Government affairs

The House and the Senate passed a continuing resolution yesterday to fund the government until December 3. President Biden signed the continuing resolution into law hours before the midnight deadline to avoid a government shutdown.

This short-term fix includes funding to sustain federal agencies until the December 3 deadline, as well $28.6 billion in aid to respond to recent hurricanes and wildfires and $6.3 billion to help resettle refugees from Afghanistan.

The passage of the continuing resolution comes during a very busy week on Capitol Hill. While the House passed a measure to raise the nation’s borrowing authority (debt limit) earlier this week, Senate Republicans have blocked two such measures. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said he plans to hold another vote next week in advance of the October 18 deadline to avoid the country’s first default on its debt.

Additionally, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has been focused on holding a vote on the bipartisan Infrastructure Improvement and Jobs Act (H.R. 3684), which would provide funding for investments in roads, bridges, airports, transit, rail, broadband, electric vehicle charging stations, power grid modernization and clean drinking water. After a long night of negotiations, a vote on the measure remains in limbo. While moderate Democrats are prioritizing the bipartisan infrastructure bill, progressive Democrats have said they will not consider it without parallel consideration of the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package currently being crafted as a part of the President’s Build Back Better agenda.

NALC is closely monitoring these pieces of legislation, specifically, $7 billion in proposed funding to electrify the Postal Service vehicle fleet and provide the necessary infrastructure to support those vehicles. This critical funding for the Postal Service will fund new vehicles for letter carriers, help combat climate change, and achieve priorities included in President Biden’s Build Back Better Agenda as well as Postmaster General Louis Dejoy’s Delivering for America Plan.

NALC will update letter carriers on any future action.