Senate Republicans just voted to block the consideration of a bill that would promptly require organizations that spend money on elections to disclose the identities of donors who give $10,000 or more during an election cycle. The Senate failed to invoke cloture on the DISCLOSE Act, in a 49-49 vote. Every Republican present voted against the measure, while every Democrat voted for it.
As negotiations on the CR continue, the controversial permitting reform bill unveiled by Senator Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) late Wednesday has only a slim chance of passing the Senate next week, as Republicans don’t want to give Manchin a victory after he resurrected President Joe Biden’s tax and climate agenda in late July. Republican senators, who had been shut out of negotiations over the permitting bill’s language, said Wednesday they don’t expect it to pass if attached to a short-term government funding bill that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) plans to bring to the floor next week. Manchin’s bill (TEXT) (SUMMARY) includes several provisions previously outlined in a fact sheet, including those that would benefit a controversial natural gas pipeline that runs through his home state known as the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The legislation would also limit the timelines for environmental reviews that are part of the approval process to two years for major projects and one year for those that are less significant. It further requires the president to keep a list of 25 energy projects of strategic national importance for 10 years. The new legislation specifies that for the first seven of those years, five of the 25 projects must be related to either fossil fuels or biofuels, six must be for clean energy and four must be related to critical minerals. For the Mountain Valley Pipeline, Manchin’s bill specifies that within 30 days, federal agencies need to issue authorizations for its construction and operation. It also says that these actions aren’t subject to judicial review.
Leader Schumer may take procedural steps beginning today to set up a final vote next week on the stopgap spending legislation running through December 16th. One tentative plan under consideration calls for Schumer to file cloture Thursday on a motion to proceed to a House-passed legislative vehicle that would be amended next week with the continuing resolution’s contents. When cloture ripens for a vote, likely Tuesday, when senators reconvene and Democratic leaders aim to unveil the substitute amendment, assuming weekend negotiations produce agreement, it would require 60 votes to get on the motion to proceed. If cloture is achieved on the motion, there would be up to 30 hours of debate before a simple majority vote to adopt the motion to proceed and get on the bill itself. Then another cloture motion at a 60-vote threshold would be required, with another 30 hours allotted for debate on the underlying bill, if time isn’t yielded back sooner, followed by a simple majority vote on passage.
For today, the House convened at 9:00 A.M. and is considering four bills. H.R. 8542 – Mental Health Justice Act of 2022, H.R. 6448 – Invest To Protect Act of 2022, H.R. 4118 – Break the Cycle of Violence Act, and H.R. 5768 – VICTIM Act of 2022.
