Only the Senate is in session this week and may consider a college sports bill in addition to conducting continued bipartisan negotiations on energy permitting reform. The chamber returns to session on Tuesday (September 22) with a vote at 5:30 p.m. on a judicial nomination. The House is scheduled to be out until after the November 3 midterm elections. Some House members wanted to do more before leaving Washington to address affordability concerns of voters, but the question of how much can get done before the elections now persists only in the Senate.

Asked on "Meet the Press" about the prospect of voters holding Republican candidates responsible for higher gas prices, Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-WY) said: "We're always looking for ways to put more money in peoples' pockets, and I hear it in Wyoming all the time at the grocery store, at the gas station. People are paying more and we need to do more, and that's why we need more American energy production. We need to get rid of regulations. We need to do more with permitting. That's legislation we're working on now. The President and Republicans are focused on all of those things."

Regarding voter concerns about grocery prices, gas prices, housing costs and health care costs, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) said on ABC's "This Week," "Look, I share concerns about affordability. If you look at gas prices, we've been working to try to bring gas prices down … There's a lot more work to do … but is the answer to look at what the Democrats' agenda is, which is trillions in new spending and increasing prices?" Scalise added, "We're working to bring the cost down. We opened up more production so that we can produce our own energy in America."

There has been reporting that Senators, like some of their House counterparts, are eager to leave Washington and get back on the campaign trail. Punchbowl News reported on September 18, "Senate GOP leaders could cut the three-week September session short if a permitting deal remains elusive. But if there's a breakthrough, senators may have to deal with data centers — a growing issue in key Senate races that's tied into fears about rising energy costs."

The prospect of enacting any costly stimulus proposals will be weighed against debt and deficit concerns following the February Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections of federal debt held by the public at 100% of GDP and rising, annual deficits of roughly $2 trillion, and the Social Security program trustees' June estimate that 100% of scheduled benefits can be paid only until Q4 of 2032.

Asked on CBS' "Face the Nation" about President Trump's proposal to provide citizens a $5,000 post-election dividend, Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chairman and Finance Committee member Bill Cassidy (R-LA) said: "We need to actually pay attention to our national debt. And I can tell you that, if we can control our debt, that will be a stimulus to somebody. That will help them be able to afford life better. That's a better way to go." On the issue of whether there will be any post-midterms action to control the debt, Senator Cassidy — who lost his primary in May and is exiting Congress at the end of the year — said, "I have been pushing to address Social Security. And the nice thing about addressing Social Security, which I would still love to do this Congress, is that not only do you ensure the benefit that has been promised to the American people, but you also take care of 20% of our nation's indebtedness."

An August 5 Senate Finance Committee hearing focused on Cassidy's proposal to establish a commission to present options for shoring up Social Security, a proposal that some Democrats oppose.

Hearings — The Senate Finance Committee is reportedly eyeing a vote for Thursday (September 24) on the nomination of James Gadwood to be IRS Chief Counsel. The nomination was the subject of a hearing in the Committee last week, but Q&A was dominated by healthcare issues.

The Senate HELP Committee will hold a hearing on the "Nomination of Heidi Overton to be Commissioner of Food and Drugs" on Thursday, September 24 at 10:30 a.m.

Tax - A September 21 Wall Street Journal story, "The IRS Is Cracking Down on a Favorite Way the Ultrawealthy Pass On Money," focused on a U.S. Tax Court case involving grantor-retained annuity trusts (GRATs), which have at times been the target of congressional proposals. "At the heart of the case is a strategy that has become especially popular with corporate executives and investors with sizable stockholdings as markets have roared in recent years," the story said. "The aim is to pass wealth to the next generation, while using little or none of the $15 million lifetime gift and estate tax exemption."

Banking — In a speech on Friday (September 18), Federal Reserve Vice Chair of Supervision Michelle Bowman gave a speech outlining the findings of a third-party consultant hired to analyze what led up to the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and two other banks in 2023. Bowman said the Starling Advisory Group's review found that SVB failed because of a combination of well-known vulnerabilities, including massive unrealized securities losses, a deposit base that was 94% uninsured and heavily concentrated in venture-backed tech firms, and inadequate preparedness to access the Fed's liquidity facilities. Notably, the report found that Fed supervisors "knew, or should have known" about these risks as early as March 2022 but failed to take prompt corrective action because of a "long-standing culture of risk aversion" and unclear decision-making authority within the supervisory process, Bowman said.

The Starling review departs sharply from the Fed's own 2023 internal postmortem, led by former Vice Chair Michael Barr, by rejecting two of Barr's central themes: that the 2018 regulatory tailoring law known as S. 2155 weakened supervision, and that social media played a significant role in accelerating the bank run. Instead, the report placed primary responsibility on supervisory execution and organizational culture inside the Fed itself, arguing that examiners had sufficient information and authority to act but didn't do so.