Where The Rubber Meets The Road (5/31)

Here is how Philadelphia-area members of Congress were recorded on major roll-call votes last week (from Sunday’s Philadelphia Inquirer).

House

Nuclear power. The House refused, 295-128, to cut $40 million in a 2007 energy appropriations bill (HR 5427) from a program to expand nuclear power and resume U.S. nuclear fuel reprocessing after a 30-year hiatus. The vote left $130 million in the bill for the Global Nuclear Partnership Program.

A yes vote was to cut the nuclear-power program.

Voting yes: Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), and Allyson Schwartz (D., Pa.).

Voting no: Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), Michael N. Castle (R., Del.), Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.), Michael G. Fitzpatrick (R., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.), H. James Saxton (R., N.J.), Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.), and Curt Weldon (R., Pa.).

I searched the web sites of Rob Andrews, Chaka Fattah and Allyson Schwartz to try and find out why they would oppose this bill, and I couldn’t find any reasons at those locations. My guess is that, if you live in a city or densely populated area (and all three of these representatives have areas like that in their districts), then anything involving nuclear power conjures up images of Three Mile Island, and the first concern of everyone is how they would escape from the result of a meltdown of a core reactor. This is a very valid concern. However, I still think that nukes should be “on the table,” but remain an option of last resort. Maybe that was the concern of the representatives, or maybe they just didn’t want to spend any money on this while people in their districts are hurting, and I can’t blame them for that either. And of course, the Republicans aren’t going to deprive any of their industry buddies when they have “the pursuit of energy self sufficiency” as a built in excuse to reward their greed head behavior (and residents in their districts have better escape options also).

Arctic drilling. The House passed, 225-201, and sent to the Senate a bill (HR 5429) to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. The bill would set aside 1.5 million of the refuge's 19 million acres for energy extraction, with 2,000 acres directly affected by drilling activity.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Brady, Dent, Pitts and Weldon.

Voting no: Andrews, Castle, Fattah, Fitzpatrick, Gerlach, Holden, LoBiondo, Saxton, Schwartz and Smith

What did I tell you? These bastards are going to come back to this again and again and again and again until they FINALLY get the opportunity to rip this pristine wilderness to shreds. I just hope you can all book your Alaska cruises now while that area is still free of drilling rigs.

Brady’s “yes” vote on this is a total mystery to me, unless he’s bought into this fiction that drilling in the ANWR will help make this country energy self-sufficient. And as much as I want to wring Mikey Fitz’s neck for saying that his biggest adversary in the campaign isn’t Patrick Murphy but Bush’s declining popularity, I have to admit that he did the right thing again on this issue.

Senate

Immigration. The Senate passed, 62-36, a bill to tighten U.S. borders, establish English as the national language, begin a guest-worker program, and provide 90 percent of the 12 million undocumented U.S. residents with legal status and a chance at citizenship. The bill (S 2611) now goes to conference with the House.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D., Del.), Thomas Carper (D., Del.), Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.), Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), and Arlen Specter (R., Pa.).

Voting no: Rick Santorum (R., Pa.).

I think passing a law establishing English as the national language is ridiculous, but this bill was some kind of a compromise from the much-harsher House bill, which would have thrown out many more of the “undocumented” workers (good luck finding people who’ll risk losing limbs at our meat packing plants and doing other highly dangerous jobs…and no, I’m NOT saying Americans wouldn’t do that kind of work).

And oh, isn’t that No vote of “Little Ricky” (which he said showed his support for the House bill) proof positive that, with him, it’s always about “the base, the base, the base…”

Asylum seekers. Senators voted, 52-45, to set a lower standard of evidence for the early stages of asylum cases. The amendment to S 2611 (above) established a standard of "substantial evidence" that the immigrant would face persecution if returned home, in place of a "clear and convincing evidence" test.

A yes vote backed a lower evidence standard for asylum.

Voting yes: Biden, Carper, Lautenberg, Menendez and Specter.

Voting no: Santorum.

Concerning Ricky, see above...

Border control. Senators voted, 83-10, to codify President Bush's executive decision to send 6,000 National Guard troops to the Mexican border in the next year. The measure, an amendment to S 2611 (above) bars direct police actions and limits the Guard's stay.

A yes vote backed the amendment.

Voting yes: Carper, Lautenberg, Santorum and Specter.

Not voting: Biden, Menendez.

Would that they had passed a measure like that before we started shipping members of the Guard to Iraq (at least they learned something, though I seriously doubt that “undocumented” workers will start planting IEDs along our border).

I’m surprised that both Biden and Menendez missed those votes, though I’m sure they would have voted yes also.

CIA director. Senators voted 78-15 to confirm Gen. Michael V. Hayden, 61, as director of central intelligence.

A yes vote was to confirm Hayden.

Voting yes: Biden, Carper, Lautenberg and Santorum.

Voting no: Menendez and Specter.

I’ve been seething about this one all week.

How UTTERLY PATHETIC is it that THREE DEMOCRATS voted to confirm this guy? No wonder the Democrats are PERENNIAL MAJOR ELECTION LOSERS!! And Arlen performs the first move of his “two-step,” doing the right thing to vote no (watch for the “step to the right” any day now).

So the MBNA Twins think domestic spying in violation of FISA law is OK, huh? And I cannot possibly imagine why Lautenberg went along with this also (votes like this make me wonder whether or not he plans to step down after all; after he stepped in to run for Torricelli’s Senate seat, he said he’d be “one term and out”…maybe he’s trying to curry favor with somebody in the hope of another campaign).

Joe Biden went on “Real Time with Bill Maher” a few weeks ago and said that Bush is pulling troops out of Iraq, which I believe, though the latest developments in the civil war gave Dubya the excuse to ship 1,500 back to combat. All the same, when Biden spoke on the show, he did so with the presence of someone who (I thought) could make a serious presidential run.

However, this vote, as well as his total non-support of Russ Feingold and his call for censure, leaves me with the sick feeling that Biden is nothing more than a poster boy for the unacceptable status quo.

Ahead. Congress is in recess until June 5.

Given the fact that we’ve just seen our politicians in action (for both better and worse), I think this is probably a good time to link to a post by Above Average Jane where she asks a really good question, and I’ll try to post on this myself over the next day or so.