Maritime Technological Advancement Act of 2021 This bill authorizes the Maritime Administration to award maritime career training grants to eligible institutions (i.e., postsecondary educational institutions or postsecondary vocational institutions for the purpose of developing, offering, or improving educational or career training programs for American workers in the maritime workforce. Each awarded grant may not exceed $20 million. The Maritime Administration must award grants based on a determination of the merits of the grant proposal submitted by an eligible institution to develop, offer, or improve maritime educational or career training programs; an evaluation of the likely employment opportunities available to workers who complete a maritime educational or career training program; an evaluation of prior demand for training programs by workers, and the availability and capacity of existing maritime training programs to meet future demand for training programs; any prior designation of an eligible institution as a Center of Excellence for Domestic Maritime Workforce Training and Education; and an evaluation of the previous experience of the eligible institution in providing maritime educational or career training programs.
COVID-19 Vaccine Dishonorable Discharge Prevention Act This bill provides that a member of the Armed Forces who was discharged on the basis of choosing not to receive a COVID-19 vaccine may only receive an honorable discharge.
End Government Shutdowns Act This bill provides continuing appropriations to prevent a government shutdown if any appropriations measure for a fiscal year has not been enacted before the fiscal year begins or a joint resolution making continuing appropriations is not in effect. For an initial 120-day period, the bill provides appropriations to continue programs, projects, and activities for which funds were provided in the preceding fiscal year. The bill reduces the continuing appropriations by 1% after the first 120-day period and by an additional 1% for each subsequent 90-day period until the applicable appropriations legislation is enacted.
2020 WHIP+ Reauthorization Act This bill expands disaster indemnity programs through which the Department of Agriculture provides payments to agricultural producers for crop and milk losses resulting from hurricanes, wildfires, and other qualifying natural disasters. In particular, the bill extends the Wildfire and Hurricane Indemnity Program Plus (WHIP+), the On-Farm Storage Loss Program, and the Milk Loss Program to make losses that occurred in the 2021 and 2022 calendar years eligible for payments. Under current law, these programs provide disaster payments to agricultural producers with crop and milk losses resulting from qualifying natural disasters that occurred in the 2018 and 2019 calendar years.
COVID-19 Vaccine Developers Gold Medal Act This bill provides for the award of a Congressional Gold Medal to recognize all those whose efforts led to the development of COVID-19 vaccines that received emergency use authorizations.
This concurrent resolution expresses the sense of Congress that the men and women who undertook efforts in Afghanistan over the years have provided heroic service to the country and the peace experienced by the United States is a direct result of the actions of the service members, diplomats, and humanitarians. The concurrent resolution also expresses that veterans who feel stress, anger, or disappointment over the end of operations in Afghanistan should seek resources and reach out to friends, mentors, and caregivers.
Precision Agriculture Loan Program Act of 2021 This bill establishes a loan program within the Farm Service Agency to assist agricultural producers in purchasing precision agriculture equipment, such as geospatial mapping, data management and analytics software, and network connectivity products and solutions. Precision agriculture refers to managing, tracking, or reducing crop or livestock production inputs, including seed, feed, fertilizer, chemicals, water, and time, at a heightened level of spatial and temporal granularity to improve efficiencies, reduce waste, and maintain environmental quality.
This bill posthumously provides for the award of a Congressional Gold Medal in commemoration of the 13 service members who died on August 26, 2021, while stationed at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Afghanistan.
Ulysses S. Grant Bicentennial Recognition Act This joint resolution authorizes the President to posthumously appoint Ulysses S. Grant to the grade of General of the Armies of the United States, effective on April 27, 2022.
This resolution states that the Senate stands with the Afghan people now living under the Afghan Taliban regime. It calls on the Department of State to designate the Afghan Taliban as a foreign terrorist organization. It also states that the Afghan Taliban regime must be denied access to funds held by the U.S. government.
This bill requires the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to report to Congress on projections of the estimated tax gap (i.e., the difference between tax liabilities owed to the IRS and those liabilities that the IRS actually collects). The IRS may use artificial intelligence and related data analysis tools to calculate a tax gap projection. The bill also requires the Joint Committee on Taxation to issue periodic reports to the congressional tax committees on the tax gap projection. The bill restricts IRS funding to FY2021 levels for audits and enforcement until it publishes an updated tax gap projection. Funding is also restricted for certain purposes, including (1) targeting U.S. citizens who exercise their First Amendment rights, (2) targeting a group for regulatory scrutiny based on its ideological beliefs, and (3) auditing individual taxpayers with an adjusted gross income of less than $400,000. The bill directs the IRS to establish a fellowship program to recruit private sector tax experts to join the IRS to create and participate in the audit task force. The purposes of the tax force include performing audit case selection, educating IRS employees on emerging issues, auditing selected taxpayers, addressing offshore tax evasion, and identifying, mentoring, and training IRS junior employees with respect to audits.
NFIP Extension Act of 2021 This bill reauthorizes the National Flood Insurance Program through September 30, 2022. The bill shall take effect as if it had been enacted on September 30, 2021.
