Senate Republicans on Friday backed an amendment to their budget resolution aimed at protecting Medicare and Medicaid.
The amendment, which passed 51-48 and was proposed by Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska.), was the first brought forward as part of the vote-a-rama ahead of a final vote
on the bill that will serve as a blueprint for President Trump’s domestic agenda, including extending his tax cuts.
The Sullivan amendment calls for actions related to Medicaid, specifically, that “may include strengthening and improving” the program “for the most vulnerable populations.”
Republicans have been accused of trying to use the budget resolution to gut entitlement programs, headlined by Medicaid, in order to fund the tax cut push and to potentially make them permanent.
The resolution instructs the House Energy and Commerce Committee to reduce the deficit by $880 billion, a target experts say can’t be met without slashing Medicaid.
Some Republicans have maintained that any cuts to the programs would be in the name of rooting out “waste, fraud and abuse,” rather than touching benefits themselves.
But moderate Republicans and those from states where a lot of constituents rely on Medicaid have been nervous.
Every Senate Republican save for two voted for the amendment. Sens. John Curtis (R-Utah) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) opposed it.
The amendment was the first in a marathon series of votes called a vote-a-rama, which is expected to last into the wee hours of Saturday morning.
While the Medicaid amendment was put forward by Republicans, the bulk of the proposals are expected to be from Democrats who want to put their GOP counterparts on the record on a series of difficult issues.
No amendments were adopted during vote-a-rama earlier this year on an initial Senate proposal.
Energy considers 40 percent of its staff nonessential
The Energy Department (DOE) considers more than 40 percent of its staffers to be nonessential — meaning these people could be on the chopping block — as mass layoffs loom at the agency and across the federal government
.
A document viewed by The Hill on Friday states that out of the agency’s current headcount of 15,994 positions — 9,004 are essential, meaning some 7,000 other positions are not.
The approximately 16,000 total positions listed by the agency does include nearly 1,300 people who are currently on leave because they accepted the “Fork in the Road
” buyout or because their roles relate to diversity, equity and inclusion, which the administration sought to eliminate from the government.
It’s not immediately clear whether everyone deemed nonessential will be laid off. A spokesperson for the Energy Department said that no final decisions have been made as of Friday evening.
The spokesperson said the department is conducting a “review of its organizational structures to ensure operations are best positioned to accomplish the DOE mission and align with the Trump administration’s priorities.”
“No final decisions have been made and multiple plans are still being considered,” the spokesperson added.
Welcome to The Hill’s Energy & Environment newsletter, I’m Rachel Frazin — keeping you up to speed on the policies impacting everything from oil and gas to new supply chains.
The Senate parliamentarian has ruled that lawmakers cannot use the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to overturn California’s electric vehicle mandate — but Republicans may defy the arbiter of the Senate’s rules.
A federal judge Friday ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to disburse millions of dollars of grants to Democratic-led states, finding the administration’s withholding of the funds breached his previous ruling.
News we’ve flagged from other outlets touching on energy issues, the environment and other topics:
FEMA halts grant program that spent billions on disaster protection (E&E News
)
The Next American Energy Boom Will Be Geothermal (The Atlantic
)
On Our Radar
Upcoming news themes and events we’re watching:
Tuesday
The House Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing
on conservation-related bills
Wednesday
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a hearing
on managing Superfund sites.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing
titled “Converting Energy into Intelligence: the Future of AI Technology, Human Discovery, and American Global Competitiveness”
Thursday
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing
on Kathleen Sgamma’s nomination to lead the Bureau of Land Management as well as President Trump’s picks for key energy department roles
Nationwide protests are set to take place Saturday in opposition to the Trump administration and its allies, with leaders vowing to stand up to push back against the “most brazen power grab in modern history.” Read more
President Trump’s approval rating slipped to its lowest point during his second White House term amid his handling of the economy and the recent Houthi Signal chat leak, according to a survey published Wednesday. Read more
Opinions in The Hill
Op-eds related to energy & environment submitted to The Hill:
The Senate on Friday night kicked off its vote-a-rama, a process that is likely to conclude with Republicans adopting the budget resolution that will serve as a blueprint for enacting President Trump’s domestic agenda.
The lengthy string of amendment votes is set to run past midnight and into the wee hours of Saturday morning.
Democrats are expected to use the opportunity to put Republicans on the record on a host of issues, headlined by Trump’s widespread tariffs that were rolled out earlier in the week and spawned major losses on Wall Street.
“Now, Donald Trump’s agenda is on trial. It’s time now for Republicans to answer,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said shortly before the vote-a-rama kicked off. “Tonight, Democrats will bring amendment after amendment to the floor — one right after another, again and again and again.”
Schumer added that the Democratic amendments will be focused on actions by the Department of Government Efficiency, along with cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid that Democrats say will be in the final bill.
“The choice is theirs,” Schumer said. “Donald Trump has betrayed the American people. Will Senate Republicans join him in this betrayal?”
The vote-a-rama on the Senate’s previous version of a budget resolution included 25 amendment votes — all of which failed — and lasted nearly 10 hours overall.
The budget resolution would create the parameters for Republicans in their push to extend and make permanent Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which the party has made the top priority of its agenda on Capitol Hill. It also includes a hike in the debt ceiling and spending cuts.
Republicans are aiming to enact Trump’s priorities through a process called budget reconciliation, which bypasses the Senate filibuster and thus can pass with only GOP votes.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) argued on the floor prior to the numerous amendment votes that the battle was all about “whether you want to vote for extending the tax policy and avoiding a $4 trillion tax increase or whether you want to vote in favor of this resolution and make sure the 2017 tax policy … is extended permanently.”
Two leading chemical industry groups have asked the Trump administration for blanket exemptions to certain Biden-era regulations for all polluters.
The American Chemistry Council and the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers requested that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) exempt all polluters from Biden-era rules that limit their emissions of toxic chemicals
.
Just because the trade and lobbying groups are requesting these exemptions, it does not necessarily mean President Trump will grant them.
However, their letter comes after the EPA administrator already indicated
that he plans to overhaul a large slate of Biden-era regulations, including those in the chemical groups’ request.
It also comes after the EPA set up an email address that created a simple porta
l for polluters to request presidential exemptions under the Clean Air Act late last month.
In the Friday letter, which was first reported by Politico Pro, the groups say their industry needs an exemption because without one, they will have to act as if the Biden rules are in place — even as the Trump administration is poised to curtail them.
“Absent a Presidential exemption, sources will be required to make irrevocable investment decisions now and into the coming months to minimize the amount of time facilities may need to be taken offline,” they wrote. “If implemented as written and in accordance with the current compliance schedule, domestic manufacturing production will be negatively impacted, threatening critical supply chains of chemicals that are vital to our nation’s security.”
Environmental groups criticized the EPA’s creation of the email address and the groups’ request.
“Administrator Zeldin has opened a back door for companies to avoid complying with reasonable limits on the most toxic forms of air pollution, and they’re rushing through it with no regard for the communities around them,” said Vickie Patton, general counsel of the Environmental Defense Fund.
“This is a huge blow to American families who now must worry about their loved ones breathing dirtier air, their kids missing more school days because of asthma attacks and suffering a lifetime of illness, and more cancer in their families,” she said.
Trump was poised to sign an executive order approving a deal that would have seen TikTok’s U.S. operations spun off into a new company, a source familiar with the negotiations told The Hill.
This would have allowed the popular social media app to continue operating in the U.S. in the face of a law requiring its China-based parent company ByteDance to divest from the app or face a ban.
However, ByteDance representatives told the White House after Trump’s tariff announcement Wednesday that China would no longer approve the deal without negotiations on tariffs, according to the source.
It had been expected that China would approve a proposed deal that had been in the works for months until the tariffs were announced by Trump.
The White House has not publicly commented on the apparent backing out.
While speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Thursday, Trump used China and TikTok as an example of using tariffs to negotiate.
“We have a situation with TikTok where China will probably say we’ll approve a deal, but will you do something on the tariffs. The tariffs give us great power to negotiate. They always have. I’ve used them very well in the first administration. Now we’re taking it to a whole new level,” Trump said.
When asked if these were talks he was having with China he said, “No I’m just using that as an example.”
President Trump said Friday that he plans to give TikTok another 75-day extension as his administration nears a deal to avert a ban on the popular social media platform. “My Administration has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress,” he wrote Friday on Truth Social. “The Deal requires more work to ensure all necessary approvals are signed, which is why I am signing an Executive …
The Trump administration has fired the director of the National Security Agency as well as his deputy, prompting outrage from congressional Democrats. Director Gen. Timothy Haugh was ousted late Thursday along with his civilian deputy Wendy Noble, a decision that followed the firing of several other top national security staffers earlier that day. Haugh, who also leads the U.S. Cyber Command, has more than 30 years experience …
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, will officially end its fact-checking program Monday, a top company official said. “By Monday afternoon, our fact-checking program in the US will be officially over,” Joel Kaplan, Meta’s chief global affairs officer, said in a post on social platform X. “That means no new fact checks and no fact checkers.” “In place of fact checks, the first Community Notes will start …
Welcome to Crypto Corner, a daily feature focused on digital currency and its outlook in Washington.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is weighing in on stablecoins, as Congress makes progress on new legislation to establish a framework for the crypto token.
In a Friday statement, the SEC said it did not consider stablecoins to be securities, nor do they consider the acts of minting and selling them as securities-related activity that would need to be disclosed to the agency.
To be sure, the SEC said it views stablecoins as tokens designed to maintain a stable value when compared to the U.S. dollar that are readily redeemable and backed by a reserve — the common definition, but one that could exclude other types of crypto tokens.
But the statement laid the groundwork for an expansion of a stablecoin market that was hindered by regulatory uncertainty.
The House Financial Services Committee advanced this week a bill that would create a regulatory framework for stablecoins. If passed by the full House and Senate, it would become the most significant crypto law passed since the industry’s formation.
In Other News
Branch out with other reads on The Hill:
Why Trump’s tariffs are so bad for Big Tech
President Trump’s sweeping new slate of tariffs is poised to strike a blow at the tech industry, as massive import taxes on China and Taiwan disrupt trade flows that are central to tech firms’ business models. Trump announced tariffs upwards of 30 percent on both China and Taiwan on Wednesday as part of an expansive lineup of tariffs targeting imports across the board. Tech companies who depend extensively on …
Nationwide protests are set to take place Saturday in opposition to the Trump administration and its allies, with leaders vowing to stand up to push … Read more
President Trump on Thursday confirmed a reported purge of national security agencies this week, with firings of at least a half dozen officials in … Read more
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed with a loss of 2,231 points Friday, plunging 5.5 percent on the day. The S&P 500 index plummeted by 6 percent, and the Nasdaq composite sank 5.8 percent on the day.
Friday marked the second day of serious losses for the stock market since Trump’s Wednesday afternoon announcement of up to $600 billion in new import taxes.
The scale and scope of Trump’s tariffs shocked investors, who had already been selling off stocks in anticipation of a global slowdown.
The Dow is now down roughly 15 percent from a record high of 45,073 set in December, the S&P 500 is down 17.4 percent from a record high set in February and the Nasdaq is down a staggering 23 percent from its December closing record.
Trump said Friday on Truth Social that investors should buy low in the market and has expressed continued confidence in his agenda.
While several of his officials defended his policies publicly Friday, Trump has not offered a public comment. He is in Florida and was on the golf course Friday.
President Trump urged the Federal Reserve on Friday to cut interest rates and ripped the head of the independent central bank as new tariffs caused stocks to plunge.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Friday that the size and potential economic harm of President Trump’s new tariffs were far larger than anticipated, raising new challenges as the bank attempts to end its inflation fight.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) faces a number of divisions among Senate Republicans that could derail the Senate budget resolution, a measure that will be critical to passing President Trump’s legislative agenda later this year.
Senate budget calls for fraction of cuts sought by House
The Senate voted Thursday to advance its budget resolution, setting up a weekend vote for the upper chamber’s precursor bill for Republicans’ mainline tax cut and spending legislation.
While the analogous House budget resolution calls for $2 trillion in spending cuts to help offset the $4.6 trillion price tag of extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts, the Senate’s version calls for just $4 billion in cuts to give them more flexibility when it comes to writing to the eventual bill.
The Senate’s agriculture, labor, energy and banking committees are each instructed to shed at least $1 billion in spending while other committees are given dispensation to increase spending by hundreds of billions.
While the House and the Senate eventually need to agree on the same budget resolution before they can proceed with the reconciliation process that will allow them to pass a party line vote on the final bill, senators do not sound concerned by the outstanding differences they have now with the House.
“We’ll make it as beautiful as we can make it. If it’s still ugly at the end, it’s better than not doing it. We’ll pass it, and then we’ll start on another one,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said. “We’ll deal with that realizing that we have two more opportunities for two more budgets yet this term.”
Nationwide protests are set to take place Saturday in opposition to the Trump administration and its allies, with leaders vowing to stand up to push back against the “most brazen power grab in modern history.” Read more
A divided Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration by allowing officials to block $65 million in teacher development grants frozen over concerns they were promoting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices. Read more
What People Think
Opinions related to business and economic issues submitted to The Hill:
A federal judge issued a Friday order
transferring the case involving Rumeysa Özturk
, a Tufts graduate student detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to a jurisdiction in Vermont in the “interest of justice.”
“The government asserts that this Court lacks jurisdiction over the Petition as Özturk, unknown to anyone but the government, was in Vermont, not Massachusetts at the time the Petition was filed and, as of 2:35 p.m. on March 26, 2025, was in Louisiana, where she remains,” U.S. District Judge Denise J. Casper for Massachusetts, an Obama appointee, wrote in her order.
Casper ultimately denied the Justice Department’s petition to have the case heard in the Western District of Louisiana and said that her order blocking Öztürk from being deported should be upheld unless the transferee court objects to her ruling.
The judge said the Vermont jurisdiction would hear Özturk’s argument alleging that she was detained in violation of her Fifth Amendment right to due process and the Administrative Procedure Act while being targeted for removal in response to speaking out in support of Palestine.
Democratic lawmakers have drawn attention
to the Turkish national who was detained by officers in plain clothes as shown in a viral recording that captured the Fulbright scholar screaming while being removed. The incident comes as multiple other foreign students have been federally detained
in Louisiana.
“The rationale for this arrest appears to be this student’s expression of her political views,” a group of 30 Democrats wrote in a letter
to Secretary of State Marco Rubio,
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem
and ICE acting Director Todd Lyons.
“We are calling for full due process in this case and are seeking answers about this case and about ICE’s policy that has led to the identification and arrest of university students with valid legal status,” they added.
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has also launched a campaign
against her detainment.
Özturk has requested to be released from custody pending adjudication.
A finalized TikTok deal was pulled Thursday after President Trump announced massive new tariffs against China, a source familiar with the negotiations told The Hill.
Trump was poised to sign an executive order approving a deal that would have seen TikTok’s U.S. operations spun off into a new company, allowing the popular social media app to continue operating in the U.S. in the face of a law requiring its China-based parent company ByteDance to divest from the app or face a ban.
However, ByteDance representatives told the White House after Trump’s tariff announcement Wednesday that China would no longer approve the deal without negotiations on tariffs, according to the source.
It had been expected that China would approve a proposed deal that had been in the works for months until the tariffs were announced by Trump on Thursday.
The White House has not publicly commented on the apparent backing out.
While speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Thursday, Trump used China and TikTok as an example of using tariffs to negotiate.
“We have a situation with TikTok where China will probably say we’ll approve a deal but will you do something on the tariffs. The tariffs give us great power to negotiate. They always have. I’ve used them very well in the first administration. Now we’re taking it to a whole new level,” Trump said.
When asked if these were talks he was having with China he said, “No I’m just using that as an example.”
On Friday, Trump signed an executive order giving TikTok another 75-day extension, saying they had made “tremendous progress” but the deal required “more work to ensure all necessary approvals are signed.”
Democratic strategist James Carville on Friday compared law firms that signed a deal
with President Trump to Nazi regime “collaborators” in Europe.
Several firms tied to past investigations of the president have agreed to forgo diversity, equity and inclusion hiring practices in line with Trump’s executive order
and donate millions to causes of his choice through legal aid.
“Maybe you need to go in history and see what happened in August of 1944, after Paris was liberated. They didn’t take very kindly to the collaborators,” Carville said in a Friday recording of Politicon
.
“No, it was not a very pretty sight in the streets of Paris. I’m not saying that these people should be placed in pajamas and have their heads shaved, marched down Pennsylvania Avenue, and spit on. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that, that did happen,” he added.
Carville said law firms found to willingly enter a signed agreement with Trump have betrayed the United States.
“These people are a disgrace to the law firms they represent, to the companies that they represent and are supposed to be in self-interest, and they’re a disgrace to the United States and etch their names in the tablet of history for being some of the greatest traitors, appeasers that we’ve seen in the history of our great country,” the longtime Democrat said.
On Wednesday, Milbank law firm said
it entered an agreement similar to the Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom deal with the Trump administration to resolve concerns.
“As a large law firm that does a majority of its work on transactional matters, we are dependent on our ability to navigate client issues in all parts of the Executive Branch. We believed that it was in the best interests of the Firm and its clients to resolve the Trump Administration’s concerns in a way that would foster our working relationship and avoid what could have been an unnecessary confrontation,” Chair Scott Edelman wrote to employees in a letter obtained by The Hill.
Milbank was among 20 firms contacted
by the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission asking about diversity in its hiring practices.
Carville said Trump’s actions are creating moral issues that the country will have to reckon with after he leaves office.
“When this is over, there has to be, at a minimum, an intellectual reckoning with this class of appeasers that are here,” he said.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) criticized President Trump’s ouster of the director of the National Security Agency
, arguing that Gen. Timothy Haugh’s firing will hinder the country’s Cyber and Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) operations.
“General Tim Haugh is an outstanding leader and was doing a superb job at Cyber Command and National Security Agency,” Bacon said in a Friday morning post
on social media platform X. “He was fired with no public explanation. This action sets back our Cyber and Signals Intelligence operations.”
NSA chief Haugh, along with his civilian deputy Wendy Noble, were ousted
late Thursday, not too long after the administration fired several top
White House National Security Council (NSA) staffers earlier in the day.
Haugh, who has over three decades of experience in the Air Force, also led the U.S. Cyber Command. His termination drew rebukes from Democrats in Congress.
Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, wrote that he was “deeply disturbed” by Haugh’s firing.
“I have known General Haugh to be an honest and forthright leader who followed the law and put national security first—I fear those are precisely the qualities that could lead to his firing in this Administration,” Himes said, adding that the House Intelligence panel and the public “need an immediate explanation for this decision, which makes all of us less safe.”
The firing of a group of NSC staffers came after Trump met with
far-right activist Laura Loomer at the White House on Wednesday. Loomer said the NSC workers were not aligned with Trump’s agenda.
She also criticized Haugh, writing
Friday on X that the general “had no place serving in the Trump admin given the fact that he was HAND PICKED by General Milley, who was accused of committing treason by President Trump.”
In his criticism of Haugh’s firing, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, referenced the Signal chat leak incident, arguing the president has not held anyone accountable for it.
“It is astonishing that President Trump would fire the nonpartisan, experienced leader of the NSA while still failing to hold any member of his team accountable for leaking classified information on a commercial messaging app – even as he apparently takes staffing direction on national security from a discredited conspiracy theorist in the Oval Office,” Warned said in post on X, referring to Loomer.
