Showing posts with label Senate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Senate. Show all posts

Friday, March 2, 2012

Senate GOP leadership shuffles, as Alexander leaves and Blunt moves up

The move had been expected, but now it’s official: Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) has resigned his No. 3 spot in Senate Republican leadership, while Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) has moved up to join his party’s leadership team.


Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) (Brendan Smialowski - GETTY IMAGES)

Alexander had announced late last year that he would resign his spot in order to seek other ways of leading in Congress. Though the Tennessee Republican denied it, the move was interpreted by many on Capitol Hill as a tacit acknowledgment of the difficulty of building consensus across party lines while serving as a member of leadership.

With the departure of Alexander -- who remains in the Senate -- Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) moves up to the No. 3 spot. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) is No. 4. And Blunt -- who beat back a challenge from tea-party favorite Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) in an intra-party race that drew the attention of many conservative activists -- takes the No. 5 spot of Senate GOP conference vice-chairman.

“There’s no doubt that this is a critical year in America’s future when we’re going to decide who we’re going to be as a nation,” Blunt said in a statement. “Over the last three years, President Obama’s policies have led to record debt and out-of-control spending while families and job creators in Missouri and nationwide struggle to make ends meet. If we’re going to fix the Obama Economy and help put people back to work, we must work together on both sides of the Capitol to pass policies that will jumpstart job creation.”


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Monday, February 27, 2012

Senate moves toward agreement on transportation bill

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Senate moves toward agreement on transportation billSmaller TextLarger TextText SizePrintE-mailReprints By Ashley Halsey III,

As House Republicans prepared to release a spending proposal intended to overhaul the federal transportation system, Senate Democrats on Thursday rushed to complete a bipartisan effort to end a stalemate that has undermined transportation programs for almost three years.

The flurry of activity on the Senate side came a day after U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said that differences between House and Senate proposals presented “a pretty big gulf to overcome” and that it was unlikely a bill would win approval in this election year.

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Debt disapproval resolution blocked by Senate

The Senate on Thursday voted against proceeding on a symbolic resolution that would have disapproved of President Obama’s request earlier this month to raise the federal borrowing limit, clearing the way for the $1.2 trillion increase to proceed as expected.

Thursday’s 44 to 52 vote fell short of the 60-vote threshold necessary to progress on the disapproval measure, which was provided for by the August debt-ceiling deal.

Last week, the House approved the disapproval resolution on a largely party-line vote, with most Republicans voting “yes” and most Democrats voting “no.”

Even if the resolution had passed, Obama most likely would have vetoed it, and lawmakers would have faced the hurdle of a two-thirds supermajority in both chambers to override the White House’s decision.

The latest hike in the debt ceiling will lift the federal borrowing limit from $15.2 trillion to $16.4 trillion, an increase that will see the country through the end of the year.

It’s the last hike called for by the August debt deal, meaning that the next time the country reaches its borrowing limit later this year, the stage will be set for another potentially explosive showdown.

Most members issued statements Thursday along the lines of their previous positions for or against raising the debt limit. But some explicitly noted that the resolution was only a symbolic one and called for lawmakers to take real action on the country’s debt problem.

“I challenge members of Congress in both parties to open their eyes to what is happening in Europe, to stop with the meaningless show votes, and get serious about our debt crisis before it is too late,” Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said in a statement.

However, with no impending crisis looming — no “supercomittee deadline,” and none of the $1.2 trillion in across-the-board cuts set to take effect until January 2013 — it’s unlikely that any serious debt-reduction effort will be afoot in the second session of the 112th Congress.


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Friday, February 3, 2012

Obama’s pick for DOI job won’t face Senate again


Sen. James Inhofe was among the senators opposed to the nomination of Rebecca Wodder. (Susan Walsh - Associated Press) The Senate nomination wars have claimed another casualty.

Rebecca Wodder, who faced stiff opposition in the Senate after President Obama selected her for a high-level spot at the Department of the Interior, will not be re-nominated this year, the Interior Department said Friday.

Wodder’s contentious nomination had expired — along with a slate of other Obama nominees — at the end of the last congressional session. The Interior Department Friday announced that Wodder asked the White House not to restart the nomination process this year. “As a result of the prolonged nomination process, Rebecca Wodder has asked the President that she not be re-nominated,” an Interior Department spokesman said.

Wodder will instead serve as a senior advisor to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

One of her chief critics, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Friday cheered the move. In a statement, Inhofe, the top Republican on the Environment and Public Works panel, called her a “member of President Obama’s job-destroying ‘green team.’”

“Had she been confirmed, she would have had influence over decisions that greatly affect oil and gas development, and this would have been particularly bad for my home state of Oklahoma,” Inhofe said.

Wodder, who was up for the job of Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, had drawn fire from lawmakers of both parties, particularly for her statements on hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.”

She had cleared the Environment and Public Works Committee, but she faced other hurdles in committee — and it was all but certain that at least one senator would have placed a hold on her nomination that would have prevented a Senate vote.

Amy Kober, a spokeswoman for American Rivers, an organization that Wodder led for 15 years, blamed a “supercharged partisan atmosphere”on Capitol Hill for the failure of the nomination.

“Rebecca is in­cred­ibly qualified — she has a history of bipartisan work, particularly on the economic benefits of river conservation,” she said.


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Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Senate set to take up major cyber legislation

Congress is moving closer to taking up comprehensive cybersecurity legislation, and a Senate aide confirmed this week that Majority Leader Harry Reid will bring a package to the floor before President’s Day.

Meanwhile, eight former senior government officials sent a letter this week to Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, urging the Senate to approve legislation to better protect the nation’s critical computer networks from attack.

A senior aide to Reid, Tommy Ross, said that legislation could be on the floor as early as next week.

“What comes to the floor will reflect wide agreement,” Ross said this week at the annual “State of the Net” conference.

Last November, Reid wrote to McConnell that he would bring the Cybersecurity and Internet Freedom Act to the floor during the Senate’s first work period of 2012, which ends on President’s Day.

Over the past several years, dozens of cybersecurity bills from across a variety of committees have been penned, but no comprehensive legislation has ever made it to the floor of either chamber of Congress. This year could be different.

Backers of the new legislation say it will address significant cyber issues, improving the security of the nation’s critical infrastructure and encouraging the sharing of threat information between government and industry without violating individual privacy. The legislation is also expected to address whether to set up a new White House office of national cyberspace policy.

But significant hurdles remain over issues of regulation, privacy protections, and how much authority the executive branch should have to direct response actions in an emergency.

“As former executive branch officials who shared the responsibility for our nation’s security, we are deeply concerned by the severity and sophistication of the cyber threats facing our nation,” said the letter that was sent this week to Reid and McConnell, and that was signed by former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, former Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III, former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, and former White House cyber czar Richard Clarke, among others.

The authors noted that the administration has weighed in with its proposals, most of which are not too far afield from drafts of Senate legislation.

“The threat is only going to get worse,” the letter said. “Inaction is not an option.”

Some observers are hopeful that at least some elements of the legislation could win enough support. But a key lawmaker, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, “does not support enacting cybersecurity on a piecemeal basis,” a spokeswoman said.


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SOPA, PIPA votes to be delayed in House and Senate

Update, 11:16 a.m.:

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), author of the Stop Online Piracy Act, said on Friday that he is postponing consideration of the bill in response to concerns from critics who said the bill could lead to censorship.

“I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy,” Smith said in a statement. “It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) announced Friday he would delay consideration of measure to combat online piracy, bowing to pressure from a coalition of Internet companies, including Google and Wikipedia, that rallied consumers to their side by saying the legislation could lead to the censorship of popular sites.

In a statement, Reid said he would delay the vote scheduled for Tuesday to begin consideration until the Senate Judiciary Committee could make more progress. “We made good progress through the discussions we’ve held in recent days, and I am optimistic that we can reach a compromise in the coming weeks,” Reid said.

The announcement by Reid comes two days after Wikipedia, Reddit and other prominent Web sites protested the planned vote by blacking out their sites -- a move that drew widespread attention and spurred a swift reaction from many lawmakers who had previously been supportive of or ambivalent toward the anti-piracy measures.

Among the lawmakers who reversed their positions on the measures was Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who had been among the earliest supporters of PIPA. Once the online protests began to garner attention on Wednesday, he and several other members of Congress announced that they were withdrawing their support for the bills.

Proponents of SOPA and PIPA argue that the measures -- which would give the Justice Department greater authority over how Web sites link to other sites suspected of piracy -- are necessary to combat illegal activity on foreign Web sites and that the bills would protect U.S. consumers and intellectual property.

Reid’s full statement is below:

“In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday’s vote on the PROTECT I.P. Act.

“There is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved. Counterfeiting and piracy cost the American economy billions of dollars and thousands of jobs each year, with the movie industry alone supporting over 2.2 million jobs. We must take action to stop these illegal practices. We live in a country where people rightfully expect to be fairly compensated for a day’s work, whether that person is a miner in the high desert of Nevada, an independent band in New York City, or a union worker on the back lots of a California movie studio.

“I admire the work that Chairman Leahy has put into this bill. I encourage him to continue engaging with all stakeholders to forge a balance between protecting Americans’ intellectual property, and maintaining openness and innovation on the internet. We made good progress through the discussions we’ve held in recent days, and I am optimistic that we can reach a compromise in the coming weeks.”

Staff writer Felicia Sonmez also contributed to this story.

The hedline on an earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the name of the bill. The story has been corrected.

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