The Senate will reconvene at 3:00pm and following Leader remarks, the Senate will proceed to Executive Session and resume consideration of Debra Haaland to be Secretary of the Interior, post-cloture. At 5:30pm the Senate will vote on confirmation of the Haaland nomination, a historic move that will make her the first Native American Cabinet secretary. She is expected to be confirmed despite the fact that some Republicans have expressed concern over her nomination and described her views on public land use and fossil fuels as “extreme.” Cloture has also been filed on the following nominations: Isabella Casillas Guzman to be Administrator of the Small Business Administration and Katherine C. Tai to be United States Trade Representative.
The House is out today and will reconvene tomorrow. The House is poised this week to vote on two immigration bills, both narrower pieces of legislation while Democrats weigh how ambitious to go with President Joe Biden’s comprehensive immigration plan. All of this is unfolding amid a growing debate about how to address the surging numbers of migrant children and families being detained at the U.S.-Mexico border. The first bill, the American Dream and Promise Act would provide a path to citizenship for Dreamers, young immigrants who were brought to the country as children and have remained in the country illegally. This bill also provides a path to citizenship for the immigrants living in the U.S. with Temporary Protected Status. Seven House Republicans supported this legislation last time around. The second bill, the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, aims to provide a path to citizenship for farm workers who are living in the country illegally. Thirty-four Republicans supported this legislation last Congress. Both bills passed the House last session but weren’t taken up by now Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) in the then Republican controlled Senate. Still, the bills as they currently stand are unlikely to get the 60 needed votes to pass in the upper chamber although there is discussion of adding key immigration proposals to the next reconciliation process. Of note, on Saturday evening, the Department of Homeland Security announced that over the next 90 days, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will help process the high levels of unaccompanied migrant children.
President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and their spouses are traveling around the country this week to speak directly to Americans about the benefits of the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package. Biden will kick off the “Help is Here” tour on Monday afternoon with remarks at the White House about the plan’s implementation. Harris and the second gentlemen, Doug Emhoff, will travel to Las Vegas today, where they will visit a vaccination clinic at the University of Nevada and the Culinary Academy of Las Vegas. Afterward, the couple will travel to Los Angeles, where they will stay overnight. Meanwhile, first lady Jill Biden will spend the day in Burlington, New Jersey, where she’ll tour an elementary school and deliver remarks about the rescue plan, which includes funding to help schools reopen to students for in-person learning. The president will travel to Pennsylvania’s Delaware County on Tuesday and to Georgia on Friday to promote how the legislation will benefit people and their families, according to the White House. The president won both states in the 2020 presidential election last November. The Treasury Department announced over the weekend that it began delivering direct stimulus payments to people across the country, which it said it will be “rolling out in tranches to millions of Americans in the coming weeks.” Finally, President Biden will tap Gene Sperling to lead the implementation of the relief package. The longtime Democratic policy aide led the White House National Economic Council under former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and served as an informal adviser to the Biden campaign.
Adam S. Olsen, Washington, D.C.
