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It's easy to believe the news around us that there's nothing good coming out of Washington. But each Thursday, I'll give you the scoop on the good news coming out of Washington. Both an update on what's happening in Washington and how you can get involved with this thing called democracy.
Katherine Getty 0:00
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At long last, my voice has returned. So I am thrilled to be back giving you the news coming out of Washington. Congress returned after the July 4 recess last week from their districts with a very busy July. So for context, there was last week this week and next week for members of Congress to get their business done before they head to districts for the month long August recess. Ie There isn't much time to achieve a ton on that to do list. But here we go. Over the next few weeks and into September. I would expect to see a lot of reauthorizations on the docket for the house of the Senate. So what exactly is a reauthorization? And why are they so important? This is what we'll cover today. In the context of Congress. A reauthorization refers to the legislative process of renewing or extending a current authorization of a federal program or law. Many laws and programs have basically expiration dates or statutory requirements that require periodic review and renewal updates ways to improve the program by Congress. Typically, that's five years, five years is a pretty normal, and a lot of them are actually happening this year, which is always fun. A reauthorization allows Congress to evaluate the effectiveness, the relevance, maybe it's not needed anymore. funding needs, and a reauthorization can address funding needs. But as a reminder, appropriators will always give the money. So what happens in a reauthorization is they could say it needs $10. And maybe the appropriators say it's nine, it can be authorized higher than it's appropriated. But that authorization is really important. So reauthorizations, effectiveness, relevance funding, and deciding whether to continue, modify or even terminate it. During this progress. committees of jurisdiction typically hold hearings, gather information, engage in debates, staffers will identify necessary changes, they will work to determine appropriate level of funding, maybe they consider from stakeholders, this is an opportunity for I'm going to use a phase an example later. So let's bring it in. Maybe it's where the flight attendants and the airlines and different airport authorities come in and share, hey, this isn't been working well, or this is really working well. This is why you should continue it that feedback is really important in the process, based on all this feedback from stakeholders, government agencies, experts, the public etc. Congress can propose amendments, revisions, additions, you see the point and it can go through the standard process. It'll go through the legislative process where it's in a committee, it goes through a subcommittee goes through a full committee hits the floor has floor debate, and then it's voted between the House and the Senate. The House products will be different than the Senate product. Typically, the Senate product will be different than the house. But that's the beauty of when the two chambers, you know, vote on their final passage, it will go together and they'll have what they call conference. So we have an understanding of what is a reauthorization. It's basically a period of time where Congress looks at a program and identifies, do we need to change it? Do we need to scrap it? Do we need to improve it? Why are they important? Well, reauthorizations are essential for ensuring the continuity and I would argue the accountability of federal programs. It really provides an opportunity, like I said, to drill down into maybe some improvement areas or maybe some things that are redundant, or maybe some things that we don't need any more, I can incorporate updated policies. Maybe the President has really interested in this or maybe a member of Congress, the speaker or the majority leader really are focused on one thing. These are opportunities to include kind of those policy wishlist items in some of these, some of these reauthorizations. And, you know, examples of programs could be education and its initiatives health care programs, infrastructure funding, national security measures. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that there are 1100 current programs that have not been reauthorized. So basically, a program could go not reauthorized. It can just kind of sit out there and appropriators can still fund it. That is an interesting kind of piece of the puzzle of okay, well, what is the purpose then of a reauthorization? Well, it's good governance, it's good governance to know kind of what are all the programs, I would argue that 1100 programs not being reauthorized will be Congress, you should be doing your job. But I digress. I think that oftentimes things can kind of just get stuck in the wayside. And this is an opportunity, we're seeing all these programs, maybe it's time to get onto these and those 1100 Doesn't even does not even include the ones that are due up by September 30. Typically, you'll see September 30, as the due date, because it's the end of the fiscal year. So you'll hear a lot of crunches, not only funding, which is always tied to the fiscal year, or typically tied to the fiscal year. But some of these programs and I reference FAA, because it's top of mind in the house, if you're listening live on July 20, the FAA reauthorization will be on the House floor for final passage, this process within the house, and I'll talk to the Senate and a little bit, these sorts of efforts in the whole process, take a really, really long time. And I talk through kind of the legislative process and the including stakeholders in the markup and the floor. But I failed to reference how important staff are in this process. Staff, bring those stakeholders together staff take the first draft staff do a lot of the work to help prepare the members to be ready. And you know, when you see final passage, it is such an accomplishment in such a step forward for the American people. It's also a feather in the cap for those staffers. So kudos to the staffers that have been working on final passage for the FAA reauthorization. Now while I say, Is it perfect? Is it what everyone wanted? No. But that's the beauty of this constitutional republic. We live in that we have another go at it. And five years, we can try it again. And this experiment that we have to see, okay, it are things working in this program, is there a way that FAA could retool, insert issue and make it better, but we have another five years to do it. So on the Senate side, they have always been dubbed the more deliberative body. And I think folks breed that as slow. They haven't released a draft yet. So they will be undoubtedly on a condensed timeframe. But more to come on that. And I will give you updates through the process. If you're curious on the way. On a bit of a separate note, bit of a your good news podcast update. I'm going to be taking a season two hiatus for the month of August and I will be back in September for season three. And season three, the long promised interviews, we'll be coming back. I have some ideas to have freshening things up for the podcast. But this is where I make a plea to you. If you love listening to the Oregon news podcast, learning about what's happening in Washington, let me know what do you want to hear? I want to make sure that I am providing content that's fresh for you. That's interesting to you. I love doing this podcast because if you haven't figured it out yet, I love politics. I think it's really fascinating. And I think there's ways that we can engage with it. I want to give you those tools to better understand okay, how to cut through that noise you see on TV and in the news because we all know that news is sometimes a little biased. I thank you so much for listening for the last two years. Like I said, this is an absolute joy of mine to do this every single week. Thank you so much for joining another episode of the organ news podcast. We have one more episode before Season Two wraps I am thrilled to say join us next week for another episode of the orc canoes podcast. As always find me on Instagram. My handle is at Katherine Getty. If you ever want to engage with me and let me know what you're interested in hearing on and as always, tune in next week for another episode of The Your good news podcast.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai