Weekly Federal Update 2/14/22

President and Administration

The Biden administration said on Thursday, 2/10, that it would require states to submit proposals to line highways with electric vehicle chargers, part of a $5 billion plan to fill a gap in the infrastructure needed to support booming sales of battery-powered cars…

The White House released the initial edition of its Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) guidebook to help state and local governments and other stakeholders unlock the benefits from this historic investment…

Consumer prices rose a higher-than-expected 0.6 percent for the second month in a row, and an alarming 7.5 percent during the last year…

President Biden is starting to clear a legal path for relatives of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to pursue $3.5 billion that Afghanistan’s central bank had deposited in the U.S. before the Taliban takeover, while also seeking to steer a roughly equal amount toward spending to aid the Afghan people…

The threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine is shaking up a fragile global oil market, as traders calculate that supplies will struggle to cushion the effect from any significant disruption in Russian fossil fuel exports… 

Congress  

On Wednesday, 2/9, House and Senate negotiators reached an agreement on a framework to move forward with conference negotiations on an omnibus appropriations bill…

On Tuesday the House passed, 272-162, a three-week Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the government funded through March 11 while the broader spending package is still under discussion…

A bipartisan group of senators on Wednesday, 2/9, announced that they had reached an agreement on a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, after months of negotiations in the chamber… 

The Senate on Thursday, 2/10,  passed legislation by voice vote to reform the way private companies handle sexual assault and harassment cases by ending the use of forced arbitration to resolve workplace disputes…

President Biden is expected to start interviewing potential nominees to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer this week, with a promise to announce his choice by the end of the month…

Education

During his first address to Congress last spring, President Biden said that Jill Biden, the first lady, would lead an effort to fulfill his administration’s promise to provide two years of free community college to all eligible students…

The Education Department has proposed to again impose regulations to measure the gainful employment of graduates of for-profit colleges and non-degree programs at nonprofit colleges… 

Students who receive a check-in text message from a friend or family member are less likely to experience loneliness or depression, according to a new study from California State University, Fullerton…

Some four-year colleges place too much emphasis on mathematics in admissions, specifically whether students have done well in calculus, limiting access as a result, said a report by Just Equations and the National Association for College Admission Counseling…

The America COMPETES Act, which passed the House on 2/4, would expand Pell Grant eligibility for students enrolled in short-term skills and job training programs, but excludes students attending these programs online, a provision some community college leaders and online education advocates call a mistake…

About 55 percent of teachers say because of the pandemic they’re considering leaving their jobs sooner than they’d planned, according to a poll from the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union…

The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, in a letter sent to Congressional leadership Friday, 2/11, urging lawmakers to pass the 2022 spending bills after months of delay…

The Education Department issued a FAQ supplement on using the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund and the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief (GEER) funds to prevent, prepare for, and respond to the pandemic and a revised Notice of Proposed Requirements (NPR) and updated FAQs for the ARP’s Maintenance of Equity provisions…