As Washington Returns From the Shutdown What Tops The Legislative and Regulatory “To Do Lists”
Overview
As promised, today CSPEN will attempt to provide a broad overview of the federal legislative and regulatory landscape and what we anticipate will be high on the Administration’s and Congress’ priority list after a month and a half hiatus.
Yesterday we shared details on key facets of H.R. 5371 – Continuing Appropriations, Agriculture, Legislative Branch, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Extensions Act, 2026 – the Continuing Resolution (CR) which ended the shutdown, enacted three of the twelve annual appropriations bills, and included other commitments and extensions of expiring authorities.
Today we will focus on the timeline and ability for Congress to complete consideration of the nine remaining annual appropriations bills to avoid another government shutdown, touch on other key legislative initiatives which could impact higher education and also focus on the Administration’s regulatory agenda over the same time frame. So, without further ado…
Legislative Outlook
With the government reopened at least until Friday, January 30, 2026, Congress has a total of seventy-seven (77) total days (including weekends and holidays) to complete consideration of the nine remaining annual appropriations bills for Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26).
Time
That may – or may not – seem like a lot but take into consideration that for the remainder of 2025 the U.S. Seante is currently slated to be in session for a total of twenty (20) days and the U.S. House of Representatives is slated to be in session for sixteen (16) days. For January of 2026, while the 2026 Congressional Calendar has not yet been made public, at best both the chambers of Congress would have an additional twenty (20) business days, so, a total of approximately 40 legislative days.
Status of the Nine Appropriations Bills
When Congress returns on Monday the House comes back into session with all nine of the outstanding bills having been passed out of their respective Committee and now awaiting floor consideration, while the Senate has only passed five of the remaining nine bills out of their respective Committee. Thus, under normal circumstances the House would need to individually bring each of their nine Committee passed bills to the House floor for passage. The Senate would need to move forward with efforts to pass the five Committee bills available, while waiting on and then bringing to the floor the other four. Then both the House and Senate would Conference to negotiate and work out the differences between the two bills – develop a new, compromise bill and send that back to both the House and Senate floor for debate. The bills would be subject to amendments in both chambers and if modified would have to then be approved by the alternate chamber. No problem getting all of this done nine times in
forty days, right?
Most notably for our students, your institutions, and the future employers of our graduates is the Labor, Health & Human Services (HHS) and Education Committee bills. The Senate was first to pass the FY26 proposal on July 31^st with the House completing passage of an alternate proposal September 9^th. CSPEN provided summaries on the two proposals back in September and will be sharing those details once again next week both in emails and our Federal Legislative & Regulatory Update webinar on Thursday, November
Omnibus Alternative
The more likely alternative, one which has become all too common as Congress has failed to complete pass all of the annual bills on time since 1997, is the use of “omnibus” bills = the process of combining multiple regular appropriations acts into a single measure. This practice has become the norm in recent years, with omnibus measures being used to enact the vast majority of regular appropriations bills, and at least one omnibus measure was passed for each fiscal year from 2012 through 2024. If all of the FY26 appropriations bills are to be completed by January 30. 2026 this is how it will happen.
Affordable Care Act Vote
As put of the negotiated agreement on the CR, Senate Majority Leader Thune committed to providing the Democrats an opportunity to bring legislation to the Senate floor to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. This vote is expected to take place in mid-December.
Budget Reconciliation 2.0
If all of this were not enough, there are already talks of a second Budget Reconciliation bill, building upon the initiatives contained in the One Big Beautiful Bill (OB3)Act provisions which are now law. The goal is two-fold. One to revise and extend various aspects of OB3. The second is to provide the GOP with the ability to pursue consideration of proposals sought by members of their party that were not included in the first bill. CSPEN anticipates that the consideration of this second reconciliation proposal will take place in February.
Regulatory Outlook
Based upon conversations with key Department of Education (Department) officials, all Department employees will return to work on Monday. Upon their return CSPEN anticipates that the Department will move quickly to make up for lost time on several important issues which were at the forefront prior to the shutdown. Here are a few issues we believe will be out of the gate quickly.
Financial Value Transparency & Gainful Employment Reporting
September 30^th and October 1^st were key submission deadlines for all institutions of higher education under the existing regulations. With the shutdown the Department has not provided any information on the degree to which the higher education community fulfilled their reporting responsibilities and if more time may be provided to submit the data given the extenuating circumstances surrounding the submission timeframe and the inability to contact or provide support to institutions who may have had problems successfully submitting data. CSPEN anticipates that the Department will publish guidance on this matter in the near future.
Student Loan Repayment
Prior to the shutdown the U.S. Department of Education was heavily focused on concerns related to the rapidly growing number of student loans in delinquency and default and were taking proactive steps to address the concerns. In addition to guidance to the institutional community, initiation of the Treasury Offset Program (TOP), and planned phase-in of Wage Garnishment which was set to begin in October. Again, CSPEN anticipates that the Department will publish updates on this major issue soon.
2025-2026 Federal Negotiated Rulemaking
Having successfully completed the first of two schedule negotiations implementing the statutory provisions of OB3 on student loans, the Department will host the second set of negotiations focused upon institutional accountability and Federal Pell Grants in a few weeks. As CSPEN has reported throughout the week, the Department has begun to process of notifying the Non-Federal negotiators selected to represent various constituent groups in advance of the first session to be held December 3-8. CSPEN will continue to share more details on the list of non-Federal negotiators next week and anticipates also sharing discussion documents the week of Thanksgiving in advance of the sessions.
