2 million people losing food assistance benefits, and saddle states with around $14 billion a year in costs, according to a new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Democrats have argued the bill, which the House passed, 215-214 early Thursday without any Democrats in support, would cut programs for the needy to fund tax breaks for high earners.

The CBO document, issued late Thursday, responded to a request to the office from the top Democrats on the Senate and House Agriculture committees, Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Rep. Angie Craig, both of Minnesota, and somewhat bolsters that claim. The panels oversee federal food aid programs.

“This report is truly devastating,” Craig said in a Friday statement to States Newsroom. “As a mother and someone who at times relied on food assistance as a child, these numbers are heartbreaking. It is infuriating that Republicans in Congress are willing to make our children go hungry so they can give tax breaks to the already rich.”

A provision in the bill to tighten work requirements, including by excluding single parents of children older than 6 and by raising the age of adults to whom the work requirements apply, of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, would result in 3.2 million people losing access to the program in an average month, the CBO report said.

Of those, 1.4 million would be people who currently have a state waiver from work requirements that would be disallowed under the bill and 800,000 would be adults who live with children 7 or older, the report said.

In a Friday statement, Ben Nichols, a spokesman for the House Agriculture Committee led by Pennsylvania Republican Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson, said the proposed change would be more fair to the people SNAP is supposed to help and noted the program is the only state-administered entitlement program that is paid fully by the federal government.

“No one who is able-bodied and working, volunteering, or training for 20 hours a week will lose benefits,” Nichols wrote.

Republicans want to use the legislative package to extend the 2017 tax law and its cuts, increase spending on border security and defense by hundreds of billions of dollars, overhaul American energy production, restructure higher education aid and cut spending.

Toll on states

The cost-share changes, which would require states for the first time to pay for a portion of SNAP benefits, would also limit participation and add a massive line item to state budgets, according to the CBO.

Starting in 2028, states would be responsible for paying 5% to 25% of SNAP benefits, with a state’s share rising with its payment error rate. The federal government currently pays for all SNAP benefits.

Under the House bill, which will likely undergo substantial changes as the Senate considers it in the coming weeks, states collectively would be responsible for just less than $100 billion from 2028 to 2034, about $14 billion per year.

States would respond in a variety of ways, CBO Director Phillip Swagel wrote, including potentially dropping out of the program.

“CBO expects that some states would maintain current benefits and eligibility and others would modify benefits or eligibility or possibly leave the program altogether because of the increased costs,” he wrote.

The office took a “probabilistic approach to account for a range of possible outcomes” to determine what the effect on households would be and estimated that 1.3 million people would lose benefits because of state responses to the new cost-share.

Nichols, with the House Agriculture Committee, disputed the CBO’s estimate regarding the cost share change. The lowest state cost-share of 5% would be available for states with error rates below 6%. Every state has hit that mark at some point in the last decade, he said.

With that favorable of a cost-share, the Republican committee members did not believe states would drop out of the program, he added.

“We reject the hypothetical assumption that some states may not chip into 5 percent of a supplemental nutrition program,” Nichols wrote. “Every state is capable of paying for a portion SNAP… Federal policy should encourage states to administer the SNAP program more efficiently and effectively, and this bill does just that.” 

CBO’s forecasters determined the impacts of the work requirements and cost-share provisions separately, meaning some people potentially losing benefits could have been counted in both categories.

Move to the Senate

The House vote Thursday sent the measure to the Senate, where the debate over SNAP benefits may fall along similar party lines.

Republicans who hold control in that chamber are planning to employ the budget reconciliation process, which allows them to skirt the Senate’s usual 60-vote requirement for legislation.

During the House Agriculture Committee’s debate over its portion of the legislation, Republicans on the panel said the work requirement and state cost-share measures were needed reforms to SNAP that would protect the program for those it was meant to serve, while limiting the costs associated with benefits to adults who were able and unwilling to work or in the country illegally.

In a Friday statement, Sara Lasure, a spokeswoman for Senate Agriculture Committee Chair John Boozman, an Arkansas Republican, also said the panel would seek reforms to the program but did not offer specifics.

“The Senate Agriculture Committee is in the process of crafting its budget reconciliation package and will work as good stewards of taxpayer dollars to make commonsense reforms to SNAP that encourage employment,” she wrote in an email.

Klobuchar, in a statement after House passage Thursday, blasted the House bill and indicated she would oppose efforts to cut SNAP benefits.

“House Republicans are pulling the rug out from under millions of families by taking away federal assistance to put food on the table,” she said. “They’re doing that even as President Trump’s tariff taxes raise food prices by more than $200 for the average family, all to fund more tax breaks for the wealthy. That’s so very wrong —and we will fight against it in the Senate.”

President Donald Trump arrives with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., for a House Republican meeting at the U.S. Capitol on May 20, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House Republicans who have yet to rally behind the party’s “big, beautiful bill” huddled in the speaker’s office Tuesday as different factions tried to hash out agreement on taxes, Medicaid and a few other outstanding issues.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters before those meetings began there were “a number of loose ends to tie up” with deficit hawks and members from high-tax states, who are pressing to raise the state and local tax deduction, also known as SALT.

“We got some hours ahead of us to work this out, and I’m very confident we will,” Johnson said. “I’m going to have a series of meetings that will begin right now in my office to try to tie up the final loose ends. This is a 1,100-page piece of legislation. We’re down to a few provisions so we are very confident, very optimistic we can get this done and stay on our timetable.”

Johnson hopes to pass the legislation this week, though he didn’t appear to have the votes as of Tuesday afternoon.

Trump pays a House call

The smaller meetings followed a closed-door huddle between all the chamber’s GOP lawmakers and President Donald Trump earlier in the day that didn’t quite have the intended effect of immediately convincing holdouts to vote for the bill.

Trump, however, appeared to declare victory before leaving the Capitol.

“I think we have unbelievable unity. I think we’re going to get everything we want,” Trump said after the morning meeting. “And I think we’re going to have a great victory.”

House Republicans have an extremely thin 220-213 majority, requiring nearly every GOP lawmaker to support the 1,116-page package in order for it to reach the Senate.

Getting SALT-y

The reconciliation bill currently proposes lifting the SALT cap from $10,000 to $30,000 for married couples filing jointly, with a phase-down for those earning $400,000 or more, but that’s not enough for Republicans from states most impacted by the aspect of tax law.

New York Republican Rep. Nick LaLota told reporters in the early afternoon that he would likely lose reelection if he can’t secure a better SALT agreement than what was on the table.

“If I do a bad deal, I would expect my constituents to throw me out,” LaLota said. “If I did a deal at $30,000, my own mother wouldn’t vote for me.”

LaLota said Republicans leaders should prioritize a deal that benefits swing voters to avoid the party losing centrist members and possibly the House majority in the 2026 midterms.

“If we win that one issue, they’ll have a much easier November of 2026. And thus we’ll be able to keep the House and do other fiscally responsible things for the next couple of cycles here, if we get this one issue right,” LaLota said. “Conversely, you get this issue wrong — you vote for a bad bill and you keep the cap low — those folks are getting thrown out of office, we lose the majority, and then we have an open border, then we have an impeached president, and then we have all the other things that America voted against.”

LaLota said later Tuesday, after GOP leaders proposed different SALT cap numbers, that there was still “no accepted deal, yet the parties are talking a little more with an understanding of each other’s position.”

“Leadership understands better what our pain threshold is,” LaLota said. “We clearly rejected the $30,000 number that’s in the Ways and Means bill.” 

He declined to say if the SALT Caucus was prepping a counteroffer for leadership, but said that staff were conducting “some research on some of the mixes of income caps and what SALT cap there would be and how much that would be valued at relative to the entire $4 trillion package.”

‘Bad faith negotiation’

Rep. Mike Lawler, a staunch supporter of raising the SALT cap for his constituents north of New York City, would not comment to reporters outside the speaker’s office about a specific dollar amount but said there’s an “improved offer” on the table.

“We’re waiting on more details. We’ll have more to say later,” Lawler said.

Speaking to Fox News in the hallway, he said, “I’m not going to sacrifice my constituents and throw them under the bus in a bad faith negotiation, which is what this has been by leadership and Jason Smith,” he said referring to the chair of the House Committee on Ways and Means.

“We need to come to an agreement. We need to provide real and lasting tax relief, and that’s what I’m fighting for, for my constituents. I respect the president … but I’ll respectfully disagree,” Lawler said.

Trump urged House Republicans Tuesday morning that raising the SALT cap benefits Democratic governors.

Conservatives still unhappy

Complicating negotiations, some far-right House Republicans remain opposed to the bill, saying it does not go far enough.

Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, who did not support the bill during a committee vote Sunday night, told States Newsroom Tuesday afternoon that his “concerns and problems still exist.”

Roy argues the massive reconciliation deal does not reduce deficit spending enough, particularly with respect to Medicaid and clean energy tax credits.

When asked whether lawmakers were approaching an agreement, Roy said “Not sure. We’re still talking. We’ve had literally like five meetings today already.”

Thune predictions

The House passing the package this week would only be one of many steps in the long, winding process.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said during a press conference Tuesday afternoon, just after Johnson spoke during a closed-door lunch, that changes to the package are expected in the upper chamber.

Thune said one of the major questions for GOP senators is whether the legislation holds “sufficient spending reforms to get us on a more sustainable fiscal path.”

“I think most of our members are in favor of a lot of the tax policy and particularly those portions of the tax policy that are stimulative, that are pro-growth, that will create greater growth in the economy,” Thune said. “But when it comes to the spending side of the equation: This is a unique moment in time and in history where we have the House and the Senate and the White House, and an opportunity to do something meaningful about government spending.”

Thune said that GOP senators would likely make “tweaks” to the tax provisions once the House sends over a package, especially around how long certain tax policy lasts.

“They have cliffs and some shorter-term timeframes when it comes to some of the tax policies,” Thune said. “We believe that permanence is the way to create economic certainty and thereby attract and incentive capital investment in this country that creates those good-paying jobs, and gets our economy growing and expanding, and generates more government revenue.”

The U.S. Capitol is pictured on Feb. 25, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom) 

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans on the Budget Committee moved the “one big, beautiful” reconciliation bill a step closer to the chamber floor in a rare Sunday night vote after a handful of conservatives blocked the bill Friday. 

The massive deal squeaked through on a 17-16 vote, with four far-right panel members voting “present.” They were Reps. Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Chip Roy of Texas. All four voted no on the bill Friday.

Rep. Lloyd Smucker of Pennsylvania flipped his Friday vote of “no” to support the massive budget reconciliation deal that cuts safety net programs to pay for extending, and expanding, President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax law — at a cost of $3.8 trillion over the next decade.

Smucker, the panel’s vice chair, switched his vote Friday because of committee procedural rules that allowed him to propose reconsideration of the measure.

Brecheen, Clyde, Norman and Roy voted “no” on Friday after demanding work requirements for some Medicaid recipients begin prior to the bill’s stated date of 2029, and that clean energy tax credits phase out at a faster pace.

Roy wrote on social media Sunday night that he changed his vote “out of respect for the Republican Conference and the President to move the bill forward” but that the bill “does not yet meet the moment.”

Other details on why the members changed their votes to “present” were unclear. 

When asked by Democrats on the panel whether anything had changed in the bill, Budget Committee Chair Jody Arrington said negotiations were “fluid.”

“Deliberations continue at this very moment. They will continue on into the week, and I suspect right up until the time we put this big, beautiful bill on the floor of the House,” said Arrington of Texas.

Ranking Member Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania said his side of the aisle wanted “transparency.”

“If the bill has changed and there’s been some side agreement reached, I think it’s important that all the members have the full details on that in advance of any vote,” Boyle said.

Massive bill

The committee’s tense Sunday night meeting began nearly 30 minutes late.

House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana told reporters on Capitol Hill shortly beforehand that talks were going “great” and that “minor modifications” had been made over the weekend.

The 1,116-page bill package that includes bills from 11 separate committees will now need to clear the House Committee on Rules to advance to a full House vote. House members are set to leave for Memorial Day recess on Thursday.

As written, the bill cuts more than $600 billion over the next decade from Medicaid, the government health program for low-income individuals as well as those with disabilities.

Credit downgrade

Sunday night’s vote came just two days after Moody’s Ratings downgraded the U.S. government’s credit rating, citing a gloomy outlook for U.S. debt and interest burdens.

“Successive US administrations and Congress have failed to agree on measures to reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs,” a Friday statement from the investment rating service read. “We do not believe that material multi-year reductions in mandatory spending and deficits will result from current fiscal proposals under consideration.”

The reconciliation package could add up to $3.3 trillion to the national debt through 2034, reaching $5.2 trillion if temporary provisions are made permanent, according to analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The Congressional Budget Office has not yet released scores for all parts of the megabill.

The far-right House Freedom Caucus board released a statement shortly after Sunday night’s vote, saying the bill continues to increase deficits “with possible savings years down the road that may never materialize.”

“Thanks to discussions over the weekend, the bill will be closer to the budget resolution framework we agreed upon in the House in April, but it fails to actually honor our promise to significantly correct the spending trajectory of the federal government and lead our nation towards a balanced budget,” according to the statement posted on social media.

Members of the caucus who do not serve on the Budget Committee made similar public statements.

“America faces the reality of financial insolvency and looming bankruptcy. For 9 years, I have remained faithful to principles that include an end to the continuous growth of FedGov deficit spending. I will not support a federal budget that increases federal deficit spending,” GOP Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana wrote on his X profile Sunday.

Republican Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee wrote on the social media site, “The Moody’s downgrade is yet another wake up call. We need to decrease spending immediately!”

Thin margins

As expected, and following Friday’s same result, Democrats on the panel voted unanimously against the package.

Republicans hold a slim 220-213 margin in the House, meaning that if more than three Republicans vote with Democrats — who are all expected to vote against the package — the bill would fail on the floor.

Republicans swiftly voted down several last-ditch efforts by Democrats on the panel to protect low-income health care and food assistance programs, as well as clean energy and manufacturing tax credits.

Johnson must also contend with a parallel — and expensive — fight among his conference on the state and local taxes, or SALT, deduction. Republicans who represent high-income, high-tax blue states like California and New York, are demanding a more generous cap on the amount they can deduct. 

The U.S. House Budget Committee votes on Friday, May 16, 2025 on a massive reconciliation package. The vote failed, 16-21. (Screenshot from House webcast)

WASHINGTON — Republicans suffered a major setback to their “big, beautiful bill” on Friday, when amid conservative objections the U.S. House Budget Committee failed to approve the measure, a crucial step in the process.

In a 16-21 vote, Reps. Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Chip Roy of Texas and Lloyd Smucker of Pennsylvania broke from their GOP colleagues to block the bill from moving toward the floor, demanding changes to several provisions.

The breakdown over the 1,116-page bill marks an escalation in the long-running feud between centrist Republicans, who have been cautious about hundreds of billions in spending cuts to safety net programs, and far-right members of the party, who argue the changes are not enough.

The committee is scheduled to reconvene Sunday at 10 p.m. Eastern. House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana has said he wants the package on the floor prior to the Memorial Day recess.

Speedier work requirements

Norman said he remains a “hard no” until new work requirements for Medicaid recipients phase in more quickly. As the bill is written, the requirements won’t begin until 2029.

“To phase this in for four years — We’re telling a healthy-bodied, a healthy American that you got four years to get a job. No, your payment stops now,” Norman said.

Brecheen criticized the bill for not going far enough to repeal wind and solar energy tax credits, which he contends are “undermining natural gas jobs.”

“We have to fix this,” he said.

Clyde denounced the measure for not adhering to President Donald Trump’s promise of “right-sizing government,” as Clyde described it. The Georgia Republican also pleaded for lower taxes on firearms and stronger cuts that would put Medicaid on a “sustainable path.”

“Unfortunately, the current version falls short of these goals and fails to deliver the transformative change that Americans were promised,” Clyde said.

Smucker initially voted ‘yes,’ but then joined his four colleagues to oppose the measure.

Trump wrote on his social media platform shortly before the committee voted that “Republicans MUST UNITE behind, ‘THE ONE, BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL!’”

“We don’t need ‘GRANDSTANDERS’ in the Republican Party. STOP TALKING, AND GET IT DONE! It is time to fix the MESS that Biden and the Democrats gave us. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

‘A wrecking ball to Medicaid’

Democrats, who as expected unified in voting no against the bill, slammed it as “ugly,” “cruel” and a “betrayal.”

“This bill takes a wrecking ball to Medicaid, on which 1 in 5 Americans and 3 million Ohioans depend for medical care — children, seniors in nursing homes,” said Rep. Marcy Kaptur, who represents northern Ohio. “Please come with me to visit the nursing homes. … Perhaps too many on the other side of the aisle have not had to endure a life that has major challenges.”

Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota said the proposed cuts to safety net programs would be “devastating.”

“Their changes will kick millions of Americans off their health care and nutrition assistance. That means more untreated illnesses, more hungry children, more preventable deaths,” she said.

Republican-only bill

Republicans are using the complex reconciliation process to move the package through Congress with simple majority votes in each chamber, avoiding the Senate’s 60-vote legislative filibuster, which would otherwise require bipartisanship. 

Reconciliation measures must address federal revenue, spending, or the debt limit in a way not deemed “merely incidental” by the Senate parliamentarian. That means the GOP proposals must carry some sort of price tag and cannot focus simply on changing federal policy.

Republicans are using the package to extend the 2017 tax law, increase spending on border security and defense by hundreds of billions of dollars, overhaul American energy production, restructure higher education aid and cut spending.

The 11 House committees tasked with drafting pieces of the legislation have all debated and approved their measures along party lines.

The Agriculture Committee, Energy and Commerce Committee and Ways and Means Committee all completed their work earlier this week, amid strong objections from Democrats.

Proposed changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, could shift considerable cost-sharing onto states for the first time, presenting challenges for red-state lawmakers who need to explain the bill back home.

More than $600 billion in federal spending cuts to Medicaid during the next decade could also cause some difficulties for moderate Republicans, some of whose constituents are likely to be among the millions of Americans expected to lose their health insurance.

Republicans also have yet to reach an agreement on the state and local tax deduction or SALT, a priority for GOP lawmakers from blue states like California, New Jersey and New York.

The Budget Committee’s role in the process was to package together all of the bills and then send the one massive bill to the Rules Committee, the last stop before floor debate for major legislation.

That won’t be able to happen until after GOP leaders get nearly all the Republican lawmakers on the panel to support the package. 

South Dakota state Rep. Karla Lems, R-Canton, speaks to hundreds of rally attendees at the South Dakota Capitol in Pierre on Jan. 13, 2025, during an event highlighting opposition to a carbon dioxide pipeline. (Photo by Joshua Haiar/South Dakota Searchlight)

Lawmakers and advocates on the right and left are raising questions about a provision in legislation a powerful U.S. House committee approved Wednesday, with critics arguing it would allow federal regulators to approve natural gas and carbon dioxide pipelines over prohibitions in state law.

Two sections in the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s reconciliation instructions, which the Republican-led panel passed along party lines, would allow pipeline operators to pay $10 million to participate in an expedited federal permitting process that critics say would override state laws.

The potentially intensely controversial provision would give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission exclusive authority to issue licenses for pipelines carrying natural gas, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, oil, or other energy products and byproducts.

“Notwithstanding any other provision of law, if the Commission issues a license under subsection (c)(1) of this section and the licensee is in compliance with such license, no requirement of State or local law that requires approval of the location of the covered pipeline with respect to which the license is issued may be enforced against the licensee,” the text of the bill reads.

A summary document provided by the committee says the bill would apply to states only in cases when state agencies are responsible for conducting federal reviews.

“For States, this includes their authorities to impose conditions for any certifying authorities delegated to States by federal law,” the document says.

But a variety of groups and lawmakers — environmental groups opposed to loosening reviews, landholder advocates concerned about property rights and small-government conservatives who favor local control — say the measure would open the door for the federal government to nullify state and local protections.

That includes a recent South Dakota law to prevent pipeline operators from using eminent domain to force landowners to sell or allow use of their property.

“This is federal overreach,” South Dakota state Rep. Karla Lems said in a Thursday interview. “It would override any state or local law regarding … the routing of a pipeline.”

Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’

The Energy and Commerce Committee was one of 11 House panels that have approved reconciliation instructions and sent them to the House Budget Committee to consolidate into one package. House Republicans plan to consider the 1,100-page package on the floor next week.

The complex process, known as budget reconciliation, allows the majority party to pass legislation with simple majorities in both chambers, avoiding the U.S. Senate’s usual 60-vote requirement.

President Donald Trump has described the package as “one big, beautiful bill” and it contains a host of his domestic policy priorities including extending tax cuts and increasing funding for immigration enforcement.

A provision in Democrats’ 2022 reconciliation bill encouraged an existing trend of pipeline installation in the Midwest. The measure provided tax breaks for carbon sequestration, which can involve piping the carbon dioxide byproducts that result from processes like ethanol production into underground storage chambers.

Actually building those pipelines across hundreds of miles between ethanol producers, particularly in farm states like Iowa and South Dakota, and underground storage facilities in North Dakota, where the geology supports it, requires the use of private land, which has been strongly opposed for several reasons and led to state restrictions.

Environmental and safety groups worry some pipeline at some point will rupture and therefore pose a danger to nearby residents and water sources.

Private property owners and conservative political allies say they should have stronger rights to resist pipeline operators from using their property.

Plea to Congress

That unusual coalition was apparent again this week as environmentalists and conservatives united to oppose the measure in the Energy and Commerce bill.

A collection of 70 environmental and conservation groups signed a letter to the committee Wednesday urging the language be removed.

“These measures would radically expand federal jurisdiction over all types of interstate pipelines, drastically limit public input, shorten environmental review timelines, and shield projects from legal challenges, all while clearing the way for expanded use of federal eminent domain against landowners,” the letter said.

The letter was signed by groups ranging from the local agriculture and conservation organization Dakota Rural Action to national environmental group Food & Water Watch.

South Dakota House Speaker Jon Hansen, a self-described MAGA Republican, tweeted screenshots of the provision with the message “property rights are under attack again.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican former U.S. House member and rival to Trump in the 2024 presidential nomination race, reposted the tweet.

“This represents overriding both the rights of states and private property owners to serve Biden’s Green New Deal,” DeSantis wrote above Hansen’s message. “What the heck is going on up there?”

Uncertainty over impact

Chase Jensen, a senior organizer with Dakota Rural Action, said in a press release accompanying the coalition letter that the group was calling on members of Congress “to stand with the State of South Dakota and oppose this clear attempt to buy permits and bypass the people.”

“When South Dakota was first faced with carbon dioxide pipelines, our congressmen said it was up to the state to deal with it,” Jensen said. “Now that we have barred eminent domain for these private projects – their billionaire owners are trying to cut the state out of the process altogether.”

South Dakota’s U.S. House member, Republican Dusty Johnson, said in a statement to South Dakota Searchlight he’d been unaware of the bill’s language but predicted it would be removed before final passage.

He indicated he was unsure what the effect of the bill would be, but started “from a place of deep skepticism.”

“I wasn’t aware of this language until committee text was released,” Johnson, who does not sit on Energy and Commerce, wrote. “As a former public utilities commissioner, I have strong concerns with bypassing state permitting and I begin from a place of deep skepticism for this language. I doubt it will be included in President Trump’s ‘one, big, beautiful bill.’”

But U.S. Rep. Julie Fedorchak, a North Dakota Republican who is a former state utility regulator, told reporters on a press call Thursday morning that she thought the bill would not block the state from being involved in environmental reviews, even if a company seeks a pipeline permit from federal regulators.

Fedorchak said she doesn’t think the proposal would limit local input on projects, adding that FERC has a “pretty robust permitting process” for interstate natural gas pipelines.

A spokesman for the Energy and Commerce Committee did not return a message seeking clarification Thursday.

North Dakota Monitor Editor Amy Dalrymple and South Dakota Searchlight Editor Seth Tupper contributed to this report.

A measure passed by the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee allows individual taxpayers such as waiters and waitresses to deduct qualifying tips earned throughout the year, a tax break that would end in 2028. (Getty Photos)

WASHINGTON — House Republicans advanced the tax portion of the “one big, beautiful” reconciliation package early Wednesday, a step forward in permanently extending, and in some cases expanding, the 2017 tax law and temporarily handing President Donald Trump a win on campaign promises like no tax on tips.

The House Committee on Ways and Means voted along party lines to pass the measure, 26-19, after nearly 18 hours of debate that went through the night. Republicans rejected numerous amendments offered by Democrats, including protecting tax credits meant to combat climate change enacted under Democrats’ own 2022 budget reconciliation law, the Inflation Reduction Act.

The marathon debate occurred as the House Committee on Energy and Commerce debated overnight and into Wednesday afternoon over deep budget cuts, including some to Medicaid assistance for low-income individuals, to pay for the cost of tax provisions.

As of now, the massive tax package is estimated to add $3.8 trillion to the budget deficit over 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

If any temporary expansions in the bill are eventually made permanent, it would add roughly $5.3 trillion to the deficit over the next decade, according to the CRFB. The official congressional budget score has not yet been released.

Overall the bill is “a very, very big tax cut,” said Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, part of the left-leaning Brookings Institution and Urban Institute. “Much of the benefit will go to higher income people.”

Tax brackets, business breaks would continue

The bill permanently extends the underlying tax provisions passed in 2017 under the GOP-backed bill titled the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which is set to expire in 2025.

This means:

• Individual taxpayers would remain in the same tax brackets that were lowered in 2017, and they would continue to see the doubled standard deduction — two of the most costly measures. Additionally, taxpayers will receive a boost up to $2,000 on the standard deduction through 2028.
• Individual brackets would remain at 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35% and 37%, though the proposal would change how inflation adjustments are calculated, meaning income would be taxed less over time, except for those in the 37% bracket.
• The $2,000 child tax credit, per child, would remain permanent but temporarily increase to $2,500 through 2028. The refundable portion of the credit — meaning how much money taxpayers can get back — would be increased to $1,400, but the amount remains subject to income thresholds, meaning lower income households would receive less of a refund.
• The child tax credit would now only be accessible if the parent submits a Social Security number, as well as a spouse’s if legally married, in addition to the already required Social Security number of each qualifying child.
• On the business side, the corporate tax rate would stay at 21%.
• Business owners who run sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations would see an increase, to 23% up from 20%, in the amount of business income they can deduct from their federal returns, otherwise referred to as the pass-through income deduction.
• Expensing for research and development would be restored through 2029, as well as deductions available to businesses for certain investments, including equipment purchases.

No tax on tips, but only for a few years

Trump promised on the campaign trail to eliminate taxes on tips, Social Security and car loan interest. House Republicans handed him a win in their bill, but only a limited one.

The bill allows individual taxpayers to deduct qualifying tips earned throughout the year, a tax break that would end in 2028. And like the new child tax credit requirement, taxpayers could only take advantage of the deduction by including a Social Security number on their federal tax return as well as their spouse’s SSN, if married.

No taxes on car loan interest would also go into effect through 2028, though taxpayers could only claim it for automobiles that received final assembly in the United States.

Senior citizens with incomes of $75,000 or less, or $150,000 for a married couple, would receive an extra $4,000 discount on taxable income, with the amount decreasing as incomes increase. The tax break would also expire in 2028. The bill does not specify an age for “seniors.”

Highly taxed states still unhappy 

House Republicans raised the cap on the amount of state and local taxes, or SALT, that can be deducted, but not enough to please both GOP and Democratic lawmakers who represent highly taxed states like New York and California.

Under the bill the committee advanced Wednesday morning, taxpayers could deduct up to $30,000 — three times the $10,000 ceiling in the 2017 law — from their federal taxable income. The full cap would apply to those making $400,000 or less in annual income but phases down for higher earners.

Raising the cap is costly and unpopular with lawmakers representing lower tax states.

Republican Reps. Mike Lawler and Nick LaLota of New York, and Rep. Young Kim of California, are threatening to vote no on the House floor if the cap isn’t raised. The House GOP cannot lose more than a handful of votes if all Republicans are present.

House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana told reporters Wednesday he didn’t want to “handicap” negotiations by sharing details publicly and that he was talking to the SALT caucus until 1:30 a.m.

“But I will tell you I’m absolutely confident we’re going to be able to work out a compromise that everybody can live with,” he said.

A ‘tragic indifference’ for poor families

The committee’s party-line approval of the bill drew praise and criticism across organizations representing varying interests of Americans.

Kris Cox, director of federal tax policy for the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, wrote on social media that the temporary child tax credit bump does “zilch” for the roughly 17 million children whose parents do not earn enough money to receive a refund check from the credit.

“But it delivers an additional $500-per-kid to higher-income families,” Cox wrote.

The organization also slammed the bill for going “out of its way to take eligibility from 4.5 million US citizen kids who have at least one parent without an SSN.”

Kristen Crowell, executive director of the advocacy group Fair Share America, said in a statement Wednesday that the bill “shows a tragic indifference to the very real struggles of normal, working people.

“In order to save face in front of their constituents, Republicans are hiding behind misleading claims that everyone will see reductions in their taxes,” Crowell said.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental protection advocacy organization, estimates that phasing out and altogether eliminating clean energy tax credits would result in higher electricity bills in several states, including Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to an emailed statement.

‘Unshackle the economy’ for businesses

Groups representing businesses across the U.S. praised the House bill as a way to bolster investment and growth opportunities.

Former Republican Ways and Means Chair Kevin Brady of Texas released a statement Wednesday on behalf of the Alliance for Competitive Taxation praising the bill as a path to “unshackle the economy from burdensome taxes and unlock new growth.”

“The bill reported out by the House Ways and Means Committee is an encouraging step in that direction and, if implemented with its major pro-growth proposals intact, will help American businesses and workers compete at home and abroad,” Brady said.

The alliance hailed the extension of the 21% corporate tax rate and urged lawmakers to make permanent the research and development expensing, and capital investment deductions.

Kristen Silverberg, president and chief operating officer of the Business Roundtable, said her organization “applauds Chairman Smith and members of the House Ways and Means Committee for advancing a comprehensive, pro-growth tax bill,” referring to GOP Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri.

“Today’s vote is a critical step forward in securing a more competitive tax system for American businesses and workers,” said Silverberg, whose organization represents 200 CEOs of U.S.-based companies.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries holds a press conference May 13, 2025, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Democrats Tuesday criticized House Republicans for their efforts to pass “one big, beautiful” bill to extend Trump-era tax cuts that would require potential cuts to food assistance and Medicaid.

“The American people do not support this extreme and toxic bill, and we’re going to hold every single House Republican who votes for it accountable,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York, during a press conference.

As House Republicans push forward with the last three bills of their reconciliation package in committee this week, Democrats slammed the proposed work requirements for Medicaid, extending the 2017 tax cuts enacted during President Donald Trump’s first term and overhaul of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, in order to pay for the megabill.

The complex reconciliation process skirts the Senate filibuster and Republicans plan to pass the bill through a simple majority, meaning input from Democrats is not needed. 

Several House Democrats, such as Rep. Steven Horsford, Democrat of Nevada, called the legislation a “scam.”

Horsford, who sits on the Ways and Means Committee, said during a separate press conference with the advocacy group Popular Democracy that extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts would “gut Medicaid.”

Medicaid is the state-federal health care program for people with low incomes and certain people with disabilities, and has 71.3 million enrollees. 

“This would be the largest cut to health care in the history of our country,” Horsford said.

Rep. Judy Chu, Democrat of California, said only the ultra wealthy, such as billionaires, would benefit from reconciliation through tax cuts.

The cost of the tax proposal has not yet been released, but government deficit watchdogs estimated a wholesale extension would cost roughly $4 trillion over the next decade.

SNAP costs shifted in part to states

The House committees on Agriculture, Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means met Tuesday to debate and pass their bills.

The Agriculture panel seeks to hit as much as $290 billion in cuts by passing part of the costs of SNAP to states through a sliding pay scale, based on error rates.

States with the lowest error rates for SNAP benefits would only pay for 5%, while other states with higher rates could pay as much for 25% of food benefits. More than 42 million people rely on SNAP, which is currently completely funded by the federal government.

The Energy and Commerce bill would cut federal spending by $880 billion, such as by instituting work requirements for Medicaid for some able-bodied adults ages between 19 and 65.

House committees have already signed off on eight of the 11 bills that will make up the sweeping reconciliation legislation before the Budget Committee rolls the bills into one package. If all Republicans get on board, the House is on track to approve the entire package before the end of May.

Warnings of rising premiums, hospital closings

Senate Democrats slammed potential cuts and changes to Medicaid.

“Not only will millions of Americans lose coverage — for many others, their premiums will skyrocket,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said at a press conference Tuesday.

“Hospitals — rural, urban and in between — will close,” the New York Democrat said. “Many, many people will lose their jobs, and many more will lose their health coverage. States will scramble with their budgets, and American families will be left out to dry.”

Oregon Democratic U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden also blasted the proposed cuts.

“What the Republicans do in their health care provisions in the reconciliation package is walk back health security for millions and millions of Americans,” he said.

“We’re for a tax code that gives everybody in America the chance to get ahead, that’s something that we’re going to battle for in this process,” said Wyden, the top Democrat on the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance.

Senate GOP

Some Republicans have also raised concerns about cuts to Medicaid, such as Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who wrote in an opinion piece in the New York Times that any cuts to Medicaid would be “both morally wrong and politically suicidal.”

But Senate Majority Leader, John Thune of South Dakota, said Tuesday that he feels “very good” about where House Republicans are on their bill and “where, ultimately, we are going to be on that bill as well.”

“We are coordinating very closely with our House counterparts at the committee level, at the leadership level, and we know they have to get 218 votes,” he said.

Thune said House Republicans will “do what it takes to get it done in the House, and when it comes over here, we will be prepared for various contingencies, obviously, one of which could be taking up the House bill and then offering a Senate substitute, but we’ll see what ultimately they’re able to get done.” 

Boxes of sugary cereal, including those from General Mills, fill a store's shelves on April 16, 2025, in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The U.S. House Agriculture Committee’s portion of Republicans’ massive taxes and spending bill would partially shift to states the costs of the country’s largest food assistance program, which some experts and Democrats predicted will lead to major cuts in the program — and possibly even an end to it in some states.

The measure will be taken up by the panel Tuesday night and is expected to be voted on late Tuesday or early Wednesday, after which it will be folded into a larger reconciliation package with 10 other bills passed out of committees and sent to the floor. The entire House is set to vote on the legislation before Memorial Day.

The federal government currently pays for all Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits. A provision in the Agriculture Committee’s piece of Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” to enact President Donald Trump’s agenda would transfer between 5% and 25% of that cost to states, depending on each state’s payment error rate, starting in 2028.

The program provided about $100 billion in food assistance to nearly 42 million Americans last year, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Eligibility currently depends on tests related to income, assets, work requirements and more.

But the change in cost structure could lead states to opt out entirely, said Ty Jones Cox, vice president for food assistance at the left-leaning economic think tank Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, leading some needy families unable to pay for groceries.

“The language is unclear, but it could end SNAP entirely in some parts of the country if states decide the new state funding requirements are impossible for them to meet,” Cox said in a statement late Monday after the bill’s release. “The bill’s massive cuts disguised as ‘cost shifts’ pass the buck to states – but ultimately would leave families holding an empty grocery bag when states aren’t willing or able to backfill for lost federal funds.” 

Republicans plan to use the reconciliation package to permanently extend the 2017 tax law, increase spending on border security and defense by hundreds of billions of dollars, overhaul American energy production, restructure higher education aid and cut spending.

“Our budget reconciliation text restores SNAP to its original intent—promoting work, not welfare—while saving taxpayer dollars and investing in American agriculture,” House Committee on Agriculture Republicans said on X on Monday night.

Funding tied to error rate

Under the bill, states’ responsibility would rise with the broadly defined error rate of payments, which includes fraud as well as paperwork mistakes by a beneficiary or caseworker.

States with an error rate of 6% or less would be responsible for paying 5% of benefits, and those with an error rate higher than 10% would shoulder one-quarter of the cost of benefits.

Two other intermediate categories would exist for states with error rates between 6% and 10%.

Based on current data, more than half of states would fall into the highest category of error rates. The national average is 11.7% and more than two dozen states and territories have rates higher than 10%.

The states are: Alaska, Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia. The District of Columbia also has an error rate over 10%, as do Guam and the Virgin Islands.

Alaska’s nation-leading 60% error rate would be nearly impossible to bring under 10% by the time the provision goes into effect, Jones Cox said in a Tuesday interview.

Only seven states — Idaho, Iowa, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin and Wyoming — would qualify for the lowest state cost-share.

$290 billion in cuts overall

The measure would incentivize states to control the $13 billion per year in erroneous payments, a House Agriculture Committee summary of the legislation said. The bill as a whole would cut $290 billion in federal spending over a 10-year budget window, according to the summary.

While congressional Republicans can claim they are not cutting benefits with the bill, the program would shrink with a lower federal cost-share, Jones Cox said.

“They can say it’s not a cut, because they’re going to say it’s just shifting those costs to the states,” she said. “But it is a cut because states, if they cannot fill the gap… that brings down the program, period.”

The changes would force state budget officers to choose from among a host of unattractive options: cutting SNAP, offsetting costs with corresponding cuts to other programs or raising revenues through taxes or other measures.

States “have a few options,” Jones Cox said. “None look good.”

Republicans are using the complex reconciliation process to move the package through Congress with simple majority votes in each chamber, avoiding the Senate’s 60-vote legislative filibuster, which would otherwise require bipartisanship. 

Reconciliation measures must address federal revenue, spending, or the debt limit in a way not deemed “merely incidental” by the Senate parliamentarian. That means the GOP proposals must carry some sort of price tag and cannot focus simply on changing federal policy.

Democrats slam bill

On a press call Tuesday, Democratic officials and an anti-hunger nonprofit blasted the proposal.

Sen. Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, expressed skepticism that U.S. DOGE Service head Elon Musk could find a more efficient use of the $2 per meal SNAP provides during the call with other Democratic senators, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and the nonprofit, Hunger Free Vermont.

“This is not a waste, fraud and abuse deal,” Welch said. “This is really about taking away basic nutritional security that is so absolutely essential to the well-being of our families and our kids in Vermont and in every single state across the nation.”

Kotek, who started her political career as a policy advocate for the Oregon Food Bank, said she saw firsthand the effect of food insecurity. More than 700,000 Oregonians receive benefits from SNAP, and every dollar spent on SNAP generates another $1.50 to $1.80 in economic activity at grocery stores, farmers’ markets and other local businesses, Kotek said.

“When you cut SNAP, you’re not cutting bureaucracy,” she said. “You’re cutting a child’s dinner. You’re cutting their breakfast. You’re cutting their family’s dignity.”

One in four New Mexicans rely on SNAP, said Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M. The farmers and ranchers he represents also plan their farming season based on what grocery stores and food banks will need, and farmers already planted seeds with the idea that those vegetables will be used for school lunches and other food programs.

“The way to look at this is it’s not fiscally responsible,” Luján said. “It’s taking away from the hungry across America to make billionaires and millionaires even wealthier, and it’s going to even explode the deficit.”

A U.S. Border Patrol official vehicle  is shown parked near the border. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Judiciary Republicans Wednesday worked in committee on a portion of a major legislative package that would help fund President Donald Trump’s plans to conduct mass deportations of people living in the United States without permanent legal status.

The Judiciary panel’s $81 billion share of the “one, big beautiful” bill the president has requested of Congress would provide $45 billion for immigration detention centers, $8 billion to hire thousands of immigration enforcement officers and more than $14 billion for deportations, among other things.

The border security and immigration funds are part of a massive package that wraps together White House priorities including tax cuts and defense spending boosts. Republicans are pushing the deal through using a special procedure known as reconciliation that will allow the Senate GOP to skirt its usual 60-vote threshold when that chamber acts.

House Republicans returning from a two-week recess kicked off their work on reconciliation Tuesday, approving three of 11 bills out of committees on Armed Services, Education and Workforce and Homeland Security.

On Wednesday, lawmakers continued work on the various sections of the reconciliation bill with markups — which means a bill is debated and potentially amended or rewritten — in the Financial Services, Judiciary, Transportation and Infrastructure and Oversight and Government Reform committees.

House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana said Republicans will spend the rest of this week and next debating the 11 separate bills in committees. Committees when they finish their measures will send them to the House Budget Committee, which is expected to bundle them together prior to a floor vote.

The Judiciary panel’s 116-page bill vastly overhauls U.S. asylum laws. It would, for example, create a fee structure for asylum seekers that would set a minimum cost for an application at no less than $1,000. Applications now are free.

“These and other resources and fees in this reconciliation bill will ensure the Trump administration has the adequate resources to enforce the immigration laws in a fiscally responsible way,” GOP Chair Jim Jordan of Ohio said.

The bill would establish a $1,000 fee for immigrants granted temporary protected status, which would mean they would have work authorizations and deportation protections.

It would also require sponsors to pay $3,500 to take in an unaccompanied minor who crosses the border without a legal status. Typically, unaccompanied minors are released to sponsors who are family members living in the United States.

The bill would also require immigrants without permanent legal status to pay a $550 fee for work permits every six months.

The top Democrat on the panel, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, slammed the bill as targeting immigrants.

“Every day, this administration uses immigration enforcement as a template to erode constitutional rights and liberties,” he said.

A final committee vote was expected Wednesday night.

‘A giveaway to ICE’

The Judiciary bill directs half of the fees collected from asylum seekers to go toward the agency that handles U.S. immigration courts, but Democrats criticized the provisions as creating a barrier for asylum seekers.

“The so-called immigration fees that are in this bill are really fines and nothing but a cruel attempt to make immigrating to this country impossible,” Washington Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal said.

Democratic Rep. Chuy Garcia of Illinois, said the bill would not only “gut asylum” but would significantly increase funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention.

Funding for ICE detention this fiscal year is roughly $3.4 billion, but the Judiciary bill would sharply increase that to $45 billion.

Garcia called the increase a “a giveaway to ICE, a rogue agency that’s terrorizing communities and clamping (down) on civil liberties and the Constitution itself, because they’ve been directed to do so by this president.”

House Republicans have also included language that would move the Federal Trade Commission into the Department of Justice’s antitrust division, a move Democrats argued would kneecap the FTC’s regulatory authority.

“You’re trying to shutter the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, making it harder for us to enforce our antitrust laws,” Democratic Rep. Becca Balint of Vermont said.

Consumer protections to take a hit

Lawmakers on the House Committee on Financial Services met in a lengthy, and at times tense, session to finalize legislation to cut “no less than” $1 billion from government programs and services under the panel’s jurisdiction, according to the budget resolution Congress approved in April.

Funds in the crosshairs include those previously authorized for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and grants provided under the Biden administration-era Inflation Reduction Act for homeowners to improve energy efficiency.

Chair French Hill said the committee “will do its part to reduce the deficit and decrease direct spending, so that Congress can enact pro-growth tax policies.”

“And remember, today, we are here with one purpose, to do our part to put our nation back on a responsible fiscal trajectory,” the Arkansas Republican said.

Democrats introduced dozens of amendments during the hourslong session to block cuts to community block grants and programs protecting consumers, including veterans, from illegal credit and lending practices.

Ranking member Maxine Waters said committee Republicans’ plans to cut the CFPB by 70% “is ridiculous.”

“The bureau has saved American consumers $21 billion by returning to them funds that big banks and predatory lenders swindled out of them,” said Waters, a California Democrat.

Congress created the CFPB in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, when subprime mortgage lending cascaded into bank failures and home and job losses.

Republicans opposed amendment after amendment.

Rep. María Salazar of Florida tossed a copy of one of Waters’ lengthy amendments straight into a trash can after a staffer handed it to her. Michigan’s Rep. Bill Huizenga held up proceedings for several minutes when he accused Waters of breaking the rules by not distributing enough paper copies of her amendment.

“We cannot allow our government to continue spending money like there are no consequences,” GOP Rep. Mike Flood of Nebraska said in response to several Democratic amendments.

A final committee vote was expected Wednesday night.

Transportation section adds fees on electric vehicles

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee also approved, by a party line 36-30 vote, reconciliation instructions that would cut $10 billion from the federal deficit while boosting spending for the U.S. Coast Guard and the air traffic control system.

Like other portions of the larger reconciliation package, the transportation committee’s instructions would add funding for national security and border enforcement, through the Coast Guard funding, while cutting money from programs favored by Democrats, including climate programs and any spending that could be construed as race-conscious.

The bill would provide $21.2 billion for the Coast Guard and $12.5 billion for air traffic control systems. It would raise money through a $250 annual fee on electric vehicles and a $100 annual fee on hybrids, while also cutting $4.6 billion from climate programs created in Democrats’ 2022 reconciliation package.

Chairman Sam Graves, a Missouri Republican, said the measure included priorities for members of both parties, as well as business and labor interests.

“We all want to invest in our Coast Guard,” he said. “We all want to rebuild our air traffic control system and finally address the broken Highway Trust Fund. We have held countless hearings on all of these topics, both recently and, frankly, for years. And now members have the opportunity to actually act.”

Democrats on the panel complained that the reconciliation package was a partisan exercise and a departure from the panel’s normally congenial approach to business. They introduced dozens of amendments over the daylong committee meeting seeking to add funding for various programs. None were adopted.

“The larger Republican reconciliation package will add more than $15 trillion in new debt, gives away $7 trillion in deficit-financed tax cuts to the wealthy and slashes access to health care and food assistance for families,” ranking Democrat Rick Larsen of Washington said. “Given that, I think we’re going to have to vote no on the bill before us.”

The vehicle fees, which would be deposited into the Highway Trust Fund that sends highway and transit money to states, created a partisan divide Wednesday.

Federal gas taxes provide the lion’s share of deposits to the fund and Republicans argued that, because drivers of electric vehicles pay no gas taxes and hybrid drivers pay less than those who drive gas-powered cars, the provision would make the contributions fairer.

Republicans scrapped a proposed $20 annual fee on gas-powered cars, which Graves said was meant to “start a conversation” on the solvency of the Highway Trust Fund. But the provision “became a political distraction that no longer centered around seriously addressing the problem,” he said.

Pennsylvania Democrat Chris Deluzio criticized the vehicle fees, noting Republicans were pursuing additional revenue opportunities to offset losses from tax cuts.

“I don’t know when you guys became the tax-and-spend liberals,” Deluzio told his Republican colleagues. “But I guess the taxing of car owners so you can pay for tax giveaways to billionaires is your new strategy. Good luck with that.”

Federal employee benefits targeted

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform voted nearly along party lines, 22-21, to send its portion of the reconciliation package to the Budget Committee, with Ohio Republican Rep. Mike Turner joining Democrats in opposition.

Turner was the first GOP lawmaker to cast a committee vote against reconciliation instructions this year.

The legislation hits at federal employee benefits and comes as the Trump administration continues to overhaul the federal workforce.

Part of the bill would raise federal employees’ required retirement contribution to a rate of 4.4% of their salary and eliminate an additional retirement annuity payment for federal employees who retire before the age of 62, while cutting more than $50 billion from the federal deficit.

At his committee’s markup, Chairman James Comer said the legislation “advances important budgetary reforms that will save taxpayers money.”

The Kentucky Republican acknowledged that the chief investigative committee in the U.S. House has “very limited jurisdiction to help reduce the federal budget deficit,” noting that the panel is “empowered to pursue civil service reforms, including federal employee benefits and reining in the influence of partisan and unaccountable government employee unions.”

But Democrats on the panel blasted the committee’s portion of the reconciliation package, saying the bill chips away at federal employees’ protections.

Rep. Stephen Lynch, the top Democrat on the panel, said congressional Republicans instructed the panel to target the federal workforce with roughly $50 billion in funding cuts “regardless of the impact on hard-working, loyal federal employees and their critical services that they provide to the American people.”

The Massachusetts Democrat said the bill “threatens to further undermine the federal workforce by reducing the take-home pay, the benefits and workforce protections of 2.4 million federal employees, most of whom are middle-class Americans and a third of whom are military veterans.”

Ohio’s Turner, who voted against the legislation because of the provision reducing pension benefits, said he supported the overall reconciliation package and hoped the pension measure would be stripped before a floor vote.

Turner said “making changes to pension retirement benefits in the middle of someone’s employment is wrong.” 

The U.S. Capitol on March 14, 2024. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)  

WASHINGTON — Three U.S. House committees on Tuesday approved the first few bills that will make up Republicans’ massive reconciliation package after rejecting numerous Democratic amendments.

The Armed Services, Homeland Security, and Education and Workforce committees each voted mostly along party lines to send their measures to the Budget Committee, which is expected to bundle them together with the other eight bills later this month.

The additional House committee markups are scheduled to take place Wednesday and next week. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., hopes to put the entire package on the floor for a vote before the Memorial Day recess begins.

Nearly every one of the chamber’s 220 GOP lawmakers will need to vote to approve the 11-bill package in order to send it to the Senate, where Republicans will likely make changes to the legislation.

The first three markups included some of the less controversial aspects of the package for Republicans, including plans to increase spending on defense by $150 billion, a $70 billion boost to border security funding and an overhaul of federal student loans and Pell grants.

Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green, R-Tenn., wrote in a statement that GOP lawmakers on the panel “advanced funding to give Border Patrol agents the tools they have long requested to accomplish their homeland security mission in the field while protecting our communities.”

“Conversely, the actions of our colleagues across the aisle today proved what the American people have known for some time,” Green wrote. “Democrats would rather advocate for a radical, open-borders agenda than for the safety of their own constituents, or the CBP personnel who suffered through a historic border crisis under the Biden-Harris administration.”

The panel voted 18-14 along party lines to approve the bill. 

Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg, R-Mich., wrote in a statement after his panel approved its bill that the measures “not only would save taxpayers over $350 billion but also bring much-needed reform in three key areas: simplified loan repayment, streamlined student loan options, and accountability for students and taxpayers.”

“I’m proud of the Committee’s work today to finally stand up and end the status quo of endless borrowing,” Walberg wrote.

That panel voted 21-14 along party lines to approve its bill.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., wrote the defense funding increase would ensure “that our national defense remains the strongest in the world and supports an agile and modern fighting force.”

That committee voted 35-21 to advance its bill, with five Democrats — Don Davis of North Carolina, Jared Golden of Maine, Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico, Eugene Vindman of Virginia and George Whitesides of California — voting with all committee Republicans in favor.

House committees are expected to release bills next week showing how Republicans plan to extend the 2017 GOP tax law as well as how they plan to cut federal funding on Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, program. 

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, joined by GOP Reps. Lisa McClain of Michigan and Troy Downing of Montana, speaks at a news conference following a meeting of the House Republican Conference on April 29, 2025. House Republicans began the process of approving a massive bill to support President Donald Trump’s priorities on the 100th day of second presidency Tuesday. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans on Tuesday kicked off their work to build consensus on “one big, beautiful bill,” to fund President Donald Trump’s priorities, including a major funding boost for immigration enforcement and border security. 

After returning from a two-week recess, House lawmakers started debating and amending the various sections of the bill with markups in the Armed Services, Education and Workforce, and Homeland Security committees.

Congressional Republicans are using reconciliation — a special procedure that skirts the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster — to put together one bill to fulfill the White House’s priorities on border security, tax cuts, energy policy and defense.

The Homeland panel’s bill, which would increase funding for border security by $70 billion, aligns with Trump’s second-term agenda, which has centered on an immigration crackdown.

The Homeland Security portion of the reconciliation package recommends $46.5 billion to construct a barrier along U.S. borders and $5 billion for Customs and Border Protection facilities, including $4.1 billion to hire 3,000 Border Patrol agents and 5,000 CBP officers. It would also set aside $2 billion for retention and signing bonuses for CBP staff.  

“It is critical that the Republican majority do what the people elected us to do, approve funds for effective border security and enforcement measures,” House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green of Tennessee said.

The bill also includes $2.7 billion in technology surveillance along U.S. borders and roughly $1 billion for inspection technology at ports of entry. 

The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said Democrats were unified in their opposition to the proposal. He argued that roughly $70 billion in funding would only aid the Trump administration in its plans of mass deportation and not address border security.

“House Republican leadership is putting lipstick on this pig of a reconciliation package by pretending it’s about border security,” Thompson said.

Votes on all three committees’ bills, and amendments mostly from Democrats raising objections to the package, were expected late Tuesday or after midnight Wednesday. The committees are not expected to adopt any of the Democratic amendments.

Summer floor votes

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Tuesday he expects the House will spend the rest of this week and next week debating the 11 different bills in committee before rolling them all into one reconciliation package.

The full House will debate and vote to approve the legislation before Memorial Day, under the current timeline.

“I don’t know how long the Senate is going to take to do their piece,” Johnson said. “But I was very encouraged after the meeting yesterday, frankly. Leader (John) Thune and Sen. (Mike) Crapo are on point. The Senate Republicans have been working very hard together.”

Thune, of South Dakota, is the Senate majority leader and Crapo, of Idaho, chairs the tax-writing Finance Committee.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said the administration would like the package to clear Congress before the Fourth of July, though Johnson said he “hopes” to finalize a deal before that deadline.

Thune said later Tuesday that the reconciliation package’s final look will be decided by what policies have the votes to get through each chamber.

“Ultimately, what gets included in a reconciliation bill will be determined by what there are 218 votes for in the House and 51, or 50, votes for in the United States Senate,” Thune said.

Democrats object to deportations

Democrats on the Homeland Security panel introduced amendments to signal their opposition to the administration’s deportation agenda.

Louisiana Rep. Troy Carter was one of several Democrats to sharply criticize the recent deportation of three U.S. citizen children to Honduras during the Homeland Security Committee’s markup.

He noted that one of the children removed with his mother to Honduras, is a 4-year-old battling Stage 4 cancer.

“This is not border security,” Carter said. “This is state-sanctioned trauma.

Democrats introduced amendments to bar federal funds being used to detain immigrants at a foreign prison, following an agreement between the U.S. and El Salvador to detain more than 300 men in a notorious mega-prison. Experts have raised concerns the agreement could violate a law against funding foreign governments engaged in human rights abuses.

“This is not an idle possibility,” Democratic Rep. Seth Magaziner of Rhode Island said.

He pointed out that Trump asked El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele to consider taking “homegrown” criminals, meaning U.S. citizens.

“This is insane,” Magaziner said. “It is outrageous and every American should be terrified by this prospect.”

Several other Democrats introduced amendments related to the Trump administration’s use of the prison in El Salvador.

Boost for Pentagon

The House Armed Services Committee portion of the reconciliation package would bolster defense spending by $150 billion over the next decade.

That funding would be divvied up between numerous national security priorities, including $25 billion for Trump’s goal of having a countrywide missile defense system, similar to Israel’s Iron Dome.

The defense bill would appropriate $34 billion for shipbuilding and the maritime industrial base, $21 billion for munitions purchases, $14 billion for “initiatives to scale production of game changing new technology,” $13 billion for nuclear deterrence and $12 billion to enhance military readiness, according to a GOP summary of that bill. 

Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., said at the beginning of his committee’s markup that the bill would make a “generational investment in our national security.”

“It is clear we are no longer deterring our adversaries,” Rogers said. “The threats we face today from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea and others, are much more serious and challenging than we have ever faced before.”

Washington Democratic Rep. Adam Smith, ranking member on the panel, said there’s “no question that the Department of Defense has needs and there’s also no question that we as a country face threats.”

But Smith criticized Republicans for moving the defense funding boost within the massive reconciliation package, which will increase the deficit.

“We’re, once again, saying to the American people, ‘This is important but not important enough to actually pay for it.’ So the budget itself is a huge problem,” Smith said. “And you really can’t support the additional $150 billion for defense if you don’t support the overall reconciliation bill because that’s what this is. And the overall reconciliation bill, I firmly believe, is a disaster for this country.”

Smith criticized Republicans for proposing additional dollars for the Pentagon while it is run by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is under investigation for sending information about a bombing campaign in Yemen to a group chat that inadvertently included a journalist and a different group chat that included his wife, brother and others.

“They have not even begun to prove that there is a chance in hell that they will spend this money intelligently, efficiently and effectively,” Smith said. “Secretary Hegseth has proven himself to be completely incapable of doing the job of secretary of Defense.”

Cuts for Pell grants

The Education and Workforce Committee’s markup fell along similar partisan lines, with GOP lawmakers lauding the bill and Democrats rejecting Republicans’ plans seeking to overhaul federal spending.

Chairman Tim Walberg, R-Mich., said the legislation would cut $330 billion in federal spending over the next decade by reshaping federal student loan programs and Pell grants for low-income students, among several other changes.

“Dumping more federal money into a broken system doesn’t mean that system will work,” Walberg said. “In fact, government spending on higher education has reached record highs, yet millions of students benefiting from those funds will ultimately end up with a degree that doesn’t pay off or fail to finish school altogether.”

The GOP bill, he said, would “bring much-needed reform in three key areas: simplified loan repayment, streamlined student loan options, and accountability for students and taxpayers.”

Walberg scolded former President Joe Biden for not working with Congress to overhaul federal grant and loan programs for higher education, saying the former administration “was determined to keep pouring taxpayer funds into the abyss in a futile attempt to keep up with the unacceptable and unaccountable institutional prices.”

Virginia Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott, ranking member, said that Congress should look at ways to make college more affordable through reforms, but said the GOP bill “misses the mark.”

“This current reconciliation plan would increase costs for colleges and students. It would limit students access to quality programs, which would then reduce their likelihood of finding a rewarding or successful career,” Scott said. “And then take the so-called savings to pay for more tax cuts for the wealthy and the well-connected.”

Republicans “limiting the students’ access to Pell grants and federal loans,” he said, could increase the number of people who have to rely on “predatory, private loans” to pay for college.

“Put bluntly: The Republican plan will limit how much money middle- and low-income students can borrow from the federal government,” Scott said. “As a result, limiting the federal student aid that students can receive means that millions of students will not be able to access federal assistance that they need to complete their degrees. Moreover, this bill will force student borrowers into unaffordable repayment plans.”