Terry Gerton Lawmakers are scrambling to bring the NDAA to the floor this week amid partisan clashes. The Senate is preparing a vote on health care subsidies, but appropriations bills remain stalled. At the same time, a Supreme Court case on Humphreys Executor looms large in the background. Loren Duggan, Deputy News Director at Bloomberg Government, is here with the Inside Scoop. Loren, thanks so much for joining me.

Loren Duggan Thank you for having me.

Terry Gerton This might be a big week on the Hill. The House is planning to bring the National Defense Authorization Act to the floor for a vote. It’s obviously a topic we talk a lot about, but last week there were a lot of let’s just say, conversations about what might be in it and how it might go. So tell us about what’s going on behind the scenes.

Loren Duggan Well, this bill is a must pass piece of legislation. They’ve been doing it for decades and they always want to get it done by the end of the year. And this year there aren’t a lot of other end-of-year vehicles, so it’s kind of become an attractive venue for discussions about a number of issues. So that’s kind of what’s been going on. It’s probably less about the core part of the NDAA and more about some of the ancillary things or related things that people want to get in there or keep out of there as the case may be. We saw a particularly big dust up you might be referring to between Elise Stefanik, who’s a member of leadership, but was mad at her own leader, Speaker Mike Johnson, about trying to keep something out. And in the end they worked something out and that was getting resolved toward the end of the week. But that was just one of the flashpoints that leaders were dealing with trying to assemble this very important bill.

Terry Gerton It is normally a bipartisan bill. Is there a chance that, you know, that that’s not going to be true this time, even with the slim majority in the House?

Loren Duggan It may still be bipartisan because they do try to work things out. And, you know, sometimes the initial versions that come out of the House are particularly partisan because of writers or language that the minority party might not like. But they were reaching for consensus here. They were trying to get the four corners to agree on things before they went in. That’s the chairman and ranking member of the House and Senate committees, not just the defense committees in this case, but sometimes the other committees that had legislation that was in the mix. So they’re trying to get a bipartisan package that can get through because you might lose people on either side, but maybe you have the consensus you need to get something through. So we’ll be watching that vote counting very closely as they move toward the vote.

Terry Gerton Is there any aspect of the move forward on the NDAA that is also impacted by the hearings on the Hill last week about the counter drug operations in the Caribbean?

Loren Duggan Those two things seem to be on different tracks. I mean, obviously they’re related. It’s about the Defense Department and the defense secretary and what people might think there. But the legislation and setting policy is sort of moving in one direction, but some of the same players are also very much involved in reviewing what had happened with the ordering of these strikes and the chain of command and all the issues. We had the members watching the video over on the Senate side and reacting to that last week. I think that will continue. It may be brought up in the context of the debate or larger questions, but I think the bill will move regardless of that. And Congress can because they do this every year, revisit it in next year’s NDAA or perhaps in other legislation because we’ve already seen members talking again about maybe war powers or other things they might tap into there.

Terry Gerton Well we’ll see how that comes about. But speaking of votes, there is also supposed to be a vote in the Senate this week on the health care premium subsidy extensions. What’s the prognosis there?

Loren Duggan Well, this was part of the agreement to reopen the government was that there would be a vote by I think December twelfth was it, so Friday, on some sort of vote around the ACA extensions that are expiring at the end of the year. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, said he’d aim for a three-year extension, which would take us obviously beyond the next election. That’s a different proposal and one of many proposals that are floating around. We’ll be watching to see, does the GOP answer with their own proposal, and what does this mean for the House, if anything? So, going toward the end of last week, there was still no consensus on how this would be fixed. It will have to be bipartisan, obviously, to get over the line and we may not be there by the end of the week. But maybe we’ll have some discussion and votes ahead of that.

Terry Gerton And Mike Johnson’s trying to put a package together on the House side as well, right?

Loren Duggan Right. And there’s more than just the ACA being talked about here. There’s health savings accounts ideas or other things that members might want to pursue. You kind of got this short term issue of, what do you do with the subsidies for next year, but then there are a lot of people who are trying to bring in, what does this mean overall about the Affordable Care Act, the nature of the markets, does there need to be a broader sweep of changes? … There’s not really consensus on anything broader than this. And we’ll have to see if there can even be consensus on the smaller question of what to do with the subsidies.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Loren Duggan, deputy news director at Bloomberg Government. Well, Loren, at this time of year, every time we talk, we talk about the status of the rest of the appropriations. Shutdown, or [the] continuing resolution expires at the end of January. What are you seeing in terms of the move forward on the other bills?

Loren Duggan I’m sort of seeing a kind of a whimper on that going into the end of the year. To be honest with you, January 30 is a long time away. There’s been a lot of talk about what would be in a next minibus package that the Senate might consider, but that hasn’t been moving forward. Votes haven’t been scheduled. And without that sort of end-of-the year deadline or mid-December deadline that often drives that activity, they have more time, and usually work expands to the time allotted. And I think we might see that here. So, not clear that we’ll get more votes by the end of the year on that. There are a lot of issues they’re trying to work through. But that will be, if they don’t do it now, obviously top of mind when they return in early January, ’cause the clock will be ticking.

Terry Gerton Loudly at that point. A different topic, and we don’t cover the court very often, but there’s a very important case on the Supreme Court docket for today dealing with the president’s effort to fire a member of the Federal Trade Commission. Tell us what your team is watching there.

Loren Duggan Well, part of our organization is Bloomberg Law and they cover many court developments around the country and certainly at the Supreme Court. They’re watching this very closely because it has huge implication for independent regulators. As you mentioned, Kelly Slaughter, who was a FTC commissioner, was fired by the president and has had a court battle that’s now reached all the way up there. And it goes back to a precedent called, I think it’s Humphrey’s executor — which there are many people in this building who are far more versed than I in that. But it’s gonna be closely watched because what is the nature of an independent regulator? What is their power vis-a-vis the rest of the executive branch? Big questions there that have effects on a lot of different institutions, and therefore a lot of different regulated entities by those institutions. So we’ll be watching the arguments and then the decision whenever that comes will be very closely watched.

Terry Gerton So what else are you watching for the coming week?

Loren Duggan Well, we’re watching the Senate try to move forward on another batch of nominees. I think it’s 90 or so. They tried to do it last week, but there was a procedural hiccup, so they’re starting over. But that would be, if they could get that done, another 90 Trump appointees on the job by the end of the year, which Republicans would like. And we’re also watching, you know, hearings. There’s a lot of other nominees going through and there’d be a flash of celebrity. Gene Simmons of KISS is actually scheduled to be up on the Hill. So we’d be watching to see what he brings. Always interesting when you have kind of that celebrity star power trying to shine light on an issue.

Terry Gerton That’s a hearing near and dear to the heart of radio broadcasters everywhere. So we’ll be watching it as well.

Loren Duggan Excellent.

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