Where The Rubber Meets The Road (3/18/07)

As reported in last Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer, here is how Philadelphia-area members of Congress were recorded on major roll-call votes for the week ending Sunday March 11th (I'll get to the week ending today probably this Friday - it took a bit of work, but I was finally able to track this down).

The week ending March 11th marked another stellar effort for Pancake Joe Pitts, as you'll soon see.

House

Global warming, committee budgets. The House voted 269-150 to approve budgets totaling $280 million for its standing committees and to establish a special advisory panel on global warming.

A yes vote was to approve the budget resolution.

Voting yes: Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), 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.), H. James Saxton (R., N.J.), Allyson Schwartz (D., Pa.), Joe Sestak (D., Pa.), and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).

Voting no: Michael N. Castle (R., Del.) and Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.).

I guess, if it doesn’t involve MBNA or Amtrak funding, Mike Castle doesn’t care (though he has supported funding of stem cell research). And Joe Pitts is clueless as usual.

Reclaimed water. The House passed, 368-59, and sent to the Senate a bill to authorize $125 million in grants to cities for developing alternate water sources. The bill (HR 700) would fund such technologies as wastewater reclamation and seawater desalination.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

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

Voting no: Pitts.

Joe Pitts sure loves that dirty water, doesn’t he (and calling this stuff “water” is being kind).

I hope Lois Herr is forming an exploratory committee for next year or doing whatever it takes so one day (as soon as possible, we can only hope) we can FINALLY remove this utter waste of space that pretends to serve the PA 16th Congressional district!

Sewage grants. The House passed, 367-58, and sent to the Senate a bill (HR 569) authorizing $1.8 billion over five years in grants to upgrade city sewage systems that combine wastewater and storm runoff in the same conduits.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

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

Voting no: Pitts.

Not voting: Fattah.

See above.

Senate

Collective bargaining. The Senate approved, 51-48, collective bargaining rights for Transportation Security Administration screeners of airline passengers and cargo. The amendment to a pending homeland-security bill (S 4) would grant screeners the same bargaining rights now available to FEMA, immigration and border-patrol civil servants but would prohibit them from going on strike or bargaining for higher pay.

All Philadelphia-area senators voted for collective bargaining for TSA workers.

Bargaining alternative. The Senate rejected, 52-47, a Republican proposal to add job protections short of collective bargaining rights for Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screeners.

All Philadelphia-area senators voted against the Republican plan.

Congratulations to all area senators for both of those votes, even Arlen Specter.

This week, the House debated (and passed) the Freedom of Information Act and public access to presidential archives. The Senate voted on 9/11 Commission recommendations and (possibly) Iraq troop levels.