June 5, 2006
- FY 2007 Federal Budget
- FY 2007 Appropriations
- Perkins Reauthorization
- National FFA Organization's Washington Leadership Conference
- NAAE Legislative Action Center
During the early morning hours of May 18, 2006, the U.S. House of Representatives finally approved its version of a congressional budget resolution after the Republican leadership agreed to provide an additional $3 billion for labor, health, and education programs. The House resolution passed by a 218 to 210 vote. The Senate passed its version of the federal budget on March 16, 2006. The Senate’s budget resolution restored funding for Perkins programs, against the recommendations of the President in his FY 2007 executive budget proposal. You can go to the NAAE Legislative Action Center to see how your elected officials voted on these bills.
The measure should now move to a House-Senate conference; however, differences on the overall spending cap between the two resolutions are likely to make a final agreement difficult, if not impossible, to reach. As passed, the House version maintains President Bush’s overall spending cap of $873 billion, whereas the Senate version exceeds Bush’s maximum spending level by at least $16 billion.
In the House deliberations, Representative Mike Castle (R-DE) fought for an amendment, very similar to one passed in the Senate FY07 budget resolution that would offer $7.1 billion more in funds for health and education programs next year; however, this amendment was not successful.
In spite of the difficulties in getting a final federal budget resolution for FY 2007, the appropriations subcommittees have begun their work toward agreeing to funding for specific programs, such as Perkins, for next year.
The House Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), and Education Appropriations Subcommittee is scheduled to vote on legislation to fund education programs for FY 2007 on June 7, followed by a full Appropriations Committee vote the week of June 12. The subcommittee and full committee will be making crucial decisions about funding for Perkins programs and other education and workforce programs during their mark-ups of the FY 2007 Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations bill. On June 5, 2006, NAAE sent out a legislative alert asking agricultural educators to call their members of the U. S. House of Representatives on this issue.
We do not know when
the Senate will take up their education appropriations bill.
There is no current activity on the reauthorization of the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act. As we have reported for many months, the House has a new Perkins bill and the Senate has a new Perkins bill. There are some differences in the two bills that must be worked out in a conference committee. Staff from both the House and Senate education committees indicate the bill will be reauthorized in this session of Congress. However, we do not see hard evidence that the bill is moving forward. We don’t know of any members of Congress who are trying to stall the bill. It is just not being given high priority in this short session of Congress.
This is the first of seven weeks of FFA’s Washington Leadership Conference (WLC) program. FFA members who attend WLC will have the opportunity to visit with their respective members of Congress. WLC staff will be preparing the FFA members for their Congressional visits. In addition, the NAAE advocacy intern, Franklin Davis from South Carolina, will be meeting each week with the agriculture teachers who attend WLC. The teachers will also be making Capitol Hill visits to advocate for agricultural education as a part of our Nation’s career and technical education system. We are grateful to the National FFA Organization for encouraging FFA members and FFA advisors to become advocates for agricultural education.
NAAE Legislative Action Center
Please visit the NAAE Legislative Action Center at http://www.naae.org and take every opportunity to communicate with your federal and state legislators. Advocacy is about developing relationships with your elected officials at the local, state, and federal levels. We must develop good relationships with our decision makers BEFORE we have a crisis … so that when we do have a crisis, we will know who to contact and we will know our elected officials will want to hear our concerns and help to address our concerns positively.
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