By MATT PIKE
The House and Senate are facing a mountain of legislative priorities ahead of the August recess.
Lawmakers are hoping to make meaningful progress on several key priorities. Eastern Kansas Congressman Derek Schmidt says there's a lot of water to drain, and a really small pipe to drain it.
"So, everybody is trying to make sure our part gets done," Schmidt tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "There's some big picture priorities that I know will be on the to do list, obviously finish up as many of the annual appropriations bills that fund the operations of the government that we can, we also need to get the annual Defense Authorization Act across the floor in the house, it's out of committee it's ready to go, but that needs to be done."
Schmidt says there's also the matter of some versions of bills that need to be sent back to the House from the Senate.
"For example, the remainder of the Farm Bill or the E-15 year-round bill, we'd like to get those done, but the balls in the Senate's court on those," Schmidt explains. "So, there's several of those big picture top line things."
The final priority, Schmidt adds, is working to push across personal bills if there is floor time available.
"I've got a couple of anti-fraud bills that I'm working on, including a new one that I just proposed that locks in an anti-fraud division at the Department of Justice," Schmidt says. "We'll try to get floor time for those, it's just a matter of if there's room, so we're hopeful."
The bill from Schmidt, alongside Minnesota Republican Brad Finstad, would permanently establish the National Fraud Enforcement Division within the U.S. Department of Justice, a division established under President Donald Trump, the bill would make it a permanent office under the Attorney General.
The House will be in session until July 23rd, with the recess beginning July 27th and running until August 31st when the House will return to session.
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