Scaled back Extenders amendment introduced.

Senate Introduces Scaled Back ‘Extenders’ Bill Amendment After Procedural Vote on Initial Draft Fails

Following a failed vote on the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act (HR 4213), the tax 'extenders' bill that includes a range of investments in job training and worker support programs, Senate leaders on Wednesday evening introduced a scaled back substitute amendment in an effort to attract the 60 votes needed to advance toward a final vote on the measure. The new amendment would reduce certain unemployment insurance (UI) benefits, but maintains other key workforce provisions, including:

• $1 billion in funding for summer jobs programs for youth;
• expansion of the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) Community College and Career Training Grant Program to include individuals who are eligible (or are likely to be eligible) for UI, or who have exhausted their UI benefits; and
• an extension of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Emergency Contingency Fund through September 2011, plus an additional $2.5 billion for the program in Fiscal Year (FY) 2011.

The amendment also retains roughly $24 billion in federal Medicaid assistance (FMAP) to states, which will help to avert layoffs of thousands of state and local employees.

The Senate voted 45-52 to reject a procedural motion on the original $140 billion Senate bill Wednesday morning, a result that was not unexpected as a number of moderate Democratic and Republican Senators had indicated their concerns about overall spending in the bill. The new substitute amendment reduces the estimated cost of the measure to $118 billion, and offsets more of the costs to reduce the impact on the federal deficit. While most of the proposed changes do not directly affect the workforce development field, the modified language would eliminate the Federal Additional Compensation (FAC) program, which was originally authorized as part of a range of unemployment insurance benefits under the Recovery Act and provides an additional $25 in weekly unemployment assistance for qualifying individuals. There had been concerns that cutting the FAC program could have the further consequence of reducing state UI benefits, as the Recovery Act included “non-reduction” language prohibiting states from cutting their own benefit levels if they accepted FAC funding. Fortunately, the non-reduction rule was reinstated in the final draft amendment as part of the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program which, along with the Extended Benefits (EB) program, will be extended through November 2010.

It is expected that the Senate will take a procedural vote on the modified amendment late Thursday or early Friday, though it is unclear at this time whether the proposed changes will be sufficient to advance the bill. An alternative proposal offered by Senator Thune (R-SD), that would have frozen federal employees’ salaries and cut discretionary spending outside of the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments by five percent, failed a procedural vote 41-57 on Thursday afternoon.

National Skills Coalition will continue to monitor this legislation and provide updates as new information becomes available. Sign up for our RSS feed to receive the most current information and updates. 

Note: In our June 15th Breaking News, we erroneously reported that the vote Wednesday morning was for cloture on the underlying bill, rather than a vote on a budget point of order against the amendment.