prompt_front: You are given two reports by the government agency.



Question: Write a one-page summary of the report 1.

Report 1: The Energy and Water Development appropriations bill includes funding for civil works projects of the U S  Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the Department of the Interior's Central Utah Project (CUP) and Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), the Department of Energy (DOE), and a number of independent agencies, including the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC)  Figure 1 compares the major components of the Energy and Water Development bill from FY2017 through the FY2020 request  President Trump submitted his FY2020 detailed budget proposal to Congress on March 18, 2019 (after submitting a general budget overview on March 11)  The budget requests for agencies included in the Energy and Water Development appropriations bill total $38 02 billion—$6 64 billion (15%) below the FY2019 appropriation  (See Table 3  ) A $1 309 billion increase (12%) is proposed for DOE nuclear weapons activities  For FY2019, the conference agreement on H R  5895 ( H Rept  115-929 ) provided total Energy and Water Development appropriations of $44 66 billion—3% above the FY2018 level and 23% above the FY2019 request  The bill was signed by the President on September 21, 2018 ( P L  115-244 )  Figures for FY2019 exclude emergency supplemental appropriations totaling $17 419 billion provided to USACE and DOE for natural disaster response by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 ( P L  115-123 ), signed February 9, 2018  For more details, see CRS Report R45258, Energy and Water Development: FY2019 Appropriations , by Mark Holt and Corrie E  Clark, and CRS Report R45326, Army Corps of Engineers Annual and Supplemental Appropriations: Issues for Congress , by Nicole T  Carter  The FY2020 budget request proposes substantial reductions from the FY2019 enacted level for DOE energy research and development (R&D) programs, including a reduction of $178 million (-24%) in fossil fuels and $502 million (-38%) in nuclear energy  Energy efficiency and renewable energy R&D would decline by $1 724 billion (-83%)  DOE science programs would be reduced by $1 039 billion (-16%)  Programs targeted by the budget for elimination or phaseout include energy efficiency grants, the Advanced Research Projects Agency—Energy (ARPA-E), and loan guarantee programs  Funding would be reduced for USACE by $2 172 billion (-31%), and Reclamation and CUP by $462 million (-29%)  Congress did not enact similar reductions included in the FY2018 and FY2019 budget requests  Congressional consideration of the annual Energy and Water Development appropriations bill is affected by certain procedural and statutory budget enforcement measures  These consist primarily of limits associated with the budget resolution on total discretionary spending and allocations of this amount that apply to spending under the jurisdiction of each appropriations subcommittee  Statutory budget enforcement is derived from the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA; P L  112-25 )  The BCA established separate limits on defense and nondefense discretionary spending  These limits are in effect for each of the fiscal years from FY2012 through FY2021, and are primarily enforced by an automatic spending reduction process called sequestration, in which a breach of a spending limit would trigger across-the-board cuts within that spending category  The BCA's statutory discretionary spending limits were increased for FY2018 and FY2019 by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (BBA 2018; P L  115-123 ), enacted February 9, 2018  However, the BCA discretionary spending limits have not been increased for FY2020  As a result, the limits currently in place for FY2020 are substantially lower than the limits that were in place for FY2019  For discretionary defense spending, the FY2020 limit drops from $647 billion to $576 billion (-11%), while the nondefense limit drops from $597 billion to $542 billion (-9%)  A bill to raise the defense and nondefense spending limits for FY2020 and FY2021 was reported by the House Budget Committee April 5, 2019 ( H R  2021 , H Rept  116-35 )  (For more information, see CRS Report R44874, The Budget Control Act: Frequently Asked Questions , by Grant A  Driessen and Megan S  Lynch ) Several issues raised by the Administration's budget request could generate controversy during congressional consideration of Energy and Water Development appropriations for FY2020  The issues described in this section—listed approximately in the order the affected agencies appear in the Energy and Water Development bill—were selected based on the total funding involved, the percentage of proposed increases or decreases, and potential impact on broader public policy considerations  For USACE, the Trump Administration requested $4 827 billion for FY2020, which is $2 172 billion (-31%) below the FY2019 appropriation  The request includes no funding for initiating new studies and construction projects (referred to as new starts)  The FY2020 request seeks to limit funding for ongoing navigation and flood risk-reduction construction projects to those whose benefits are at least 2 5 times their costs, or projects that address safety concerns  Many congressionally authorized USACE projects would not meet that standard  The Administration also proposes to transfer the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program from USACE to DOE  For Reclamation, FY2020 funding would be reduced by $461 6 million (29%) from the FY2019 level, to $1 11 billion  For more details, see CRS In Focus IF11137, Army Corps of Engineers: FY2020 Appropriations , by Nicole T  Carter and Anna E  Normand; CRS In Focus IF11158, Bureau of Reclamation: FY2020 Appropriations , by Charles V  Stern; and CRS Report R45326, Army Corps of Engineers Annual and Supplemental Appropriations: Issues for Congress , by Nicole T  Carter  DOE's FY2020 budget request includes three mandatory proposals related to the Power Marketing Administrations (PMAs)—Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), Southeastern Power Administration (SEPA), Southwestern Power Administration (SWPA), and Western Area Power Administration (WAPA)  PMAs sell the power generated by the dams operated by Reclamation and USACE  The Administration proposes to divest the assets of the three PMAs that own transmission infrastructure: BPA, SWPA, and WAPA  These assets consist of thousands of miles of high voltage transmission lines and hundreds of power substations  The budget request projects that mandatory savings from the sale of these assets would total approximately $5 8 billion over a 10-year period  The FY2020 budget request includes a proposal to repeal the borrowing authority for WAPA's Transmission Infrastructure Program, which facilitates the delivery of renewable energy resources  The FY2020 budget also proposes eliminating the statutory requirement that PMAs limit rates to amounts necessary to recover only construction, operations, and maintenance costs; the budget proposes that the PMAs instead transition to a market-based approach to setting rates  The Administration has estimated that this proposal would yield $1 9 billion in new revenues over 10 years  The budget also calls for repealing $3 25 billion in borrowing authority provided to WAPA for transmission projects enacted under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 ( P L  111-5 )  The proposal is estimated to save $640 million over 10 years  All of these proposals would need to be enacted in authorizing legislation, and no congressional action has been taken on them to date  The proposals have been opposed by groups such as the American Public Power Association and the National Rural Electrical Cooperative Association, and they have been the subject of opposition letters to the Administration from several regionally based bipartisan groups of Members of Congress  PMA reforms have been supported by some policy research institutes, such as the Heritage Foundation  For further information, see CRS Report R45548, The Power Marketing Administrations: Background and Current Issues , by Richard J  Campbell  The FY2020 budget request proposes to terminate both the DOE Weatherization Assistance Program and the State Energy Program (SEP)  The Weatherization Assistance Program provides formula grants to states to fund energy efficiency improvements for low-income housing units to reduce their energy costs and save energy  The SEP provides grants and technical assistance to states for planning and implementation of their energy programs  Both the weatherization and SEP programs are under DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)  The weatherization program received $257 million and SEP $55 million for FY2019, after also having been proposed for elimination in that year's budget request, as well as in FY2018  According to DOE, the proposed elimination of the grant programs is "due to a departmental shift in focus away from deployment activities and towards early-stage R&D " Appropriations for DOE R&D on energy efficiency, renewable energy, nuclear energy, and fossil energy would be reduced from $4 133 billion in FY2019 to $1 729 billion (-58%) under the Administration's FY2020 budget request  Major proposed reductions include bioenergy technologies (-82%), vehicle technologies (-79%), natural gas technologies (-79%), advanced manufacturing (-75%), building technologies (-75%), wind energy (-74%), solar energy (-73%), geothermal technologies (-67%), and nuclear fuel cycle R&D (-66%)  DOE says the proposed reductions would primarily affect the later stages of energy research, which tend to be the most costly  "The Budget focuses DOE resources toward early-stage R&D, where the Federal role is strongest, and reflects an increased reliance on the private sector to fund later-stage research, development, and commercialization of energy technologies," according to the FY2020 DOE request  Similar reductions proposed by the Administration for FY2019 were not enacted  The Administration's FY2020 budget request, for the first time since FY2010, would provide new funding for a proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, NV; similar Administration requests for the repository project were not included in the enacted funding measures for FY2018 and FY2019  Under the FY2020 request, DOE would receive $116 million to seek an NRC license for the repository and to develop interim nuclear waste storage capacity  NRC would receive $38 5 million to consider DOE's application  DOE's total of $116 million in nuclear waste funding would come from two appropriations accounts: $90 million from Nuclear Waste Disposal and $26 million from Defense Nuclear Waste Disposal (to pay for defense-related nuclear waste that would be disposed of at Yucca Mountain)  DOE submitted a license application for the Yucca Mountain repository in 2008, but NRC suspended consideration in 2011 for lack of funding  The Obama Administration had declared the Yucca Mountain site "unworkable" because of opposition from the state of Nevada  The House voted to provide the Yucca Mountain funding requested for FY2018 and a $100 million increase for FY2019, but the Senate Appropriations Committee did not include it for FY2018, and it was not included in the Senate-passed bill for FY2019  Also as in FY2018, the FY2019 Senate bill included an authorization for a pilot program to develop an interim nuclear waste storage facility at a voluntary site (§304)  The enacted FY2019 appropriations measure did not include the House-passed funding for Yucca Mountain or the Senate's nuclear waste pilot program provisions  For more background, see CRS Report RL33461, Civilian Nuclear Waste Disposal , by Mark Holt  The FY2020 budget request would halt further loans and loan guarantees under DOE's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program and the Title 17 Innovative Technology Loan Guarantee Program  Similar proposals to eliminate the programs in FY2018 and FY2019 were not enacted  The FY2020 budget request would also halt further loan guarantees under DOE's Tribal Energy Loan Guarantee Program  Under the FY2020 budget proposal, DOE would continue to administer its existing portfolio of loans and loan guarantees  Unused prior-year authority, or ceiling levels, for loan guarantee commitments would be rescinded, as well as $169 5 million in unspent appropriations to cover loan guarantee "subsidy costs" (which are primarily intended to cover potential losses)  On March 22, 2019, after the FY2020 budget request had been submitted, DOE provided $3 7 billion in additional Title 17 loan guarantees for two new reactors under construction at the Vogtle nuclear plant in Georgia  The Vogtle project had previously received $8 3 billion in loan guarantees under the DOE program  The Administration's request for DOE includes $107 million in FY2020 for the U S  contribution to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), which is under construction in France by a multinational consortium  "ITER will be the first fusion device to maintain fusion for long periods of time" and is to lay the technical foundation "for the commercial production of fusion-based electricity," according to the consortium's website  The FY2020 DOE appropriation request, 19% below the FY2020 level, would pay for components supplied by U S  companies for the project, such as central solenoid superconducting magnet modules  ITER has long attracted congressional concern about management, schedule, and cost  The United States is to pay 9% of the project's construction costs, including contributions of components, cash, and personnel  Other collaborators in the project include the European Union, Russia, Japan, India, South Korea, and China  The total U S  share of the cost was estimated in 2015 at between $4 0 billion and $6 5 billion, up from $1 45 billion to $2 2 billion in 2008  DOE funding for the project was $122 million in FY2018 and $132 million in FY2019  The Trump Administration's FY2020 budget would eliminate the Advanced Research Projects Agency—Energy (ARPA-E) and rescind $287 million of the agency's unobligated balances  ARPA-E funds research on technologies that are determined to have potential to transform energy production, storage, and use  "This elimination facilitates opportunities to integrate the positive aspects of ARPA-E into DOE's applied energy research programs," according to the DOE request  The Administration also proposed to terminate ARPA-E in its FY2018 and FY2019 budget requests, but Congress increased the program's funding in both years  Because ARPA-E provides advance funding for projects for up to three years, oversight and management of the program would still be required during a phaseout period  According to the Administration budget request, "ARPA-E will utilize the remainder of its unobligated balances to execute the multi-year termination of the program, with all operations ceasing by FY 2022 " The FY2020 budget request for DOE Weapons Activities is 12% greater than the FY2019 enacted level ($12 4 billion vs  $11 1 billion)  Weapons Activities programs are carried out by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a semiautonomous agency within DOE  Under Weapons Activities, FY2020 funding for nuclear warhead life-extension programs (LEPs) would increase by 10% ($2 1 billion vs $1 9 billion)  The two most notable increases within that account are the funding request for W80-4 LEP, which increases by 37% ($898 6 million vs  $654 8 million) and the initiation of funding for the W87-1 LEP  The increase in the request for the W80-4 warhead, which is due to be carried on the new long-range standoff weapon (a new cruise missile), apparently is the result of a new budget estimate, as the Department of Defense is not accelerating development of the missile  The FY2020 request seeks $112 million for the W87-1 warhead (formerly the Interoperable Warhead 1, or IW-I), which received $53 million in FY2019  This warhead is to be carried by the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, a new land-based missile that is scheduled to enter the force in the 2030s  The FY2020 budget request seeks $10 million for the W76-2 LEP, down from $65 million in FY2019  Work on this warhead is nearly complete  It is a low-yield modification of the current W76 warhead carried by U S  submarine-launched ballistic missiles  It remains controversial in Congress despite its relatively low price tag  In FY2020, NNSA is seeking $51 5 million, in the Stockpile Systems account, for surveillance efforts for the B83 gravity bomb, the most powerful bomb in the U S  inventory  This effort represents a 47% increase over the $35 million request in FY2019  The Obama Administration had planned to retire this bomb, but the Trump Administration reversed that decision in its 2018 Nuclear Posture Review  This decision may also prove controversial, as several Senators have been vocal supporters of the plan to retire the bomb  Within the Strategic Materials account in the NNSA budget, funding for Plutonium Sustainment would increase 97%, from $361 million enacted for FY2019 to $712 million requested for FY2020  This increase would support the Administration's plans to produce plutonium pits (or cores) for nuclear warheads at two facilities—Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina  The Administration is seeking $410 million to begin conceptual design and pre-Critical Decision (CD)-1 activities at Savannah River  For more information, see CRS Report R44442, Energy and Water Development Appropriations: Nuclear Weapons Activities , by Amy F  Woolf  DOE's Office of Environmental Management (EM) is responsible for environmental cleanup and waste management at the department's nuclear facilities  The total FY2020 appropriations request for EM activities of $6 469 billion would be a decrease of $706 million (-10%) from FY2019  The budgetary components of the EM program are Defense Environmental Cleanup (-9%), Non-Defense Environmental Cleanup (-20%), and the Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning Fund (-15%)  The FY2020 request includes a proposal to transfer management of the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) from USACE to the Office of Legacy Management (LM), the DOE office responsible for long-term stewardship of remediated sites  The FY2020 LM budget request includes $141 million for FUSRAP, down from $150 million appropriated to USACE for the program in FY2019  According to the DOE budget justification, "USACE will continue to conduct cleanup of FUSRAP sites on a reimbursable basis " Table 1 indicates the steps during consideration of FY2020 Energy and Water Development appropriations  (For more details, see the CRS Appropriations Status Table at http://www crs gov/AppropriationsStatusTable/Index  ) As of the publication date of this report, no markups had been held  Table 2 includes budget totals for energy and water development appropriations enacted for FY2011 through FY2019, plus the FY2020 request  The annual Energy and Water Development appropriations bill includes four titles: Title I—Corps of Engineers—Civil; Title II—Department of the Interior (Central Utah Project and Bureau of Reclamation); Title III—Department of Energy; and Title IV—Independent Agencies, as shown in Table 3   Major programs in the bill are described in this section in the approximate order they appear in the bill  Previous appropriations and budget recommendations for FY2020 are shown in the accompanying tables, and additional details about many of these programs are provided in separate CRS reports as indicated  For a discussion of current funding issues related to these programs, see " Funding Issues and Initiatives ," above  Congressional clients may obtain more detailed information by contacting CRS analysts listed in CRS Report R42638, Appropriations: CRS Experts , by James M  Specht and Justin Murray  FY2020 budget justifications for the largest agencies funded by the annual Energy and Water Development appropriations bill can be found through the following links: Title I, U S  Army Corps of Engineers, Civil Works, http://www usace army mil/Missions/CivilWorks/Budget Title II Bureau of Reclamation, https://www usbr gov/budget/ Central Utah Project, https://www doi gov/sites/doi gov/files/uploads/fy2020_cupca_budget_justification pdf Title III, Department of Energy, https://www energy gov/cfo/downloads/fy-2020-budget-justification Title IV, Independent Agencies Appalachian Regional Commission, http://www arc gov/images/newsroom/publications/fy2020budget/FY2020PerformanceBudgetMar2019 pdf Nuclear Regulatory Commission, https://www nrc gov/docs/ML1906/ML19065A279 pdf Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, https://www dnfsb gov/about/congressional-budget-requests Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, http://www nwtrb gov/about-us/plans USACE is an agency in the Department of Defense with both military and civilian responsibilities  Under its civil works program, which is funded by the Energy and Water appropriations bill, USACE plans, builds, operates, and in some cases maintains water resources facilities for coastal and inland navigation, riverine and coastal flood risk reduction, and aquatic ecosystem restoration  In recent decades, Congress has generally authorized Corps studies, construction projects, and other activities in omnibus water authorization bills, typically titled Water Resources Development Acts (WRDA), prior to funding them through appropriations legislation  Recent Congresses enacted the following omnibus water resources authorization acts: in June 2014, the Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2014 (WRRDA, P L  113-121 ); in December 2016, the Water Resources Development Act of 2016 (Title I of P L  114-322 , the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act [WIIN]); and in October 2018, the Water Resources Development Act of 2018 (Title I of P L  115-270 , America's Water Infrastructure Act of 2018 [AWIA 2018])  These acts consisted largely of authorizations for new USACE projects, and they altered numerous USACE policies and procedures  Unlike in highways and municipal water infrastructure programs, federal funds for USACE are not distributed to states or projects based on formulas or delivered via competitive grants  Instead, USACE generally is directly involved in planning, designing, and managing the construction of projects that are cost-shared with nonfederal project sponsors  Prior to FY2010, in addition to site-specific project funding included in the President's annual budget request for USACE, Congress, during the discretionary appropriations process, had identified many additional USACE projects to receive funding or had adjusted the funding levels for the projects identified in the President's request  Starting in the 112 th Congress, site-specific project line items added or increased by Congress (i e , earmarks) became subject to House and Senate earmark moratorium policies  As a result, Congress generally has not added funding at the project level since FY2010  In lieu of the project-based increases, Congress has included "additional funding" for select categories of USACE projects and provided direction and limitations on the use of these funds  For more information, CRS In Focus IF11137, Army Corps of Engineers: FY2020 Appropriations , by Nicole T  Carter and Anna E  Normand  Previous appropriations and the President's request for FY2020 are shown in Table 4   Most of the large dams and water diversion structures in the West were built by, or with the assistance of, the Bureau of Reclamation  While the Corps of Engineers built hundreds of flood control and navigation projects, Reclamation's original mission was to develop water supplies, primarily for irrigation to reclaim arid lands in the West for farming and ranching  Reclamation has evolved into an agency that assists in meeting the water demands in the West while working to protect the environment and the public's investment in Reclamation infrastructure  The agency's municipal and industrial water deliveries have more than doubled since 1970  Today, Reclamation manages hundreds of dams and diversion projects, including more than 300 storage reservoirs, in 17 western states  These projects provide water to approximately 10 million acres of farmland and 31 million people  Reclamation is the largest wholesale supplier of water in the 17 western states and the second-largest hydroelectric power producer in the nation  Reclamation facilities also provide substantial flood control, recreation, and other benefits  Reclamation facility operations are often controversial, particularly for their effect on fish and wildlife species and because of conflicts among competing water users during drought conditions  As with the Corps of Engineers, the Reclamation budget is made up largely of individual project funding lines, rather than general programs that would not be covered by congressional earmark requirements  Therefore, as with USACE, these Reclamation projects have often been subject to earmark disclosure rules  The current moratorium on earmarks restricts congressional steering of money directly toward specific Reclamation projects  Reclamation's single largest account, Water and Related Resources, encompasses the agency's traditional programs and projects, including construction, operations and maintenance, dam safety, and ecosystem restoration, among others  Reclamation also typically requests funds in a number of smaller accounts, and has proposed additional accounts in recent years  Implementation and oversight of the Central Utah Project (CUP), also funded by Title II, is conducted by a separate office within the Department of the Interior  For more information, see CRS In Focus IF11158, Bureau of Reclamation: FY2020 Appropriations , by Charles V  Stern  Previous appropriations and recommendations for FY2020 are shown in Table 5   The Energy and Water Development bill has funded all DOE programs since FY2005  Major DOE activities include (1) research and development (R&D) on renewable energy, energy efficiency, nuclear power, fossil energy, and electricity; (2) the Strategic Petroleum Reserve; (3) energy statistics; (4) general science; (5) environmental cleanup; and (6) nuclear weapons and nonproliferation programs  Table 6 provides the recent funding history for DOE programs, which are briefly described further below  DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) conducts research and development on transportation energy technology, energy efficiency in buildings and manufacturing processes, and the production of solar, wind, geothermal, and other renewable energy  EERE also administers formula grants to states for making energy efficiency improvements to low-income housing units and for state energy planning  The Sustainable Transportation program area includes electric vehicles, vehicle efficiency, and alternative fuels  DOE's electric vehicle program aims to "reduce the cost of electric vehicle batteries by more than half, to less than $100/kWh [kilowatt-hour] (ultimate goal is $80/kWh), increase range to 300 miles, and decrease charge time to 15 minutes or less " DOE's vehicle fuel cell program is focusing on the costs of fuel cells and their hydrogen fuel  According to the FY2020 budget request, "To be cost competitive with gasoline-powered internal combustion engines on a cents-per-mile driven basis, the cost of hydrogen delivered and dispensed needs to be less than $4/gge [gasoline gallon equivalent] (untaxed), and the cost of a durable fuel cell system to be less than $40/kW " Bioenergy goals include the development of "drop-in" fuels—fuels that would be largely compatible with existing energy infrastructure and vehicles, with a goal of $3/gge  Renewable power programs focus on electricity generation from solar, wind, water, and geothermal sources  The solar energy program has a goal of achieving, by 2030, costs of 3 cents per kWh for unsubsidized, utility-scale photovoltaics (PV)  Wind R&D is to focus on early-stage research and testing to reduce costs and improve performance and reliability  The geothermal program is to focus on developing "enhanced geothermal systems" with an electricity generation cost target of 20 8 cents/kWh by 2022  In the energy efficiency program area, the advanced manufacturing program focuses on improving the energy efficiency of manufacturing processes and on the manufacturing of energy-related products  The building technologies program includes R&D on lighting, space conditioning, windows, and control technologies to reduce building energy-use intensity  The energy efficiency program also provides weatherization grants to states for improving the energy efficiency of low-income housing units and state energy planning grants  For more details, see CRS Report R44980, DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE): Appropriations Status , by Corrie E  Clark  The Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) was created from programs that were previously part of the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability  The programs that were not moved into CESER became part of the DOE Office of Electricity (OE)  OE's mission is to lead DOE efforts "to strengthen, transform, and improve energy infrastructure so that consumers have access to secure and resilient sources of energy " Major priorities of OE are developing a model of North American energy vulnerabilities, pursuing megawatt-scale electricity storage, integrating electric power system sensing technology, and analyzing electricity policy issues  The office also includes the DOE power marketing administrations, which are funded from separate appropriations accounts  CESER is the federal government's lead entity for energy sector-specific responses to energy security emergencies—whether caused by physical infrastructure problems or by cybersecurity issues  The office conducts R&D on energy infrastructure security technology; provides energy sector security guidelines, training, and technical assistance; and enhances energy sector emergency preparedness and response  DOE's Multiyear Plan for Energy Sector Cybersecurity describes the department's strategy to "strengthen today's energy delivery systems by working with our partners to address growing threats and promote continuous improvement, and develop game-changing solutions that will create inherently secure, resilient, and self-defending energy systems for tomorrow " The plan includes three goals that DOE has established for energy sector cybersecurity: strengthen energy sector cybersecurity preparedness; coordinate cyber incident response and recovery; and accelerate game-changing research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) of resilient energy delivery systems  DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) "focuses on three major mission areas: the nation's existing nuclear fleet, the development of advanced nuclear reactor concepts, and fuel cycle technologies," according to DOE's FY2020 budget justification  It calls nuclear energy "a key element of United States energy independence, energy dominance, electricity grid resiliency, national security, and clean baseload power " The Reactor Concepts program area includes research on advanced reactors, including advanced small modular reactors, and research to enhance the "sustainability" of existing commercial light water reactors  Advanced reactor research focuses on "Generation IV" reactors, as opposed to the existing fleet of commercial light water reactors, which are generally classified as generations II and III  R&D under this program focuses on advanced coolants, fuels, materials, and other technology areas that could apply to a variety of advanced reactors  To help develop those technologies, the Reactor Concepts program is developing a Versatile Test Reactor that would allow fuels and materials to be tested in a fast neutron environment (in which neutrons would not be slowed by water, graphite, or other "moderators")  Research on extending the life of existing commercial light water reactors beyond 60 years, the maximum operating period currently licensed by NRC, is being conducted by this program with industry cost-sharing  The Fuel Cycle Research and Development program includes generic research on nuclear waste management and disposal  One of the program's primary activities is the development of technologies to separate the radioactive constituents of spent fuel for reuse or solidifying into stable waste forms  Other major research areas in the Fuel Cycle R&D program include the development of accident-tolerant fuels for existing commercial reactors, evaluation of fuel cycle options, and development of improved technologies to prevent diversion of nuclear materials for weapons  The program is also developing sources of high-assay low enriched uranium (HALEU), in which uranium is enriched to between 5% and 20% in the fissile isotope U-235, for potential use in advanced reactors  For more information, see CRS Report R45706, Advanced Nuclear Reactors: Technology Overview and Current Issues , by Danielle A  Arostegui and Mark Holt  Much of DOE's Fossil Energy R&D Program focuses on carbon capture and storage for power plants fueled by coal and natural gas  Major activities include Advanced Coal Energy Systems and Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS); Natural Gas Technologies; and Unconventional Fossil Energy Technologies from Petroleum—Oil Technologies  Advanced Coal Energy Systems includes R&D on modular coal-gasification systems, advanced turbines, solid oxide fuel cells, advanced sensors and controls, and power generation efficiency  Elements of the CCUS program include the following: Carbon Capture subprogram for separating CO 2 in both precombustion and postcombustion systems; Carbon Utilization subprogram for R&D on technologies to convert carbon to marketable products, such as chemicals and polymers; and Carbon Storage subprogram on long-term geologic storage of CO 2 , focusing on saline formations, oil and natural gas reservoirs, unmineable coal seams, basalts, and organic shales  For more information, see CRS In Focus IF10589, FY2019 Funding for CCS and Other DOE Fossil Energy R&D , by Peter Folger, and CRS Report R44472, Funding for Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) at DOE: In Brief , by Peter Folger  The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), authorized by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act ( P L  94-163 ) in 1975, consists of caverns built within naturally occurring salt domes in Louisiana and Texas  The SPR provides strategic and economic security against foreign and domestic disruptions in U S  oil supplies via an emergency stockpile of crude oil  The program fulfills U S  obligations under the International Energy Program, which avails the United States of International Energy Agency (IEA) assistance through its coordinated energy emergency response plans, and provides a deterrent against energy supply disruptions  DOE has been conducting a major maintenance program to address aging infrastructure and a deferred maintenance backlog at SPR facilities  The federal government has not purchased oil for the SPR since 1994  Beginning in 2000, additions to the SPR were made with royalty-in-kind (RIK) oil acquired by DOE in lieu of cash royalties paid on production from federal offshore leases  In September 2009, the Secretary of the Interior announced a phaseout of the RIK Program  By early 2010, the SPR's capacity reached 727 million barrels  A series of oil sales and purchases since then have resulted in a net reduction of the SPR inventory  Currently, the SPR contains about 649 million barrels  Congress has enacted several laws since 2015 that mandate sales of SPR oil, including the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 ( P L  114-74 ), the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act ( P L  114-94 ), the 21 st Century Cures Act of 2016 ( P L  114-255 ), the 2017 Tax Revision ( P L  115-97 ), the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 ( P L  115-123 ), and the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018  Broadly considered, this legislation requires oil to be sold from the reserve over the period FY2017 through FY2027, totaling 266 million barrels  For more information, see CRS Report R45577, Strategic Petroleum Reserve: Mandated Sales and Reform , by Robert Pirog, and CRS In Focus IF10869, Reconsidering the Strategic Petroleum Reserve , by Robert Pirog  The DOE Office of Science conducts basic research in six program areas: advanced scientific computing research, basic energy sciences, biological and environmental research, fusion energy sciences, high-energy physics, and nuclear physics  According to DOE's FY2020 budget justification, the Office of Science "is the Nation's largest Federal sponsor of basic research in the physical sciences and the lead Federal agency supporting fundamental scientific research for our Nation's energy future " DOE's Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program focuses on developing and maintaining computing and networking capabilities for science and research in applied mathematics, computer science, and advanced networking  The program plays a key role in the DOE-wide effort to advance the development of exascale computing, which seeks to build a computer that can solve scientific problems 1,000 times faster than today's best machines  DOE has asserted that the department is on a path to have a capable exascale machine by the early 2020s  Basic Energy Sciences (BES), the largest program area in the Office of Science, focuses on understanding, predicting, and ultimately controlling matter and energy at the electronic, atomic, and molecular levels  The program supports research in disciplines such as condensed matter and materials physics, chemistry, and geosciences  BES also provides funding for scientific user facilities (e g , the National Synchrotron Light Source II, and the Linac Coherent Light Source-II), and certain DOE research centers and hubs (e g , Energy Frontier Research Centers, as well as the Batteries and Energy Storage and Fuels from Sunlight Energy Innovation Hubs)  Biological and Environmental Research (BER) seeks a predictive understanding of complex biological, climate, and environmental systems across a continuum from the small scale (e g , genomic research) to the large (e g , Earth systems and climate)  Within BER, Biological Systems Science focuses on plant and microbial systems, while Biological and Environmental Research supports climate-relevant atmospheric and ecosystem modeling and research  BER facilities and centers include four Bioenergy Research Centers and the Environmental Molecular Science Laboratory at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory  Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) seeks to increase understanding of the behavior of matter at very high temperatures and to establish the science needed to develop a fusion energy source  FES provides funding for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, a multinational effort to design and build an experimental fusion reactor  According to DOE, ITER "aims to provide fusion power output approaching reactor levels of hundreds of megawatts, for hundreds of seconds " However, many U S  analysts have expressed concern about ITER's cost, schedule, and management, as well as the budgetary impact on domestic fusion research  The High Energy Physics (HEP) program conducts research on the fundamental constituents of matter and energy, including studies of dark energy and the search for dark matter  Nuclear Physics supports research on the nature of matter, including its basic constituents and their interactions  A major project in the Nuclear Physics program is the construction of the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University  A separate DOE office, the Advanced Research Projects Agency—Energy (ARPA-E), was authorized by the America COMPETES Act ( P L  110-69 ) to support transformational energy technology research projects  DOE budget documents describe ARPA-E's mission as overcoming long-term, high-risk technological barriers to the development of energy technologies  For more details, see CRS Report R45150, Federal Research and Development (R&D) Funding: FY2019 , coordinated by John F  Sargent Jr  DOE's Loan Programs Office provides loan guarantees for projects that deploy specified energy technologies, as authorized by Title 17 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPACT05, P L  109-58 ), direct loans for advanced vehicle manufacturing technologies, and loan guarantees for tribal energy projects  Section 1703 of the act authorizes loan guarantees for advanced energy technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and Section 1705 established a temporary program for renewable energy and energy efficiency projects  Title 17 allows DOE to provide loan guarantees for up to 80% of construction costs for eligible energy projects  Successful applicants must pay an up-front fee, or "subsidy cost," to cover potential losses under the loan guarantee program  Under the loan guarantee agreements, the federal government would repay all covered loans if the borrower defaulted  Such guarantees would reduce the risk to lenders and allow them to provide financing at below-market interest rates  The following is a summary of loan guarantee amounts that have been authorized (loan guarantee ceilings) for various technologies: $8 3 billion for nonnuclear technologies under Section 1703; $2 0 billion for unspecified projects from FY2007 under Section 1703; $18 5 billion for nuclear power plants ($12 0 billion committed); $4 billion for loan guarantees for uranium enrichment plants; $1 18 billion for renewable energy and energy efficiency projects under Section 1703, in addition to other loan guarantee ceilings, which can include applications that were pending under Section 1705 before it expired; and In addition to the loan guarantee ceilings above, an appropriation of $161 million was provided for subsidy costs for renewable energy and energy efficiency loan guarantees under Section 1703  If the subsidy costs averaged 10% of the loan guarantees, this funding could leverage loan guarantees totaling about $1 6 billion  The only loan guarantees under Section 1703 were $8 3 billion in guarantees provided to the consortium building two new reactors at the Vogtle plant in Georgia  DOE committed an additional $3 7 billion in loan guarantees for the Vogtle project on March 22, 2019  Another nuclear loan guarantee is being sought by NuScale Power to build a small modular reactor in Idaho  In the absence of explosive testing of nuclear weapons, the United States has adopted a science-based program to maintain and sustain confidence in the reliability of the U S  nuclear stockpile  Congress established the Stockpile Stewardship Program in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1994 ( P L  103-160 )  The goal of the program, as amended by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 ( P L  111-84 , §3111), is to ensure "that the nuclear weapons stockpile is safe, secure, and reliable without the use of underground nuclear weapons testing " The program is operated by NNSA, a semiautonomous agency within DOE established by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000 ( P L  106-65 , Title XXXII)  NNSA implements the Stockpile Stewardship Program through the activities funded by the Weapons Activities account in the NNSA budget  Most of NNSA's weapons activities take place at the nuclear weapons complex, which consists of three laboratories (Los Alamos National Laboratory, NM; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, CA; and Sandia National Laboratories, NM and CA); four production sites (Kansas City National Security Campus, MO; Pantex Plant, TX; Savannah River Site, SC; and Y-12 National Security Complex, TN); and the Nevada National Security Site (formerly the Nevada Test Site)  NNSA manages and sets policy for the weapons complex; contractors to NNSA operate the eight sites  Radiological activities at these sites are subject to oversight and recommendations by the independent Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, funded by Title IV of the annual Energy and Water Development appropriations bill  There are three major program areas in the Weapons Activities account  Directed Stockpile Work includes the life extension programs (LEPs) on existing warheads and stockpile services programs that monitor their condition; and maintaining warheads through repairs, refurbishment, and modifications  It also includes funding for research and development in support of specific warheads, and dismantlement of warheads that have been removed from the stockpile  This last activity received more significant funding as the number of warheads in the U S  stockpile declined after the Cold War; it also provides a source for critical components for warheads remaining in the stockpile  Directed Stockpile Work also involves programs that work on the materials needed for nuclear warheads, including the plutonium pits that are the core of the weapons  Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) includes five programs that focus on "efforts to develop and maintain critical capabilities, tools, and processes needed to support science based stockpile stewardship, refurbishment, and continued certification of the stockpile over the long-term in the absence of underground nuclear testing " This area includes operation of some large experimental facilities, such as the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory  Infrastructure and Operations has, as its main funding elements, material recycle and recovery, recapitalization of facilities, and construction of facilities  The latter include two major projects that have generated congressional controversy: the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) at the Y-12 National Security Complex and the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) Project, which deals with plutonium, at Los Alamos National Laboratory  Nuclear Weapons Activities also has several smaller programs, including the following: Secure Transportation Asset, providing for safe and secure transport of nuclear weapons, components, and materials; Defense Nuclear Security, providing operations, maintenance, and construction funds for protective forces, physical security systems, personnel security, and related activities; and Information Technology and Cybersecurity, whose elements include cybersecurity, secure enterprise computing, and Federal Unclassified Information Technology  For more information, see CRS Report R44442, Energy and Water Development Appropriations: Nuclear Weapons Activities , by Amy F  Woolf, and CRS Report R45306, The U S  Nuclear Weapons Complex: Overview of Department of Energy Sites , by Amy F  Woolf and James D  Werner  DOE's nonproliferation and national security programs provide technical capabilities to support U S  efforts to prevent, detect, and counter the spread of nuclear weapons worldwide  These programs are administered by NNSA's Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation  The Materials Management and Minimization program conducts activities to minimize and, where possible, eliminate stockpiles of weapons-useable material around the world  Major activities include conversion of reactors that use highly enriched uranium (useable for weapons) to low-enriched uranium, removal and consolidation of nuclear material stockpiles, and disposition of excess nuclear materials  Global Materials Security has three major program elements  International Nuclear Security focuses on increasing the security of vulnerable stockpiles of nuclear material in other countries  Radiological Security promotes the worldwide reduction and security of radioactive sources, including the removal of surplus sources and substitution of technologies that do not use radioactive materials  Nuclear Smuggling Detection and Deterrence works to improve the capability of other countries to halt illicit trafficking of nuclear materials  Nonproliferation and Arms Control works to "to support U S  nonproliferation and arms control objectives to prevent proliferation, ensure peaceful nuclear uses, and enable verifiable nuclear reductions," according to the FY2020 DOE justification  This program conducts reviews of nuclear export applications and technology transfer authorizations, implements treaty obligations, and analyzes nonproliferation policies and proposals  Other programs under Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation include research and development and construction, which advances nuclear detection and nuclear forensics technologies  Nuclear Counterterrorism and Incident Response provides "interagency policy, contingency planning, training, and capacity building" to counter nuclear terrorism and strengthen incident response capabilities, according to the FY2020 budget justification  The development and production of nuclear weapons during half a century since the beginning of the Manhattan Project resulted in a waste and contamination legacy managed by DOE that continues to present substantial challenges today  DOE also manages legacy environmental contamination at sites used for nondefense nuclear research  In 1989, DOE established the Office of Environmental Management primarily to consolidate its responsibilities for the cleanup of former nuclear weapons production sites that had been administered under multiple offices  DOE's nuclear cleanup efforts are broad in scope and include the disposal of large quantities of radioactive and other hazardous wastes generated over decades; management and disposal of surplus nuclear materials; remediation of extensive contamination in soil and groundwater; decontamination and decommissioning of excess buildings and facilities; and safeguarding, securing, and maintaining facilities while cleanup is underway  DOE's cleanup of nuclear research sites adds a nondefense component to the EM's mission, albeit smaller in terms of the scope of their cleanup and associated funding  DOE has identified more than 100 separate sites in over 30 states that historically were involved in the production of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy research for civilian purposes  The geographic scope of these sites is substantial, collectively encompassing a land area of approximately 2 million acres  Cleanup remedies are in place and operational at the majority of these sites  Responsibility for the long-term stewardship of them has been transferred to the Office of Legacy Management and other offices within DOE for the operation and maintenance of cleanup remedies and monitoring  Some of the smaller sites for which DOE initially was responsible were transferred to the Army Corps of Engineers in 1997 under the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP)  Once USACE completes the cleanup of a FUSRAP site, it is transferred back to DOE for long-term stewardship under the Office of Legacy Management, which is separate from EM and has its own funding account  Three appropriations accounts fund the Office of Environmental Management  The Defense Environmental Cleanup account is the largest in terms of funding, and it finances the cleanup of former nuclear weapons production sites  The Non-Defense Environmental Cleanup account funds the cleanup of federal nuclear energy research sites  Title XI of the Energy Policy Act of 1992 ( P L  102-486 ) established the Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning Fund to pay for the cleanup of three federal facilities that enriched uranium for national defense and civilian purposes  Those facilities are located near Paducah, KY; Piketon, OH (Portsmouth plant); and Oak Ridge, TN  Title X of P L  102-486 authorized the reimbursement of uranium and thorium producers for their costs of cleaning up contamination attributable to uranium and thorium sold to the federal government  The adequacy of funding for the Office of Environmental Management to attain cleanup milestones across the entire site inventory has been a recurring issue  Cleanup milestones are enforceable measures incorporated into compliance agreements negotiated among DOE, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the states  These milestones establish time frames for the completion of specific actions to satisfy applicable requirements at individual sites  DOE's four Power Marketing Administrations were established to sell the power generated by the dams operated by the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers  Preference in the sale of power is given to publicly owned and cooperatively owned utilities  The PMAs operate in 34 states; their assets consist primarily of transmission infrastructure in the form of more than 33,000 miles of high voltage transmission lines and 587 substations  PMA customers are responsible for repaying all power program expenses, plus the interest on capital projects  Since FY2011, power revenues associated with the PMAs have been classified as discretionary offsetting receipts (i e , receipts that are available for spending by the PMAs), thus the agencies are sometimes noted as having a "net-zero" spending authority  Only the capital expenses of WAPA and SWPA require appropriations from Congress  For more information, see CRS Report R45548, The Power Marketing Administrations: Background and Current Issues , by Richard J  Campbell  Independent agencies that receive funding in Title IV of the Energy and Water Development bill include the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board  NRC is by far the largest of the independent agencies, with a total budget of more than $900 million  However, as noted in the description of NRC below, about 90% of NRC's budget is offset by fees, so that the agency's net appropriation is less than half of the total funding in Title IV  The recent appropriations history for all the Title IV agencies is shown in Table 7   Established in 1965, the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) is a regional economic development agency  It awards grants and contracts to state and local governments and nonprofit organizations to foster economic opportunities, improve workforce skills, build critical infrastructure, strengthen natural and cultural assets, and improve leadership skills and capacity in the region  ARC's authorizing statute defines the Appalachian Region as including all of West Virginia and parts of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia  More than 25 million people currently live in the region as defined  ARC provides funding to several hundred projects each year, with particular focus on the region's most economically distressed counties  Major areas of infrastructure support broadband communication systems, transportation, and water and wastewater systems  ARC has supported development of the Appalachian Development Highway System (ADHS), a planned 3,000-mile system of highways that connect with the U S  Interstate Highway System  According to ARC, 90 5% of ADHS is currently "complete, open to traffic, or under construction " NRC is an independent agency that establishes and enforces safety and security standards for nuclear power plants and users of nuclear materials  Major appropriations categories for NRC are shown in Table 8   Nuclear Reactor Safety is NRC's largest program and is responsible for licensing and regulating the U S  fleet of 98 power reactors, plus two under construction  NRC is also responsible for licensing and regulating nuclear waste facilities, such as the proposed underground nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, NV  NRC is required by law to offset about 90% of its total budget, excluding specified items, through fees charged to nuclear reactor owners and other holders of NRC licenses  As a result, NRC's net appropriation can be as low as 10% of its total funding level, depending on the activities that Congress excludes from fee recovery  For example, excluded items in NRC's FY2019 enacted appropriation are prior-year balances, development of advanced reactor regulations, and international activities  The following hearings have been held by the Energy and Water Development subcommittees of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees on the FY2020 budget request  Testimony and opening statements are posted on most of the web pages cited for each hearing, along with webcasts in many cases  Department of Energy , March 26, 2019, https://appropriations house gov/legislation/hearings/budget-department-of-energy   Corps of Engineers (Civil Works) and the Bureau of Reclamation , March 27, 2019, https://appropriations house gov/legislation/hearings/budget-us-army-corps-of-engineers-and-bureau-of-reclamation   National Nuclear Security Administration , April 2, 2019, https://appropriations house gov/legislation/hearings/budget-department-of-energy-national-nuclear-security-administration  DOE Science, Energy, and Environmental Management Programs , April 3, 2019, https://appropriations house gov/legislation/hearings/budget-science-energy-and-environmental-management-programs  Department of Energy , March 27, 2019, https://www appropriations senate gov/hearings/review-of-the-fy2020-budget-request-for-the-us-department-of-energy   National Nuclear Security Administration , April 3, 2019, https://www appropriations senate gov/hearings/review-of-the-fy2020-budget-request-for-the-national-nuclear-security-administration   U S  Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation , April 10, 2019, https://www appropriations senate gov/hearings/review-of-the-fy2020-budget-requests-for-army-corps-of-engineers-and-bureau-of-reclamation  


Report 2: Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution provides that the President shall appoint officers of the United States "by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate " The method by which the Senate provides advice and consent on presidential nominations, referred to broadly as the confirmation process, serves several purposes  First, largely through committee investigations and hearings, the confirmation process allows the Senate to examine the qualifications of nominees and any potential conflicts of interest  Second, Senators can influence policy through the confirmation process, either by rejecting nominees or by extracting promises from nominees before granting consent  Also, the Senate sometimes has delayed the confirmation process in order to increase its influence with the executive branch on unrelated matters  Senate confirmation is required for several categories of government officials  Military appointments and promotions make up the majority of nominations, approximately 65,000 per two-year Congress, and most are confirmed routinely  Each Congress, the Senate also considers approximately 2,000 civilian nominations, and, again, many of them, such as appointments to or promotions in the Foreign Service, are routine  Civilian nominations considered by the Senate also include federal judges and specified officers in executive departments, independent agencies, and regulatory boards and commissions  Many presidential appointees are confirmed routinely by the Senate  With tens of thousands of nominations each Congress, the Senate cannot possibly consider them all in detail  A regularized process facilitates quick action on thousands of government positions  The Senate may approve en bloc hundreds of nominations at a time, especially military appointments and promotions  The process also allows for close scrutiny of candidates when necessary  Each year, a few hundred nominees to high-level positions are regularly subject to Senate investigations and public hearings  Most of these are routinely approved, while a small number of nominations are disputed and receive more attention from the media and Congress  Judicial nominations, particularly Supreme Court appointees, are generally subject to greater scrutiny than nominations to executive posts, partly because judges may serve for life  Among the executive branch positions, nominees for policymaking positions are more likely to be examined closely, and are slightly less likely to be confirmed, than nominees for non-policy positions  There are several reasons that the Senate confirms a high percentage of nominations  Most nominations and promotions are not to policymaking positions and are of less interest to the Senate  In addition, some sentiment exists in the Senate that the selection of persons to fill executive branch positions is largely a presidential prerogative  Historically, the President has been granted wide latitude in the selection of his Cabinet and other high-ranking executive branch officials  Another important reason for the high percentage of confirmations is that Senators are often involved in the nomination stage  The President would prefer a smooth and fast confirmation process, so he may decide to consult with Senators prior to choosing a nominee  Senators most likely to be consulted, typically by White House congressional relations staff, are Senators from a nominee's home state, leaders of the committee of jurisdiction, and leaders of the President's party in the Senate  Senators of the President's party are sometimes invited to express opinions or even propose candidates for federal appointments in their own states  There is a long-standing custom of "senatorial courtesy," whereby the Senate will sometimes decline to proceed on a nomination if a home-state Senator expresses opposition  Positions subject to senatorial courtesy include U S  attorneys, U S  marshals, and U S  district judges  Over the past decade, Senators have expressed concerns over various aspects of the confirmation process, including the rate of confirmation for high-ranking executive branch positions and judgeships, as well as the speed of Senate action on routine nominations  When the Senate is controlled by the party of the President, this concern has often been raised as a complaint that minority party Senators are disputing a higher number of nominations, and have increasingly used their leverage under Senate proceedings to delay or even block their consideration  These concerns have led the Senate to make several changes to the confirmation process since 2011  The changes are taken into account in the following description of the process and are described in detail in other CRS Reports  The President customarily sends nomination messages to the Senate in writing  Once received, nominations are numbered by the executive clerk and read on the floor  The clerk actually assigns numbers to the presidential messages, not to individual nominations, so a message listing several nominations would receive a single number  Except by unanimous consent, the Senate cannot vote on nominations the day they are received, and most are referred immediately to committees  Senate Rule XXXI provides that nominations shall be referred to appropriate committees "unless otherwise ordered " A standing order of the Senate provides that some nominations to specified positions will not be referred unless a Senator requests referral  Instead of being immediately referred, the nominations are instead listed in a special section of the Executive Calendar , a document distributed daily to congressional offices and available online  This section of the Calendar is titled "Privileged Nominations " After the chair of the committee with jurisdiction over a nomination has notified the executive clerk that biographical and financial information on the nominee has been received, this is indicated in the Calendar  After 10 days, the nomination is moved from the "Privileged Nominations" section of the Calendar and placed on the "Nominations" section with the same status as a nomination that had been reported by a committee  (See " Executive Calendar " below ) Importantly, at any time that the nomination is listed in the new section of the Executive Calendar , any Senator can request that a nomination be referred, and it is then sent to the appropriate committee of jurisdiction  Formally the presiding officer, but administratively the executive clerk's office, refers the nominations to committees according to the Senate's rules and precedents  The Senate rule concerning committee jurisdictions (Rule XXV) broadly defines issue areas for committees, and the same jurisdictional statements generally apply to nominations as well as legislation  An executive department nomination can be expected to be referred to the committee with jurisdiction over legislation concerning that department or to the committee that handled the legislation creating the position  Judicial branch nominations, including judges, U S  attorneys, and U S  marshals, are under the jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee  In some instances, the committee of jurisdiction for a nomination has been set in statute  The number of nominations referred to various committees differs considerably  The Committee on Armed Services, which handles all military appointments and promotions, receives the most  The two other committees with major confirmation responsibilities are the Committee on the Judiciary, with its jurisdiction over nominations in the judicial branch, and the Committee on Foreign Relations, which considers ambassadorial and other diplomatic appointments  Occasionally, nominations are referred to more than one committee, either jointly or sequentially  A joint referral might occur when the jurisdictional claim of two committees is essentially equal  In such cases, both committees must report on the nomination before the whole Senate can act on it, unless the Senate discharges one or both committees  If two committees have unequal jurisdictional claims, then the nomination is more likely to be sequentially referred  In this case, the first committee must report the nomination before it is sequentially referred to the second committee  The second referral often is subject to a requirement that the committee report within a certain number of days  Typically, nominations are jointly or sequentially referred by unanimous consent  Sometimes the unanimous consent agreement applies to all future nominations to a position or category of positions  Most Senate committees that consider nominations have written rules concerning the process  Although committee rules vary, most contain standards concerning information to be gathered from a nominee  Many committees expect a biographical resumé and some kind of financial statement listing assets and liabilities  Some specify the terms under which financial statements will or will not be made public  Committee rules also frequently contain timetables outlining the minimum layover required between committee actions  A common timing provision is a requirement that nominations be held for one or two weeks before the committee proceeds to a hearing or a vote, permitting Senators time to review a nomination before committee consideration  Other committee rules specifically mandate a delay between steps of the process, such as the receipt of pre-hearing information and the date of the hearing, or the distribution of hearing transcripts and the committee vote on the nomination  Some of the written rules also contain provisions for the rules to be waived by majority vote, by unanimous consent, or by the chair and the ranking minority Member  Committees often gather and review information about a nominee either before or instead of a formal hearing  Because the executive branch acts first in selecting a nominee, congressional committees are sometimes able to rely partially on any field investigations and reports conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)  Records of FBI investigations are provided only to the White House, although a report or a summary of a report may be shared, with the President's authorization, with Senators on the relevant committee  The practices of the committees with regard to FBI materials vary  Some rarely if ever request them  On other committees, the chair and ranking Member review any FBI report or summary, but on some committees these materials are available to any Senator upon request  Committee staff usually do not review FBI materials  Almost all nominees are also asked by the Office of the Counsel to the President to complete an "Executive Personnel Financial Disclosure Report, SF-278," which is reviewed and certified by the relevant agency as well as the Director of the Office of Government Ethics  The documents are then forwarded to the relevant committee, along with opinion letters from ethics officers in the relevant agency and the director of the Office of Government Ethics  In contrast to FBI reports, financial disclosure forms are made public  All committees review financial disclosure reports and some make them available in committee offices to Members, staff, and the public  To varying degrees, committees also conduct their own information-gathering exercises  Some committees, after reviewing responses to their standard questionnaire, might ask a nominee to complete a second questionnaire  Committees frequently require that written responses to these questionnaires be submitted before a hearing is scheduled  The Committee on the Judiciary sends form letters, sometimes called "blue slips," to Senators from a nominee's home state to determine whether they support the nomination  The Committee on the Judiciary also has its own investigative staff  The Committee on Rules and Administration handles relatively few nominations and conducts its own investigations, sometimes with the assistance of the FBI or the Government Accountability Office (GAO)  It is not unusual for nominees to meet with committee staff prior to a hearing  High-level nominees may meet privately with Senators  Generally speaking, these meetings, sometimes initiated by the nominee, serve basically to acquaint the nominee with the Members and committee staff, and vice versa  They occasionally address substantive matters as well  A nominee also might meet with the committee's chief counsel to discuss the financial disclosure report and any potential conflict-of-interest issues  Historically, approximately half of all civilian appointees were confirmed without a hearing  All committees that receive nominations do hold hearings on some nominations, and the likelihood of hearings varies with the importance of the position and the workload of the committee  The Committee on the Judiciary, for example, which receives a large number of nominations, does not usually hold hearings for U S  attorneys, U S  marshals, or members of part-time commissions  The Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry and the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, on the other hand, typically hold hearings on most nominations that are referred to them  Committees often combine related nominations into a single hearing  The length and nature of hearings varies  One or both home-state Senators will often introduce a nominee at a hearing  The nominee typically testifies at the hearing, and occasionally the committee will invite other witnesses, including Members of the House of Representatives, to testify as well  Some hearings function as routine welcomes, while others are directed at influencing the policy program of an appointee  In addition to policy views, hearings might address the nominee's qualifications and potential conflicts of interest  Senators also might take the opportunity to ask questions of particular concern to them or their constituents  Committees sometimes send questions to nominees in advance of a hearing and ask for written responses  Nominees also might be asked to respond in writing to additional questions after a hearing  Especially for high-level positions, the nomination hearing may be only the first of many times an individual will be asked to testify before a committee  Therefore, the committee often gains a commitment from the nominee to be cooperative with future oversight activities of the committee  Hearings, under Senate Rule XXVI, are open to the public unless closed by majority vote for one of the reasons specified in the rule  Witness testimony is sometimes made available online through the website of the relevant committee and also through several commercial services, including Congressional Quarterly  Most committees print the hearings, although no rule requires it  The number of Senators necessary to constitute a quorum for the purpose of taking testimony varies from committee to committee, but it is usually smaller than a majority of the membership  A committee considering a nomination has four options  It may report the nomination to the Senate favorably, unfavorably, or without recommendation, or it may choose to take no action at all  It is more common for a committee to take no action on a nomination than to report unfavorably  Particularly for policymaking positions, committees sometimes report a nomination favorably, subject to the commitment of the nominee to testify before a Senate committee  Sometimes, committees choose to report a nomination without recommendation  Even if a majority of Senators on a committee do not agree that a nomination should be reported favorably, a majority might agree to report a nomination without a recommendation in order to permit a vote by the whole Senate  The timing of a vote to report a nomination varies in accordance with committee rules and practice  Most committees do not vote to report a nomination on the same day that they hold a hearing, but instead wait until the next meeting of the committee  Senate Rule XXVI, clause 7(a)(1) requires that a quorum for making a recommendation on a nomination consist of a majority of the membership of the committee  In most cases, the number of Senators necessary to constitute a quorum for making a recommendation on a nomination to the Senate is the same that the committee requires for reporting a measure  Every committee reports a majority of nominations favorably  Most of the time, committees do not formally present reports on nominations on the floor of the Senate  Instead, committee staff prepare the appropriate paperwork on behalf of the committee chair and file it with the clerk  The executive clerk then arranges for the nomination to be printed in the Congressional Record and placed on the Executive Calendar   If a report were presented on the floor, it would have to be done in executive session

ground_truth: The Energy and Water Development appropriations bill provides funding for civil works projects of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE); the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) and Central Utah Project (CUP); the Department of Energy (DOE); the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC); and several other independent agencies. DOE typically accounts for about 80% of the bill's funding. President Trump submitted his FY2020 detailed budget proposal to Congress on March 18, 2019 (after submitting a general budget overview on March 11). The budget requests for agencies included in the Energy and Water Development appropriations bill total $38.02 billion—$6.64 billion (15%) below the FY2019 appropriation. The largest exception to the overall decrease proposed for energy and water programs is a $1.309 billion increase (12%) for DOE nuclear weapons activities. For FY2019, the conference agreement on H.R. 5895 (H.Rept. 115-929) provided total Energy and Water Development appropriations of $44.66 billion—3% above the FY2018 level, excluding supplemental funding, and 23% above the FY2019 request. It was signed by the President on September 21, 2018 (P.L. 115-244). Emergency supplemental appropriations totaling $17.419 billion were provided to USACE and DOE for hurricane response by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (P.L. 115-123), signed February 9, 2018. Major Energy and Water Development funding issues for FY2020 are listed below. They were selected based on the total funding involved, the percentage of proposed increases or decreases, and potential impact on broader public policy considerations. Water Agency Funding Reductions. The Trump Administration requested reductions of 31% for USACE and 29% for Reclamation for FY2020 from the FY2019 enacted levels. The largest reductions would be from USACE Operation and Maintenance (-48%) and Reclamation's Water and Related Resources account (-31%). Similar reductions proposed by the Administration for FY2019 were not enacted. Power Marketing Administration (PMA) Reforms. DOE's FY2020 budget request includes mandatory proposals to sell PMA electricity transmission lines and other assets, repeal certain PMA borrowing authority, and eliminate cost-based limits on the electricity rates charged by the PMAs. The proposals would need to be enacted in authorizing legislation. Termination of Energy Efficiency Grants. DOE's Weatherization Assistance Program and State Energy Program would be terminated under the FY2020 budget request. The Administration had proposed to eliminate the grants in FY2018 and FY2019, but Congress continued funding. Reductions in Energy Research and Development. Under the FY2020 budget request, DOE research and development appropriations would be reduced for energy efficiency and renewable energy (EERE) by 83%, nuclear energy by 38%, and fossil energy by 24%. Similar reductions proposed by the Administration for FY2019 were not enacted. Nuclear Waste Repository. The Administration's budget request would provide new funding for the first time since FY2010 for a proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, NV. DOE would receive $116 million to seek an NRC license for the repository and develop interim waste storage capacity. NRC would receive $38.5 million to consider DOE's repository license application. Similar Administration funding requests for FY2018 and FY2019 were not enacted. Elimination of Advanced Research Projects Agency—Energy (ARPA-E). The Trump Administration proposes no new appropriations for ARPA-E in FY2020 and to cancel $287 million in unobligated balances from previous appropriations. Similar proposals to terminate ARPA-E in FY2018 and FY2019 were not enacted. Loan Programs Termination. The FY2020 budget request would terminate DOE's Title 17 Innovative Technology Loan Guarantee Program, the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program, and the Tribal Energy Loan Guarantee Program. Administration proposals to eliminate the programs were not included in the enacted appropriations measures for FY2018 and FY2019. Weapons Activities. The FY2020 budget request for DOE Weapons Activities is 12% greater than it was in FY2019 ($12.4 billion vs. $11.1 billion), in contrast to a proposed 10% reduction in DOE's total funding. Notable proposed increases would be used for warhead life extension programs and preparations for increase production of plutonium pits (warhead cores).

prompt_front: You are given two reports by the government agency.



Question: Write a one-page summary of the report 2.



Report 2:  Executive session and the Executive Calendar will be discussed in the next section  According to Senate Rule XXXI, the Senate cannot vote on a nomination the same day it is reported except by unanimous consent  It is fairly common for the Senate to discharge a committee from consideration of an unreported nomination by unanimous consent  This removes the nomination from the committee in order to allow the full Senate to consider it  When the Senate discharges a committee by unanimous consent, it is doing so with the support of the committee for the purposes of simplifying the process  It is unusual for Senators to attempt to discharge a committee by motion or resolution, instead of by unanimous consent, and only a few attempts have ever been successful  Senate Rule XVII does permit any Senator to submit a motion or resolution that a committee be discharged from the consideration of a subject referred to it  The discharge process, however, does not allow a simple majority to quickly initiate consideration of a nomination still in committee  It requires several steps and, most notably, a motion or resolution to discharge is debatable  This means that a cloture process may be necessary to discharge a committee  Cloture on a discharge motion or resolution requires the support of three-fifths of the Senate, usually 60 Senators, and several days  The Senate handles executive business, which includes both nominations and treaties, separately from its legislative business  All nominations reported from committee, regardless of whether they were reported favorably, unfavorably, or without recommendation, are listed on the Executive Calendar , a separate document from the Calendar of Business , which lists pending bills and resolutions  Usually, the majority leader schedules the consideration of nominations on the Calendar  Nominations are considered in executive session, a parliamentary form of the Senate in session that has its own journal and, to some extent, its own rules of procedure  After a committee reports a nomination or is discharged from considering it, the nomination is assigned a number by the executive clerk and placed on the Executive Calendar   Under a standing order of the Senate, certain nominations might also be placed in this status on the Executive Calendar after certain informational and time requirements are met  The list of nominations in the Executive Calendar includes basic information such as the name and office of the nominee, the name of the previous holder of the office, and whether the committee reported the nomination favorably, unfavorably, or without recommendation  Long lists of routine nominations are printed in the Congressional Record and identified only by a short title in the Executive Calendar , such as "Foreign Service nominations (84) beginning John F  Aloia, and ending Paul G  Churchill " In addition to reported nominations and treaties, the Executive Calendar contains the text of any unanimous consent agreements concerning executive business  The Executive Calendar is distributed to Senate personal offices and committee offices when there is business on it  It is also available online by following the link to "Calendars and Schedules" on the Virtual Reference Desk under the Reference tab of the Senate website (www Senate gov)   Business on the Executive Calendar , which consists of nominations and treaties, is considered in executive session  In contrast, all measures and matters associated with lawmaking are considered in legislative session  Until 1929 executive sessions were also closed to the public, but now they are open unless ordered otherwise by the Senate  The Senate usually begins the day in legislative session and enters executive session either by a non-debatable motion or, far more often, by unanimous consent  Only if the Senate adjourned or recessed while in executive session would the next meeting automatically open in executive session  The motion to go into executive session can be offered at any time, is not debatable, and cannot be laid upon the table  All business concerning nominations, including seemingly routine matters such as requests for joint referral or motions to print hearings, must be done in executive session  In practice, Senators often make such motions or unanimous consent requests "as if in executive session " These usually brief proceedings during a legislative session do not constitute an official executive session  In addition, at the start of each Congress, the Senate adopts a standing order, by unanimous consent, that allows the Senate to receive nominations from the President and for them to be referred to committees even on days when the Senate does not meet in executive session  The majority leader, by custom, makes most motions and requests that determine when or whether a nomination will be called up for consideration  For example, the majority leader may move or ask unanimous consent to "immediately proceed to executive session to consider the following nomination on the Executive Calendar     " By precedent, the motion to go into executive session to take up a specified nomination is not debatable  The nomination itself, however, is debatable  It is not in order for a Senator to move to consider a nomination that is not on the Calendar, and, except by unanimous consent, a nomination on the Calendar cannot be taken up until it has been on the Calendar at least one day (Rule XXXI, clause 1)  A day for this purpose is a calendar day  In other words, a nomination reported and placed on the Calendar on a Monday can be considered on Tuesday, even if it is the same legislative day  If the Senate simply resolved into executive session, the business immediately pending would be the first item on the Executive Calendar   A motion to proceed to another matter on the Calendar would be debatable and subject to a filibuster  For this reason, the Senate does not begin consideration of executive business this way  Instead, the motion made to call up a nomination is a motion to proceed to executive session to consider that specific nomination  If the Senate is already in executive session, and the Leader wishes to call up a nomination, the Leader will first move that the Senate enter legislative session and then that the Senate enter executive session to take up the nomination  Both motions (to enter legislative session and to enter executive session) are not subject to debate and are decided by a simple majority  Typically they are approved by voice vote  The question before the Senate when a nomination is taken up is "will the Senate advise and consent to this nomination?" The Senate can approve or reject a nomination  A majority of Senators present and voting, a quorum being present, is required to approve a nomination  According to Senate Rule XXXI, any Senator who voted with the majority on the nomination has the option of moving to reconsider a vote on the day of the vote or the next two days the Senate meets in executive session  Only one motion to reconsider is in order on each nomination, and often the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table, by unanimous consent, shortly after the vote on the nomination  This action prevents any subsequent attempt to reconsider  After the Senate acts on a nomination, the Secretary of the Senate attests to a resolution of confirmation or disapproval and transmits it to the White House  Many nominations are brought up by unanimous consent and approved without objection; routine nominations often are grouped by unanimous consent in order to be brought up and approved together, or en bloc   A small proportion of nominations, generally to higher-level positions, may need more consideration  When there is debate on a nomination, the chair of the committee usually makes an opening speech  For positions within a state, Senators from the state may wish to speak on the nominee, particularly if they were involved in the selection process  Under Senate rules, there are no time limits on debate except when conducted under cloture or a unanimous consent agreement  Senate Rule XXII provides a means to bring debate on a nomination to a close, if necessary  Under the terms of Rule XXII, at least 16 Senators sign a cloture motion to end debate on a pending nomination  The motion proposed is "to bring to a close the debate upon [the pending nomination] " A Senator can interrupt a Senator who is speaking to present a cloture motion  Cloture may be moved only on a question that is pending before the Senate; therefore, absent unanimous consent, the Senate must be in executive session and considering the nomination when the motion is filed  After the clerk reads the motion, the Senate returns to the business it was considering before the presentation of the motion  Unless a unanimous consent agreement provides otherwise, the Senate does not vote on the cloture motion until the second day of session after the day it is presented; for example, if the motion was presented on a Monday, the Senate would act on it on Wednesday  One hour after the Senate has convened on the day the motion "ripened," the presiding officer can interrupt the proceedings during an executive session to present a cloture motion for a vote  If the Senate is in legislative session when the time arrives for voting on the cloture motion, it proceeds into executive session prior to taking action on the cloture petition  According to Rule XXII, the presiding officer first directs the clerk to call the roll to ascertain that a quorum is present, although this requirement is often waived by unanimous consent  Senators then vote either yea or nay on the question: "Is it the sense of the Senate that the debate shall be brought to a close?" In April 2017, the Senate reinterpreted Rule XXII in order to allow cloture to be invoked on all nominations by a majority of Senators voting (a quorum being present), including Supreme Court justice nominations  This expanded the results of similar actions taken by the Senate in November 2013, which changed the cloture vote requirement to a majority for nominations except to the Supreme Court  Once cloture is invoked, for most nominations there can be a maximum of two hours of post-cloture consideration  The two hour maximum includes debate as well as any actions taken while the nomination is formally pending, including quorum calls  If cloture is invoked on nominations to the highest ranking executive branch positions, or on nominations to the Supreme Court or the U S  Circuit Court of Appeals, then the maximum time for consideration after cloture is invoked is 30 hours (see Table 1 )  Under the rule, the 2 or 30 hours is floor time spent considering the nomination in the Senate, not simply the passage of time  Thus, for time to count against the 2 or 30-hour maximum, the Senate must be in session and the question must be pending  Time spent in recess or adjournment does not count, and if the Senate were to take up other business by unanimous consent, the time spent on that other business also would not count against the post-cloture time  A hold is a request by a Senator to his or her party leader to prevent or delay action on a nomination or a bill  Holds are not mentioned in the rules or precedents of the Senate, and they are enforced only through the agenda decisions of party leaders  A standing order of the Senate aims to ensure that any Senator who places a hold on any matter (including a nomination) make public his or her objection to the matter  Senators have placed holds on nominations for a number of reasons  One common purpose is to give a Senator more time to review a nomination or to consult with the nominee  Senators may also place holds because they disagree with the policy positions of the nominee  Senators have also admitted to using holds in order to gain concessions from the executive branch on matters not directly related to the nomination  The Senate precedents reducing the threshold necessary to invoke cloture on nominations, and the recent precedent reducing the time necessary for a cloture process, could affect the practice of holds  In some sense, holds are connected to the Senate traditions of mutual deference, since they may have originated as requests for more time to examine a pending nomination or bill  The effectiveness of a hold, however, ultimately has been grounded in the power of the Senator placing the hold to filibuster the nomination and the difficulty of invoking cloture to overcome a filibuster  Invoking cloture is now easier because the support of fewer Senators is necessary, and in most cases, the floor time required for a cloture process is less  The large number of nominations submitted by the President for Senate consideration, however, might still lead Senators to seek unanimous consent to quickly approve nominations  On April 3, 2019, the Senate reinterpreted Senate Rule XXII to reduce, from 30 hours to 2 hours, the maximum time allowed for consideration of most nominations after cloture is invoked  The Senate took this step by reversing two rulings by the Presiding Officer  The first vote established that "postcloture time under rule XXII for all executive branch nominations other than a position at level 1 of the Executive Schedule under section 5312 of title 5 of the United States Code is 2 hours " On the second vote, the Senate established that "postcloture time under rule XXII for all judicial nominations, other than circuit courts or Supreme Court of the United States, is 2 hours" (see Table 1 )  It is uncommon for the Senate to reverse a decision by the Presiding Officer  Any Senator can attempt to reverse a ruling by making an appeal, and except in specific cases, appeals are decided by majority vote  In most circumstances, however, appeals are debatable, and therefore supermajority support (through a cloture process) is typically necessary to reach a vote to reverse a decision of the Presiding Officer  In the April 3 proceedings, however, the appeal was raised after cloture had been invoked  Senate Rule XXII states that after a successful cloture vote, "appeals from the decision of the Presiding Officer, shall be decided without debate " Therefore, when the Majority Leader appealed the rulings of the Presiding Officer, the questions on whether the ruling should stand as the judgment of the Senate received a vote without an opportunity for extended debate  The Senate voted that the ruling should not stand, and thereby upheld instead the position of the Majority Leader  The future impact of these decisions on the nominations process is difficult to assess  The immediate and obvious expected impact is that the time between a cloture vote and a confirmation vote will decrease  In recent years, a vote to confirm a nominee has typically occurred the day after cloture was invoked (or on the next day of Senate session)  Usually, Senators did not spend all of the time between the votes debating the nomination  Instead, Senators typically debated the nomination for some time post-cloture, but also usually entered into unanimous consent agreements that affected when the vote would occur  For example, it became common in recent Congresses for the Senate to agree, by unanimous consent, to consider the time the Senate spent in adjournment or recesses (e g , overnight) to count as post-cloture time  The cloture rule affected the time of the vote set by unanimous consent: the rule provided for up to 30 hours of consideration of the nomination, and the Senate would agree to vote on the nomination a day later—reflecting the approximate time that the Senate could have debated the nomination under the rule  Assuming the Senate continues to establish times for voting on nominations by unanimous consent, those negotiations will be affected by the reinterpretation of the rule  In the absence of a unanimous consent agreement, most nominations can now receive a vote two hours after a vote to invoke cloture  The two hours is not formally divided between the parties pursuant to the rule (or pursuant to the reinterpretation of the rule), but it might be divided, by unanimous consent, between the Majority and Minority Leader  Even without an explicit unanimous consent agreement, the Majority and Minority Leaders are recognized before any other Senators  In addition, a Senator can speak for a maximum of one hour post-cloture  As a result, the Majority Leader could claim the first hour, and the Minority Leader the second, or vice versa  (Of course, Senators could speak on a nomination at times other than after cloture has been invoked, even when the nomination is not formally pending before the Senate  ) It is also possible that the recent reinterpretation of the rule will affect how often the Senate relies on the cloture process to approve nominations  After the first reinterpretation of the cloture rule in 2013, the number of nominations subjected to cloture motions increased significantly in both of the Congresses when the Senate was controlled by the same party as the President (113 th (2013-2014) and 115 th (2017-2018) Congresses)  Nominations that are not confirmed or rejected are returned to the President at the end of a session or when the Senate adjourns or recesses for more than 30 days (Senate Rule XXXI, paragraph 6)  If the President still wants a nominee considered, he must submit a new nomination to the Senate  The Senate can, however, waive this rule by unanimous consent, and it often does to allow nominations to remain "in status quo" between the first and second sessions of a Congress or during a long recess  The majority leader or his designee also may exempt specific nominees by name from the unanimous consent agreement, allowing them to be returned during the recess or adjournment  The Constitution, in Article II, Section 2, grants the President the authority to fill temporarily vacancies that "may happen during the Recess of the Senate " These appointments do not require the advice and consent of the Senate; the appointees temporarily fill the vacancies without Senate confirmation  In most cases, recess appointees have also been nominated to the positions to which they were appointed  Furthermore, when a recess appointment is made of an individual previously nominated to the position, the President usually submits a new nomination to the Senate in order to comply with a provision of law affecting the pay of recess appointees (5 U S C  5503(a))  Recess appointments have sometimes been controversial and have occasionally led to inter-branch conflict 
Report 2:  And since Bakke that framework appears to have shifted in two significant respects, corresponding to each of the two prongs of strict scrutiny  First, the Court now requires public universities that adopt affirmative action admissions policies to explain in increasingly "concrete and precise" terms what diversity-related educational goals those policies serve and why the university has chosen to pursue them  Anything less, the Court has held, would fail to present an interest sufficiently compelling under strict scrutiny  Second, the Court also now expects universities to prove that their policies achieve those "concrete and precise goals" in an appropriately "flexible" way, as most clearly exemplified by the Harvard plan that Justice Powell singled out in Bakke   That model has yielded "five hallmarks" of an appropriately tailored affirmative action policy, criteria that have since guided lower courts in assessing other affirmative action plans  For a university's affirmative action policy to survive strict scrutiny, a university must first "demonstrate with clarity that its 'purpose or interest is both constitutionally permissible and substantial " The Court has recognized only a single interest that meets that standard: "the attainment of a diverse student body " What exactly that interest amounts to—and how, consequently, a university should ensure it has appropriately tailored its policy to achieve that interest—has been a point of uncertainty since Bakke   With its two decisions in Fisher v  University of Texas , however, the Court appears now to require a more "concrete and precise" articulation of the diversity-related educational goals a university hopes to achieve through its affirmative action admissions policy  In addition, the Court also now appears to expect a university to provide a reasoned and principled explanation of why the school believes it important to achieve those goals  The diversity rationale emerged with the Court's first encounter with a voluntary affirmative-action policy, in Bakke   There—in an opinion for the Court joined by no other Justice—Justice Powell explained what interests clearly would not count as compelling enough to satisfy strict scrutiny  Those included the Medical School's alleged interest in having "some specified percentage" of certain racial or ethnic groups in a student body and its interest in "remedying     the effects of societal discrimination," as well as the school's particular interest in "the delivery of health-care services to communities currently underserved " None of these interests, Justice Powell concluded, provided a reason substantial enough to justify turning to race-conscious measures  Nor has the Court said otherwise since  But Justice Powell was also clear about what interest he believed would satisfy strict scrutiny: "student body diversity " And just as importantly, he also explained why: colleges and universities, he suggested, had a uniquely academic interest in promoting an "atmosphere of speculation, experiment, and creation"—an interest, more simply, in "academic freedom " That interest, Justice Powell observed, was not only "essential to the quality of higher education," but had also long "been viewed as a special concern of the First Amendment " Thus the "right to select those students who will contribute the most to the robust exchange of ideas" not only allowed a university "to achieve a goal that is of paramount importance in the fulfillment of its mission," it also represented a "countervailing constitutional interest" that, in Justice Powell's view, called for the Court's respect  In Bakke , Justice Powell set out the basic theory for why diversity could justify an affirmative action policy, at least "in the context of a university's admissions program  But he gave few details about what that interest encompassed  As he saw it, that interest must have its limits: pursuing diversity would not allow a university to resort to racial quotas, for example, nor could the school disregard other "constitutional limitations protecting individual rights " But Justice Powell declined to indicate where those other limitations fell or how they circumscribed the goals a university could permissibly seek in the name of a diverse student body  And because the Bakke Court fractured as it did, with no one opinion commanding a majority of the Justices' votes, the lessons of that case have been hard to discern, especially after the Court appeared to decline a similar diversity rationale in later cases outside higher education  Perhaps unsurprisingly, the lower courts soon came to reflect this uncertain division of opinion in later cases involving affirmative action programs at other public universities  Some clarity over Bakke 's diversity theory came in 2003, with a pair of decisions reviewing affirmative action policies of the University of Michigan: Grutter v  Bollinger , challenging the university's law school admission program, and Gratz v  Bollinger , challenging the policy used by the university's undergraduate program  Grutter , especially, helped clarify what an interest in diversity involved, and how a university could rely on that interest to defend a race-conscious admissions policy  Under the admissions policy of the University of Michigan Law School ( the Law School) challenged in Grutter , applicants to incoming classes were admitted under a policy that weighed a composite of the applicant's LSAT score and undergraduate GPA along with several more individualized factors, including the applicant's race  The Law School set out to create classes with what it called a "critical mass of underrepresented minority students," to ensure that those students felt "encourage[d]     to participate in the classroom and not feel isolated " The school, however, never explicitly assigned a numerical target for any particular racial group, though it did track, on an ongoing basis, "the racial composition of the developing class " A rejected white applicant claimed the Law School's admission policy discriminated against her based on her race, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause and Title VI  And her challenge eventually reached the Supreme Court, alongside its companion case, Gratz , challenging the university's admissions policy for its undergraduate program  Given the uncertainties surrounding Bakke 's bottom line, the first major question in Grutter centered on the basic goal of the Law School's policy: Is achieving student diversity an interest compelling enough to justify a school's use of race at all in its admissions decisions? And for the first time the Supreme Court held that it was  Writing for a clear majority, Justice O'Connor adopted the view Justice Powell set out in Bakke : "student body diversity is a compelling state interest that can justify the use of race in university admissions " More than that, the Court made clear that it was willing to defer to the Law School's understanding of that interest, and its goal of "enroll[ing] a 'critical mass' of minority students '" As Justice O'Connor explained for the Court, by enrolling a "critical mass" of students, the Law School was trying to achieve the "substantial" "educational benefits that diversity is designed to produce"—benefits such as "promot[ing] cross-racial understanding," "break[ing] down racial stereotypes," "promot[ing] learning outcomes," and "better prepar[ing students] as professionals " Achieving a "critical mass" of underrepresented students, the Court agreed, was simply one way that the Law School could try to vindicate those diversity-related educational benefits  And because this interest was deemed compelling enough to satisfy strict scrutiny, the Court was therefore willing to treat the school's use of the "critical mass" target as a permissible proxy for achieving those benefits  Not all the Justices agreed, however, that the university's invocation of "critical mass" made the diversity interest more concrete or compelling  In dissent, Justice Kennedy sided with Chief Justice Rehnquist's view that "the concept of critical mass [was] a delusion used by the Law School to mask its attempt to make race an automatic factor in most instances and to achieve numerical goals indistinguishable from quotas " That "delusion," according to Justice Kennedy, did not just make the school's appeal to "critical mass" "inconsistent with [the] individual consideration" of applicants  It also, in his view, turned the school's admissions policy into a veiled form of racial balancing  And all four dissenting Justices found that result incompatible with the Equal Protection Clause  Grutter appeared to settle the major question left open by the fractured decision in Bakke : whether achieving student diversity was a compelling enough interest for a public university to justify its consideration of race in its admissions policies  Grutter confirmed not only that the Court still viewed student diversity as a compelling interest, but also that a school could vindicate that interest by seeking to enroll a "critical mass" of underrepresented minorities in its incoming classes  The ruling also effectively swept aside contrary lower court decisions that struck down other state universities' affirmative action policies, including in Texas  In the wake of Grutter , the University of Texas (UT Austin) decided to revisit its applicant review process, eventually choosing to introduce race as one of the factors considered in its admissions policy  Under the revised policy, UT Austin would continue to admit all Texas high school students who graduated in the top ten percent of their class, and fill in the rest of its incoming undergraduate classes using an index score incorporating two assessments: (1) an "Academic Index" (AI) that weighed the applicant's SAT score and academic record; and (2) a "Personal Achievement Index" (PAI) that included a more holistic appraisal of the student's character and, following post- Grutter revisions, also factored in the applicant's race  Abigail Fisher, a white Texas student whose application to UT Austin was rejected under this process, challenged the AI-PAI system  That system, she argued, had discriminated against her as a white applicant by allegedly allowing race to figure in the decision to reject her application, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause  Her challenge eventually made its way to the Supreme Court as Fisher v  University of Texas , where the Supreme Court remanded the challenge to the lower court to review UT Austin's policy under strict scrutiny ( Fis her I ), and then upon appeal upheld the school's admission policy ( Fis her II )  In her suit, Fisher did not challenge Grutter 's basic holding—that the university had a compelling interest in student diversity, or even that the school could pursue that interest in diversity by enrolling a "critical mass" of underrepresented minorities  But when the Court finally took up her challenge on the merits in Fisher II , Justice Kennedy also took the occasion to revisit Grutter 's analysis, offering several "controlling principles" on behalf of the four-Justice majority that would guide its review of UT Austin's race-conscious admissions policy  In Fisher II , as in Fisher I , Justice Kennedy confirmed that Grutter 's bottom line remained good law: "obtaining 'the educational benefits that flow from student body diversity,'" he confirmed, was still an interest compelling enough to satisfy strict scrutiny  But perhaps mindful of his dissent in Grutter , Justice Kennedy also clarified that "asserting an interest in the educational benefits of diversity writ large" would not suffice  That, he explained, would make the "university's goals" too "elusory or amorphous" "to permit judicial scrutiny of the policies adopted to reach them " The Court thus cut two new benchmarks for reviewing a university's asserted interest in resorting to race as a factor in its admissions policy  First, the university had to articulate "precise and concrete goals" that its race-conscious policy served, goals "sufficiently measurable" under "judicial scrutiny " And, second, the university had to provide a "'reasoned, principled explanation' for its decision to pursue those goals"—a sound academic rationale, in other words, for wanting to achieve whatever diversity-related goals it set for itself  In the majority's view, UT Austin's use of race in its admissions decisions measured up to both benchmarks  According to the Court, the first benchmark was straightforwardly met: the goals UT Austin articulated, Justice Kennedy pointed out, effectively "mirror[ed] the 'compelling interest' th[e] Court ha[d] approved in its prior cases " And under Grutter , the majority concluded, those benefits passed constitutional muster  Notably, however, achieving critical mass was not among those Justice Kennedy listed  Nor did Justice Kennedy return to the question he raised in Grutter : whether the "critical mass" concept even has a place among the "concrete and precise goals" that could survive strict scrutiny  But that question was also arguably beside the point in Fisher II   As Justice Kennedy emphasized for the Court, the goals that UT Austin articulated were clearly constitutionally adequate, having come nearly verbatim from the Court's case law  And the university's officials had all offered "the same, consistent 'reasoned, principled explanation'" for pursuing them—meeting the Court's second benchmark  That was apparently enough for the Court to conclude that a compelling interest justified the university's diluted use of race in its holistic review of applications  With Fisher I and II , the Court reiterated that the educational benefits that come with a racially diverse student body count among the few interests compelling enough to survive strict scrutiny  But Fisher I and II also narrowed that interest: seeking student body diversity had to involve objectives more specific than the simple desire for "diversity writ large " Rather, under the Fisher formulation, the university must articulate the "concrete and precise goals" it expects its affirmative action policy to accomplish, along with a "reasoned, principled explanation" of why it has chosen to pursue them  So long as a university does that, it will likely have a strong case, under Fisher I and II , that a compelling interest supports its use of a race-conscious admissions policy  That, however, is only the first of two tests that a policy has to pass under strict scrutiny  The second—probing whether the university has narrowly tailored its policy to achieve those diversity-related benefits—has proved equally critical in the Court's review of affirmative action policies  And once again owing to Justice Powell's opinion in Bakke , the Court appears to have embraced a model of what a narrowly tailored policy looks like: Harvard College's admissions program endorsed in Bakke , now more commonly known as the "Harvard plan " The Harvard plan has also provided the Court with a basis for developing more specific criteria for evaluating other affirmative action policies—what one court has described as the "five hallmarks of a narrowly tailored affirmative action plan " The first affirmative action program to come before the Court—the policy challenged in Bakke at U C  Davis's Medical School—was also the first to falter under the Court's scrutiny  But because the Justices were unable to cobble together a majority there, they also settled on no single rationale for why the Medical School's policy could not survive the Court's scrutiny  This uncertainty left the lower courts without clear guidance on the permissibility of race-conscious admissions policies structured differently than the one struck down in Bakke   In announcing the judgment in Bakke , however, Justice Powell offered a clear reason why, in his view, the Medical School's policy could not survive a challenge under the Equal Protection Clause  The school's 16-seat set-aside for minority students was not "the only effective means of serving [the school's] interest in diversity" —in constitutional parlance, the set-aside was not narrowly tailored  And to explain why not, Justice Powell pointed to the Harvard plan as an example of an appropriately tailored affirmative action policy  That plan, according to Justice Powell, had several significant features that distinguished it—favorably—from the set-aside struck down in Bakk e : In [Harvard's] admissions program, race or ethnic background [is] deemed a "plus" in a particular applicant's file, yet it does not insulate the individual from comparison with all other candidates for the available seats  The file of a particular black applicant may be examined for his potential contribution to diversity without the factor of race being decisive when compared, for example, with that of an applicant identified as an Italian-American if the latter is thought to exhibit qualities more likely to promote beneficial educational pluralism  Such qualities could include exceptional personal talents, unique work or service experience, leadership potential, maturity, demonstrated compassion, a history of overcoming disadvantage, ability to communicate with the poor, or other qualifications deemed important     [And] the weight attributed to a particular quality may vary from year to year depending upon the 'mix' both of the student body and the applicants for the incoming class  Unlike this "flexible" system of review, the Medical School policy at issue in Bakke was rigid: reserving a predetermined number of seats for a "selected ethnic group " In Justice Powell's view, that technique effectively precluded a more holistic review, that "treats each applicant as an individual " "[R]ace or ethnic origin," as he saw it, did not serve as "a single though important element" of an applicant's file in the Medical School's policy; it had instead become a factor that "foreclosed" other applicants "from all consideration for [certain] seat[s] simply because [they were] not the right color or had the wrong surname " A program like that, Justice Powell concluded, could not be narrowly tailored—precisely because another more individualized and "holistic" model, like Harvard's, could serve instead  Even if Bakke suggested that the Court's scrutiny of a race-conscious admissions policy would be every bit as strict as for other racial classifications, later cases have made clear that such scrutiny need not always be fatal  The companion cases of Grutter v  Bollinger and Gratz v  Bollinger offer clear examples: each involved affirmative action admissions policies at the University of Michigan, and each yielded a different bottom line, with the Court upholding the Law School's policy in Grutter while striking down the university's undergraduate admissions policy in Gratz   But those diverging results appeared to proceed from a common starting point: how closely the challenged admissions policy resembled the Harvard plan  In the case of the Law School's admissions policy, the Court found the resemblance quite close  As Justice O'Connor explained for the Court in Grutter , "the Law School engages in a highly individualized, holistic review of each applicant's file, giving serious consideration to all the ways an applicant might contribute to a diverse educational environment " It therefore did not award "mechanical, predetermined diversity 'bonuses' based on race or ethnicity " And "[l]ike the Harvard Plan, the Law School's admissions policy" accorded each applicant the same sort of flexible consideration that Justice Powell had called for in Bakke   That "policy st[ood] in sharp contrast," however, with the way the Court viewed the university's undergraduate admissions policy in Gratz   Under the undergraduate policy, admissions officers automatically awarded "20 points, or one-fifth of the points needed to guarantee admission, to every single 'underrepresented minority' applicant solely because of race " As Chief Justice Rehnquist explained for the Court, that policy therefore violated a basic feature of "[t]he admission program Justice Powell described" in Bakke —a program that "did not contemplate that any single characteristic automatically ensured a specific and identifiable contribution to a university's diversity " The result was a policy that did not "offer applicants the individualized selection process described in Harvard's example," and that could consequently not pass strict scrutiny  On that point Justice O'Connor also agreed  As she explained in supplying her decisive fifth vote, the undergraduate policy simply did not "enable[] admissions officers to make nuanced judgments with respect to the contributions each applicant is likely to make to the diversity of the incoming class," unlike the Law School's more holistic policy  This was true even though the undergraduate policy "assign[ed] 20 points to some 'soft' variables other than race," such as "leadership and service, personal achievement, and geographic diversity " None of that, in Justice O'Connor's view, could counteract the more problematic effect of those factors' being "capped at much lower levels," so that "even the most outstanding national high school leader could never receive more than five points for his or her accomplishments—a mere quarter of the points automatically assigned to an underrepresented minority solely based on the fact of his or her race " That weighting, though not problematic in all cases, had all but ensured there "that the diversity contributions of applicants [could not] be individually assessed " A thumb pressed that heavily on the racial scale, Justice O'Connor concluded, came too close to the "nonindividualized, mechanical" balancing condemned by Bakke to survive strict scrutiny  Despite their contrasting results, Gratz and Grutter gestured at several basic criteria by which to assess a university's race-conscious admissions policy  Those criteria, as the U S  Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit later described them, could be summed up in "five hallmarks of a narrowly tailored affirmative action plan " And all five can be traced in one way or another to Justice Powell's analysis of the Harvard plan  1  No Quotas  Perhaps the clearest violation of the requirement that a policy be narrowly tailored is the use of racial quotas  As Justice O'Connor explained in Grutter , a "'quota' is a program in which a certain fixed number or proportion of opportunities are reserved exclusively for certain minority groups," consequently "insulat[ing] the individual [applicant] from comparison with all other candidates for the available seats " And as Justice Powell emphasized in Bakke , and as has been consistently reaffirmed by the Court since, "[t]o be narrowly tailored, a race-conscious admissions program cannot use a quota system " This ban on quotas therefore precludes the use of a rigid set-aside like the one challenged in Bakke   And it likewise rules out the sort of "mechanical," automatic points system that was once in place at the University of Michigan's undergraduate college and was later invalidated in Gratz   2  Individualized Consideration  The flip side of the Court's refusal to accept racial quotas has been its insistence on individualizing the consideration of applicants  As Justice Kennedy reaffirmed in Fisher I , echoing Justice Powell's description of the Harvard plan in Bakke , an appropriately tailored program "must 'remain flexible enough to ensure that each applicant is evaluated as an individual and not in a way that makes an applicant's race or ethnicity the defining feature of his or her application '" And as the Court suggested in Gratz and Grutter , an acceptable plan will therefore engage in a "highly individualized, holistic review of each applicant's file, giving serious consideration to all the ways an applicant might contribute to a diverse educational environment " Such review allows "the use of race as one of many 'plus factors' in an admissions program," like in the University of Michigan Law School's policy upheld in Grutter   It also appears to bar a school from "automatically award[ing] points to applicants from certain racial minorities" as an effectively decisive factor, as it became under the university's undergraduate policy  3  Serious, Good-Faith Consideration of Race-Neutral or More Flexible Alternatives  Neither of these two criteria, however, implies that a university must exhaust "every conceivable race-neutral alternative" before turning to a race-conscious policy  Instead, a university need only provide evidence that it undertook "serious, good faith consideration of workable race-neutral alternatives" before resorting to its choice of a race-conscious plan, but that those alternatives either did not suffice to meet its approved educational goals or would have required some sacrifice of its "reputation for academic excellence " The same holds true, moreover, of more flexible race-conscious alternatives  Thus Justice Powell explained in Bakke that the Medical School's program was not narrowly tailored when the school could have adopted the more individualized, holistic program then in use at Harvard, an option the Medical School apparently did not consider  4  No Undue Harm  Even though the Court has allowed the use of race-conscious admissions policies under the exacting standard of strict scrutiny, it has also long "acknowledge[d] that 'there are serious problems of justice connected with the idea of preference itself '" In Grutter , Justice O'Connor drew another corollary from that apparent discomfort with racial preferences  "[A] race-conscious admissions program," she explained, must "not unduly harm members of any racial group " What this corollary means more specifically remains unclear; so far it has received only passing attention from the Court  At the least, Justice O'Connor suggested, a race-conscious admissions policy must not "unduly burden individuals who are not members of the favored racial and ethnic groups " And in Grutter , Justice O'Connor put more flesh on that analysis: an affirmative action policy that closely resembled the Harvard plan, she suggested, would not "unduly harm" other applicants  It remains to be seen, however, whether this principle might take on new life in the Court's review of other plans  5  Ongoing Review  In Grutter , Justice O'Connor also drew a fifth and final corollary from the basic premise that the Fourteenth Amendment was meant "to do away with all governmentally imposed discrimination based on race " "[R]ace-conscious admissions policies," she concluded, "must be limited in time " This requirement, Justice O'Connor explained for the Court, reflected a consideration apparently unique to racial classifications: "however compelling their goals, [they] are potentially so dangerous that they may be employed no more broadly than the interest demands " Doctrinally, this meant there could be no "permanent justification" for race-conscious admissions policies in higher education; sooner or later they had to end, as the university conceded in its briefing  Practically, this "logical end point" could come in one of several ways  It could take the form of an explicit "durational limit," such as a sunset provision  Or it could arrive as a result of "periodic reviews to determine whether racial preferences are still necessary to achieve student body diversity " But, however a university chooses to pursue that end, it has an "ongoing obligation to engage in constant deliberation and continued reflection regarding its admissions policies" and the role race plays in them, or whether it should continue to play one at all  For several Justices this ongoing obligation of review also pointed to something more definite—an expiration date, when "the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further [the school's] interest" in student body diversity  Looking back over the quarter-century since Bakke , Justice O'Connor "expect[ed]" that day to come twenty-five years after casting her deciding votes in Gratz and Grutter —ten years from this writing  What exactly this meant, as either a practical or doctrinal matter, also remains unclear  Indeed, even then several of her fellow Justices seemed less sure, or simply unsure, what to make of that unusually specific constitutional deadline  But with six Justices having since departed the Court, Justices O'Connor and Kennedy included, it remains to be seen whether in the next ten years race-conscious admissions policies will reach this foreordained "logical end point " What seems clear for now, however, is that the Harvard plan described in Bakke remains the Court's working model of a constitutionally satisfactory race-conscious admissions policy  And that, as the Court has consistently said since, is a policy capable of achieving the diversity "essential" to the life of a modern university, while still "treat[ing] each applicant as an individual " Race has come to play two major doctrinal roles in higher education today, mirroring the two senses of "affirmative action" discussed in this report: the mandatory role, rooted in the affirmative obligation states have to eliminate the vestiges of de jure segregation, and the voluntary role, particularly in admissions decisions at selective colleges and universities  In the context of higher education, the Court has so far considered these two forms of "affirmative action" only in relation to public universities, and then primarily as a matter of constitutional law, under the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause  But many of those cases have also involved claims brought under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI or the Act)  And while the Court has read Title VI's protections to overlap with the Equal Protection Clause, Congress still has a significant say over the substantive scope of Title VI as well as its enforcement  Title VI generally protects participants in federally funded "program[s] or activit[ies]" from discrimination based on their "race, color, or national origin " To ensure that statutory right, the Act grants all federal funding agencies the authority to issue implementing regulations, and the power to enforce the regulations they issue  In practice, much of the interpretive authority falls to the U S  Department of Justice (DOJ), and for educational programs, the U S  Department of Education (ED)  Both DOJ and ED have also established their own processes for receiving and investigating complaints of suspected Title VI violations  ED, meanwhile, has also issued its own set of rules to govern the federal education dollars it disburses each year, reaching some 4,700 colleges and universities  Every agency that awards federal funds—ED included—has the authority not just to issue implementing regulations but to enforce those rules against noncompliant recipients, including through an investigation that may, upon a finding of noncompliance, result in the termination, suspension, or refusal to grant federal funds  Thus, for example, where ED finds a school in violation of Title VI or its implementing regulations the department may seek to cut off federal funding through an "administrative fund termination proceeding," as it has in at least some cases  And since the passage of the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, the courts have read the scope of liability under Title VI broadly  With respect to the termination of funds, a Title VI violation in one program at a college or university could therefore jeopardize funding for the institution as a whole  Withdrawing funds may be the ultimate means of enforcing Title VI, but it is far from exclusive  DOJ, for its part, has also sought to achieve compliance through the federal courts, intervening in some private suits alleging Title VI violations and otherwise representing executive branch agencies, such as ED, in lawsuits seeking enforcement of Title VI  DOJ has participated in cases challenging practices of formerly de jure segregated public university systems as well as in settlements resolving such Fordice -related claims  DOJ has also taken a position in cases challenging affirmative action admissions policies, most recently in the ongoing litigation surrounding Harvard College's admissions policies  ED has ventured into this area as well, having recently opened investigations into the admissions decisions at several prominent private universities  Congress continues to have considerable say over how Title VI works—at least within the parameters of the Supreme Court's equal protection jurisprudence  Perhaps the most direct way of doing so is by amendment  As a general matter, Congress could revise Title VI in one of two directions, to make the statute either (1) more restrictive than the Court's current Equal Protection jurisprudence or (2) expressly permissive of race-conscious measures that the Court has upheld or has thus far not addressed  In the more restrictive direction, Congress could prohibit recipients of federal funds from using voluntary race-conscious measures at all—a result that four Justices in Bakke argued Title VI already requires, but which the Court has so far not embraced  A statutory revision of that kind would also implicitly reject the Harvard Plan discussed in Bakke , by excluding race as a permissible factor in admissions decisions at the many universities subject to Title VI, including the many private universities that receive federal funds  And, consequently, an amendment along these lines would make unlawful the type of admissions policies that the Court has approved under the Equal Protection Clause, like those at issue in Grutter and Fisher II   On the other hand, Congress could expressly open other avenues for effectuating Title VI's antidiscrimination mandate  This could include incorporating a private right of action to bring suit under Title VI, which, at present, is an implied right with no statutorily defined remedies  More consequentially, Congress could also amend Title VI to provide for disparate impact liability—that is, a Title VI violation based on a funding recipient's use of certain policies or practices that disproportionately and negatively impact members of a protected class, as already exists under Title VII of the same Act  A provision addressing disparate impact liability—either its availability or foreclosure under Title VI—would resolve a significant and ongoing debate on the issue  Such an addition would also be one way of clarifying whether Congress does in fact intend for Title VI to be read coextensively with the Equal Protection Clause  Beyond legislative amendments, Congress also exercises oversight over the agencies charged with carrying out Title VI's antidiscrimination mandate  As discussed earlier, DOJ and ED are primarily responsible for enforcing Title VI in educational programs  For its part, ED investigates and seeks compliance through its Office for Civil Rights, while the Educational Opportunities Section of the Department of Justice's (DOJ's) Civil Rights Division typically enforces Title VI in educational programs for the department  Both offices maintain public archives documenting their past and current investigations, as well as wider-ranging reports detailing their enforcement priorities and investigatory procedures  And because Title VI applies to a wide variety of entities that receive federal financial assistance, not just colleges and universities, DOJ also publishes news and updates on Title VI enforcement activity in other programmatic areas, from agencies across the federal government  Race has come to play two major doctrinal roles in higher education today, reflecting the two senses of "affirmative action" discussed in this report  "Affirmative action" in its original sense grew out of the affirmative obligation imposed on the states by the Equal Protection Clause to eliminate the vestiges of de jure segregation from their public schools  And in that sense, "affirmative action" involves the mandatory use of race-conscious measures in higher education to right the enduring wrongs of state-sanctioned segregation  But "affirmative action" has also come to refer to race-conscious policies outside this de jure context—policies voluntarily adopted by institutions to help racial minorities overcome the effects of their earlier exclusion  In higher education, none has been more salient—or stirred more debate—than the race-conscious admissions policies that colleges and universities across the country have used to diversify their student bodies  Thus far, remedial measures addressing de jure segregation, and voluntary measures designed to promote student-body diversity, have been the only race-conscious measures that the Court has approved under the Equal Protection Clause  And both remain areas of active litigation and administrative enforcement  Over the years, however, the Court has made it clear that it will subject voluntary "affirmative action" policies to especially close scrutiny, approving them only when they can be shown to be narrowly tailored to serve compelling educational goals  It has approved such polices twice already, most recently in 2016  Still, several Justices have suggested that the rationales supporting these voluntary race-conscious measures will one day run out  But for the time being, at least, these two lines of authority nevertheless provide a place for affirmative action in higher education today  This authority, however, leaves questions as of yet unexplored  It appears to be an open question, for example, whether a public institution of higher education can cite its own history of intentional exclusion, or else its "past discrimination," as a basis for adopting a race-conscious admissions policy, among other measures  Whether—and how—the courts might assess such untested arguments would likely turn on a range of factors, including the further development of the two lines of authority addressed in this report  Regardless of those and other possible developments, however, Congress still has a significant say in in this area, through its authority not just to revise Title VI but to oversee the Act's enforcement 

ground_truth: Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution provides that the President shall appoint officers of the United States "by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate." This report describes the process by which the Senate provides advice and consent on presidential nominations, including receipt and referral of nominations, committee practices, and floor procedure. Committees play the central role in the process through investigations and hearings. Senate Rule XXXI provides that nominations shall be referred to appropriate committees "unless otherwise ordered." Most nominations are referred, although a Senate standing order provides that some "privileged" nominations to specified positions will not be referred unless requested by a Senator. The Senate rule concerning committee jurisdictions (Rule XXV) broadly defines issue areas for committees, and the same jurisdictional statements generally apply to nominations as well as legislation. A committee often gathers information about a nominee either before or instead of a formal hearing. A committee considering a nomination has four options. It can report the nomination to the Senate favorably, unfavorably, or without recommendation, or it can choose to take no action. It is more common for a committee to take no action on a nomination than to reject a nominee outright. The Senate handles executive business, which includes both nominations and treaties, separately from its legislative business. All nominations reported from committee are listed on the Executive Calendar, a separate document from the Calendar of Business, which lists pending bills and resolutions. Generally speaking, the majority leader schedules floor consideration of nominations on the Calendar. Nominations are considered in "executive session," a parliamentary form of the Senate in session that has its own journal and, to some extent, its own rules of procedure. The Senate can call up a nomination expeditiously, because a motion to enter executive session to consider a specific nomination on the Calendar is not debatable. This motion requires a majority of Senators present and voting, a quorum being present, for approval. After a nomination has been called up, the question before the Senate is "will the Senate advise and consent to this nomination?" A majority of Senators voting is required to approve a nomination. However, Senate rules place no limit on how long a nomination may be debated, and ending consideration could require invoking cloture. On April 6, 2017, the Senate reinterpreted Rule XXII in order to allow cloture to be invoked on nominations to the Supreme Court by a majority of Senators voting. This expanded the results of similar actions taken by the Senate in November 2013, which changed the cloture vote requirement to a majority for nominations other than to the Supreme Court. After the 2013 decision, the number of nominations subjected to a cloture process increased. On April 3, 2019, the Senate reinterpreted Rule XXII again. The Senate reduced, from 30 hours to 2 hours, the maximum time nominations can be considered after cloture has been invoked. This change applied to all executive branch nominations except to high-level positions such as heads of departments, and it applied to all judicial nominations except to the Supreme Court and the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The full impact of this change is difficult to assess at this time, but it is likely to shorten the time between a cloture vote and a vote on the nomination. If Senators respond as they did to the last reinterpretation of the cloture rule, it might also increase the number of nominations subjected to a cloture process. Nominations that are pending when the Senate adjourns sine die at the end of a session or recesses for more than 30 days are returned to the President unless the Senate, by unanimous consent, waives the rule requiring their return (Senate Rule XXXI, clause 6). If a nomination is returned, and the President still desires Senate consideration, he must submit a new nomination.