House to take up CFTC and Defense approps, but Ag approps timing now uncertain
June 16, 2014 | 03:48 PM
Outgoing House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., has announced that beginning Wednesday, the House will take up the fiscal year 2015 Defense appropriations bill and the bill reauthorizing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Cantor did not say anything in his “week ahead” statement Friday about restarting floor action on the fiscal year 2015 Agriculture appropriations bill, which stopped last week after he lost his primary election.
The House completed work on part of that bill, which contains a controversial provision to require the Agriculture Department to grant a waiver from the healthier school meal requirements to any school that says it has been losing money in its meals program for six months.
House Republicans will hold an election Thursday for a new majority leader, and if House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., wins as expected, there will also be an election for a new majority whip.
And while last week a senior GOP aide said that the Ag bill and others would be postponed until after the election because the whip operation was involved, today that aide said it is possible “we will see a reshuffling of bills given a new leadership make-up. … there will be new people running the floor and new people counting votes. As it is likely to be almost wholesale staff changes, it will take time for these two to learn their new jobs — and how to work with one another.”
House Republicans are also promoting a Rasmussen Reports poll showing that 51 percent of Americans believe that school meal nutritional standards should be set at the local level.
But Rasmussen Reports polls are known for leaning conservative, and according to a Miami Herald story, the poll also shows that the percentage of people who think the standards should be set at the federal level have risen to 25 percent from 18 percent last August.
▪ Miami Herald — Poll finds adults prefer local decisions on school lunch nutrition
Cantor did not say anything in his “week ahead” statement Friday about restarting floor action on the fiscal year 2015 Agriculture appropriations bill, which stopped last week after he lost his primary election.
The House completed work on part of that bill, which contains a controversial provision to require the Agriculture Department to grant a waiver from the healthier school meal requirements to any school that says it has been losing money in its meals program for six months.
House Republicans will hold an election Thursday for a new majority leader, and if House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., wins as expected, there will also be an election for a new majority whip.
And while last week a senior GOP aide said that the Ag bill and others would be postponed until after the election because the whip operation was involved, today that aide said it is possible “we will see a reshuffling of bills given a new leadership make-up. … there will be new people running the floor and new people counting votes. As it is likely to be almost wholesale staff changes, it will take time for these two to learn their new jobs — and how to work with one another.”
House Republicans are also promoting a Rasmussen Reports poll showing that 51 percent of Americans believe that school meal nutritional standards should be set at the local level.
But Rasmussen Reports polls are known for leaning conservative, and according to a Miami Herald story, the poll also shows that the percentage of people who think the standards should be set at the federal level have risen to 25 percent from 18 percent last August.
▪ Miami Herald — Poll finds adults prefer local decisions on school lunch nutrition
