Where The Rubber Meets The Road (8/7/09)

As reported in last Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer, here is how Philadelphia-area members of Congress were recorded on major roll-call votes last week.

Food-safety regulation. Voting 283-142, the House passed a bill 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 hundreds of thousands of domestic and foreign facilities to pay $500 annual registration fees to the FDA, subject them to inspections, and require measures to prevent contamination.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), Michael N. Castle (R., Del.), Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.), Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Patrick Murphy (D., Pa.), Allyson Y. Schwartz (D., Pa.), Joe Sestak (D., Pa.), and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).

Voting no: Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.).

Not voting: John Adler (D., N.J.).

Included in the language for this bill is an earmark for the International Food Protection Training Institute, which, as noted here…

…is a non-profit organization established to deliver career-spanning certified food protection training to all State, local, tribal and territorial food protection professionals to assure competency and equivalency in meeting established U.S. federal food safety standards.

And let’s not forget that, as noted here…

Charting the phases of the FDA's decline lays bare the responsibility borne by movement conservatism. The first phase was the two terms of the Reagan presidency, when the FDA's staff declined by 30 percent. After a reprieve from 1988 to 1994, when more moderate presidents and a Democratic Congress provided ample boosts in the agency's budget and staffing, the FDA's garroting resumed with a vengeance in the wake of the 1994 Republican landslide that catapulted Gingrich to the House Speaker's chair. He led a highly effective jihad against the agency, pushing to privatize many of its activities. The onslaught continued under George W. Bush and the Republican Congress. From 1994 to 2007, according to (Peter Barton Hutt, who served as FDA chief counsel during the Nixon and Ford administrations), the agency's appropriated personnel declined from 9,167 to 7,856, while its funding increased by only two-thirds of the amount that would have been needed to keep up with inflation.

And just to be fair, I should point out that “The Big Dog,” who just flew over to North Korea to ensure the freedom of Euna Lee and Laura Ling, doesn’t get a pass here either (with Dubya thoroughly culpable also, as well as Pancake Joe for another awful vote here).

All of this marks an effort to ensure some basic effectiveness by the FDA once more, now that we’re governed by adults again.

2010 military appropriations. Voting 400-30, the House 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 F-22 Raptor fighter jets at 187 planes but funds other large weapons programs targeted by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, such as a new VH-71 presidential helicopter fleet, an alternative engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and production of more C-17 cargo jets.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Adler, Andrews, Brady, Castle, Dent, Fattah, Gerlach, Holden, LoBiondo, Murphy, Pitts, Schwartz, Sestak, and Smith.

Executive compensation. Voting 237-185, the House 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 nonbinding 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.

Voting yes: Adler, Andrews, Brady, Fattah, Holden, Murphy, Schwartz, and Sestak.

Voting no: Castle, Dent, Gerlach, LoBiondo, Pitts, and Smith.

So the next time you hear about more Wall Street financial decadence and possible criminal activity, remember how the “party line” Repugs opposed trying to stop it.

Highway Trust Fund. Voting 363-68, the House 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. 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.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Adler, Andrews, Brady, Castle, Dent, Fattah, Gerlach, Holden, LoBiondo, Murphy, Schwartz, Sestak, and Smith.

Voting no: Pitts.

Just let our roads break down, make sure nobody can get an FHA mortgage if they qualify and let anyone collecting an unemployment benefit in PA do without when the money runs out – boy, PA-16’s waste of space truly hit a trifecta here!

"Cash for Clunkers." Voting 316-109, the House sent the Senate a bill (HR 3435) to appropriate an additional $2 billion for the new "Cash for Clunkers" program. 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.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Adler, Andrews, Brady, Castle, Fattah, Gerlach, Holden, LoBiondo, Murphy, Pitts, Schwartz, Sestak, and Smith.

Voting no: Dent.

For a program that House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Man Tan) said that President Obama couldn’t “handle” here, it’s kind of bewildering to me that every one of our local GOP House members except Charlie Dent decided to support it (a comment on Boehner’s “leadership” perhaps?).

Senate

Highway Trust Fund. Voting 79-17, the Senate 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.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Thomas Carper (D., Del.), Bob Casey (D., Pa.), Ted Kaufman (D., Del.), Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.), Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), and Arlen Specter (D., Pa.).

Energy, water appropriations. Voting 85-9, the Senate 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.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Carper, Casey, Kaufman, Lautenberg, and Specter.

Not voting: Menendez.

Just to let you know, Claire McCaskill of Missouri was the only Dem to vote against the energy bill; she also went through some gyrations here on “Cash for Clunkers,” saying she would approve it if it came from existing stimulus funds.

Well, as noted here, she ended up voting against it, even though her same-state Repug peer Kit Bond voted Yes (getting ahead of myself a bit for next week, I realize).

Maybe it’s because Bond isn’t spending too much damn time “tweeting” (?) and she is (R U 4 RL, mckskl??!!).

GM, Chrysler ownership. Voting 38-59, the Senate defeated a plan to require the Treasury to distribute the government's stock in General Motors and Chrysler Corp. 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 and under new management.

A yes vote backed the amendment.

Voting no: Carper, Casey, Kaufman, Lautenberg, Menendez, and Specter.

This week, the Senate debated appropriations bills and Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court. The House is in recess until the week of Sept. 7.