Tag: U.S. House

Phillips Introduces Bipartisan, BicameralI RECYLE Act to Reduce Waste and Protect Environment from Plastic Pollution

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week, Reps. Dean Phillips (D-MN) and David Joyce (R-OH) and Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Rob Portman (R-OH) introduced the RECYLE Act, a bipartisan bill that would lead to vast improvements in community and residential recycling programs.

Recycling is one of the simplest ways to protect the environment, yet consumer confusion often impedes efforts to reduce waste. In fact, according to the EPA, nearly $9 billion worth of recyclable materials are thrown away each year. The RECYCLE Act would fund education and outreach programs meant to increase recycling rates and share best practices across the country. Improved recycling is especially important as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic. Demand for PPE and other single-use plastics has increased waste by an estimated 30%, with the majority of that waste ending up in landfills or the natural environment.

“Plastic pollution is one of the worst environmental crises in decades, yet across the country, people remain confused about how to dispose of materials responsibly,” said Rep. Phillips. “That’s why I worked with my colleagues on the RECYCLE Act, a bipartisan, bicameral bill that gives local communities the tools they need to keep our lands, rivers, and lakes pollutant free. Let’s get this bill to the President’s desk and prove once and for all that preserving our environment is an American issue, not a partisan one.”

Continue reading “Phillips Introduces Bipartisan, BicameralI RECYLE Act to Reduce Waste and Protect Environment from Plastic Pollution”

House passes bills providing citizenship path for Dreamers, farmworkers

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House Democrats passed a pair of bills Thursday that would create a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and some migrant farm workers, taking a piecemeal approach as the fate of President Biden’s major immigration package looks increasingly uncertain. 

The Dream and Promise Act, which passed 228-197, would provide certainty to undocumented people brought to the U.S. as children whose ability to go to school, get work and even remain in the country has hung in the balance from administration to administration. 

Sponsor Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.) called the bill “a major step in ending the veil of fear and uncertainty that has plagued the lives of our Dreamers for far too long.” Continue reading.

12 Republicans opposed Congressional Gold Medals for police who protected them on Jan. 6

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A dozen House Republicans voted against a resolution to award three Congressional Gold Medals to the Capitol Police, the D.C. police and the Smithsonian Institution in recognition of those who protected the U.S. Capitol when it was attacked by a pro-Trump mob on Jan. 6.

The GOP lawmakers, many who said they objected to the use of the term “insurrectionists” in the resolution, are: Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Thomas Massie (Ky.), Andy Harris (Md.), Lance Gooden (Tex.), Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Louie Gohmert (Tex.), Michael Cloud (Tex.), Andrew S. Clyde (Ga.), Greg Steube (Fla.), Bob Good (Va.) and John Rose (Tenn.).

“We had to combine it with these editorial comments about the January 6 sequence of events, and then we had to logroll it with this exhibit at the Smithsonian, and … that was a little much for me,” Gaetz said after the vote. Continue reading.

Full List of 172 Republicans Who Opposed the Violence Against Women Act

The House voted on Wednesday to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act after 29 Republicans broke with their party to support the bill, which offered women protections from domestic violence, sexual assault and other harassment.

Lawmakers approved the bill in a 244-172 vote following its lapse in late 2018. The Democratic-controlled House sought to renew the bill the following year, but it was held up in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Now the Democrats hold a one-vote majority in the upper chamber and are hoping to garner the Republican support needed for a 60-vote supermajority that negates the threat of the filibuster. Continue reading.

NOTE: Rep. Tom Emmer, Rep. Michelle Fischbach, Rep. Jim Hagedorn were among these Republicans.

House throws financial lifeline to victims fund, appropriators

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Reserves have dwindled in recent years as the number of high-dollar federal settlements declined

A dwindling revenue stream for Justice Department programs would get a new source of cash under a bill the House passed Wednesday night, which would also give appropriators more breathing room to stay within annual budget targets.

The vote was 384-38 on the measure, which would enlarge the Crime Victims Fund. Created in 1984, the fund collects fines and penalties imposed in federal cases to compensate crime victims and finance programs to assist them.

The fund’s reserves have dwindled in recent years as the number of high-dollar federal settlements has declined. As a result, the Crime Victims Fund year-end balance fell from a peak of $13.1 billion in fiscal 2017 to an estimated $4.4 billion in fiscal 2020. Continue reading.

House votes to reauthorize, expand Violence Against Women Act

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GOP opposition focuses on gun and LGBTQ provisions

The House voted Wednesday to reauthorize the lapsed Violence Against Women Act, but the proposal was opposed by most Republicans because of provisions dealing with gun rights and LGBTQ victims’ access to services.

The 244-172 vote sent the measure to the Senate for the second time since the law’s authorization lapsed in 2019. 

Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., brought up her own family’s history with domestic violence in pushing for passage of the bill at a press conference Wednesday. Dingell spotlighted sections that would expand provisions in existing law that bar domestic abusers from owning firearms by including some misdemeanors. Continue reading.

Many House members averse to cooperating with OCE, study shows

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Lawmakers face no sanctions for refusing to participate in investigations

More than a third of House members investigated by the Office of Congressional Ethics refused to fully cooperate with the probes since the office started investigating lawmakers in 2009, according to a new report by the Campaign Legal Center.

The report shows that 23 members did not completely participate in Office of Congressional Ethics investigations and, with the exception of the 113th Congress, member cooperation has steadily declined. The data is based on all the public OCE investigations into members.

Kedric Payne, a former OCE attorney and general counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, said one reason for the lack of cooperation is that “the members feel as though they can not cooperate and face no consequences.” Continue reading.

House set to pass Violence Against Women Act reauthorization, with renewed hope for Senate action

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GOP opposition to gun, LGBTQ provisions remains

The House will vote to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act this week, after standoffs over LGBTQ issues and gun rights prevented an update of the law for years.

Authorization for the law, which provides funding for federal prosecution of domestic violence as well as state and local grant programs, lapsed in 2019. The legislation has support from a handful of Republicans heading into Thursday’s debate, but it has also attracted GOP opposition over provisions that lower the threshold to bar someone from buying a gun based on certain misdemeanors.

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer said the chamber will likely pass the legislation Thursday and blamed Mitch McConnell for stymieing the process in the last Congress when he was Senate majority leader. Continue reading.

Pelosi on infrastructure: ‘Hopefully we will have bipartisanship’

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“Building roads and bridges and water supply systems and the rest has always been bipartisan … except when [Republicans] opposed it with the Democratic president,” the speaker said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday signaled hopefulness that Republicans would get on board with major infrastructure and jobs legislation but was unsure whether her GOP colleagues would accept or obstruct President Joe Biden’s agenda.

Following an almost party-line passage of Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package last week, Democrats are staring down the odds of winning Republican support on a host of administration priorities, including infrastructure and immigration. The fact that the American Rescue Plan passed without Republican support underscores the tricky legislative hurdles Democrats will have to navigate with slim majorities in both chambers.

“Building roads and bridges and water supply systems and the rest has always been bipartisan, always been bipartisan — except when [Republicans] opposed it with the Democratic president as they did with President Obama, and we had to shrink the package,” Pelosi told host George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” when asked whether she’d be able to keep Democrats united behind a package and garner Republican support. Continue reading.

House votes to expand gun background checks

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The House voted 227-203 Thursday to pass a bill that would require background checks for all gun purchasers. Within hours, the chamber voted 219-210 on a second background check bill to close the “Charleston loophole,” which allowed Dylann Roof to buy a firearm used to kill nine people at a Black church in 2015.

Why it matters: Overhauling the nation’s gun control laws is a priority for Democrats and the Biden administration, but the bill is unlikely to pass the 60-vote threshold in the Senate, where Republicans oppose attempts to curtail gun rights.

Details: The first bill (H.R. 8) became the first gun control legislation considered by Congress in nearly 25 years after it was first passed by the House in 2019, following a wave of youth-led activism in the wake of the Parkland shooting. It was never taken up by the GOP-controlled Senate. Continue reading.