Unemployment extension bill debate begins again --- It’s been a rough 18 months on Capitol Hill — budget sequestration, a debt ceiling battle, various contentious committee investigations, gridlock over bills both sides consider vital. --- Ridley-Daniels is one of the 3.1 million Americans who would have been eligible for federal long-term jobless benefits — given to those who have exhausted their state unemployment — had Congress not allowed the program to expire last December. -- Under the federal unemployment system, someone who loses a job typically receives unemployment benefits from the state for 26 weeks. But in 2008, Congress voted to provide additional aid that made checks available for as long as 99 weeks in the hardest-hit states. Last year, lawmakers cut the maximum benefit to 73 weeks. Then, at the end of December, Congress let federal aid lapse altogether. -- Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Dean Heller (R-Nev.), who hail from the states with the highest unemployment rates in the nation, have led the push to renew the federal benefits, and on Tuesday they introduced a new bill to fund the program for five months. -- The new legislation is a significant revision to the Reed/Heller bill that passed in the Senate earlier this year but was never brought up for a vote by the House GOP leadership. -- It does not include retroactive payments for jobless Americans who stopped receiving emergency unemployment insurance when the federal program expired in December, a major component of the previous bill. -- The new legislation would allow any jobless American whose federal aid was cut off in December to receive unemployment insurance payments for as many weeks as they had remaining of eligibility when the benefits ceased. -- “This means the benefits will be available going forward for the long-term unemployed, and those that were cut off when the program expired will be able to pick up where they left off,” Reed said in a statement provided to The Washington Post on Friday. “So, for instance, if you were eligible for 6 more weeks of EUC benefits when the program was cut off on December 28, and you are still looking for a job now, you are eligible to receive federal UI help for those 6 weeks. Our goal is to try to help those out of work get the help they need.” --- Under the new legislation, the cost of the restored benefits would be paid for through offsets that include extending “pension smoothing” provisions from the 2012 highway bill (MAP-21), which were set to phase out this year, and extending Customs user fees through 2024. -- Both pension smoothing and extending Customs user fees have been proposed before and have not been supported by House Republicans in the past, and several congressional aides on both sides of the aisle said they believe the current bill may face an uphill battle. - More, Washingtonpost, http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/unemployment-extension-bill-debate-begins-again/2014/06/24/aab53eaa-fb9e-11e3-b1f4-8e77c632c07b_story.html