Congress Considers Phase IV Legislation
When a Phase IV relief package stalled on August 7th, Members returned to their districts while staff have largely remained in DC to continue negotiations to ensure swift passage of a relief bill when Members return in September. The House HEROES Act and Senate’s HEALS Act each contain support for higher education. The HEROES Act includes $26.7 billion for public colleges and universities—the HEALS Act provides $29 billion. HEROES and HEALS use different formulas for calculating allotments to universities, with the former using headcount and the latter using FTE as the principle factor. With the current funding levels, University of ArizonaI would receive between $70 and $80 million from the education stabilization funds and an, as-yet-uncertain, additional amount as a result of our Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) status. Federal Relations is working with our association colleagues to urge Congress to change the HEROES Act formula to one that is more favorable to four-year institutions. Additionally, we are engaged in ongoing negotiations regarding liability protections for institutions of higher education, student loan borrower provisions, and tax provisions contained in the legislation.
Late last week, Senate Republicans announced a plan to introduce a "skinny" COVID-19 relief package addressing a discrete number of issues, including liability protections and additional funding for the U.S. Postal Service. At this time there is no House companion legislation, so it’s uncertain whether this will disrupt the existing Phase IV negotiations. Regardless, there is consensus in the House and Senate to support higher education in a relief package, and Congress has made clear their intent to pass legislation providing that relief when they return in September.
Federal Relations Hosts Webinar on Cooperative Extension Services
On August 13th, Federal Relations hosted a webinar for our delegation colleagues on the subject of the University of Arizona’s Cooperative Extension Services. This webinar was the second in a series of opportunities Federal Relations has designed to brief the Arizona delegation on UArizona’s pandemic response and ongoing engagement. Thank you to Trent Teegerstrom, Dominic Rodriguez, Jeff Silvertooth and Cathy Martinez for meeting with staff to highlight both are strong history of cooperative extension and how integral it is to our land-grant mission, as well as sharing narratives of how we’ve adapted to continue these services throughout the pandemic. We had robust attendance, with participants from ten of our eleven delegation offices, and many expressed an interest in engaging more directly in support of UArizona’s cooperative extension moving forward.