Insights

Washington – May 1, 2023: Aaron Cummings, former chief of staff to Republican U.S. Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the most senior member of the U.S. Senate, has joined Crowell & Moring to serve as co-chair of the firm’s bipartisan Government Affairs Group with partner Jim Flood, former Counsel to Sen. Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-NY). 

Washington, D.C. – May 13, 2020: Kate Beale is joining Crowell & Moring and Crowell & Moring International LLC (CMI), bringing more than two decades of U.S. and international experience leading global health, international trade, investment, and economic policy in Congress, the Obama-Biden administration, foreign markets, and in C-suites across Global Fortune 500 companies.

On October 30, 2023, President Biden released an Executive Order (EO) on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI).  This landmark EO seeks to advance the safe and secure development and deployment of AI by implementing a society-wide effort across government, the private sector, academia, and civil society to harness “AI for good,” while mitigating its substantial risks.

On June 21, 2023, Senate Majority Leader Charles (“Chuck”) Schumer (D-NY) released a broad policy framework, the SAFE Innovation Framework for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy (“the Framework”), to help guide Congress in developing future AI legislation. The Framework emphasizes the importance of maintaining national security, combatting misinformation, protecting intellectual property, and developing transparency requirements for AI systems developers. While the Framework is Senator Schumer’s work product, he’s already started searching for allies in his own party and across the aisle. Leader Schumer has convened a bipartisan working group that includes Senators Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Michael Rounds (R-SD), and Todd Young (R-IN) to consider future AI legislation. They haven’t specifically endorsed Schumer’s framework, but they’ve committed to working with him on the issue. As they look to put an AI bill together, Schumer’s office will be looking to Senate Committees as a major source for legislative language.  

On March 9, 2023, President Biden released his fiscal year (FY) 2024 budget request outlining the administration’s priorities, including a nearly 10 percent increase in discretionary spending over the current enacted funding levels. The President’s budget requests a total of $6.9 trillion federal spending for FY 2024. Of this amount, $4.2 trillion would be in mandatory spending and $1.9 trillion would be in discretionary spending. Defense spending would receive an approximately 3 percent increase from FY 2023 for a total of $885 billion in discretionary spending, while non-defense spending would receive a nearly 4 percent increase from FY 2023 levels for a total of $1.02 trillion in FY 2024. The President’s budget request proposes a 7 percent increase over current non-defense spending level and tax increases among other proposed revenue raisers designed to lower the national deficit by $3 trillion over the next 10 years. 

With the midterm elections (mostly) behind us, Congress is working through a list of must-pass items in the remaining days of the 117th Congress. Heading into the new divided Congress in 2023, with the narrowest Senate majority and House leadership not yet decided, we anticipate a move away from the Speaker-dominant House leadership model with small factions and individual members trying to exert influence over the agenda. We will discuss how razor-thin margins in both Congressional Chambers sets up a dynamic whereby President Biden and both parties in Congress will be motivated to find some common ground on legislation during the lame duck session and in the next two years. We will also provide insights into some key committees and issues that will be top priorities in the next Congress.

The Crowell Health Solutions, Crowell & Moring Government Affairs Group and Crowell & Moring International (CMI) team invite you to attend a webinar on what to expect in health care in 2023 on Capitol Hill, in the U.S. and abroad, now that U.S. Mid-Term Elections are over. In particular, this webinar will focus on key issues such as drug pricing, health care supply chains, data privacy regulation, general and reproductive rights issues, telehealth and concerns that matter to U.S. and global healthcare companies.