Overnight Finance: GOP struggles to find budget consensus | Blue Dogs huddle with Trump aides on tax reform | Trade chief downplays chances for NAFTA deal this year | Flood insurance overhaul advances

Budget process drags as GOP struggles for consensus: House Republicans have not reached a consensus on a strategy for advancing their budget resolution, making it increasingly unlikely that a resolution will be passed before the Fourth of July recess.

“What we’re trying to do is figure out how can we in this constrained budget process get our appropriations work done and have the House go forward,” Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said.

“We haven’t decided exactly how we’re going to go about our appropriations process in this first year, but we’re going to move together on consensus,” he added. The Hill’s Niv Elis and Scott Wong report: http://bit.ly/2sBFz0h.

 

Trump administration lays groundwork for NAFTA negotiations: The Trump administration is laying the groundwork to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

In May, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer notified Congress that President Trump intends to renegotiate the deal. The notice started a 90-day waiting period before U.S. negotiators can officially sit down with their counterparts in Mexico and Canada.

{mosads}On a conference call with reporters on Tuesday, Ray Starling, a special assistant to the president, said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue met in recent days with the ministers of agriculture from Mexico and Canada as part of a “relationship building exercise” before official negotiations begin.

“I think that has been productive and we look forward to seeing what their readout is on that,” Starling said. Here’s more from The Hill’s Jonathan Easley: http://bit.ly/2sBFjhI.

 

But hold on… Trump trade chief casts doubt on NAFTA deal this year: President Trump’s top trade official on Wednesday said renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by the end of the year could prove difficult.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told the Senate Finance Committee that he wants to shorten aspects of the negotiations with Mexico and Canada in the modernization of the 23-year-old pact.  

But he gave no hint as to when he expected a completed final deal that would be ready to send to Congress.  

“We’re going to have very short time frame, and we’re going to compact it as much as we possibly can,” Lighthizer said. The Hill’s Vicki Needham has more: http://bit.ly/2sC2dG1.

 

Happy Wednesday and welcome to Overnight Finance. I’m Sylvan Lane, and here’s your nightly guide to everything affecting your bills, bank account and bottom line. 

See something I missed? Let me know at slane@digital-staging.thehill.com or tweet me @SylvanLane. And if you like your newsletter, you can subscribe to it here: http://bit.ly/1NxxW2N.

 

On tap tomorrow

• Senate Banking Committee: Hearing entitled “Fostering Economic Growth: Regulator Perspective.” http://bit.ly/2s9jojy
• Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke testifies at a House Natural Resources Committee hearing on his department’s fiscal 2018 budget request. http://bit.ly/2sRCuLV
• The House Science Committee will mark up the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Improvements Acts. http://bit.ly/2sRviiL
• The Senate Agriculture Committee holds a hearing on the nomination of J. Christopher Giancarlo to be head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. http://bit.ly/2sBQYNG
• The Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee will hear from Energy Secretary Rick Perry on his agency’s 2018 fiscal budget request. http://bit.ly/2rSsS40
• A Senate Appropriations Subcommittee will hold a hearing on the fiscal 2018 budget request for the National Institutes of Health. NIH Director Francis S. Collins will testify. http://bit.ly/2sBUPKr

 

The Hill Exclusive: Blue Dogs talk tax reform with Trump aides: Blue Dog Democrats huddled with the leading members of President Trump’s economic team on Tuesday in the Capitol, where the lawmakers pressed the administration to seek bipartisan reforms to the nation’s tax code.

Just 18 members strong, the centrist Blue Dogs compose a tiny voice in the House, vastly outnumbered by even the liberals in their own caucus. But with GOP leaders struggling to rally their divided conference around big-ticket legislation, the Blue Dogs see themselves potentially stepping into the mix to broker a bipartisan deal for the sake of getting tax reform to Trump’s desk this year.

“If it’s constructive, if they’re genuinely interested in ideas and making it a bipartisan effort, then the Blue Dogs are certainly willing to participate,” said Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.), a member of the group.

The Blue Dogs met Tuesday evening with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, White House chief economic adviser Gary Cohn and Marc Short, the president’s director of legislative affairs, to press a simple, two-pronged message: First, for tax reform to be sustainable, it must be bipartisan; second, the Blue Dogs are willing to help.

The Hill’s Mike Lillis has the scoop: http://bit.ly/2sBX4h7

 

Ryan: Some tax-reform provisions don’t have to be permanent: Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Wednesday said that main elements of tax reform need to be permanent but other components don’t.

“There are other provisions in tax reform that don’t have to be permanent,” Ryan said in a news conference. “But the key ones, like rates, the things that businesses plan on, those things require the certainty of permanence. And that’s where you get faster economic growth.”

Ryan’s remarks follow his speech Tuesday to the National Association of Manufacturers, where he pressed for tax reform to be permanent.

“Businesses need to have confidence that we won’t pull the rug out from under them,” he said. The Hill’s Naomi Jagoda explains: http://bit.ly/2sBY4lc.

 

House panel passes flood insurance overhaul bills: The House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday passed four bills intended to reduce the National Flood Insurance Program’s (NFIP) financial burdens and assist homeowners struggling to get claims approved by the federal insurance agency.

The legislation will head to the House floor as part of a broader flood insurance reform initiative.

Committee lawmakers have worked on revamping the debt-riddled NFIP since January 2016, weeks after holiday season floods devastated the Midwest and South. The program offers flood policies to residents of flood-prone areas where insurance is required. It runs out of funding on Sept. 30.

Lawmakers are using the deadline as a push to cut the NFIP’s $24 billion debt and shift more flood insurance customers to a burgeoning private market. Private flood insurance was largely non-existent when the NFIP was established in 1968, and Republicans are eager to reduce taxpayer exposure to risky homes by easing federal policy holders into private plans: http://bit.ly/2sBZPim.

 

Trump’s Cabinet takes beating over budget plan: Trump administration officials are taking a beating on Capitol Hill over the president’s budget request.

In hearing after hearing, Cabinet officials are absorbing heavy fire — much of it from Republicans.

Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), a former chairman of the Appropriations panel, told Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke at a June 8 hearing that he was “flabbergasted” by a budget proposal to end a workforce redevelopment pilot program designed to help coal workers.

“Not all of these decisions we will agree on, but this is what a balanced budget looks like,” Zinke replied, defending the 13 percent cut to the Interior Department: http://bit.ly/2sBLh23.

 

House GOP chair wants quick action on Russia sanctions: Two House committee chairmen with oversight of the Russia sanctions legislation approved by the Senate said Wednesday that they want to move it expeditiously — a day after one of them suggested a procedural snag would delay the bill.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) on Wednesday expressed confidence the House would take up the bill.

“One way or the other, we have to do it very quickly,” Royce said as he came out of a House GOP conference meeting Wednesday morning.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas), who had noted the procedural problem on Tuesday, said Wednesday that there was a “desire for urgency.”

Yet he also said the “preferred way” to deal with the issue would be for “the Senate to take it back up, fix the issue, the constitutional issue.”

The sanctions bill was passed last week by the Senate in a 98-2. It also includes new sanctions against Iran.

House staff have raised a “blue slip” violation — a constitutional requirement that bills raising revenue originate in the lower chamber.

The Hill’s Cristina Marcos has more on the controversy: http://bit.ly/2srA6L6

 

Dems urge Sessions to reject AT&T-Time Warner merger: A group of Democratic senators is calling on the Justice Department to block the proposed AT&T-Time Warner merger, arguing the megadeal would hurt consumers.

“Before initiating the next big wave of media consolidation, you must consider how the $85 billion deal will impact Americans’ wallets, as well as their access to a wide-range of news and entertainment programming,” the senators wrote in a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

“Should you determine that the substantial harms to competition and consumers arising from the transaction outweigh the purported benefits, you should reject the proposed acquisition.”

The Hill’s Harper Neidig has more here: http://bit.ly/2sV4rmP

 

Ivanka Trump turns to House GOP on paid family leave: Ivanka Trump returned to Capitol Hill on Wednesday for a meeting with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and several other lawmakers about policy issues facing working families.

Ivanka Trump, who serves as a senior advisor to her father, President Trump, confirmed the meeting with McCarthy on her Twitter account. 

“Excited to meet with @GOPLeader & members on the Hill today to discuss key issues for America’s working families!” she said.

Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.) also participated in the meeting, which included the topic of paid family leave, Syracuse.com reported. 

Katko last month introduced legislation, The Working Families Flexibility Act, that would provide employees with the option of making time-and-a-half or taking time off when they work more than 40 hours in one week. The bill, which Republicans argued would help working families, passed the House 229-197.

The Hill’s Mallory Shelbourne explains: http://bit.ly/2rSc8tU

 

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