Now that the Senate has agreed to proceed with the CARE Act without the "equal treatment" provisions addressing government grant rules for faith-based charities, the House of Representatives is currently taking up the issue in bills addressing national service and job training. Both houses are expected to consider these issues in depth when welfare reform programs are reauthorized later this year. The House Education and Workforce Committee completed markup of H.R. 1261, reauthorization of the Workforce Investment and Adult Education Act in late March. The bill contains language repealing a prohibition on religious discrimination in hiring by nonprofits with grants to provide job training services. An amendment offered by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) that would have barred religious discrimination in hiring was defeated 18-22 in a party-line vote. Van Hollen’s statement observed, “It’s a strange irony that job training providers that are supposed to help all people find jobs could deny a job to an individual based on religion.” Floor action on this bill could be scheduled at any time. The House Education and Workforce Committee's Subcommittee on Select Education is considering reauthorization of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which has been targeted for budget cuts. Subcommittee Chair Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) said details of the bill’s language are still being worked on with the Senate. But at a hearing held on April 1 it was clear that the subcommittee is considering removing the hiring anti-discrimination language from the current law. The hearing, entitled “Performance, Accountability, and Reforms at the Corporation for National Service,” featured witnesses on both sides of the issue, but the Subcommittee’s press release summarizing the hearing gave prominence to the testimony of Prof. Carl Esbeck, a supporter of religious hiring discrimination. He said a religious organization’s right to hire based on religion in its privately funded activity “ought not to be lost when an organization becomes a recipient of federal assistance.” On the other side of the issue, Richard Foltin of the American Jewish Committee testified that “there is something inherently problematic, as a matter of public policy if not as a matter of constitutional law, in the government funding what it itself cannot do, namely subject employment positions to a religious test.”