OVERNIGHT MONEY: Senate tees up flood insurance and student loan bills

TUESDAY'S BIG STORY: 

Rolling the dice: The Senate has a full plate this week and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Monday he wants to clear it off before Congress leaves for the July 4 recess, even if that means stretching work into the weekend. 

What the Senate will dispense with first isn't known yet, as final agreements are still pending on the flood insurance and student loan bills that will move them forward. 

The White House said Monday that it supports passage of the National Flood Insurance Program reauthorization bill, backing the plan to allow the Federal Emergency Management Agency to raise premiums in order to secure NFIP’s finances.

After years of delay, the problems plaguing the bill are receding, providing a major victory for proponents Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and David Vitter (R-La.).

The program has endured 17 short-term extensions, and the program will expire on July 30 without congressional action.

NFIP is the sole underwriter of flood insurance in the country, and real estate agents, homeowners, insurance providers and the construction industry have been pushing for a long-term bill. It is still deeply in debt from Hurricane Katrina. Repeated extensions of the program have been blamed for dampening the housing market in many states.

In other pressing issues, Senate leaders remain close on a deal that would keep the current interest rate on federally subsidized student loans from doubling, from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent, in less than a week. 

A formal agreement on that front had been expected as soon as Monday, but aides and lawmakers said they still expect an agreement to get wrapped up in the near future.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the chairman of the Senate committee that deals with education, said Monday that finalizing legislative language and getting a budget score were essentially the only issues that needed to be dealt with.

Harkin, speaking reporters before voting on Monday, noted that student loans had become somewhat intertwined with the negotiations on a highway bill, but also said he expected a vote to extend current rates Wednesday or Thursday. 

Top lawmakers in both parties have expressed an interest in keeping rates from doubling at month's end, but have sparred over how to cover the $6 billion it would cost to do so for one year. 

Reid has proposed a couple of offsets dealing with pensions this month, while Republicans have thrown out ideas such as allowing students at four-year schools to receive federal subsidies for six years. 

One of the offsets Reid has proposed was also included in the Senate transportation bill passed earlier this year.

The NFIP bill on the Senate floor would shave nearly $5 billion from the budget deficit over 10 years, and secure the program for five years.

The House passed a reform measure last summer but battles, such as over-coverage of lower risk flood plains, over how NFIP rates the risk of levees breaking have kept it off the Senate floor. 

A big compromise on levees was announced last week, and leaders are working on an amendment list for floor action.

WHAT ELSE TO WATCH FOR 

Russia in balance: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday will mark up a bill aimed at Russian human-rights abuses, an issue committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has vowed to link to a bill granting Russia permanent normal trade relations. 

The bill is aimed at punishing those accused of persecuting and killing Russian whistleblower Sergei Magnitksy through financial and travel sanctions.

Lawmakers could aim to more narrowly focus the bill to quell concerns from the U.S. business community that could be sanctioned. Supporters of the bill want the names of the human-rights violators to be made public, while the Obama administration has said it is already imposing restrictions on those involved but is keeping their names secret. 

White House officials and business groups don't want the push for human-rights legislation to derail normalizing trade relations, which needs to be done by the time Congress leaves for the August recess. 

Protecting soldiers: The Senate Banking Committee will discuss Tuesday how soldiers and their loved ones are faring in the consumer financial marketplace. The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has made protecting military members a top priority, going so far as to name Holly Petraeus, wife of CIA Director David Petraeus, as a leader in a division specifically devoted to protecting America's fighting men and women in the financial marketplace. Now, lawmakers want to know how that effort is coming along, just days after the Obama administration announced a plan to provide further housing relief to military members who are transferred from one location to another.

Petraeus is slated to testify, as is a representative from the Department of Defense, and the attorney general of Delaware — Joseph "Beau" Biden III, son of Vice President Biden.

Focus on spending: The House is slated to take up spending bills covering Transportation and Housing on Tuesday. Consideration of the Agriculture measure this week is looking less likely due to a packed schedule, aides said. If the 2013 Agriculture spending bill is pushed into the week of July 9, that could further postpone House Agriculture Committee consideration of a much bigger five-year farm bill, which authorizes mandatory spending on food stamps and farm subsidies that is outside the purview of annual appropriations bills for departmental budgets. This is because House Agriculture members will want to be present on the floor to defend programs from amendments under an open rule. For months it has been clear that House leaders had little intention of bringing a farm bill to the floor before August recess. The Senate passed their bill last week.

Turkey trade: Acting Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk will head up the second meeting of the U.S.-Turkey Framework for Strategic Economic and Commercial Cooperation in Ankara, Turkey on Tuesday.

ECONOMIC INDICATORS 

Consumer Confidence: The Conference Board releases its June report Tuesday on how consumers are feeling about the economy. The report can be helpful in predicting shifts in consumer spending, which represent 70 percent of economic activity. 

S&P/Case-Shiller 20-City Index: The April report for home prices in the nation's 20 largest metropolitan areas will be released on Tuesday. Home prices have been slowly ticking up but are still low.

WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED

— Postal activists try to shame Congress with hunger strike

— Sales of new homes rise at fastest rate in two years

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