Today’s newsletter includes highlights of the bills on the House floor this week. It was a full five-day work week in the House, though many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle opted to take advantage of Speaker Pelosi’s “proxy voting” rule, which allows them to stay at home and keep getting paid while instructing the Democratic leadership how to cast their vote on their behalf.  One, amazingly, even felt it appropriate to participate in a committee markup while rowing his boat.  Today they added a new twist to the voting irregularity by allowing members to sign a waiver stating they couldn’t physically be present to vote just so they could catch an earlier plane ride home.  I thought this proxy voting rule was supposed to be about COVID... 

Some important bills were on the floor this week.  I voted against most of the measures.  Here is an overview:

• H.R. 6395, the William M. Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021

The National Defense Authorization Act, which authorizes funding for our military each year, is one of the most important pieces of legislation Congress considers.  I had several major concerns with the version of the bill brought to the House floor this week, and President Trump agreed.  The White House put out a notice threatening the President’s veto of the legislation. 

One concern was a provision that would require the renaming of military installations like Fort Bragg, which over the years has been home and a place of significance for tens of thousands of American men and women in uniform.  Renaming of any facility should be generated at the local level — not a Washington mandate so that some can score political points.  After all, at some point in time it was decided that these facilities should be named after these individuals.  It isn’t right to just tear down history because of political correctness or because a few loud politicians say so.  

I also had concerns about provisions in the bill that diminish the President’s constitutional authority as Commander-in-Chief and limiting the President’s authority to deploy forces as necessary and quickly.  Deployment of forces does not mean there is a declaration of war, which is the role of Congress.   

• Senate Amendment to H.R. 1957, the Great American Outdoors Act

This legislation would make funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) permanent and establishes a National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund, which would be used to finance maintenance at our national public parks and public lands all across the country that is very much needed.  I’ve long been supportive of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which uses offshore oil and gas drilling fees to help fund the protection of scenic land, water and wetlands for the benefit of all Americans.  But this bill was scored to mandate $17.28 billion in spending over the next 10 years, avoiding the appropriations process and therefore limiting the ability of Congress to oversee how these funds are spent.  

This doesn’t mean that the funding will necessarily be misspent or wasted, but it does mean Congress has less influence directing the spending and ensuring that such misuse doesn’t happen.  Additionally, now that the national debt has exploded during the past few months due to declining revenues from the economic hit of COVID and the massive amounts of spending to help keep the economy afloat, I have a hard time supporting new mandatory funding for anything.  Our debt is now greater than our national GDP.  Long term, this is not good.  For that reason, I voted against this bill even though I support the efforts and work of the LWCF in our state, which has been a great benefit to preserving the natural resources we have in Southeastern North Carolina. 

• H.R. 7573, Removing Statues from the Capitol

The U.S. Capitol building includes a beautiful and historic collection of statues, two from each state featured in the halls of the Capitol as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection.  By law, states are invited to furnish statues of citizens “illustrious for their historic renown or from distinguished civic or military services, such as each state shall determine to be worthy of this national commemoration.”  This bill would remove several of these statues from the collection and hide them away from public view, including both statues sent by North Carolina. 

While I understand that many object to certain statues appearing in the halls of the Capitol, deciding which statues are featured has been the decision of the states for more than 200 years.  It also sets a precedent that individuals not affiliated with the Confederacy, but who have a blemish on their record in the view of some, should be removed from federal property.  These kinds of decisions shouldn’t be made on a whim, even if it is a vote of the full House.  These statues belong to the states and, in my opinion, the U.S. House over-stepped its bounds on this one.  I voted no on this bill.

• H.R. 7608, State, Foreign Operations, Agriculture, Rural Development, Interior, Environment, Military Construction, and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, 2021

This was a combination of five of the 12 annual appropriations bills (also known as spending bills) approved by Congress each year that fund various parts of the federal discretionary budget.  In total, this bill would provide $259.4 billion in spending for these portions of the federal government – a 18.2% increase.  This bill completely blows through spending caps approved as part of a bipartisan budget deal reached last year – caps I believed even then were too high.  It includes blatantly partisan riders that threaten pro-life protections and other measures that would put our national security at risk.  I voted no on this package.

• H.R. 2486: the No Ban Act & the Access to Counsel Act

Democrats used a procedural gimmick to strip House Republicans of the traditional right to offer amendments to these bills before a vote on final passage was taken.  It was yet another partisan maneuver to stifle input from Republicans and protect Democrat members from taking politically difficult votes.  On the substance, these two bills would seriously hamper the ability of the President, the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Patrol to prevent dangerous people from crossing our borders and reaching our shores.  I opposed both of these bills.

Next week the House will consider an important bipartisan ports and water resources bill that was approved in the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee that includes some big wins for our region.  It authorizes continued federal participation in needed beach re-nourishment projects in Wrightsville, Carolina and Kure beaches.  More about that here.  The bill also includes language helpful to the Port of Wilmington.  I also expect another set of appropriations bills to come to the floor.  These, too, bust the bi-partisan budget agreement from last year and contain partisan poison pills.  All the while, Congress will continue negotiations on the next phase of COVID-19 relief.  Stay tuned for information on all of that next week.

Our regular COVID-19 update will resume Monday.  As always, stay tuned to Coronavirus.gov and the NC Department of Health and Human Services’ website for the latest on the outbreak.  And please feel free to send good news stories our way to highlight in this newsletter by replying to this e-mail. 

Sincerely,