Monday, September 15, 2008

HR 5577 and Congressional Charades

Speaker Pelosi and the Democratic House Leadership continue to play silly games with HR 5577, the bill that that House Homeland Security Committee has designed to make the current CSAT regulations permanent while correcting some of the earlier legislative mistakes. On last Friday the Speaker gave the House Committee on Energy and Commerce another extension to complete their work on the bill.

 

Interestingly the extension gives that committee until September 26th to ‘complete its consideration’. That is the day that Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid plan to cut off legislative work for this Congress. Even if the Committee favorably reported the bill on that date, there would be no time for any other legislative action. In other words this bill is, as I have said before (see : “Congress Back in Session 9-08-08”), dead.

 

Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi prefers to play games. Rather than publically killing the bill and stating her reasons for opposing it, she pretends that House is still working on the bill. She owes Chairman Thompson and his committee an apology for playing games with their hard work. She owes DHS and the American chemical industry an explanation what she expects them to do about chemical facility security when the current law runs out.

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