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LAWMAKERS WILL RETURN from August recess next week to dive into funding fights and multiple controversies involving the Trump administration: one focused on Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and another over convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Congress will also gavel back into session Tuesday with speculation swirling around the future of Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa). Ernst is expected to announce next week she does not plan to seek reelection in 2026, leaving an open seat in a tough midterm elections environment for Republicans.

But first, Washington will be gripped by a funding fight, with the clock ticking toward a government shutdown at the end of September.

The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports on the critical decision facing Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.):

“Senate Democrats took a beating from their base during the last funding showdown in March, when they helped pave the way for Republicans to pass a GOP-crafted plan to keep the government open through early fall, averting a shutdown in the eleventh hour. As Congress prepares to return to a monthlong sprint until the funding deadline, pressure will be on Schumer to hold his ground and tensions could significantly heighten.”

That’s not the only funding fight in the making.

President Trump is seeking to claw back nearly $5 billion in congressionally approved funding for foreign aid programs through a rarely used “pocket rescission,” which has provoked bipartisan backlash.

The White House informed Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) of the effort to rescind funding allocated by Congress to the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being dismantled.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) called it an “attempt to undermine the law.”

“Given that this package was sent to Congress very close to the end of the fiscal year when the funds are scheduled to expire, this is an apparent attempt to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval,” Collins said in a statement, pointing to conclusions by the Government of Accountability Office that such attempts are “unlawful and not permitted by the Impoundment Control Act.”

“Article I of the Constitution makes clear that Congress has the responsibility for the power of the purse," Collins continued. "Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law."

Schumer cited the move as evidence Republicans are “are hellbent on rejecting bipartisanship and ‘going it alone’ this fall.”

“As the country stares down next month’s government funding deadline on September 30th, it is clear neither President Trump nor Congressional Republicans have any plan to avoid a painful and entirely unnecessary shutdown,” Schumer said.

SPOTLIGHT ON KENNEDY

Kennedy will appear before the Senate Finance Committee at a hearing where he’s certain to be pressed on Trump’s firing of former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Susan Monarez.

Monarez is contesting her ouster after being fired for clashing with Kennedy over vaccine policy, as the administration moves to reduce access to COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy has also overhauled an advisory panel for vaccine approvals.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), the chair of the Senate's health committee, called on the vaccine advisory panel to indefinitely postpone its next meeting, scheduled for Sept. 18.

“Serious allegations have been made about the meeting agenda, membership, and lack of scientific process being followed for the now announced September ACIP meeting,” Cassidy said in a statement.

After Monarez was fired, four CDC officials resigned in protest.

The Trump administration picked Deputy HHS Secretary Jim O’Neill to serve as acting director of the CDC.

GOP senators are deeply uneasy about the turmoil at the CDC.

Collins said she was “alarmed” by Monarez’s firing and called for congressional oversight over the decision to remove her less than one month after she was confirmed by the Senate.

The Hill’s Alejandra O’Connell-Domenech and........

© The Hill