Senate to vote on resolution blocking DC crime bill

Mychael Schnell
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The Senate this week is slated to vote on a Republican-led resolution to block Washington, D.C.’s revised criminal code from taking effect, which President Biden has said he will sign once it reaches his desk.

The resolution is expected to pass the Senate with bipartisan support before heading to Biden. The president’s announcement last week that he will sign the measure infuriated House Democrats, who have accused him of undermining D.C.’s self rule.

Also this week, a Senate committee is slated to hold the first congressional hearing on the East Palestine train derailment, which has sparked environmental and health concerns for the Ohio community. A second Norfolk Southern train derailed in the Buckeye State over the weekend.

On the House side, lawmakers will vote on a bill to declassify information relating to the origin of COVID-19, after The Wall Street Journal reported that the Energy Department has concluded, with “low confidence,” that COVID-19 most likely emerged from a laboratory in China.

In the House, panels will hold hearings on topics ranging from COVID-19 origins and the “Twitter files” to the U.S.’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. The House and Senate Intelligence committees this week are also scheduled to hold their worldwide threats hearings.

Senate to vote on D.C. crime bill resolution

The Senate this week will vote on a GOP-led disapproval resolution to block D.C. from implementing its revised criminal code, a senior Senate aide confirmed to The Hill, putting the White House on a collision course with House Democrats, who have fumed at Biden’s pledge to sign the measure.

The disapproval resolution is expected to clear the chamber with bipartisan backing after a number of Democratic senators came out in support of the measure — including Sens. Patty Murray (Wash.), Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Bob Casey (Pa.), Tammy Baldwin (Wis.) and Mark Kelly (Ariz.).

After that it will head to Biden, who has said he will sign the measure — an announcement that sent shockwaves throughout Congress last week.

The House voted 250-173 last month to pass the measure, which would block D.C.’s revised criminal code from taking effect.

The D.C. City Council unanimously passed the new regulations in January that would, among other provisions, eliminate most mandatory sentences and decrease penalties for a number of violent offenses, including carjackings and robberies. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) vetoed the bill, which the council overrode.

Days before the House vote, the Office of Management and Budget released a statement of administration policy that said the administration “opposes” the measure and called on Congress to “respect the District of Columbia’s autonomy to govern its own local affairs.”

A total of 173 House Democrats went ahead and voted against the resolution, siding with what they thought was the stance of the White House. But last week, Biden said that he would sign the measure if it landed on his desk — opting against using his first presidential veto — an announcement that enraged House Democrats.

The president in a tweet announcing his stance pointed to the revised code’s decreased penalties for carjackings. Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) both said they were disappointed by Biden’s decision, and one House Democrat texted The Hill last week “The White House f***** this up royally.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), however, downplayed the frustrations on Sunday, telling CNN’s “State of the Union” that he has not heard from his colleagues that they feel like they had the rug pulled out from under them.

“That actually has not been the sense that I have gotten,” he told the network.

East Palestine train derailment hearing

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on Thursday focused on the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, giving lawmakers their first public opportunity to grill top officials for the accident that took place more than a month ago.

The hearing, scheduled for 10 a.m., will feature two panels of witnesses. The first panel includes lawmakers from Ohio, and the second is comprised of top officials from Norfolk Southern Corporation and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): Alan Shaw, the president and CEO of Norfolk Southern; Debra Shore, regional administration at the EPA; Anne Vogel, director of the Ohio EPA; Richard Harrison, the executive director and chief engineer of the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission; and Eric Brewer, the director and chief of hazardous materials response at the Beaver County Department of Emergency Services.

In a statement last month, the top lawmakers on the Senate committee said the hearing would focus on “the environmental and public health impacts of this incident.”

“Our focus will be to examine the local, state and federal response in the immediate aftermath of the train derailment and the ongoing efforts to clean up toxic chemicals in the surrounding environment,” Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), the chair and ranking member of the committee, added.

The meeting — titled “Protecting Public Health and the Environment in the Wake of the Norfolk Southern Train Derailment and Chemical Release in East Palestine, Ohio” — comes more than a month after a Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, and just days after roughly 20 cars of another Norfolk Southern cargo train derailed close to Springfield, Ohio. Unlike the first derailment, hazardous materials were not on board the second train that derailed.

Some lawmakers have been critical of Norfolk Southern in the wake of the accidents. On Sunday, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who is slated to testify at Thursday’s hearing, told ABC’s “This Week” that he was “not entirely satisfied” with the response to the second incident.

“I want to know … there are some sort of remnants of something that might have been in those cars. Those cars were mostly empty. But I want to know if there are any contaminants sort of left in those mostly empty cars that might have affected Clark County near the fairgrounds, all the way into Springfield,” he said.

“In this … train was over 200 cars, which is 50 more cars that the East Palestine train. So, the railroad’s got a lot of questions they’ve got to answer and they really haven’t done it very well yet, as you know,” he added.

House to vote on declassifying COVID-19 origins intel

The House on Friday will vote on a bill that seeks to declassify information regarding the origins of COVID-19, days after The Wall Street Journal reported that the Energy Department decided with “low confidence” that the coronavirus most likely came from a laboratory in China.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), cleared the Senate by unanimous consent last week. It would require that the director of national intelligence declassify “as much information as possible about the origin of COVID-19,” then make it available to the public.

That includes information related to “potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of” COVID-19, such as activities performed by the institute with or on behalf of the People’s Liberation Army, coronavirus research or other activities performed at the institute, according to the measure.

The Senate passed the same measure by unanimous consent in May 2021, but it was never brought up in the House.

“Transparency on the origins of COVID-19 is long overdue,” the office of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) wrote in a floor lookout Sunday night. “Americans deserve to know the truth about what the government knew and when, and House Republicans are going to make sure they get it.”

House, Senate to hold variety of hearings

In addition to the Senate hearing on the East Palestine train derailment, a number of House and Senate committees are scheduled to hold hearings this week on a variety of topics.

  • House Oversight and Accountability Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic: “Investigating the Origins of COVID-19”

    • When: Wednesday at 9 a.m.

    • Witnesses: Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Jamie Metzl, senior fellow at The Atlantic Council; Nicholas Wade, former science and health editor at The New York Times, former editor at Science, former editor at Nature

  • Senate Intelligence Committee: Worldwide Threats

    • When: Wednesday at 10 a.m.

    • Witnesses: Avril Haines, director of national intelligence; William Burns, director of the CIA; Lt. Gen. Scott D. Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency; Gen. Paul Nakasone, director of the National Security Agency; Christopher Wray, director of the FBI.

  • House Intelligence Committee: Worldwide Threats

    • When: Thursday at 10 a.m.

    • Witnesses: Avril Haines, director of national intelligence; William Burns, director of the CIA; Lt. Gen. Scott D. Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency; Gen. Paul Nakasone, director of the National Security Agency; Christopher Wray, director of the FBI.

  • House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government: Focused on the “Twitter Files”

    • When: Thursday at 10 a.m.

    • Witnesses: Substack reporters Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger

Alex Bolton contributed reporting

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