Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) vowed at a press conference yesterday that Congress will keep the federal government open and prevent a default on federal debt. The House of Representatives approved a continuing resolution with a debt limit suspension on Tuesday with a party-line vote.

Welcome back! While the House officially remains in its district work period until September 20, several committees have been hard at work this week, and that work will continue next week.

Unless you’ve been asleep for the last week, you already know that the Senate voted on Tuesday morning to pass their version of a bill to authorize five years of infrastructure funding. The bill replaced the text of H.R. 3684, the INVEST in America Act, which the House passed on July 1.

The Senate voted 66-28 this morning to proceed with consideration of a bipartisan infrastructure package that would provide $550 billion in new spending on a wide range of projects

Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen wrote to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) today to notify her that the federal government’s outstanding debt will reach its statutory limit on August 1, immediately after the suspension approved in 2019 expires.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said yesterday that he wants the Senate to start voting next Wednesday on a $579 billion infrastructure package. He also wants agreement from Senate Democrats by Wednesday on how to move forward with the $3.5 trillion budget agreement that he, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (D-VT), and Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) announced on Tuesday.

Yesterday the House of Representatives voted 221-201 to approve H.R. 3684, the INVEST in America Act, which would provide more than $700 billion over five years for surface transportation programs, climate change mitigation, rural bridges, new safety requirements for all forms of transportation, and a pilot program to test a national vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax.

President Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law yesterday, and proclaimed its first day of observance as a federal holiday today. Many federal offices are closed today. Let freedom ring.

The Capitol Hill complex has reached an 85% vaccination rate against COVID-19, which means that vaccinated House members, staff, and visitors no longer need to wear masks in the Capitol or the House office buildings. The House of Representative’s Attending Physician, Brian Monahan, announced the new guidance today. Masks had been encouraged but never required on the Senate side.

President Joe Biden issued an Executive Order on Climate-Related Financial Risk yesterday that calls for “consistent, clear, intelligible, comparable, and accurate disclosure of climate-related financial risk” throughout both the private and public sectors. The EO calls for the development within 120 days of a government-wide strategy to measure, assess, mitigate, and disclose climate-related financial risk to federal government programs and assets.

US Trade Representative Katherine C. Tai spent about eight hours before the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways & Means Committee this week, answering questions about the Biden administration’s “worker-centric” trade policy, the status of 301 tariff exemptions (under review), the need to reauthorize the Trade Promotion Authority and the Generalized System of Preferences, and how the administration plans to respond to Chinese forced labor practices and trade abuses.