D.C. Daily: June 11, 2012

Senate
Friday's Action:
The Senate was not in session Friday.

Today's Schedule:
The Senate will meet today at 2:00 PM. The Senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to consideration of S. 3240, the "Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act". At 4:30 PM, the Senate will resume consideration of the nomination of Andrew David Hurwitz to be Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit, with a vote on the motion to invoke cloture at approximately 5:30 PM.


House
Friday's Action:
During business Friday, the House took the following actions:

• Passed H.R. 5882, the "Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2013", by a vote of 307 yeas to 102 nays.
• Rejected the Broun motion to instruct conferees on H.R. 4348, by a vote of 82 yeas to 323 nays.
• Passed S. 3261, to allow the Chief of the Forest Service to award certain contracts for large air tankers.

Today's Schedule:
The House will not meet today. The next scheduled meeting of the House is a pro forma session at 10:00 AM on Tuesday, June 12. The House will return to conduct business on Monday, June 18.


Executive Agencies
Significant Proposed Rules:

• Federal Housing Finance Agency: seeking comments on a proposed rule that would amend FHFA's existing housing goals regulation to establish housing goals for 2012, 2013 and 2014 for the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) (collectively, the Enterprises). (Comment period ends 7/26/12)
• Environmental Protection Agency: seeking comments on the proposed standards for cooling water intake structures at all existing power generating facilities and existing manufacturing and industrial facilities as part of implementing section 316(b) of the Clean Water Act (CWA). (Comment period ends 7/11/12)
• Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services: correcting technical and typographical errors in the proposed rule that appeared in the May 11, 2012 Federal Register entitled “Medicare Program; Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment Systems for Acute Care Hospitals and the Long-Term Care Hospital Prospective Payment System and Fiscal Year 2013 Rates; Hospitals' Resident Caps for Graduate Medical Education Payment Purposes; Quality Reporting Requirements for Specific Providers and for Ambulatory Surgical Centers.”

Significant Final Rules:
There were no final rules proposed today.

Presidential Documents:
There were no Presidential documents printed today.


Supreme Court
The court has concluded scheduled oral arguments for the October 2011 term. However, the court is still meeting to finalize decisions on cases it heard during the preceeding term. The court's next session of oral arguments is scheduled to begin on Monday, October 1, 2012.

The court has not issued decisions on the following cases:

• First American Financial Corp. v. Edwards: Are lawsuits involving kickbacks for the closing of a mortgage loan constitutional if the kickback did not affect the price or quality of the services?
• Williams v. Illinois: Is it constitutional for an expert witness to testify regarding a DNA test which was performed by another analyst?
• Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations, Inc.: Are the FCC's standards for television indecency too vague to be Constitutional?
• Knox v. Service Employees Int’l Union, Local 1000: Are forced dues collected by a union and used for political advocacy a violation of the First Amendment?
• United States v. Alvarez: Does a federal law criminalizing lying about military medals and honors violate the right to free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment?
f the court rules that requiring Americans to purchase insurance or pay a penalty is unconstitutional, can the rest of the law stand or
• Elgin v. Dep’t of the Treasury: Does the Merit Systems Protection Board (the board which considers challenges to the firing of federal employees) prohibit an employee from going to a District Court to challenge the firing as unconstitutional?
• Miller v. Alabama and Jackson v. Hobbs: Does a sentence of life without for a murder conviction parole constitute cruel and unusual punishment for a person who was fourteen at the time of the murder?
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services v. Florida, National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, and Florida v. Department of Health and Human Services: 1) Does Congress have the power to require Americans to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty? 2) Does the Anti-Injunction Act prohibit the courts from hearing the case until the tax has taken effect? 3) Can states be forced to comply with provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act by withholding Medicaid funding? 4) If the requirement that Americans purchase health insurance is declared unconstitutional, can the rest of the law stand or does the entire law need to be invalidated?
• Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham Corp.: Are pharmaceutical sales representatives exempt from the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act?
• Dorsey v. United States and Hill v. United States: Does the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 apply when an offence was committed before the act was in effect but when the sentencing hearing took place after the act was in effect?
• Salazar v. Ramah Navajo Chapter: Do the caps on administrative and support costs for Native American to take over federal programs mean that these costs must be distributed evenly among the tribes even if it means that the tribes will not be fully reimbursed?
• Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians v. Patchak and Salazar v. Patchak: Does the United States' immunity in suits involving an Indian reservation apply to all land or only to land in which the United States claims the title?
• Arizona v. United States: Do federal immigration laws prohibit Arizona's efforts at cooperative law enforcement?