What’s in the Reconciliation Bill?

Now that all text has been released and marked up by House committees, we finally have a true sense of the full scope of the coming reconciliation bill (so far). Here’s a high-level overview of what’s in each committee’s print:

Agriculture: Requires states to pay for part of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) using a sliding scale based on their payment error rates, beginning fiscal year 2028. Also increases the age limit subject to the Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents work requirement through the age of 64 and exempts only individuals caring for a dependent child under the age of seven. Provides $60 billion for a handful of farm priorities, including crop insurance, export promotion, livestock biosecurity, Secure Rural Schools, conservation programs, and farm bill “orphan” programs.

Armed Services: Appropriates $150 billion for defense capabilities, including shipbuilding, air and missile defense, munitions, and supply chain resiliency, construction projects, and more.

Education and Workforce: Eliminates the Grad PLUS program. Lowers aggregate federal loan limits for graduate and professional students. Creates new income-driven and income-contingent repayment plans. Excludes medical and dental students from counting time in internships or residency toward public service loan forgiveness. Create a risk-sharing formula requiring higher education institutions to pay back a portion of unpaid federal student loans. Limits the regulatory power of the Secretary of the Department of Education. Reduces Pell Grant eligibility.

Energy and Commerce: Creates work requirements for Medicaid, eliminates incentives for state expansion, and eliminates Biden-era eligibility rules. Provides $2 billion for the Department of Energy to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Cancels an undetermined amount of unobligated IRA energy and environment funding, including EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. Accelerates permitting for infrastructure projects through new fees. Rescinds $401 million from the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and around $260 million from DOE’s State and Community Energy Programs.

Homeland Security: Appropriates almost $70 billion for border security and immigrations investments, including CBP facilities and personnel, inspection and surveillance technology, and a “border barrier system” aka the wall.

Financial Services: Reduces the amount the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) may receive from the Federal Reserve and spend for administrative activities. Limits the uses of money in the Civil Penalty Fund. Increases the cost of an existing private-sector mandate on certain commercial entities if the SEC increases annual fee collections. Transfers the Public Company Accounting Board’s authorities to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and eliminates the authority to collect accounting support fees to fund the board’s activities. Rescind the unobligated balances of the Green and Resilient Retrofit Program.

Judiciary: Provides an additional $5 billion for ICE. Prohibits courts from using federal funds to enforce contempt citations for failing to comply with court orders if plaintiffs don’t offer money for bond pursuant to the rules of civil procedure. Includes the REINS Act, which requires Congress to approve major federal agency rules before they take effect, and the Midnight Rules Relief Act, which would allow Republicans to bundle regulations adopted in the final 365 days of the previous administration into a single package and vote to repeal them.

Natural Resources: Reinstates quarterly onshore oil and gas lease sales. Resumes leasing for energy production in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and coal leasing on federal lands. Increases timber sales on federal lands and requires long-term timber contracts. Restricts environmental reviews of energy projects and exempts certain project approvals from court challenges.  Authorizes the sale of federal lands in Utah and Nevada.

Oversight and Government Reform: Eliminates the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) annuity supplement. Changes the years of salary history used for calculating retirement benefits for most employees to five years from three years. Increases pension contributions of new federal hires who choose not to be at-will employees. Requires eligibility verification for dependents in the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) program, expand fraud assessments of the program, and deny or disenroll ineligible dependents.

Transportation and Infrastructure: Creates an annual fee on electric vehicles as a pay-in to the Highway Trust Fund. Provides $23 million to the Coast Guard for Offshore Cutter vessels, fixed and rotary wing aircraft, shoreside infrastructure, and depot maintenance. Appropriates $15 billion to the FAA for Air Traffic Control modernization. Rescinds $4.6 billion in unobligated Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funding for Neighborhood Access and Equity Grants, Environmental Review Implementation Funds, FHWA Low-Carbon Transportation Materials Grants, and GSA funding.

Ways and Means: Proposes over $5 trillion in tax cuts, including permanent extension of the 2017 Trump-era tax cuts, as well as temporary raises for the standard deduction and the child tax credit. The text also raises the cap on the state-and-local tax (SALT) deduction to $30,000 and eliminates taxes on tips and overtime pay. Creates a new tax-preferred savings account for children under the age of eight. Raises taxes on private foundations, nonprofits, and university endowments.

More information about the contents of each committee’s print will continue to roll out, and several additions to the bill remain likely. Most notably, Republicans still have to insert language to increase or suspend the debt limit to avoid default, which is estimated to occur this August.