May 12th
1000 MORE's weekly nonpartisan roundup of the most important happenings in federal government, written in a way that doesn't require a law degree to understand, with tools to take action
May 12, 2023
This week in MORE POWER:
Debt Ceiling Back and Forth
Border Update
Fixing Air Travel
Fighting Over Unemployment Fraud
Bipartisan Climate Bills
Dems & Republicans Team Up To Take on Opioids
Biden Appointee Confirmations
Debt Ceiling Back and Forth
On Tuesday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, (R-CA), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, (D-NY), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, (D-NY), and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, (R-KY) met with President Joe Biden at the White House to discuss raising the debt limit. These talks only yielded an agreement from all parties to keep talking.
Republicans argue that now is the time to discuss caps on future spending, which is essentially like saying I'm only going to pay my credit card bill *if* I can cut down on spending next year. Democrats argue that now is not the time to discuss cuts; that the time for that is during negotiations for the next budget, i.e., we must to keep paying our credit card bill to stay in good standing with creditors while the budget gets hammered out.
At this point, the Limit, Save, Grow Act remains the only piece of legislation to pass any chamber of Congress that deals with raising the debt ceiling. There are only eight working days left in May to do a deal before Treasury Secretary Yellen's suggested June 1 deadline. President Biden has been on a media offensive, trying to push public opinion in his favor toward a “clean” debt limit hike. Pressure is on both sides to pass anything to raise the limit by the end of May, as economists project default to be catastrophic for the American economy.
Border Update
House Republican leadership did a deal to roll many of the provisions of the Border Reinforcement Act - which we reported on last week - into a larger bill to keep all sides of their party happy. This new bill is the Secure The Border Act. If Congress passes it and the president signs it into law, the bill would restart the construction of a southern border wall, set limits on seeking asylum, and ban federal funding to nonprofits helping undocumented people. The House passed the bill this week along a party line vote, with 219 Republicans voting yes. The bill goes to the Senate next. President Biden has promised to veto it should the bill also pass the Senate.
It is no coincidence that House Republican leadership held the vote on the Secure The Border Act this week, as Title 42 expired. Title 42 was a COVID-19 pandemic era policy to remove people who had recently been in a country where a communicable disease was present, which critics argue was used to keep them from getting asylum. Now that the federal government has officially declared that the pandemic is over, this policy is no longer in place.
Experts predict a record number of people will now seek entry at the southern border. Most are fleeing poverty due to a brutal COVID-related economic downturn, authoritarianism, violence, crime, or food insecurity due to climate change. To meet their needs, the Biden administration has set up new systems to process people, both in their countries of origin and in countries along the way to the southern border using new technology, hoping to encourage asylum seeking through official ports of entry, rather than a reliance on human smugglers to cross the border.
However, migration advocates are pushing back against Biden's policies, arguing that the effect will be the same as Title 42. They cite the inhumanity of forcing people fleeing for their lives to go through slow processes with cumbersome steps using new technology that they don't understand. Advocates are demanding that the administration change its policy to match U.S. and international law, meaning unfettered access to seeking asylum.
Fixing Air Travel
There have been one too many stories regarding flight delays and cancellations this year. This week, President Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg pledged to deliver airline accountability for the summer travel season. The administration is drafting new rules that could require airlines to compensate passengers for hotels, meals, and other costs due to flight cancellations or delays.
This week, the Senate passed the bipartisan NOTAM Improvement Act with an amendment. This bill would establish a task force on improvements for NOtices To Air Missions (NOTAM), the system that failed in January, causing major disruptions in air travel. While the bill already passed the House in January, it goes back to the House now due to the amendment. Should the bill pass there with the amendment, it would go to the President to be signed into law.
Fighting Over Unemployment Fraud
House Republicans have crafted a bill, the Protecting Taxpayers and Victims of Unemployment Fraud Act, that they claim will allow states to investigate and take back pandemic unemployment insurance benefits. While it repeals the part of the American Rescue Plan Act that provided $2B in funding to prevent fraud and improve quality of unemployment insurance programs, it allows states to keep a percentage of recovered payments to cover costs instead. The bill also extends both the time frame in which states can recover overpayments and the statute of limitations for federal criminal charges or civil enforcement actions to 10 years.
The White House has come out against the bill, saying that “contrary to its stated purpose,” it actually does the opposite of what it claims to do, and will instead take away resources and enforcement capabilities from states working to stop unemployment insurance fraud because it stops American Rescue Plan funding. The administration also said “the bill also would unfairly punish workers whose overpayments were the fault of a state agency.”
10 Democrats in swing districts joined with 220 House Republicans to pass the bill in the House. One “yes” vote came from the bill's co-sponsor Rep. George Santos, (R-NY) who was himself indicted for unemployment fraud this week. The bill goes to the Senate next. Should it pass there, President Biden has vowed to veto it.
Bipartisan Climate Bills
This week, the House passed two bills to tackle pressing threats from a changed climate:
Coastal Communities Ocean Acidification Act: The ocean is the biggest absorber of carbon dioxide (CO2). As pollution drives more CO2 into the atmosphere and the ocean absorbs more of it, the ocean's pH is slowly changing from normal alkaline level to unhealthy acidic level, and the ocean is warming. Many coastal states, especially in warmer regions, have been dealing with this, plus the impact of fertilizer runoff from farms causing toxic algae blooms, also known as red tides, that kill fish and make seafood poisonous to humans. This bill would implement a collaborative, all-levels-of-government approach for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Ocean Acidification Advisory Board research on ocean and coastal acidification.
Bill co-sponsor Rep. Michael Waltz, (R-FL) said, “As Floridians, we have experienced firsthand the devastating effects of agal blooms and red tides on our coastal communities. Moving forward, we must work to better understand the connection between ocean acidification and increased toxicity in harmful agal blooms to help us prevent them altogether.”
Advanced Weather Model Computing Development Act: this bill would greenlight Department of Energy and NOAA research on how artificial intelligence and high-performance computing can improve weather and climate modeling and prediction, potentially saving lives in hurricanes, tornadoes, and other extreme weather events.
Rep. Deborah Ross, (D-NC) who co-sponsored the bill, said, “As climate change continues to drive a growing number of severe weather events, the capability to provide more accurate and timely forecasts is critical to protecting Americans.”
Both bills go to the Senate next. You can use the links above to read about the bills, and take action.
Dems & Republicans Team Up To Take on Opioids
Synthetic opioids like fentanyl cause 67% of all drug overdose and poisoning deaths, killing nearly 72,000 Americans in the last year, an unprecedented number, according to the CDC. Even with the increased access to overdose reversing treatments like NARCAN, the government has largely been caught flatfooted by the spike in deaths, as many people died after ingesting substances that contained synthetic opioids without their knowledge.
Congress is working to make sure that doesn't happen again. The TRANQ Research Act is a bipartisan solution that invests in research on novel synthetic opioids and emerging substances of concern. One example is xylazine, known commonly as “tranq” or “zombie drug,” which is particularly deadly as it doesn't respond to common overdose treatments and causes large wounds that won't heal. The bill's sponsor, Rep. Yadira Caraveo, (D-CO), said “I’m proud to introduce my first piece of legislation, a bipartisan effort to start gathering the information we need to head off the next major addictive substance. This important effort will help keep our families safe and let those who are hurting focus on healing from the opioid crisis.” Every single member of the House voted to pass the bill, sending it to the Senate by a vote of 425-0.
Biden Appointee Confirmations
The Senate continues to vote on political appointments to fill openings in the Biden administration. The confirmation process for these roles, as well as for judicial confirmations has been somewhat held back by the absences of two Democratic Senators for much of the year. Sen. John Fetterman, (D-PA) sought treatment for clinical depression and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, (D-CA) was recovering from shingles. Both have now returned to Washington, D.C.
Democrats have power in the Senate. While most pundits will say that there are 51 Democrats, that number includes the three Independents who typically vote with them, so technically there are 48 Democrats, three independents, and 49 Republicans. The balance of power is two votes, 51 to 49, so having two Democrats absent from voting means that the Senate is at a statistical tie before you factor in the votes of the three Independent Senators - Angus King, (I-ME), Bernie Sanders, (I-VT), and Kyrsten Sinema, (I-AZ) - let alone consider the views of conservative Democrats like Sen. Joe Manchin, (D-WV). Several judicial nominees have been held up in committee because Sen. Feinstein was not there to vote for them. Democrats hope that changes with her back at work this week.
This week the Senate confirmed the nominations of:
L. Felice Gorordo for the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development's U.S. Alternate Executive Director
Glenna Laureen Wright-Gallo for the Department of Education's Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services
Colleen Joy Shogan for Archivist of the United States
Geeta Rao Gupta for Ambassador at Large for Global Women's Issues
Have a view on this that you would like to share?
What Congress Passed This Week
What POTUS Signed Into Law This Week
Still nothing.
