Washington Watch
Welcome to the First Session of the 119th Congress.
Congress returns to Washington today to begin its roughly month-long sprint to the July 4th break. With the House passing the comprehensive budget reconciliation bill by one vote before they left town, the Senate begins the task this week of moving this measure through the upper chamber. Only 50 votes are needed under the budget reconciliation process, but there are strings attached. Only provisions that affect spending, revenue or the debt limit qualify for this process. To enforce this, the Byrd Rule is in place. Named eponymously after the late Senator Robert Byrd, the rule allows senators to block provisions of reconciliation bills that are “extraneous” to reconciliation’s basic purpose of implementing budget changes. The bottom line is that all eyes will be on the Senate this week and the weeks to come as leadership tries to make changes to the House-passed product and bring the revised bill to the floor for a vote. It is unclear whether there will be any committee action on this product or if leaders will simply bring the revised measure directly to the floor for consideration.
In the House, the Fiscal Year 2026 appropriations process kicks off with a couple of subcommittee markups. On June 5, both the Agriculture appropriations bill and the Military Construction funding bill will be on deck. Every day next weeks markups are scheduled for other appropriations measures.
U.S. House of Representatives - Schedule for the week of June 2, 2025
U.S. Senate - Schedule for the week of June 2, 2025
- The Senate is in session.
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Cheat Sheet
June 5, 2025
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HF Meets with USDA, USTR and U.S. Commerce: Dana Lee Cole of the Hardwood Federation and Mike Snow of the American Hardwood Export Council joined other members of the wood products industry this morning in a roundtable to discussion with officials from the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Commerce and the U.S. Trade Representative. The discussion focused on shared concerns the wider wood industry sector has with the pending European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) including the continued inclusion requirement of geolocation information for all logs, lumber and wood products shipped to the E.U. starting in 2026.
Senate Begins Tax Bill Review Begins: The Senate returned to D.C. this week and began work on the House passed Reconciliation bill. There seems to be general agreement that renewal of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) provisions for business will be included in a Senate version, although Senate Majority Leader John Thume clarified yesterday that full repeal of the Estate Tax is unlikely. Maintaining the House provision which permanently increases the estate tax exemption to $15 million for individuals and $30 million for married couples, with future increases tied to inflation seems to be the more likely path.
Senate committees have begun rolling out their portions of the measure. Yesterday, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee unveiled its draft text. Provisions in that proposal repeal a number of programs authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act, including funding to develop and implement an environmental product declaration program advertising the environmental impact/attributes of products. The Senate Finance Committee, which holds the pen on the TCJA business tax benefits as well as how the renewable energy tax credits are treated, will be the last panel to roll out text.
Trade Tidbits:
- The Administration is focused on trade negotiations with the European Union this week. Reports from both sides indicate talks are proceeding well, but no details have emerged.
- President Trump increased tariffs on imported steel and aluminum to 50% starting Wednesday, with the exception of imports from the European Union…a move most likely made to encourage continued positive progress from the ongoing negotiations.
- The White House had been optimistically predicting a phone call between President Trump and President Xi Jinping of China all week, and a call did indeed take place this morning. This is the first conversation between the leaders since the President came into office for his second term. The White House had not issued any comment as of Cheat Sheet publication time although it is assumed the purpose of the call was to discuss trade relations between the two counties.
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