House committee chairs are asking for millions of dollars more for internal operations this Congress, despite a push to shrink the federal budget and make way for a series of expensive priorities proposed by President Donald Trump.
Those increases in legislative branch funds could be important, according to House Administration ranking member Joseph D. Morelle, to stave off power grabs from Trump and his allies, like Elon Musk, who is taking a hammer to executive branch agencies in an attempt to cut trillions of dollars from the federal budget.
“We’ve witnessed over the past three weeks federal agencies that implement our laws are under an unchecked assault of questionable legality,” Morelle said Tuesday, at the first of two hearings on committee funding held by the House Administration panel. “And while the assault is ongoing, it’s important to give House committees the resources they need to execute their responsibilities, while what little separation of powers remain.”
At the beginning of each Congress, most House committees introduce resolutions requesting funding for the coming two years. Those resolutions are then considered by House Administration, which ultimately drafts an omnibus funding resolution with total allocations per committee. The panel began the process Tuesday, hearing from 11 committee heads, and will host the remaining chairs and ranking members on Wednesday.
The hearings come as congressional Republicans are working out how to pay for Trump’s agenda, which includes an extension of parts of his 2017 tax plan and a slew of other proposals.
Committee leaders called for more money to fund recruitment and retention of staff, to launch new initiatives and to host field hearings and increase oversight efforts.
“We have a constitutional duty to conduct rigorous oversight over America’s vital foreign policy institutions and ensure that every dollar and every diplomat is working to advance America’s national security interests,” Foreign Affairs Chair Brian Mast, R-Fla., told the committee.
Mast called for an approximately $24 million budget in the 119th Congress, a roughly 13 percent increase over the last Congress.
Texas Republican Rep. Brian Babin, who chairs the House Science, Space and Technology panel, made the case for a nearly $19 million budget, up 32 percent from the 118th, by highlighting the need to offer competitive salaries for expert staff and for additional field hearings to “interact directly with scientists, engineers and industry leaders.”
The Ways and Means Committee, meanwhile, asked for a 25 percent funding bump, up to more than $30 million in this Congress. Judiciary is calling for a 17 percent increase, up to nearly $32 million over the next two years. And Oversight and Government Reform is requesting a nearly $33 million budget, which would represent an increase of roughly 10 percent.
Committee chairs on Tuesday met little pushback on their requests, though House Administration member Mary Miller, R-Ill., asked Tim Walberg, chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, about the “substantial” travel budget of $1.1 million requested by the panel.
“I think it’s absolutely a necessary thing to go out to where the issues are. Our schools aren’t here in D.C. … I think the same is true in the workplace. Where are the workers? They’re back in the district,” said the Michigan Republican, whose committee as of Tuesday hadn’t introduced its funding resolution.
Morelle also noted the Supreme Court’s decision last year to kill the 40-year-old Chevron doctrine, which had instructed courts to defer to federal agencies’ interpretation of ambiguous statutes. Republicans largely celebrated and Democrats lamented the decision, but there was some consensus that it created an opportunity for Congress to reassert itself and increase its lawmaking capacity.
But that, according to Morelle, requires resources like staffing and funding.
“These decisions, together with what seems like an endless assault from the federal government’s regulatory authority in the last several weeks, makes adequate committee funding even more imperative,” Morelle said.
Jim Saksa contributed to this report.
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