Overnight Finance: Late-night budget vote in Senate

HAPPY THURSDAY FROM OVERNIGHT FINANCE: We’ve got a slate of late-night legislative action coming your way that will take us right into Friday morning. Don’t worry, the Senate won’t vote until after the football game ends so you can watch both. I love when plans fall into place.

{mosads}I’m Vicki Needham, this is Overnight Finance and I’ve got some Halloween shopping to do or my costume won’t dazzle. 

NOW STEP RIGHT UP, DON’T BE SCARED (BOO!) AND READ ON …

THE LATE-LATE SHOW: From The Hill’s Jordain Carney: The Senate is headed for late night of budget votes, paving the way for final passage in the early hours of Friday morning.

The Senate plans to adjourn for a few hours then come back at midnight with a cloture vote planned for 1 a.m. on the two-year debt limit-budget deal that the House easily passed on Wednesday. 

Then some senators will talk on the floor and the upper chamber will remain in session until a vote on final passage is lined up. 

We’ll have the details and, well, so will C-SPAN. So stay tuned … http://bit.ly/1M0lsKP

SOME BUDGET HURDLES: From The Hill’s Sarah Ferris: The two-year budget deal that is set for passage before the Senate “is throwing up hurdles for a pair of healthcare bills, taking away almost $13 billion in offsets that had been proposed to pay for the legislation.”

Both bills have already passed the House and are expected to reach the Senate sometime this year. 

One of those — the 21st Century Cures Act — passed with nearly 350 votes as lawmakers rallied behind the push for streamlined drug approvals and a boost in medical research funding.

The cures bill was slated to use a total of $5.4 billion from sales of U.S. petroleum reserves. But congressional leaders took the idea for their budget deal, generating about $5 billion between 2018 and 2025 by selling about 58 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). http://bit.ly/1PXAh62

THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED: Carney has the story: An attempt by Democrats to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank was blocked on the Senate floor Thursday. 

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) asked for unanimous consent to pass a stand-alone bill that would reauthorize the bank’s charter, which expired at the end of June, through September 2019. 

But no dice … Cantwell was blocked by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who opposes the Ex-Im Bank. He says he won’t devote any more time to the measure and that the best chance for its renewal is through a long-term federal highway spending bill, which is in the works. The House is expected to take up a bill next week followed by a House-Senate conference on the long-delayed measure. http://bit.ly/1XCTcFo

ALL EYES WERE ON MCCONNELL: In a team effort from me and Carney: After a big House vote on Tuesday, McConnell is coming under heavy pressure to resurrect the Ex-Im Bank.

Supporters of the bank are seizing on the 313-118 House vote in favor of Ex-Im to argue that the time has come to renew the charter of the agency, which finances American exports abroad.

“I would hope over here the Republican leader would move forward on this now,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Wednesday. “We should get this done this week.” 

The charter of the 81-year-old bank expired in June, after conservative critics in the House bottled up legislation to renew it. http://bit.ly/1RCXMQ9

Speaking of highway bills …

WE ALL NEED SOME TRANSPORTATION: From Keith Laing: “President Obama signed into a law a bill to extend federal transportation funding, which had been set to expire on Thursday night, preventing an interruption in the nation’s road and transit spending.”

The bill, passed this week by both the House and Senate, extends federal transportation funding until Nov. 20. Lawmakers will have three additional weeks to finish work on a multiyear highway bill that has been worked on in both chambers. http://bit.ly/1XCTjke

“Our country needs a consensus-based, bipartisan, long-term surface transportation bill that will provide states and local communities the funding and certainty to plan and construct multi-year projects to modernize our infrastructure,” Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said in a joint statement after the Senate approved the temporary highway funding patch. http://bit.ly/1kfcemx

EYE OF THE TIGER: via Laing: “The Department of Transportation (DOT) is awarding $500 million worth of grants to 39 infrastructure construction projects in 34 states. The grants, from the agency’s 2015 Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant program, were awarded to projects that were selected from 629 applications from all 50 states and several territories and tribal governments, the DOT said.”

Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said interest in the grant program illustrates the need for Congress to approve a long-term transportation funding bill. 

“Transportation is always about the future. If we’re just fixing today’s problems, we’ll fall further and further behind,” he said in a statement. http://bit.ly/1WkIfLA

Now that we have a new Speaker …

RYAN MOVES UP THE RANKS: From The Hill’s Scott Wong: “Lawmakers on Thursday elected Rep. Paul Ryan the 54th Speaker of the House, ending weeks of uncertainty over who would lead the raucous 247-member GOP conference after John Boehner’s surprise resignation.

On a day filled with pomp and excitement, the Wisconsin Republican received 236 votes for Speaker — more than the 218 needed to win on the first ballot. His only challenger, little-known Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.), whom Ryan defeated in an internal GOP election Wednesday, received nine votes from conservatives on the floor.” http://bit.ly/1Hf43M9

That means it’s time for a new chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee …

TWO-MAN RACE FOR THE CHAIRMAN’S GAVEL: Julian Hattem and I have the story: Devin Nunes decided against a bid to lead the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee and will instead stay on as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, he said on Thursday, following a request from new Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

The California Republican had been one of three lawmakers considering trying to replace Ryan at the powerful Ways and Means gavel, after Ryan was sworn in as speaker.

His decision not to launch a run makes it a two-man race for the Ways and Means gavel between Reps. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) and Pat Tiberi (R-Ohio). http://bit.ly/1PXn2lC

Meanwhile …

JOHNSON TAKES THE HELM: From me: “Rep. Sam Johnson will temporarily take the helm the House Ways and Means Committee until a replacement is chosen. The Texas lawmaker, the senior Republican on the panel, was named to the top slot on Thursday after newly elected Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) resigned as chairman of the powerful tax-writing committee.”

The Republican Steering Committee is expected to meet soon to determine the next chairman of the committee. 

We’ll keep you posted on that schedule. http://bit.ly/1RCXPex

While we ponder who might win the Ways and Means gavel … 

GREEN GROUPS ARE MAKING TPP DEMANDS: A joint effort by me and Timothy Cama: “More than a dozen environmental and conservation groups on Thursday laid out eight pages of demands that they say lawmakers must use to judge the strength of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement. The groups, led by the Sierra Club, are sending a letter to members of Congress well in advance of an expected vote on the sweeping Asia-Pacific deal that was completed nearly a month ago with 11 other nations, according to the document first obtained by The Hill.”

In response to the letter, the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office argued that there is plenty of support from environmental groups for the TPP.

“The Obama administration is aggressively working to combat wildlife fishing, illegal logging and illegal fishing in TPP,” a USTR spokesman told The Hill.

“The Nature Conservancy, Rainforest Alliance, World Wildlife Fund and Defenders of Wildlife are among nearly a dozen groups that have expressed support for the strength of TPP’s environmental and conservation provisions.” http://bit.ly/1SctdBF

IT’S NATIONAL CAT DAY, RIGHT?: From Ferris: A group of House Democrats brought in the dogs — well, a dog — in their push for the White House to release the text of a sweeping Asia-Pacific trade agreement. 

Roxy, a 2-year-old bloodhound, has a new mission — sniff out the final text of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

There are so many dog puns here but I’m not going there. Don’t dog me about it, either.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), who has been outspoken on what she argues is a lack of transparency over TPP’s contents, said that “members of the administration are flying around the country on taxpayer dollars saying what a good agreement it is, but if it is so good for Americans, why can’t we see the text?” she said. “Perhaps Roxy can help find it.”

Once the text is released, the public and congressional lawmakers will have 60 days to scour the comprehensive document before President Obama signs it. Then Congress will have to determine when to hold up-and-down votes on the pact. http://bit.ly/1Wm4aMW

Life in the fast lane … 

WELL, NOT SO MUCH FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH: From The Hill’s Peter Schroeder: The nation’s economy grew only 1.5 percent in the July-September quarter as the recovery hit a slower stretch.

The Commerce Department reported Thursday that its first of three estimates on third-quarter growth came in less than half as strong as the previous quarter, where the economy grew 3.9 percent. The government said the reason for the significant decline was primarily because businesses reduced their inventory as consumer and business spending picked up. http://bit.ly/1NbHWg9

Write us with tips, suggestions and news: vneedham@digital-staging.thehill.com; pschroeder@digital-staging.thehill.com. Follow us on Twitter: @VickofTheHill; @PeteSchroeder. Subscribe to our newsletter here: http://digital-staging.thehill.com/signup/48