Over the past few weeks, Congress and the Biden Administration have been embroiled in many different controversies regarding infrastructure funding, social spending, overall fiscal spending and the debt limit. Unfortunately, the physical activity guidelines legislation ACSM supports was pulled into the debate.

Earlier this year, the Senate passed by unanimous consent S. 1301, the Promoting Physical Activity for Americans Act. The legislation would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to publish physical activity guidelines based on the latest scientific research every 10 years. Once the bill was passed in the Senate, it was forwarded to the House for their consideration. However, to try and circumvent regular order in the Senate, House Democrat leadership decided to use S. 1301 as the vehicle to pass a debt limit suspension. They amended the bill by deleting the physical activity language and inserting the debt limit suspension language. Within 24 hours, the bill was amended, passed on the House floor and sent to the Senate for their consideration. The bill has since been amended and passed by the Senate, passed again by the House and is now on its way for signature by President Biden.

What this means in the short run is that we no longer have a Senate-passed version of the physical activity guidelines bill. We are left with the House version, which is H.R. 2094, the Promoting Physical Activity for Americans Act. Having the Senate bill used as the debt limit vehicle means that we will have an added hurdle to clear to get the physical activity guidelines bill passed and signed into law. Once the House passes the legislation, it will again be sent to the Senate for their consideration, and then, if there are no changes to the House-passed bill, it will be sent to President Biden for his signature.

We need your help to get this bill passed in the House.
TAKE ACTION: Contact your member of Congress to ask them to support the bill.

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