Last Week In Congress: How Cascadia’s U.S. lawmakers voted (August 3rd-7th)

Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cascadia’s Unit­ed States Sen­a­tors vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing Fri­day, August 7th.

In the United States Senate

CONFIRMING DEPUTY SECRETARY OF ENERGY: Vot­ing 79 for and 16 against, the Sen­ate on August 4th con­firmed Mark W. Menezes as deputy sec­re­tary of ener­gy. His duties will include over­see­ing the $35 bil­lion Depart­ment of Ener­gy bud­get and help­ing to man­age the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Menezes had served as an under sec­re­tary of ener­gy since 2017, and before that he was chief coun­sel on the House Ener­gy and Com­merce Com­mit­tee and worked for the Amer­i­can Elec­tric Pow­er Com­pa­ny and Berk­shire Hath­away Energy.

Lisa Murkows­ki, R‑Alaska, a sup­port­er of the nom­i­nee, said Menezes has been a leader in advanc­ing renew­able and nuclear ener­gy and defend­ing Amer­i­ca’s ener­gy infra­struc­ture against cyber­se­cu­ri­ty threats, and is well qual­i­fied to guide the depart­ment through the COVID-19 pandemic.

No sen­a­tor spoke against Menezes. A yes vote was to con­firm the nominee.

Cas­ca­dia total: 4 aye votes, 2 nay votes

BARRING TIKTOK FROM GOVERNMENT DEVICES: On a non-record vote, the Sen­ate on August 6th passed a bill (S. 3455) that would require fed­er­al agen­cies to remove the Chi­nese social mes­sag­ing app Tik­Tok from gov­ern­ment-issued smart­phones and com­put­ers, as the Depart­ment of Defense already has done. Tik­Tok, which is used to make music videos, resides on more than eighty mil­lion devices in Amer­i­ca includ­ing some oper­at­ed by fed­er­al workers.

Crit­ics say Tik­Tok col­lects volu­mi­nous per­son­al data on users for poten­tial or actu­al shar­ing with the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment and Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Party.

The com­pa­ny is explor­ing the pos­si­ble sale of its oper­a­tions in the Unit­ed States and cer­tain oth­er coun­tries to Microsoft.

Josh Haw­ley, R‑Missouri, said Tik­Tok “is cur­rent­ly a major secu­ri­ty risk, both to our data secu­ri­ty and to our nation­al security…at a time when we need to be clear-eyed about the threat from the Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Party.”

No sen­a­tor spoke against the bill, which is now before the House.

Edi­tor’s Note: Because this was not a record­ed vote, there is no roll call to share. We can only know how our Pacif­ic North­west sen­a­tors vot­ed by con­tact­ing their offices and ask­ing them for their views on S. 3455. 

Key votes ahead; timing uncertain

The House and Sen­ate are cur­rent­ly in recess while await­ing the out­come of nego­ti­a­tions between Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­ers and the White House on a new round of coro­n­avirus relief for recip­i­ents includ­ing the unem­ployed, renters, schools, med­ical providers and state and local governments.

Edi­tor’s Note: The infor­ma­tion in NPI’s week­ly How Cas­ca­di­a’s U.S. law­mak­ers vot­ed fea­ture is pro­vid­ed by Votera­ma in Con­gress, a ser­vice of Thomas Vot­ing Reports. All rights are reserved. Repro­duc­tion of this post is not per­mit­ted, not even with attri­bu­tion. Use the per­ma­nent link to this post to share it… thanks!

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