There are a lot of budget and spending discussions and processes happening right now.  Each process itself can be a little confusing.  That so many things using the same terminology are happening at the same time makes it even more confusing.  There are three principal things happening right now: 

1. The President’s Budget Request – What the President asks Congress to appropriate funds for.  It is the President’s wish list and a statement of his priorities.
2. Congressional Appropriations – What Congress funds each year through the legislative process, with input from members of the House and Senate, passes by vote, and sends to the President to sign into law, like all other laws.
3. Budget Reconciliation – A special legislative process that makes adjustments to spending and has a longer-term horizon. It is important to know that, unlike the second process, this process requires only a majority vote in the Senate, making it a much more partisan process.  

In Washington this week, people were talking about all three.  I’ll cover the first one here, and the second and third below in “Happening on the Hill” and “Committee Work.”

The President’s Budget Request: Last Friday, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released the President’s budget request for Fiscal Year 2026.  You may have heard it referred to as the “Skinny Budget” in the news.  It is the Trump Administration’s vision on how the government should be funded for the next fiscal year.  Although the President’s budget request is light on the details, the numbers we do have indicate the Trump Administration’s intentions to slash funding for programs, including but not limited to the following: 

• Cutting International Programs and Global Funding.  President Trump’s budget proposes an 83 percent cut to funding for State Department and international programs, cutting global health funding by two-thirds and eliminating nearly all developmental assistance.  Instead, it funnels $2.9 billion to a new “America First Opportunity Fund,” unrestricted funds for the administration to use at its discretion. 
• Cutting Medical Research and Public Health Funding.  The FDA, NIH, and CDC would all be cut, including nearly $18 billion from the NIH (which is approximately 40% cut from this year’s amount), and $3.6 billion for the CDC (also about a 40% cut), eliminating several agencies and offices within the CDC.  Our community has relied on partnerships with the NIH to fund innovative research for decades.
• Cutting Environmental Protections and Eliminating Energy Assistance. The budget request also calls for a 55% funding cut for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the elimination of the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which helps families afford to stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer and keeps costs down for all Texans.  (In 2023, more than 75,000 Texans used LIHEAP to get a/c in the summer and heat in the winter.)
• Eliminating Arts Funding.  President Trump’s budget proposes eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.  It does, however, request increased funding—six times the usual amount—for the Kennedy Center, where President Trump has now become the chairman of the board, which is unusual. Many arts and humanities organizations, including our colleges and universities, rely on grant funding from the NEA, NEH, and IMLS.  President Trump has already cut funding and staff at these agencies during his first 100 days.

These are just a few of the cuts.  The President traditionally sends a more detailed proposal next, as Members of Congress work on the budget ourselves.  More on that below.

Annual Appropriations.  It is the time of year that people in Washington call “Appropriations Season.”  The Constitution provides that Congress has the power and the obligation to direct federal spending.  The congressional process for doing so each year is the “appropriations process,” which is designed to work as follows: The Appropriations Committee is to write twelve different bills each year that deal with funding various government functions, and that fund government for the fiscal year, which ends on September 30.  The Senate does the same, and then the House and the Senate confer and resolve their differences, pass the final bills, and send them to the President to sign into law.  (As you know from these emails, this process does not always work as designed, and many years spending decisions are delayed and the Congress passes resolutions to continue funding the government until spending bills are finalized.)  While some members of the House serve on its Appropriations Committee, all members of the House participate in the process by requesting funding amounts for programs to that committee.  Each year we get many requests from people across our district about funding priorities, and I share them with the Committee, sometimes spearheading letters in support of them and sometimes joining letters other members have drafted and circulate among members.  Our requests are due to the Appropriations Committee on various dates from now to the end of May, and our team is busy supporting the priorities and projects of our district in various ways.

Budget Reconciliation.  At the same time, we are focused on a related but different process: the Budget Reconciliation Process.  This process allows Congress to bypass regular voting protocols and fast-track consideration of policies that would change the trajectory of the federal government’s debt and deficit. As a result, it is limited only to policies that affect tax revenue, mandatory spending (except for Social Security), and the federal debt limit.  As I have written earlier this year, the House has already passed a budget resolution that proposes cutting spending by $1.5 trillion, cutting taxes by $4.5 trillion, and taking on additional $4 trillion dollars in debt to pay for it all spread out over the next ten years.  This resolution directs certain House committees to make spending cuts, and House Committees have been meeting and voting on these cuts this week and will continue in the weeks ahead.  More on this in "Committee Work" below.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee is getting ready for our part of the Budget Reconciliation process, and I spent a lot of time this week getting ready for next week’s markup of our portion of the legislation.  The Budget Resolution the House passed directs the Energy & Commerce Committee to find at least $880 billion in cuts, most of which are expected to come from Medicaid, which provides health care to nearly 80 million Americans, most of whom are children.  In Texas, which has very narrow eligibility for Medicaid coverage, Medicaid provides health care to more than 3.8 million people.  More than 80,000 of them are in our congressional district and of those, 60,000 are children.  (Texas also has the highest uninsured population in the country at 17%.)

It is important to know that neither I nor my Democratic colleagues have actually seen the bill we will consider next week.  So, we don’t know exactly what will be in it.  But, between leaked documents and public reporting, we have a lot of ideas about what might be in the bill.  And it’s not good.  We are gearing up for a major fight over health care funding.  We will be considering and marking up the legislation starting next Tuesday, and I will post a link on my social media pages if you want to follow along. 

As Congress debates the future of health care funding over the next week, I want to hear your thoughts and stories.  How has Medicaid has impacted your life or the life of someone you know?  To share your story, please fill out this form.

As Congressional Republicans debate seriously devastating funding cuts behind closed doors, the House debated and voted on two bills this week, one of which was anything but serious.

On Wednesday, the House voted on the DHS Restrictions on Confucius Institutes and Chinese Entities of Concern Act (H.R. 881), which prohibits Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding from going to any institution of higher education that hosts a Confucius Institute or has a relationship with a “Chinese entity of concern.”  While there are legitimate national security and research concerns that must be taken seriously, this bill would create a new category of “entities of concern” defined by nine overly broad criteria and could deny critical funding to American colleges and universities that have a relationship with any of China’s more than 3,000 public schools and universities—including study abroad and cultural exchange programs.  This bill pressures educational institutions to end their student exchange, study abroad, and research collaborations or risk losing DHS funding, which is not only critical for advancing domestic science and technology research but also for natural disaster response and recovery funding.  Due to these reasons, I voted against the bill, which passed the House by a vote of 266-153.

On Thursday, the House voted on the Gulf of America Act of 2025 (H.R. 276), a bill Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia brought to direct the Secretary of the Interior to ensure any federal documents or maps refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.”  In January, President Trump signed an executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”  If this bill passes the Senate, this bill would make it more difficult for a future president to undo President’s Trump’s order.  As someone who has lived nearly all my life near the Gulf of Mexico, I voted no. It passed the House by a vote of 211-206. 

Without much debate, the House passed the Aviator Cancers Examination Study (ACES) Act (H.R. 530), to direct the Secretary of the VA to study cancer incidences and mortality rates among aviators and aircrew who served in the Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps, and the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2025 (H.R. 1503), to impose sanctions and penalties on individuals involved in the forced harvesting of human organs, under suspension of the rules this week, and I voted for both.

As a reminder, you can always find a list of all of the votes I have taken for the district on my website.

This week I co-sponsored several pieces of legislation on issues important to our community this week, including:

• the Assault Weapons Ban, H.R. 3115, to ban the sale, import, manufacture, or transfer of certain semi-automatic weapons;
• the Stopping a Rogue President on Trade Act, H.R. 2888, to end the global tariffs imposed on April 2, 2025 and the tariffs imposed for Mexico and Canada and to require Congressional approval for all new tariffs;
• the Congressional Trade Authority Act of 2025, H.R. 1903, to require the president to submit to Congress any proposal to adjust importance in the interest of national security;
• the Reclaim Trade Powers Act, H.R. 2459, to eliminate Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the president to impose tariffs without Congressional approval in a balance of payment crisis;
• the Repealing Outdated and Unilateral Tariff Authorities Act, H.R. 2464, to eliminate the use of Section 228 of the Tariff Act of 1930, which allows the president to impose tariffs without Congressional approval;
• the Ending DOGE Conflicts Act, H.R. 1321, to require Special Government Employees with a company that contracts with the Federal Government to file a public financial disclosure and face review for potential conflicts of interest by the independent Office of Government Ethics;
• the Saving DOE's Workforce Act, H.R. 2207, to establish a moratorium on workforce reductions at the Department of Energy (DOE);
• the Saving NSF's Workforce Act, H.R. 2208, to establish a moratorium on workforce reductions at the National Science Foundation (NSF);
• the Saving NIST's Workforce Act, H.R. 2209, to establish a moratorium on workforce reductions at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST);
• the Saving NASA's Workforce Act, H.R. 2210, to establish a moratorium on workforce reductions at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); and
• the Saving NOAA's Workforce Act, H.R. 2211, to establish a moratorium on workforce reductions at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

On the last point, I spearheaded a letter to the Acting Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) this week expressing our concerns about the staffing crisis at the National Weather Service (NWS) Houston/Galveston Forecast Office and requesting information about how the agency plans to continue providing vital services amid drastic staffing cuts.  Congressman Al Green and Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia signed on to my letter, where we explained that the NWS Houston/Galveston Forecast Office will soon lose all three members of its leadership staff and has an overall vacancy rate of 44% following the announcement of significant staffing reductions at the direction of President Trump and Elon Musk.  (You can read the whole letter at the link above or here).

I also joined my colleagues in sending:

• a letter to Smithsonian Inspector General Nicole Angarella expressing concerns about President Trump's executive order that directs the Smithsonian Institution to remove exhibits and narratives that President Trump considers divisive or race-centered and requests that the Inspector General investigates the impact of this executive order; and
• a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem demanding transparency and accountability regarding the revocation of student visas and the termination of Student and Exchange Visitor Information System records.

Amicus Alerts.  Again this week, I joined my Democratic colleagues in filing more friend-of-the-court briefs in lawsuits challenging Trump administration actions, including:

• an amicus brief in the Supreme Court of the United States in the matter of National TPS Alliance v. Noem, which opposes the Trump Administrations request to the Supreme Court to overturn a district court decision blocking termination of TPS for Venezuelans, arguing that Congress has a clear interest in preserving TPS and the Trump Administration's revocation of status is unlawful and breaches separation of powers and supporting the protection of TPS for the 350,000 Venezuelans who were set to lose work authorizations and deportation protections last month, many of them in our community; and
• an amicus brief to the U.S. District Court for District of Columbia to defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in the matter of National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), et al. v. CFPB Acting Director Russell Vought, et al, which challenges President Trump’s executive order to abolish the independent federal agency, which is under the sole authority of Congress.

With next week’s big markup top of mind, it was great to have the chance to visit with people from the Texas Hospital Association representing hospitals across the state, representatives from the American Kidney Fund and the Texas Radiological Society, and Houston Methodist CEO Dr. Marc Boom.

Again this year, I am blown away by the talent of our young neighbors!  I was glad to hear from and congratulate our TX-07 Congressional Art Competition finalists in Houston last weekend.  Thank you to our terrific judges, our talented students, and their proud families!

I made it home from Washington this week just in time to attend the City of Sugar Land’s Farewell to Mayor Zimmerman.  Mayor Zimmerman and I have had a great working partnership, and I appreciated the opportunity to thank him for his service and visit with neighbors from across the city.

Community Concerns.  Like so many people across Texas’ Seventh Congressional District, I am closely monitoring the escalating tensions between India and Pakistan.  Since the tragic April 22 terrorist attacks, India and Pakistan have severed diplomatic ties and India has conducted military strikes on sites in Pakistan.  Stability in South Asia is critical for regional peace, for global security, and for the interests of the United States.  I have urged and will continue to urge the United States to work swiftly and diplomatically with both countries to find a diplomatic solution and to avoid further escalation between these nuclear powers.

In Washington, Team TX-07 held more than three dozen meetings with constituents and groups advocating on their behalf, including the Houston Food Bank, American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), American Society of Anesthesiologists, Land Trust Alliance, and Texas Credit Union Association, pictured below.  Back home in the district, our team was out and about across the district, helping constituents and attending community events, including the Houston Police Department’s event ahead of National Police Week, the West End Civic Club Meeting, and meetings with the Metropolitan Organization, Alief Teacher of the Year Stephanie Kitsos Masaryk, and Latinos for Education Problem of Practice Showcase, pictured below.

This week, we said goodbye to our spring semester interns in our Washington and Houston offices.  Every semester, I'm so grateful to our interns for their hard work helping me and the entire #TX07 team serve our neighbors at home in Houston. Many thanks to 2025 our spring semester interns, who were outstanding!

In case you missed it last week, we’ve got a few things going on this month!  Save the date for the following events that we have lined up in May, now in date order:

Team TX-07 constituent advocates will be at the Chinese Community Center on Monday, May 19 to help residents who need us!  You can also visit fletcher.house.gov/casework or call my Houston office for help any time.

With hurricane season around the corner, I am hosting a webinar on the 2025 hurricane season outlook and preparedness on May 21.  Click here or on the graphic below to sign up!

Our next Town Hall meeting with take place in Fort Bend County with County Commissioner Dexter McCoy.  Space is limited, so please RSVP here or by clicking on the image below.

Harris County Commissioner Lesley Briones and I are teaming up to host another passport fair for (1) first-time passport or passport card applicants and (2) renewal and replacement passports or passport cards at the Burnett Bayland Community Center.  Representatives from the Houston Passport Agency will be present to answer questions and accept applications.  Please RSVP here or by clicking the image below.

I’ll be back in Washington next week, where I expect to spend a lot of time in the Energy and Commerce hearing room.  I’ll send a report on all that happened at the end of the week.  

As always, I am proud to represent you and I am here to help you.  Please call my office at (713) 353-8680 or (202) 225-2571 or email here at any time to ask for assistance or share your thoughts.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes,