The House remains in a committee work week, but held a brief pro forma session at 10:00 a.m. The Senate also convened at 10:00 a.m. and resumed consideration of the nomination of Julien Xavier Neals to be US District Judge for the District of New Jersey and the nomination of Regina M. Rodriguez, of Colorado, to be US District Judge for the District of Colorado. The Senate will then again take up the US Innovation and Competition Act, one of the largest industrial bills in U.S. history to bulk up the nation’s technology manufacturing in an effort to match competition from China. The bill, expected to finally clear the upper chamber this week with support from Republicans and Democrats, includes tens of billions of dollars for scientific research, subsidies for chipmakers and robot makers, and an overhaul of the National Science Foundation. The scope of the bill, the final product of at least six Senate committees and weeks of debate, reflects the many fronts in the U.S.-China rivalry and offers a rare glimpse at bipartisanship for legislation to counter Beijing’s economic and military expansion.
As infrastructure negotiations continue, a bipartisan Senate group is preparing a fallback infrastructure proposal as talks between the White House and GOP senators appear to be at a stalemate. The group of roughly six senators, including Senators Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Arizona), are expected to shop it to a broader group of roughly 20 centrist-minded senators this week. Romney indicated that the group crafting the bill could start pitching it to their colleagues during a Tuesday meeting while others involved with the talks warned that the closed-door meeting could instead be used to let key negotiators hash out final details before unveiling it to their colleagues. The group is reportedly planning to pitch a bill of around roughly $880 billion, less than the top-line figure being discussed by a separate Republican only group led by Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-West Virginia) and much below what the White House wants. The White House on Monday said it sees multiple paths forward to passing infrastructure legislation, even as talks have stalled between President Biden and Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-West Virginia), the top Republican negotiator in the Senate. One path would be finding an agreement with Capito, in the absence of a deal with Capito, make a deal with the other Republican and Democratic lawmakers who have been holding talks of their own on the contours of an infrastructure package, or just throw the administration’s weight behind The INVEST in America Act, ( TEXT, FACT SHEET, SECTION by SECTION), a bill being marked up this week by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The bill, which is still in the early stages in the House, contains significant overlap with Biden’s American Jobs Plan and focuses primarily on investments in roads, bridges and public transit.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) on Tuesday urged the Senate to approve a sweeping expansion of voting protections, dismissing the objections of Senator Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) with warnings that the integrity of elections is at stake. The legislation “must become law in order to respect the sanctity of the vote, which is the basis of our democracy,” Pelosi wrote in a Dear Colleague letter to House Democrats. Passed by the House earlier in the year, the For the People Act aims to lower barriers to voting by simplifying registration, authorizing early and remote voting and restricting the power of states to purge names from voting rolls. It’s also designed to rein in partisan gerrymandering and diminish the role of money in campaigns. Manchin on Sunday stunned Democrats by announcing his opposition to the legislation, also known as H.R. 1, which stands among the top priorities of both congressional Democrats and the Biden administration.
Of note, the head of Colonial Pipeline faced tough questions from Senators Tuesday about the ransomware attack on his company that caused a major disruption in the nation’s fuel supply and a run on gas stations along the East Coast. Colonial CEO Joseph Blount’s testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee comes a day after the Justice Department announced it had recovered millions in ransom the company had paid to hackers. Blount said the company believes that the criminal hackers infiltrated Colonial’s computers through an old virtual private network, commonly known as a V.P.N., that was not intended to be in use and are still trying to determine how the attackers gained the needed credentials to exploit it. Colonial operates a 5,500-mile pipeline network that supplies 100 million gallons of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel daily to gas stations, airports and other customers along the East Coast, supplying nearly half of the region’s transportation energy.
Today, the White House announced key findings from the reviews directed under Executive Order (E.O.) 14017 “America’s Supply Chains,” as well as immediate actions the Administration will take to strengthen American supply chains to promote economic security, national security, and good-paying, union jobs in the United States. 100-Day Reviews under Executive Order 14017. The White House announced that it will establish a task force to address supply chain challenges in key sectors where “a mismatch between supply and demand has been evident.” The task force will focus on “homebuilding and construction, semiconductors, transportation, and agriculture and food” and will be led by the secretaries of commerce, agriculture and transportation, the White House said.
