Weekly Update 9/21/2026
Weekly Update 9/21/2026 Capitol Advocacy Partners
Grant Management:
Upcoming Federal Fiscal Year-End: With only seven weekdays until the end of the Fiscal Year on September 30, it is critical to act promptly on any grant or No-Cost Extension (NCE) ending on September 30. All program activities must be completed, and all allowable expenditures and obligations must be incurred by the end of the month. For mid-stream grants with a budget year ending September 30, we encourage you to be diligent on planned expenditures and obligations, ensuring all activities and expenses comply with your grant terms. Please make every effort to fully utilize available grant funds by September 30—the less funding…
President and Administration:
Administration weighs commission to review National Institutes of Health grants: An Office of Management and Budget (OMB) proposal to give political appointees more power over federal grant-making is blocked until December by a recently-passed Continuing Resolution, but a parallel effort surfaced last week in the Oval Office. White House budget director Russell Vought criticized the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for funding priorities he said conflict with an executive order barring grants and contracts tied to equity. Officials discussed an executive order creating a commission…
Major TV networks decline White House pool duties: ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC said Monday they would stop providing pooled television coverage of President Donald Trump after the White House barred CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO from the grounds. The networks said the public has an interest in receiving independent information…
Court ruling leaves most Federal Emergency Management Agency staffing reductions intact: Responsibility for disaster response continues to shift toward state and local governments, and a recent federal court ruling is unlikely to slow that trend. Judge Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court for Northern California ruled that drawing up plans to terminate half of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) workforce violated a 2005 law passed after Hurricane Katrina that protects the agency's independence from political decisions by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials. Local governments…
Watchdog finds federal government paid $9.5 billion in administrative leave during 2025 downsizing: Reducing the federal civilian workforce was among the administration's earliest cost-cutting targets, and a congressional watchdog has now put a price on how it was carried out. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported last week that paid administrative leave rose 435% during the first year of the administration, a sixfold increase since 2023, totaling $9.5 billion, of which roughly $6.7 billion was tied to the deferred resignation program. Federal data show 139,963 employees took the offer, with…
Judge Orders 30-day notice before demolishing Kennedy Center: A federal judge declined Rep. Joyce Beatty’s (D-Ohio), an ex officio trustee, request for an emergency hearing challenging the Kennedy Center board’s decision to close the building for renovations. U.S. District Judge Cooper ordered the government to provide 30 days’ notice if it plans to demolish the performing arts center. The decision follows a second vote by Trump appointed board to close the center, despite ongoing legal challenges over the president’s efforts to rename the building and control its future. The President said that the Kennedy Center…
Congress:
Senators press Flock on license plate data sharing and immigration enforcement access: Communities nationwide are reevaluating or canceling contracts with Flock Safety amid bipartisan concern that its automated license plate reader cameras are used to track people and facilitate police misconduct. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) wrote to Flock CEO Garrett Langley last week, citing incidents in which the company allegedly failed to prevent Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials from viewing license plate data, along with a Texas case in which law enforcement…
Senate committee advances farm bill amid dispute over state nutrition costs: The it covers will not run out until the end of the year. The Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry voted 12 to 11 along party lines last week to send a new bill setting national agriculture and nutrition policy to the full Senate. The return of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), absent since being hospitalized in June, broke a deadlock that had left the evenly divided committee unable…
Senate blocks consideration of cryptocurrency market structure bill: A measure that passed the House in July 2025 with a bipartisan vote and was shaped over months of negotiation among industry executives, Congress, and the White House failed to reach the Senate floor last week. Senators voted 50 to 49 to block consideration of the Clarity Act, which would establish business-friendly rules for cryptocurrencies, leaving supporters short of the 60 votes required to…
Surveillance law faces November deadline for congressional action: Congress allowed Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to expire in June for the first time since its enactment in 2008, though a quirk in the law lets the government operate the program through March 17. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) recently notified Congress that a vote after November 20 could leave the program without coverage, because the Justice Department and the surveillance court overseeing it need months to implement and approve any amendments. Privacy advocates…
Education:
Agriculture Department proposes shifting research funding from formula grants to competitive awards: Formula grants, formally called capacity grants, are awarded to land-grant universities under calculations written into law, including the Smith-Lever program for cooperative extension and Hatch Act support for state agricultural research stations. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has asked Congress to zero out Hatch Act funding in its fiscal 2027 budget request, cut Smith-Lever grants from $325 million to $175 million, reduce forestry-related formula grants to states, and add more than $298 million to the competitive Agriculture and Food Research Initiative. Congress denied a similar fiscal 2026 request and provided the Hatch Act program…
Judge blocks rule imposing time limits on student and scholar visas: A federal rule that would have reshaped how long international students, researchers, and professors can remain in the United States is on hold as litigation proceeds. Massachusetts District Judge Dennis Saylor temporarily blocked DHS rule on September 14, one day before it was to take effect, finding the higher education groups suing were likely to succeed in showing the department violated the…
Former secretaries and union seek watchdog review of Education Department staffing cuts: Three former secretaries and the president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 252 wrote to acting Inspector General Mark Priebe last week requesting more thorough accounting of the roughly 2,000 employees who left the Education Department through layoffs, retirements, and voluntary separations in 2025. The letter asks what the department spent on litigation, arbitrations, grievances, and Merit Systems Protection Board proceedings, what the reductions in force cost…
Federal judges rule against Trump administration education funding actions: Two federal judges ruled last week that the Education Department and OMB exceeded their authority in separate education funding disputes. A Massachusetts judge found the department unlawfully canceled previously awarded teacher-preparation grants based on the administration’s anti-DEI executive order and barred it from applying the same rationale to upcoming grant awards. In a separate case…
California:
Teachers union sues state over nearly $6 billion in deferred school funding: Proposition 98, approved by voters in 1988, requires roughly 40% of state revenues to go to education each year, a guarantee totaling $127.1 billion this year. The California Teachers Association filed suit in Alameda County Superior Court last week, alleging that the state violated its constitution when the last two budget agreements deferred $1.9 billion and then $3.9 billion intended for local school districts…
Rating agency warns of utility downgrades after Legislature declines wildfire liability changes: Utility borrowing costs flow through to customer rates, and a major rating agency signaled last week that two of California's largest utility companies could soon pay more to raise capital. Fitch Ratings changed its outlook for Edison International, parent of Southern California Edison, and Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) from stable to negative after the Legislature declined to adopt Governor Gavin Newsom's…
House votes to nullify federal waiver for California oceangoing ship emissions standards: A federal judge ruled this month that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cannot reclassify California's Clean Air Act waivers as rules subject to congressional review, but the ruling does not stop Congress from acting on waivers EPA already sent. The House voted 216 to 211 last week to pass H.J. Res. 210 from Rep. Vince Fong (R-CA), a Congressional Review Act resolution nullifying the waiver that lets…
California expands community college authority to award bachelor's degrees: Community colleges in California can now award bachelor's degrees tied to regional workforce demand, a significant change to higher-education hierarchies that have held for more than 60 years. Under two bills, AB 2694…