The Republican budget-reconciliation omnibus, H.R. 1, the OBBB Act, passed 215-214-1 at 6:55 am Thursday morning. After a marathon Rules Committee markup concluded late Wednesday night, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) moved the legislation directly to the floor.
Two Republicans voted against the bill, one Republican voted present, and two did not vote. All 212 Democrats voted against the legislation.
The bill, which extends and expands Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, repeals most of the Inflation Reduction Act, gives the Office of Management and Budget $100 million to kill regulations, and fast-tracks oil, gas, coal, logging, and mining projects across the nation, was broadly backed by American corporations.
In a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin laid out the radical argument that the Trump administration is not bound by laws passed under previous Congresses.
He argued vociferously with Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) that his agency’s defiance of statutory obligations and subsequent court rulings were acceptable, saying that the Trump administration is bound only by the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court.
And then in a telling exchange with Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) about the Clean Water and Drinking Water Revolving Funds, which the Trump administration has proposed to dismantle, he promised only to follow specific directives in laws passed by the current Congress.
Zeldin’s specious and wildly unconstitutional argument is that the presidential election acted as a reset for federal statutes.
Congress appropriates funding, and then the agency distributes that funding as it's required to under the law. That doesn't mean from one administration to the next, that the Trump administration is going to come in agreeing with the policy priorities of the prior administration that just left office. There might be a disagreement of opinion between administrations. And we come in towards the beginning of a fiscal year. The way that funding will go out the course of a fiscal year might be applying the new administration's priorities, as the American public voted for last November.
Acting FEMA Administrator Cam Hamilton has been fired by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, a day after he testified in defense of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
"President Trump has been very clear since the beginning that he believes that FEMA and its response in many, many circumstances has failed the American people, and that FEMA, as it exists today, should be eliminated in empowering states to respond to disasters with federal government support."
David Richardson, the acting DHS Assistant Secretary, Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office, has been named the new acting FEMA Administrator.
In a