Last Week In Congress: How Cascadia’s U.S. lawmakers voted (May 22nd-26th)

Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cascadia’s Mem­bers of Con­gress vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing May 26th, 2023.

The Unit­ed States Sen­ate was in recess.

In the United States House of Representatives

FORCING STUDENTS TO PAY BACK LOANS: The House on May 24th passed a res­o­lu­tion (H.J. Res. 45), spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Bob Good, R‑Virginia, to dis­ap­prove of and void an Edu­ca­tion Depart­ment rule issued last Octo­ber that sus­pend­ed or can­celled pay­ments on stu­dent loans.

Good said: “Con­gress must reclaim its pow­er and act today to stop the uni­lat­er­al action of Pres­i­dent Biden that is exac­er­bat­ing the high­er edu­ca­tion finan­cial cri­sis.” A res­o­lu­tion oppo­nent, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive James Clyburn, D‑South Car­oli­na, said: “Pres­i­dent Biden’s stu­dent loan debt relief plan will help alle­vi­ate the yoke of stu­dent loan debt for mil­lions of Amer­i­cans.” The vote was 218 yeas to 203 nays.

Marie Glue­senkamp Perez (D‑Washington) and Jared Gold­en (D‑Maine) were the only Democ­rats to vote in favor of the resolution.

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

VOIDING ANOTHER RULE TO PROTECT AMERICANS FROM POLLUTION: The House on May 23rd passed a res­o­lu­tion (S.J. Res. 11), spon­sored by Sen­a­tor Deb Fis­ch­er, R‑Nebraska, to dis­ap­prove of and void an Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA) rule for restrict­ing ozone, par­tic­u­late mat­ter, and oth­er forms of air pol­lu­tion from heavy-duty motor vehi­cles that was issued this January.

A res­o­lu­tion sup­port­er, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Bill John­son, R‑Ohio, called the rule an imprac­ti­cal mea­sure that would cre­ate heavy costs for “trucks that not only deliv­er all the goods we rely on but also trucks for our farm­ers and ranch­ers, build­ing con­trac­tors and land­scap­ers, and count­less oth­er work­ers and small businesses.”

An oppo­nent, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Frank Pal­lone Jr., D‑New Jer­sey, said: “This res­o­lu­tion is yet anoth­er extrem­ist, Repub­li­can attack on com­mon­sense steps EPA is tak­ing to pro­tect Amer­i­cans’ health and the environment.”

The vote was 221 yeas to 203 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 5 yea votes, 12 nay votes, 1 not voting

PUNISHMENTS FOR USING FENTANYL-LIKE SUBSTANCES: The House has passed the Halt All Lethal Traf­fick­ing of Fen­tanyl Act (H.R. 467), spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mor­gan Grif­fith, R‑Virginia. The bill would clas­si­fy fen­tanyl-relat­ed sub­stances as a sched­ule 1 con­trolled sub­stance, deemed to have a high poten­tial for abuse, with no med­ical val­ue, and sub­ject to cer­tain legal penal­ties as a result.

Grif­fith said assign­ing per­ma­nent sched­ule 1 sta­tus to the sub­stances “will strength­en law enforce­men­t’s abil­i­ty to pros­e­cute fen­tanyl traf­fick­ers and act as a deter­rent” to traf­fick­ing. A bill oppo­nent, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Frank Pal­lone Jr., D‑New Jer­sey, said it “will leave our com­mu­ni­ties worse off and exac­er­bate exist­ing inequities in our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem” by lead­ing to dis­pro­por­tion­ate crim­i­nal penal­ties for minor­i­ty groups. The vote was 289 yeas to 133 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 14 yea votes, 4 nay votes

FENTANYL TRAFFICKING: The House on May 22nd passed the Pre­vent­ing the Financ­ing of Ille­gal Syn­thet­ic Drugs Act (H.R. 1076), spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mon­i­ca De La Cruz, R‑Texas, to require the Gov­ern­ment Account­abil­i­ty Office to study the role of illic­it financ­ing of traf­fick­ing in fen­tanyl, metham­phet­a­mine, and sim­i­lar dan­ger­ous syn­thet­ic drugs. De La Cruz said the study “will help law enforce­ment pin­point the busi­ness mod­el of the traf­fick­ers, how they move and hide their prof­its, and what the U.S. can do to stop fen­tanyl mon­ey laundering.”

The vote was 402 yeas to 2 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 17 yea votes, 1 not voting

SYSTEMIC RISKS ON U.S. FINANCIAL STABILITY FROM CHINA: The House has passed the Chi­na Finan­cial Threat Mit­i­ga­tion Act (H.R. 1156), spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Abi­gail Davis Span­berg­er, D‑Virginia. The bill would require the Trea­sury Depart­ment to make a report on the impacts Chi­na’s finan­cial sec­tor could have on the U.S. and its finan­cial sta­bil­i­ty, as well as ways for the U.S. to work with oth­er coun­tries to mit­i­gate risks posed by China.

A sup­port­er, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Joyce Beat­ty, D‑Ohio, said: “We must have a clear pic­ture of the sys­temic risks we face so we can respond appro­pri­ate­ly to safe­guard our eco­nom­ic inter­ests and mit­i­gate these threats.”

The vote was 400 yeas to 5 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 17 yea votes, 1 not voting

FAILED OVERRIDE OF SOLAR PANEL IMPORTS RESOLUTION VETO: The House on May 24th failed to over­ride Pres­i­dent Biden’s veto of a res­o­lu­tion (H.J. Res. 39), spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Bill Posey, R‑Florida, to dis­ap­prove of and void a Com­merce Depart­ment rule sus­pend­ing duties on imports of solar pan­els that were assem­bled in South­east Asia and used com­po­nents made in China.

Posey said Chi­na has been using forced labor to make the poly­sil­i­con that is used to assem­ble pan­els in neigh­bor­ing coun­tries and cir­cum­vent U.S. tar­iffs on Chi­nese-made pan­els. There­fore, “if we pass this res­o­lu­tion, we can help put a stop to Chi­na’s cheat­ing and slave labor.” An oppo­nent, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mike Thomp­son, D‑California, said: “We all want solar prod­ucts man­u­fac­tured right here at home; but in the short run, our domes­tic indus­try can’t increase pro­duc­tion rapid­ly enough to meet demand or to meet our cli­mate goals.”

The vote, on May 24, was 214 yeas to 205 nays, with a two-thirds thresh­old required to over­ride the veto. The thresh­old was not met.

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

VETERANS AND TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION: The House on May 24th passed the VET-TEC Autho­riza­tion Act (H.R. 1669), spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Juan Cis­co­mani, R‑Arizona, to require the Vet­er­ans Affairs Depart­ment to make per­ma­nent a pro­gram for pro­vid­ing aid to up to 8,000 vet­er­ans for enrolling in non-degree train­ing or skills cours­es that are relat­ed to com­put­er pro­gram­ming, media appli­ca­tion, data pro­cess­ing, or infor­ma­tion sciences.

Cis­co­mani said that since it began in 2019, “not only has this pro­gram been ben­e­fi­cial for our vet­er­ans, but it is cru­cial for our employ­ers, as well. We need a skilled work­force work­ing in the tech indus­try, and our vet­er­ans are the per­fect fit.” The vote was 409 yeas to 9 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 15 yea votes, 2 not voting

Key votes ahead

On Wednes­day, the House is slat­ed to take up the debt ceil­ing deal agreed to “in prin­ci­ple” by the White House and Speak­er Kevin McCarthy’s office.

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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