WASHINGTON -- Here’s how area members of Congress voted in the week ending July 31.
HOUSE
`CASH FOR CLUNKERS’: Voting 316 for and 109 against, the House on July 31 sent the Senate a bill (HR 3435) to appropriate an additional $2 billion for the new “cash for clunkers” law. Under the program, consumers trade their car or truck for government vouchers worth $3,500 to $4,500 to be applied to the purchase of a new domestic or foreign vehicle having better fuel efficiency. The program exhausted its original $1 billion appropriation in one week.
Steve Israel, D-N.Y., said: “This program has stimulated the economy. We have doubled car sales over the past five days. This is truly stimulative. It is creating jobs. It is creating a surge for car dealers. The American consumer is satisfied with it, and we need to continue it.”
Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, said: “Maybe we should have a `cash for cluckers’ program and pay people to eat chicken. Then...a program to pay people to buy TVs....But this is not a humorous affair.... Why is the auto industry the winner? Why is the poultry industry the loser? This is one more step in enshrining us as a bailout nation.”
A yes vote was to pass the bill.
MASSACHUSETTS Voting yes: Olver, Neal (MA),
McGovern, Frank (MA), Tsongas, Markey (MA),
Capuano, Lynch, Delahunt
Voting no: Tierney
Not voting: None
FOOD-SAFETY REGULATION: Voting 283 for and 142 against, the House on July 30 passed a bill greatly expanding the Food and Drug Administration’s authority over firms that handle raw and processed foods, including certain farms. The bill (HR 2749) would require an estimated hundreds of thousands of domestic and foreign facilities to pay $500 annual registration fees to the FDA, subject them to periodic inspections and require measures to prevent contamination. The bill gives the FDA power to recall contaminated foods and quarantine areas that produced them. The bill would be financed by registration and inspection fees along with congressional appropriations projected at $2 billion over five years.
John Dingell, D-Mich., said the bill “will stop Americans being killed by bad foods” by policing “not only American foods but foods being imported from places like China. It will stop harmful seafood, E. coli in spinach, tainted peppers from Mexico....”
Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., said: “Farms and agricultural activities are already regulated by the Department of Agriculture. The FDA does not and should not have jurisdiction over farms or agricultural practices.”
A yes vote was to pass the bill.
MASSACHUSETTS Voting yes: John Olver, D-1, Richard
Neal, D-2, James McGovern, D-3, Barney Frank,
D-4, Niki Tsongas, D-5, John Tierney, D-6, Edward
Markey, D-7, Michael Capuano, D-8, Stephen Lynch,
D-9, William Delahunt, D-10
Voting no: None
Not voting: None
REPUBLICAN FOOD MOTION: Voting 186 for and 240 against, the House on July 30 rejected a Republican motion to HR 2749 (above). The measure required half of the funds raised from the food-processing industry to be spent on food inspections and half on indemnifying companies against government errors such as erroneous product recalls.
Frank Lucas, R-Okla, said: “Wrongly implicating agriculture products...can cause severe economic losses to farmers and ranchers, who can ill-afford them. Unfortunately, this legislation does not address this real concern.”
John Dingell, D-Mich., said the motion “asserts that the bill does not require FDA to spend one additional penny on the inspection of food. That is totally false.”
A yes vote backed the GOP motion.
MASSACHUSETTS Voting yes: None
Voting no: Olver, Neal (MA), McGovern, Frank
(MA), Tsongas, Tierney, Markey (MA), Capuano,
Lynch, Delahunt
Not voting: None
PRESIDENT OBAMA’S BIRTHPLACE: Voting 378 for and none against, the House on July 27 adopted a measure (H Res 593) recognizing Aug. 21, 2009, as Hawaii’s 50th anniversary of statehood and noting that President Obama was born in Hawaii on Aug. 4, 1961. The vote drew attention because at least ten House Republicans have sponsored a bill (HR 1503) casting doubt on Obama’s U.S. citizenship. Seven of those “birthers,” including chief sponsor Bill Posey, R-Fla., voted for the resolution, while three were absent from the vote.
Sponsor Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, noted that President Obama was “born in Kapiolani Hospital, just down the road from where I lived” in Honolulu.
Democrat Eni Faleomavaega, the delegate from American Samoa, said Obama “was born in Kapiolani Hospital, Honolulu, Hawaii, period.”
No member spoke against the resolution.
A yes vote backed the resolution.
MASSACHUSETTS Voting yes: Olver, Neal (MA),
McGovern, Frank (MA), Tierney, Markey (MA),
Capuano, Delahunt
Voting no: None
Not voting: Tsongas, Lynch
2010 MILITARY APPROPRIATIONS: Voting 400 for and 30 against, the House on July 30 approved $636.3 billion in military appropriations for fiscal 2010, including $128.2 billion for war in Iraq and Afghanistan and $29.9 billion for service members’ health care. The bill (HR 3326) funds a 3.4 percent military pay raise; bars the military’s use of torture and prohibits permanent U.S. bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, while omitting the administration’s request for funds to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The bill grants the administration’s request to cap production of the F-22 Raptor fighter jets at 187 planes but funds other large weapons programs targeted by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, such as a new VH-71 presidential helicopter fleet, an alternative engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and production of three more C-17 cargo jets.
Bill Young, R-Fla., said he supports the bill but “it disturbs me ...when I see that the foreign-aid bill was 33 percent above last year’s bill, and our national-defense appropriations bill is only 4 percent above last year’s bill.”
Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, said: “I’m going to vote against this bill just on principle. We should get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and I have the same love for those troops that (other members) have.”
A yes vote was to pass the bill.
MASSACHUSETTS Voting yes: John Olver, D-1, Richard
Neal, D-2, James McGovern, D-3, Niki Tsongas,
D-5, Edward Markey, D-7, Michael Capuano, D-8,
Stephen Lynch, D-9, William Delahunt, D-10
Voting no: Barney Frank D-4, John Tierney,
D-6
Not voting: None
HIGHWAY TRUST FUND: Voting 363 for and 68 against, the House on July 29 passed a bill (HR 3357) shifting $7 billion from general revenues to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent for the next few months. Supported by the federal gasoline tax, the fund pays for congressionally approved road projects, but it is running low as Americans drive less to cope with recession and high fuel prices. The bill also expands Federal Housing Administration lending authority and authorizes federal unemployment funds to borrow from the Treasury to meet U.S. and state obligations to pay jobless benefits.
John Lewis, D-Ga., said: “If we fail to act today, our people, our states and our economy will be harmed. In Georgia, where unemployment is already above 10 percent, we cannot afford to lose another 8,500 jobs because of failure to act.”
Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., objected to the numerous earmarks supported by the Highway Trust Fund. He asked: “Why don’t we rescind some of these programs in the highway bill, and we won’t have to take so much money from the general fund?”
A yes vote was to pass the bill.
MASSACHUSETTS Voting yes: Olver, Neal (MA),
McGovern, Frank (MA), Tsongas, Tierney, Markey
(MA), Capuano, Lynch, Delahunt
Voting no: None
Not voting: None
EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION: Voting 237 for and 185 against, the House on July 31 passed a bill (HR 3269) giving federal regulators power to curb the payment of lucrative executive bonuses by financial institutions. The bill also requires public corporations to give shareholders a non-binding vote on executive compensation, including “golden parachute” packages, and stipulates that corporate directors who set executive-compensation levels cannot be employed by the company.
A yes vote was to pass the bill.
MASSACHUSETTS Voting yes: Olver, Neal (MA),
McGovern, Frank (MA), Tsongas, Tierney, Capuano,
Lynch, Delahunt
Voting no: None
Not voting: Markey (MA)
SENATE
ENERGY, WATER APPROPRIATIONS: Voting 85 for and nine against, the Senate on July 29 passed a bill (HR 3183) to appropriate $34.3 billion for energy, water and nuclear programs in fiscal 2010. In part, the bill would provide $6.5 billion for maintaining the U.S. nuclear stockpile; $5.4 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers; $4.9 billion for the Department of Energy’s scientific research; $2.2 billion for developing renewable energy and energy efficiencies; $1.1 billion for the Bureau of Reclamation and $160 million for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, said the bill “provides critical funding for our nation’s waterways, for safeguarding our nuclear power industry and for programs to improve energy usage, conservation and discovery. I know of very little controversy associated with this measure.”
John McCain, R-Ariz., objected to approximately 600 earmarks totaling $985 million that were recommended for funding in the bill’s non-binding committee report but not specified in the actual bill. “These funding priorities should have the binding force of law subject only to the president’s veto power,” he said.
A yes vote was to pass the bill.
MASSACHUSETTS Voting yes: John Kerry, D
Voting no: None
Not voting: Edward Kennedy, D
GM, CHRYSLER OWNERSHIP: Voting 38 for and 59 against, the Senate on July 29 defeated a plan to require the Treasury to distribute the government’s stock in General Motors and Chrysler to U.S. taxpayers. The amendment to HR 3183 (above) also sought to bar the Treasury from investing any more Troubled Asset Relief Corp. (TARP) funds in the automakers, both of which recently emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy reduced in size, stripped of excessive debt and under new managements.
The government owns 60 percent of GM and a minority stake in Chrysler. Chrysler is controlled by a United Autoworkers’ trust, with Fiat holding a 20-percent share and running the company. The administration says it hopes to begin selling all of its auto holdings early next year.
Sponsor Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., called his amendment “the best way to get the auto companies out of the hands of Washington bureaucrats and politicians and into the hands of the American people in the marketplace where the companies belong.”
Carl Levin, D-Mich., said the amendment would “undermine the hard work and painful sacrifices that have been made over the last several months by GM, Chrysler, hundreds of auto parts suppliers, thousands of dealerships, and millions of families. It would destroy the viability of the domestic automotive manufacturers....”
A yes vote backed the amendment.
MASSACHUSETTS Voting yes: None
Voting no: Kerry
Not voting: Kennedy
HIGHWAY TRUST FUND: Voting 79 for and 17 against, the Senate on July 30 sent President Obama a bill (HR 3357, above) that would allocate billions of dollars in Treasury funds to keeping the Highway Trust Fund and federal and state unemployment funds solvent. Because the bill requires repayment to the Treasury, among other offsets, the Congressional Budget Office has ruled it deficit-neutral. The bill also raises Federal Housing Administration authority to back low-interest home loans from $315 billion to $400 billion.
Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said the bill “is not only deficit-neutral, it actually reduces the deficit” five-to-ten years from now, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
David Vitter, R-La., said “make no mistake about it, (the bill) is funded by more borrowing, more debt.”
A yes vote was to pass the bill.
MASSACHUSETTS Voting yes: John Kerry, D
Voting no: None
Not voting: Edward Kennedy, D
ECONOMIC STIMULUS: Voting 41 for and 56 against, the Senate on July 30 rejected an amendment to HR 3357 (above) that sought to use economic-stimulus appropriations rather than Treasury funds to replenish federal and state funds that pay jobless benefits. To date, the administration has spent about 25 percent of the $787 billion stimulus program, which was enacted in February to spur economic recovery and has about two years to run.
Sponsor John Ensign, R-Nev., said: “Let’s show some fiscal responsibility and take the money needed to replenish the federal unemployment fund out of the stimulus.”
Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said the amendment would “put at risk ... construction projects at military bases, long overdue Superfund cleanups, the creation of clean energy jobs in the future, improvements to outdated rural-water systems.”
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