Last Week In Congress: How Cascadia’s U.S. lawmakers voted (January 23rd-27th)

Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cascadia’s Mem­bers of Con­gress vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing Jan­u­ary 27th, 2023.

In the United States House of Representatives

ASSESSING GOVERNMENT JOB APPLICANTS: The House on Jan­u­ary 24th passed the Chance to Com­pete Act (H.R. 159), spon­sored by Rep. Vir­ginia Foxx, R‑N.C., to change the hir­ing sys­tem for the fed­er­al gov­ern­men­t’s civ­il ser­vice jobs by pri­or­i­tiz­ing skills-based assess­ments of an appli­can­t’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions. Foxx said the cur­rent sys­tem, by over-empha­siz­ing aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tions, “seri­ous­ly under­mines the fed­er­al work­force’s abil­i­ty to serve the Amer­i­can peo­ple in both a prop­er and effi­cient man­ner.” The vote was 422 yeas to 2 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 17 yea votes, 1 not voting

DISCLOSING LAWSUIT SETTLEMENTS: The House on Jan­u­ary 24th passed the Set­tle­ment Agree­ment Infor­ma­tion Data­base Act (H.R. 300), spon­sored by Rep. Gary Palmer, R‑Alabama, to require fed­er­al gov­ern­ment agen­cies to release to the pub­lic infor­ma­tion about con­sent decrees and set­tle­ment agree­ments they have reached with lit­i­gants. Palmer said: “Cit­i­zens have a right to access the fed­er­al gov­ern­men­t’s records and oper­a­tions to facil­i­tate over­sight of the pub­lic busi­ness.” The vote was unan­i­mous with 425 yeas.

Cas­ca­dia total: 17 yea votes, 1 not voting

STUDYING WAYS TO IMPROVE AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL: The House on Jan­u­ary 25th passed the NOTAM Improve­ment Act (H.R. 346), spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Pete Stauber, R‑Minnesota. The bill would cre­ate a task force at the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) to sug­gest improve­ments to the agen­cy’s notices to air mis­sions (NOTAM) sys­tem. Stauber said the ground­ing of all domes­tic air­line depar­tures two weeks ago due to a NOTAM out­age high­light­ed the need for the FAA to improve its com­pli­cat­ed, out­dat­ed sys­tem for com­mu­ni­cat­ing safe­ty and traf­fic alerts to pilots.

The vote was 424 yeas to 4 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 17 yea votes, 1 not voting

INVESTING IN SMALL BUSINESSES: The House on Jan­u­ary 25th passed the Invest­ing in Main Street Act (H.R. 400), spon­sored by Rep. Judy Chu, D‑California, to increase the amount a bank can invest in small busi­ness invest­ment com­pa­nies from 5 per­cent to 15 per­cent of the bank’s cap­i­tal and surplus.

Chu said: “Rais­ing this cap will dra­mat­i­cal­ly increase the amount of invest­ment cap­i­tal avail­able to our coun­try’s small busi­ness­es for whom even small invest­ments can mean so much.” The vote was 411 yeas to 13 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 17 yea votes, 1 not voting

COMMENDING IRANIANS PROTESTING THEIR GOVERNMENT: The House on Jan­u­ary 25th passed a res­o­lu­tion (H. Con. Res. 7), spon­sored by Rep. Clau­dia Ten­ney, R‑N.Y., to com­mend Ira­ni­ans protest­ing against their gov­ern­ment and con­demn Iran for vio­lent­ly sup­press­ing protests and killing some pro­tes­tors. Ten­ney said the res­o­lu­tion “reaf­firms our resound­ing sup­port for the brave Ira­ni­ans who con­tin­ue to put their lives on the line to secure their fun­da­men­tal rights and free­doms.” The vote was 420 yeas to 1 nay.

Cas­ca­dia total: 17 yea votes, 1 not voting

MORATORIUM ON ATLANTIC COAST FOSSIL FUEL PRODUCTION: The House on Jan­u­ary 26th approved an amend­ment spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Nan­cy Mace, R‑S.C., to the Strate­gic Pro­duc­tion Response Act (H.R. 21) that would pre­serve a mora­to­ri­um on oil and nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion leas­es off the South­east coast. Mace said the mora­to­ri­um “pro­tects South Car­oli­na’s coast­line, which every South Car­olin­ian and vis­i­tor to our state knows is vital to our liveli­hoods and our econ­o­my.” The vote was 389 yeas to 42 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 17 yea votes, 1 not voting

ALTERING STRATEGIC PRODUCTION RESPONSE ACT: The House on Jan­u­ary 26th approved an amend­ment spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Lau­ren Boe­bert, R‑Colorado, to the Strate­gic Pro­duc­tion Response Act (H.R. 21) that would change the increase in fed­er­al lands that can be leased for oil and nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion in response to a draw­down of the Strate­gic Petro­le­um Reserve from a ten per­cent to a fif­teen per­cent increase. Boe­bert said the increase “allows for respon­si­ble emer­gency use of the Strate­gic Petro­le­um Reserves while also allow­ing for respon­si­ble Amer­i­can ener­gy pro­duc­tion on fed­er­al lands.”

An amend­ment oppo­nent, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Frank Pal­lone Jr., D‑New Jer­sey, said it would impair the abil­i­ty to release sup­plies from the Reserve in response to emer­gen­cies. The vote was 220 yeas to 212 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 6 yea votes, 11 nay votes, 1 not voting

BARRING OIL SALES TO ADVERSARIES: The House on Jan­u­ary 26th approved an amend­ment spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Josh Got­theimer, D‑New Jer­sey, to the Strate­gic Pro­duc­tion Response Act (H.R. 21) that would require the Ener­gy Depart­ment to ensure that oil sold from the Strate­gic Petro­le­um Reserve is not sold to Iran, Chi­na, Rus­sia, or North Korea.

Got­theimer said the restric­tion was need­ed to “prop­er­ly pro­tect from the ter­ri­fy­ing prospect of oil from our Strate­gic Petro­le­um Reserve end­ing up in the wrong hands.” The vote was 418 yeas to 12 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 17 yea votes, 1 not voting

LEGISLATION PASSED BY VOICE VOTE: Along with the record­ed roll call votes this week, the House also passed the fol­low­ing bills:

• the Post-Dis­as­ter Assis­tance Online Account­abil­i­ty Act (H.R. 259), to cre­ate an online repos­i­to­ry for cer­tain report­ing require­ments for recip­i­ents of fed­er­al dis­as­ter assistance;
• the Secu­ri­ties and Exchange Com­mis­sion Real Estate Leas­ing Author­i­ty Revo­ca­tion Act (H.R. 388), to elim­i­nate the SEC’s leas­ing authority;
• and the Microloan Trans­paren­cy and Account­abil­i­ty Act (H.R. 449), to amend the Small Busi­ness Act to increase transparency.

In the United States Senate

BRENDAN OWENS, ASSISTANT DEFENSE SECRETARY: The Sen­ate on Jan­u­ary 23rd con­firmed the nom­i­na­tion of Bren­dan Owens to be the Defense Depart­men­t’s Assis­tant Sec­re­tary for Ener­gy, Instal­la­tions and Envi­ron­ment. Owens, cur­rent­ly a con­sul­tant at Black Vest Strat­e­gy, was an offi­cial at the U.S. Green Build­ing Coun­cil for nine­teen years, and before that the ener­gy man­ag­er for the Army’s Fort Belvoir in Vir­ginia. The vote was 60 yeas to 35 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 4 yea votes, 1 nay vote, 1 not voting

Key votes ahead

The House is slat­ed to take up a num­ber of Repub­li­can bills, includ­ing the “Free­dom for Health Care Work­ers Act” and the “Pan­dem­ic is Over Act.” Mem­bers have been told that there will be floor votes through­out the week.

The Sen­ate will recon­vene on Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 30th for leg­isla­tive busi­ness. Roll call votes are expect­ed, but the items to be vot­ed on have yet to be announced.

Edi­tor’s Note: The infor­ma­tion in NPI’s week­ly How Cas­ca­di­a’s U.S. law­mak­ers vot­ed fea­ture is pro­vid­ed by Tar­get­ed News Ser­vice. 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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