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Congressional Updates
NCSL Comments on Labor Department’s National Apprenticeship System Enhancements
NCSL raised concerns that the proposed rule’s unilateral one-size-fits-all approach ignores current, successfully implemented state practices and policies. Read more
Fiscal 2024 Finished as Last of Appropriations Signed Into Law
President Biden signed the final six spending bills into law over the weekend. The measure represents $1.2 trillion in federal spending. The legislation was unveiled the day before the March 22 expiration of the continuing resolution covering the last of the six bills. The House passed the legislation 286-134 on March 22 with the Senate voting 74-24 in the early morning hours of March 23. The spending package includes six bills: Defense, Financial Services, Homeland Security, Labor and HHS, Legislative Branch, and State and Foreign Operations.
Bill Text: Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024
Press Releases: House GOP | House Democrats | Senate GOP | Senate Democrats
FFIS: Jim Martin Tables (select discretionary and mandatory program funding)
NCSL will summarize the latest six spending bills in next week’s Capitol to Capitol. In the meantime, you can examine an NCSL summary of the first six spending bills here.
House Approves Milestone Data Privacy Bill
The Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act prevents data brokers—third-party buyers and sellers of personal information—from selling sensitive information to China, Russia or other “foreign adversaries.” The bill’s approval by the House is significant since it is the first data privacy bill a congressional body has approved in nearly a decade. In the absence of federal activity, states have considered and enacted data privacy bills. The federal bill now moves to the Senate, where Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) has expressed support. Read more
Administration Updates
Education Department Forgives $5.8B in Loans for Public Service Workers
Nearly 78,000 borrowers received forgiveness through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. The administration has forgiven nearly $63 billion for public service borrowers and about $144 billion across all loan forgiveness programs since 2021. Read more
DHS Unveils AI Road Map
The plan describes the Department of Homeland Security’s artificial intelligence strategies going forward and outlines the launch of several pilot programs. This includes enhancing immigration officer training through more personalized, interactive materials; improving efficiencies in law enforcement investigations through large language models that summarize investigative reports; and improving on the administrative requirements of applying for disaster relief grants using generative AI. The road map delineates DHS’s three main policies in the deployment of the pilot programs and in its overall strategy:
- Protect individual privacy and civil rights.
- Create safe and beneficial efficiencies for the American public.
- Foster and create partnerships with state, local and territorial governments, the private sector, academia, the international community and nongovernment organizations.
Read more