Legislative Lowdown: Funding the Government, Insider Trading, Energy Inflation and Marriage – by Brian Darling

Congress is working on legislation to fund the government into the Lame Duck Session while working up a purely political vote on further federalizing the issue of marriage.

Continuing Resolution

The government shuts down if a new continuing resolution (CR), a bill that continues funding at current levels into December, does not pass before the end of the month. The federal government runs on a Fiscal Year that ends on September 30th and starts for 2023 on October 1. The CR is expected to expire after the midterms giving Congress a reason to come back.

Lame Duck sessions, the session after an election where many members have lost or are serving before retirement, are always dangerous for conservatives, because many members have lost any pressure to be responsive to the voters leading to costly, government growing, legislation passing with little opposition. Keep a close eye on all the items that Congress is scheduling for after the elections.

Marriage

Senate Democrats are trying to manufacture a meaningless vote on federalizing marriage. The left has been fear mongering that marriage is under attack because of the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. The Senate will start considering a gay marriage bill this week with the support of some Republicans.

One big problem with this issue is that marriage has traditionally been a state issue. The federal government does not issue marriage licenses, yet now, as a result of another Supreme Court decision declaring same-sex marriage a constitutional right, Congress feels the need to pass a bill codifying that decision of the High Court. It will be interesting to see how many Senate Republicans run away from the idea of federalism and vote for this bill.

Permitting Reform

Democratic Leadership in the Senate make a promise to Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) that they would include a provision relating to reforming the permitting system to expedite domestic energy production. The Hill reported on September 12, 2022, “permitting reform legislation is expected to expedite the development of fossil fuel and other energy products by setting maximum timelines for environmental reviews, among other things.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) made a promise to Sen. Manchin that permitting reform would pass in trade for Manchin’s vote on the costly climate legislation.

This commonsense legislation is strongly opposed by the anti-energy Woke Democrats. The Hill news report indicated that “Schumer promised Manchin that permitting reform would pass in exchange for his support of the multi-billion dollar climate, taxes and health care bill.” Of course, Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is leading the charge against this legislation. One might surmise that Schumer is allowing Sanders to be the bad guy, therefore giving Schumer an excuse to violate his promise to pass legislation that would address energy price inflation.

Sen. Schumer has stated that he “intends” to include the provision in the CR, yet it will be interesting to see if he makes believe he can’t include the provision because of the objections of the Senate Woke Caucus. This is the only provision that Congress has considered this year that will directly impact domestic oil production in a way that will make sure the United States is not reliant on traditional oil producing countries like, Russia and Saudi Arabia.

It also makes sense to compete with Canada, Mexico, and Columbia to better extract our own fossil fuels for our energy needs. Makes zero policy sense that those three nations have more permissive laws when it comes to extracting oil when Americans are having a hard time filling their tanks because of high gas prices.

Congressional Stock Trading

A bipartisan coalition has come together to push the House to pass legislation to ban the trading of stock by Members of Congress. As a concept, this seems to make sense to prevent lawmakers from using inside information on legislation and regulation to make more money than the public.

Brian Darling is former Counsel and Sr. Communications Director for Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).

(Views expressed by guest commentators may not reflect the views of OAN or its affiliates.)

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