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☆ US House Republicans face unity test with major energy bill
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( David Morgan | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

WASHINGTON, March 30 (Reuters) - The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on its first major legislation of the year on Thursday, a partisan energy bill that poses an early test of unity for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's majority. The 175-page measure, dubbed the Lower Energy Costs Act, represents a top 2022 Republican campaign pledge to lower Americans' energy costs by scaling back Democratic President Joe Biden's climate policies and increasing oil and gas production through deregulation. 1 - House Resolution One, is the most important bill to this Congress," Republican Representative August Pfluger of Texas told reporters. Both Republicans and Democrats are keen to pass legislation that streamlines permitting for energy projects, but the disagreement over the House bill reflects gaping divisions over how to do that. "It does absolutely nothing to lower energy costs for American families.

☆ U.S. lawmakers make new push to bar convicted violent passengers from flights
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

WASHINGTON, March 27 (Reuters) - A group of lawmakers on Wednesday will make a new push for legislation to bar passengers fined or convicted of serious physical violence from commercial flights after a series of recent high-profile incidents. Senator Jack Reed and Representative Eric Swalwell, both Democrats, and Republican Representative Brian Fitzpatrick said Monday they plan to reintroduce the "Protection from Abusive Passengers Act." Despite the end of the airplane mask mandate in April 2022, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) investigated 831 unruly passenger incidents in 2022, up from 146 in 2019, but down from 1,099 in 2021, the lawmakers noted. Reporting by David Shepardson Editing by Chris ReeseOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ US lawmakers make new push to bar convicted violent passengers from flights
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( David Shepardson | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

WASHINGTON, March 27 (Reuters) - A bipartisan group of lawmakers on Wednesday will make a new push for legislation to bar passengers fined or convicted of serious physical violence from commercial flights after a series of recent high-profile incidents. Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union opposed creating a no-fly list for unruly passengers, saying the U.S. government "has a terrible record of treating people fairly with regard to the existing no-fly list and other watch lists that are aimed at alleged terrorists." Despite the end of the airplane mask mandate in April 2022, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) investigated 831 unruly passenger incidents in 2022, up from 146 in 2019, but down from 1,099 in 2021, the lawmakers noted. The FAA received 2,456 unruly passenger reports in 2022 and proposed $8.4 million in fines, down from 5,981 reports in 2021, which included 4,290 mask-related incidents. In February 2022, Delta Air Lines (DAL.N) CEO Ed Bastian urged the U.S. government to place passengers convicted of on-board disruptions on a national no-fly list that would bar them from future travel on any commercial airline.

The tumult that broke out last month during the election of Kevin McCarthy for speaker illustrated the potential for profound dysfunction in the new House Republican majority. Here is a closer look at the fractious House Republican caucus. Chart of House Republicans highlights members who denied the 2020 election results, were supported by the House Freedom Fund, or both. Representative Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, who has also denied the 2020 election results, defeated Representative Liz Cheney in the primary. A Venn diagram shows the Republican newcomers in the House who either denied the 2020 election results, were supported by the House Freedom Fund, or both.

That is a shift from previous budget negotiations, when Republicans suggested raising the retirement age and partially privatizing Medicare. Social Security accounted for 17% of federal spending in the 2021 fiscal year, while Medicare accounted for 13%, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. That would leave another 11% of the federal budget off limits. That would force budget cuts if federal borrowing exceeded a set share of the economy, but he has not said what that limit should be. NO DEBT CEILING INCREASE AT ALLSome hardliners, such as Tim Burchett and Andy Biggs, have said they will vote against raising the debt ceiling, no matter what provisions are attached.

☆ Splits emerge as U.S. House Republicans demand Biden negotiate on debt limit
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( David Morgan | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

I mean, if he refuses to negotiate, you're not going to get any Republican support for anything," Bacon told Reuters. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Biden are expected to meet and discuss the debt ceiling among other issues. The White House has repeatedly rejected the idea of negotiating over spending levels to secure an agreement on the debt ceiling. They can't just circumvent the House of Representatives," said Republican Representative Mike Lawler, whose New York district Biden won by 10 points. "We can spend at defense spending levels for the '23 omnibus.

☆ U.S. lawmakers preparing plan to avert debt-ceiling crisis
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-22 | by ( Jason Lange | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Congress's rules on the debt ceiling are intended to limit growth of the nation's debt. The White House has said raising the debt ceiling should not be a negotiation. Senator Joe Manchin, have said the administration needs to engage in a debt ceiling negotiation. A 2011 standoff over the debt ceiling lead Standard & Poor's to cut the U.S.'s credit rating, a historic first. Biden is hosting Democratic congressional leaders at the White House on Tuesday.

Republicans are on a collision course with the White House, which is demanding that Congress raise the debt limit without conditions. Republicans have waged heated battles over the debt ceiling, most notably in 2011, but they have always been resolved in time. Why does a GOP House complicate debt ceiling negotiations? Republicans have floated everything from budget cuts to socially conservative legislation as part of a debt ceiling increase. The White House had laid down a marker: no negotiations, no policy strings attached to raise the debt ceiling.

WASHINGTON — House Republicans' calls for Rep. George Santos to resign are growing after state GOP leaders in New York said he should step aside over a slew of lies and fabrications in the biography he ran on in the 2022 midterm election. Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., also starting his first term, dropped his earlier hedging and unequivocally said Thursday that Santos should resign. “It is clear that George Santos has lost the confidence and support of his party, his constituents, and his colleagues. Santos insisted Thursday he won't resign "until those same 142,000 people" in New York who elected him "tell me they don’t want me." “I don’t think he should be here, that’s for sure.

☆ NY Republican leaders and lawmakers call on GOP Rep. George Santos to resign over campaign lies
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-11 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Summer-Concepcion-Byline-Jm.Jpg | Summer Concepcion | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

“George Santos’ campaign last year was a campaign of deceit, lies and fabrication,” Nassau County GOP Chairman Joe Cairo said at a news conference with other party officials. But House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said that Cairo’s call for Santos’ resignation doesn’t affect his thinking on the issue. The New York State Conservative party said it stands with the Nassau County GOP in calling for Santos’ resignation in a statement. It will work itself out in the end.”Nassau County GOP officials initially endorsed Santos in the 2022 election cycle. Wednesday's announcement from Nassau County officials also comes amid several investigations into Santos' campaign and other calls for him to resign.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., speaks to Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., in the House Chamber on Jan. 6, 2023. She said it’s a bad idea for the House to bring up those bills. Still, some of the more moderate Republicans acknowledge that they’ll have to make compromises with Democrats to get immigration bills signed into law. The GOP rules package adopted Monday identifies the seven bills that will get speedy votes in the House. “Many of their radical things will be stopped in the Senate because we have a Democratic majority,” Schumer said, vowing not to let ultraconservative lawmakers defund the FBI.

The party-line vote on Tuesday aims to do just that, setting up a "Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government." The body is set to launch a wide-ranging probe of Democrat Biden's administration, which Republicans accuse of "weaponizing" the FBI against Trump. Among the federal agencies targeted are those looking into Trump's attempt to overturn his 2020 defeat and alleged mishandling of classified documents. On Monday the White House said that lawyers for Biden found classified documents at a Washington think tank affiliated with the president. That would create a situation where he could seek to oversee a federal investigation into himself.

☆ Former DC Metropolitan Police Department officer Michael Fanone says it's 'disgraceful' that only one GOP congressman appeared at a Capitol Hill event commemorating January 6
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-07 | by ( John L. Dorman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Michael Fanone blasted the scant GOP attendance at a Jan. 6 remembrance ceremony at the Capitol. Multiple outlets reported that Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick was the only GOP lawmaker at the Friday event. Law enforcement certainly doesn't like that, and I don't believe that all Republicans are sympathetic to the MAGA agenda." "As somebody who has previously supported Republican candidates, it's shameful," the former police officer told Tapper. After the Capitol ceremony, Fitzpatrick, a former FBI supervisory special agent, told Insider's Bryan Metzger of his desire to be at the solemn event.

☆ Republicans were too busy sorting out Kevin McCarthy's speakership bid to join a January 6 commemoration on the riot's 2-year anniversary
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Two years after January 6, the House is now on its fourth day of trying to elect a speaker. "I wanted to be here," Fitzpatrick told Insider after the ceremony, saying he didn't know if he was the only member of his party on the steps. Sicknick suffered violent attacks during the riot, while the four other officers died by suicide in the days and months afterward. The lawmakers then observed a 140-second member of silence to commemorate 140 other officers who were seriously injured during the riot. On January 6, 2020 — a year before the assault — he lost his brother, former Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, to cancer.

☆ Biden awards Presidential Citizens Medals on two-year anniversary of Jan. 6 Capitol riot
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Kevin Breuninger | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

US President Joe Biden speaks during a ceremony at the White House marking the two-year anniversary of the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on Friday, Jan. 6, 2023. The award ceremony at the White House was Biden's first time bestowing the Presidential Citizens Medal, which is given to Americans "who have performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens." Three of the medals were awarded posthumously to officers who had defended the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and died afterward by injuries or by suicide. "All of it was fueled by lies about the 2020 election," Biden said Friday, without mentioning Trump by name. The somber event at the White House was punctuated by a few moments of levity.

WASHINGTON — Many House Republicans are furious with a band of far-right rebels who they say are holding the party hostage by repeatedly rejecting its nominee for speaker. The unwillingness of most House Republicans to cut a deal with Democrats to pick a speaker weakens their leverage in the showdown with a group of 20 right-wing lawmakers who want to defeat Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who is backed by 90% of the GOP caucus. As Bacon and other McCarthy allies dangle the possibility of a bipartisan speaker to secure the votes to make him speaker, the anti-McCarthy faction is calling their bluff. Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., who has voted against McCarthy all six times, said he doesn’t believe any Republicans would go around the House Freedom Caucus and team up with Democrats to pick a speaker. Democrats open door to consensus speakerSome Democrats say they’re open to negotiating a consensus speaker.

WASHINGTON — A weekslong standoff between Republican leader Kevin McCarthy and his conservative detractors comes to a head Tuesday as lawmakers prepare to vote on a new speaker of the House. But nine members of that group, including Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry, R-Pa., characterized his proposals as too little, too late. "Despite some progress achieved," the Freedom Caucus group wrote, "Mr. McCarthy’s statement comes almost impossibly late to address continued deficiencies ahead of the opening of the 118th Congress on January 3rd." McCarthy, who has Trump's endorsement and easily defeated Biggs to win his party's nomination for speaker, isn’t backing down. He is already moving into the speaker’s suite, and upon leaving the Capitol on Monday he predicted that the day of the speaker vote would be a "good day."

☆ House passes $1.7 trillion spending bill that rewrites U.S. election law, sending it to Biden to sign
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-23 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Sahil-Kapur-Headshot.Jpg | Sahil Kapur | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

WASHINGTON — The House on Friday voted to finalize a massive $1.7 trillion government funding bill, sending it to President Joe Biden and marking the end of two years of Democrats controlling both chambers of Congress. It overhauls federal election law by revising the Electoral Count Act of 1887 to try to prevent another Jan. 6. The bill funds a swath of domestic programs as well, averting a shutdown and keeping the government funded through next fall. “We have a big bill here, because we have big needs for our country,” outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on the floor. The measure was negotiated by Democratic leaders and top Senate Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Federal dollars are also not an option for reimbursement because regulations prohibit federal funds from being used to replace stolen SNAP funds. SNAP participants say they cannot wait that long after a month or more of stolen benefits plunged them into financial turmoil. Washington, D.C., also reimburses SNAP skimming victims. In the meantime, anti-hunger advocates say there’s no reason states can’t fill the gap for SNAP skimming victims. How states can helpCalifornia, one state that restores stolen benefits, has a law allowing state funds to be used that dates back to 2013.

“I’ll get 218,” McCarthy told CNN, referring to the votes he’d need to become House speaker. Video Ad Feedback Bash asks Pelosi if McCarthy has what it takes to be House Speaker. “I’m not going to talk about hypotheticals,” said Biggs, who lost his conference’s nomination to become speaker last month after securing 31 votes. But McCarthy’s detractors said it’s an issue very much still on the table and think he may end up needing to embrace it if he still doesn’t have the speaker votes by January 3. But he refused to rule out a scenario where his caucus would help elect the next speaker if McCarthy couldn’t get the votes.

“We’ve got to unite,” Oz said at a rally Friday in Wexford, a suburb north of Pittsburgh. Democrats see his message as blatant hypocrisy considering he is backed by former President Donald Trump and has campaigned with him. “Uhhhh will he refuse to campaign with Mastriano + Trump this weekend then?? He has mostly kept Mastriano at arm’s length while rarely mentioning Trump, instead focusing on crime, inflation and undocumented immigration. “As much as I loved Trump as president, he’s pushed the other party so far away.”

☆ Walmart's PAC has quietly donated nearly $1 million to campaigns ahead of the midterms. While the company has a ''don't rock the boat strategy,' it contributed to 41 election deniers.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Ben Tobin | Madison Hall | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

WALPAC donated almost 50-50 to Democratic and Republican federal candidates for the midterms. Walmart's PAC donated to 41 candidates who denied the 2020 presidential election results, ProPublica found. Of that, about 53% went to Republican candidates, and 47% went to Democrats. Some members of Congress, particularly among Democrats, also reject any corporate PAC contribution — WALPAC or otherwise — as a matter of practice. However, the company did donate a significant amount of money to candidates who voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election results.

I'll proudly support the legislation, provided that nothing more than technical changes are made to its current form," McConnell, R-Ky., said on the Senate floor. The committee, which adopted minor revisions to the underlying bill, sent it to the full Senate for a floor vote. “The chaos that came to a head on January 6th of last year certainly underscored the need for an update” to the Electoral Count Act, McConnell said in his floor speech. "I think we need to get this right, and I think the Senate bill is what we can get behind." Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., said in an interview he was warm toward the Senate bill.

☆ U.S. lawmakers want Biden to take action on outbound investment to China
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-27 | by ( David Shepardson | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

WASHINGTON, Sept 27 (Reuters) - A group of lawmakers including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican Senator John Cornyn on Tuesday called on U.S. President Joe Biden to issue an executive order on outbound investments to China and others. Congress has been considering legislation that would give the U.S. government sweeping new powers to block billions in U.S. investment into China. White House national security official Peter Harrell earlier this month said that the Biden administration has not yet made a final decision on a potential outbound investment mechanism regulating U.S. investments in China. Harrell stressed that any measure targeting such investments should be narrowly tailored to address gaps in existing U.S. authorities and specific national security risks. "When we cede our manufacturing power and technological know-how to foreign adversaries, we are hurting our economy, our global competitiveness, American workers, industry and national security.

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