This Week in Congress

Happy New Year!

Congress has returned!

Because we did not have the opportunity to post a this week in Congress preview, we will do a wrap-up.

The big event of the week was a resolution (H.Con.Res. 83) introduced under the War Powers Act disproving of military actions against Iran without Congressional approval.

This seems like a good thing, but the findings of the bill parroted everyone of the war party’s claims against Iran—including that US actions against Iran are purely defensive even though we are the ones stationing troops and building military bases around Iran.

Even worse, the bill contains loopholes allowing the President to take military action. For example this section authorizes force against Iran to: “defend United States allies and partners if authorized by Congress consistent with the requirements of the War Powers Resolution;”

This seems reasonable but it does cover actions against Iran justified by claims they are threatening our allies in the Mid-East or their actions in Iraq pose a threat to US forces there which was the justifying for the assignation of a high ranking Iranian official last week.

Still, the resolution does put Congress on record against another undeclared Mid-East war and is being reported in the media as a defeat for Trump.

Only three Republicans (Goetz, Massie, and Rooney) voted for the resolution. You can see the roll-call vote here.

You can watch Campaign for Liberty Chairman Ron Paul and Daniel McAdams discuss the bill here.

The only other rule bill on the schedule is H.R. 535, requires the Environmental Protection Agency to designate all perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances as hazardous substances within one year of enactment of this bill, has expanding federal regulatory power and increasing government spending by at least $300 million.

The House also considered a number of bills under suspension, including:

1.  H.Res. 575– This resolution expresses the sense of the House of Representatives that (1) all stakeholders in the deployment of fifth-generation (5G) communications infrastructure should consider adherence to the Prague Proposals (wireless technology recommendations from the Prague 5G Security Conference) in procuring products and services, and (2) the President and federal agencies should promote global trade and security policies consistent with the Prague Proposals and urge our allies to embrace the proposals for their 5G infrastructure So government should be telling private companies both in the US and abroad what standards to adopt for 4G?

2. H.R. 2881—Requires the President to develop a strategy to ensure safety of 5G communications systems and infrastructure