The appropriations process is getting under way, and the House and Senate are on a collision course, Peter and Victoria report.

• House Republicans are eying deeper cuts, going back to FY22 levels, while the Senate wants to stick to the debt limit agreement that was just made.

• We thought this would be a good time to look at some of the major players behind these decisions as the process gets going.

Senate

Evan Schatz, Senate Appropriations Democratic staff director

Schatz is a longtime aide to Sen. Patty Murray, and moved over to Appropriations when Murray became chair this year. He was previously her staff director on the HELP Committee.

• In that role, he helped oversee a lot of bipartisan work (remember Alexander-Murray?), which could come in handy in crafting a bipartisan spending agreement.
• He first started working for Murray in 2005, per LegiStorm. That’s a long history!

Mike Gentile, Democratic Labor-HHS Subcommittee clerk

Gentile is more directly overseeing health care spending under the new subcommittee chair, Sen. Tammy Baldwin.

• He previously worked as a professional staff member on the subcommittee for several years, per LegiStorm.

Betsy McDonnell, Senate Appropriations Republican staff director

McDonnell is a longtime staffer for Sen. Susan Collins, previously serving as her deputy chief of staff. She moved to her current role this year when Collins moved up to the top GOP spot on the committee.

• She was previously staff director for the Senate Aging Committee, which looked at health care issues like how COVID-19 affected seniors.

Lindsey Seidman, Republican Labor-HHS Subcommittee clerk

Seidman, who directly oversees health care spending for Republicans, most recently served on the HELP Committee before shifting over to Appropriations this year.

• She previously worked under former HELP Chair Lamar Alexander, starting at his office in the early 2000s, per LegiStorm. She eventually became deputy staff director for HELP under Alexander, then stayed on when Sen. Richard Burr took over the top role.

House

Anne Marie Chotvacs, House Appropriations Republican clerk/staff director

Chotvacs first worked for the House Appropriations Committee from 2004 to 2016 before taking a two-year break to work as a lobbyist for Boeing. During that Approps time she did serve as a staffer on Labor-HHS.

• She returned to the committee at the end of 2018 and became the staff director under then-ranking member Kay Granger in 2019.
• Granger has previously supported defunding Planned Parenthood, so now that she’s chairwoman, it seems likely there will be some contention over Title X family planning funds.

Susan Avcin (Ross), Republican Labor-HHS Subcommittee clerk/staff director

Avcin is an experienced career Hill staffer, holding various positions in the House since 1996, with just a brief one-year stint off the Hill at Faegre Drinker in 2005.

• She’s been a staff member on the Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee since 2012, including when it was run by Rep. Tom Cole. She’s also worked for the House Education and Workforce Committee and the full House Appropriations Committee.

Chris Bigelow, House Appropriations Democratic staff director

Bigelow was promoted to committee staff director in March.

• He’s worked as a professional House staffer since 2004, and at one point as the legislative director for former Rep. Nita Lowey, who served as the House Appropriations chair before retiring in 2020. Bigelow joined the Appropriations Committee under Lowey in 2010.

Stephen Steigleder, Democratic Labor-HHS Subcommittee clerk/staff director

Steigleder has been a staff member on House Appropriations since 2014, and has been the Labor-HHS Subcommittee staff director since 2019. He also had a previous stint on Approps from 2009 to 2011.

• In between those two periods he worked for the Center for American Progress as a policy analyst for two years and the Department of Labor as a legislative officer for a year.

Here's what else we've been watching this week:

1) HELP markup. The HELP Committee had an easy and bipartisan markup on Thursday, reporting out six reauthorization bills.

• They ranged from requiring NIH to submit a budget request specifically for Alzheimer's research needs, to reauthorizing diabetes research, to the animal drug user fee bill.

What we're watching: Unrelated to the day's business, Sen. Rand Paul said during the markup that he will be objecting to all unanimous consent requests for nominees or legislation in the HELP Committee until he gets documents from the Biden administration related to COVID-19 origins.

• He called on Chairman Bernie Sanders to help him get the documents. "Let's work together on that," Sanders said.

2) The Republican Study Committee released its new budget proposal Wednesday, and it once again calls for converting Medicare to a premium support model.

• It also calls for turning Medicaid into five block grants. However, it drops last year's proposal to raise the Medicare eligibility age.
• Between the lines: No, it's not about to become law, but the RSC budget is always worth a close look as a window into the latest thinking of a big part of the House GOP Conference.

3) The REINS Act passed the House Wednesday, 221-210. That's the bill that would require the House and Senate to approve any "major rule" with a substantial economic impact.

• If anything changes and there's a chance of it becoming law, we'll let you know.

4) The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission and the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission both released reports to Congress today.

• MedPAC's notable policy recommendations include capping the payment rate for accelerated approval drugs in Medicare Part B, and promoting site-neutral payments.
• MACPAC outlined an idea for improving the payment system for safety-net hospitals.

5) The FDA wants to propose a rule this summer to clarify that laboratory-developed tests are devices under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

• This is the first time the regulation has appeared on the Biden administration's rulemaking agenda.