More key House committees plan to meet this week to mark up their budget reconciliation plans, after the Energy and Commerce Committee released a series of committee prints Sunday night.

The Energy and Commerce Committee’s draft includes significant changes to Medicaid, including work requirements, more frequent eligibility checks on beneficiaries and changes to the way states raise their share of Medicaid funding.

“Medicaid waste and abuse threatens the well-being of America’s most vulnerable as the looming expiration of important 2017 tax reforms throws a shadow over U.S. industry,” Energy and Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., wrote in the Wall Street Journal. “Republicans’ best chance to secure the president’s inaugural promise is this year’s reconciliation bill.”

Energy and Commerce ranking member Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., said in a statement: “In no uncertain terms, millions of Americans will lose their health care coverage, hospitals will close, seniors will not be able to access the care they need, and premiums will rise for millions of people if this bill passes.”

Energy and Commerce is just one of the committees working on legislative language to help implement President Donald Trump’s agenda in the massive budget reconciliation package. The three potentially most complicated markups of the whole process will kick off on Tuesday, when the Agriculture, Energy and Commerce, and Ways and Means committees are scheduled to mark up their portions of the bill.

The Ways and Means Committee released partial text late Friday, but it’s expected that a substitute amendment will be released as soon as Monday to supplant that and build out the “big, beautiful bill.”

The Agriculture Committee had not yet released legislative language as of early Monday morning, but the committee did schedule a markup for Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.

All three of those markups could be prolonged affairs.

Republican senators are watching the legislative maneuvering by their House counterparts, knowing that anything the House produces will need revision to meet the Senate’s reconciliation rules, which avoid the threat of a filibuster.

Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., appearing Sunday on NBC’s ” Meet the Press,” stressed the importance of getting to a result, given that the tax cuts implemented through reconciliation during the first Trump administration are set to expire.

“I’m a conservative, and I don’t want to increase taxes on anybody. What you do know is that the Democrats, if we don’t get this bill passed, they’re going to raise taxes by $4 trillion on the American people. It will hit every working family in America with higher taxes,” Barrasso said.

Other pending business

The House is not in session Monday, but the rest of the week includes a floor schedule with a trio of law enforcement-focused bills from the Judiciary Committee. One of those, introduced by Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., would allow qualified active and retired law enforcement officers to carry concealed firearms and ammunition, including magazines, across state lines.

Meanwhile, the Senate is set up for another week of debate on nominations, beginning with Monica Crowley, Trump’s choice to be chief of protocol at the State Department. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has also filed cloture to set up votes related to the nominations of:

• Troy Meink to be secretary of the Air Force
• Reed Rubinstein to be legal adviser of the State Department
• James Danly to be deputy secretary of Energy
• Katharine MacGregor to be deputy secretary of the Interior
• Michael Rigas to be deputy secretary of State for Management and Resources

Among other remaining business is whether the Senate will take up a resolution that would block an EPA waiver allowing California to set stringent emissions standards. The Government Accountability Office has said waivers are not rules for the purpose of expedited consideration under the Congressional Review Act, but Senate Republicans may still seek to proceed. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, for instance, argues that the GAO should have deferred to the Trump administration EPA, which submitted the waivers as a rule.

“The GAO’s abrupt about-face doesn’t have the legal power to stop Congress from reviewing the Clean Air Act waivers,” Lee wrote in a Sunday Wall Street Journal opinion piece. “But Democrats are hoping that the decision — made by supposedly apolitical bureaucrats — will inspire a few members of the slim Republican Senate majority to join Democrats in allowing [California Gov.] Gavin Newsom to tell nearly 350 million Americans which cars they can drive.”

Democrats contend that the GOP majority not accepting the view of the Senate parliamentarian would have more broad consequences.

“We understand that some may be considering overruling the Parliamentarian’s decision,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote last week along with Democratic Sens. Alex Padilla of California and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. “While that might be more expedient than agency rulemaking or considering legislation under the Senate’s normal rules, such an action would be a procedural nuclear option — a dramatic break from Senate precedent with profound institutional consequences.”

There are plenty of fiscal 2026 budget hearings scheduled in both the House and the Senate this week, as well. The House Transportation-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee hears from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Wednesday, and Senate appropriators hear from him on Thursday. Duffy is sure to face more questions about the recent air traffic control disruptions, especially at Newark Liberty International Airport in northern New Jersey.

Schumer said Sunday that Duffy needed to prioritize fixing the Newark-related issues.

“I have communicated this past week with the FAA, and I feel no better today than a week ago about the state of aviation safety since this administration took the controls at FAA,” Schumer said. “As I said last week, Newark is a harbinger. If this dangerous situation can happen in the metro region, imagine what might happen in places where there is less scrutiny.”

Nina Heller contributed to this report.