Hakeem Jeffries rejects GOP spending bill as 'unserious and unacceptable'

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Hakeem Jeffries rejects GOP spending bill as 'unserious and unacceptable'

2024-09-10 05:57 Last Updated At：06:00

WASHINGTON (AP) — Calling it “unserious and unacceptable,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries rejected on Monday a proposal from Speaker Mike Johnson that links continued government funding for six months with a measure to require proof of citizenship when registering to vote.

The response frames the spending battle to come over the next weeks as lawmakers work to reach consensus on a short-term spending bill that would prevent a partial government shutdown when the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1. Lawmakers hope to avoid a shutdown just weeks before voters go to the polls.

Johnson is punting the final decisions on full-year spending into next year when a new president and Congress take over. He's doing so at the urging of members within his conference who believe that Republicans will be in a better position next year to secure the funding and policy priorities they want.

But Jeffries said the appropriations process should be wrapped up by this Congress, and the short-term measure should reflect that. It also needs to be free of “partisan policy changes," Jeffries said.

“There is no other viable path forward that protects the health, safety and economic well-being of hardworking American taxpayers,” Jeffries wrote in a letter to House Democrats released Monday.

Lawmakers are returning to Washington this week following a traditional August recess spent mostly working in their home states and districts. They are not close to completing work on the dozen annual appropriations bills that will fund the agencies during the next fiscal year, so they’ll need to approve a stopgap measure.

The House bill including the proof of citizenship mandate for voter registration complicates the effort. The voter registration measure is popular with House Republicans and has already passed once before in that chamber. The House Freedom Caucus, which generally includes the chamber’s most conservative members, called for it to be attached to the spending bill.

Republicans say that requiring proof of citizenship would ensure that U.S. elections are only for American citizens, improving confidence in the nation’s federal election system, something that former President Donald Trump has sought to undermine over the years.

Opponents say it is already against the law for noncitizens to vote in federal elections and that the document requirements would disenfranchise millions of Americans who do not have the necessary documents readily available when they get a chance to register.

Trump and other Republicans have revved up their complaints about the issue of noncitizens voting with the influx of migrants across the U.S.-Mexico border under President Joe Biden’s administration. They are contending Democrats let them in to add them to the voter rolls. But the available evidence shows that noncitizen voting in federal elections is incredibly rare.

Johnson called the proof of citizenship mandate a “righteous fight” as he entered the Capitol Monday afternoon. He said that even if a small percentage of people who have entered the U.S. illegally end up registering to vote, “they can throw the election. This is serious business.”

Senate Democrats have also come out against Johnson's proposal. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the bill “pure partisan posturing."

“Speaker Johnson knows deep down that he needs to work with Democrats to get anything done,” Schumer said.

The White House said that if the bill reaches Biden's desk he will veto it. The veto threat said states already have effective safeguards in place to verify voters' eligibility and maintain accurate voter rolls.

“Instead of working in a bipartisan manner to keep the Government open and provide emergency funding for disaster needs, House Republicans have chosen brinksmanship,” the White House statement said.

The bill does provide an additional $10 billion for a disaster relief fund administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. But the White House said it did not cover the full amount needed through other disaster relief programs, such as for highways and bridges damaged by disasters in 38 states.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned that long-term continuing resolutions, such as the current one to be voted on in the House this week, harm military readiness. Austin said in a letter to the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees that, if passed, the bill would mark the second year in a row and the seventh time in the past 15 years that the department is delayed in moving forward with some critical priorities.

“These actions subject Service members and their families to unnecessary stress, empower our adversaries, misalign billions of dollars, damage our readiness, and impede our ability to react to emergent events,” Austin wrote.

Associated Press congressional reporter Stephen Groves contributed to this report.

Massive pipeline fire burning near Houston began after a vehicle struck a valve, officials say

2024-09-17 13:39 Last Updated At：13:40

DEER PARK, Texas (AP) — A towering flame gradually subsided Tuesday morning in the aftermath of a massive pipeline explosion after a vehicle drove through a fence and struck an above-ground valve, officials said.

Deer Park officials said police and local FBI agents initiated investigations and found no preliminary reports that would suggest a coordinated or “terrorist” attack and that “this appears to be an isolated incident.”

The investigation included efforts to learn more about the driver of a vehicle that was incinerated by the pipeline explosion as flames scorched the ground across a wide radius, severed adjacent power transmission lines and ignited homes at a distance. Police did not provide any information about the person's condition.

An evacuation area included nearly 1,000 homes and initial shelter orders included schools.

Operators shut off the flow of natural gas liquids in the pipeline, but so much remained in the miles of tubing that firefighters could do nothing but watch and hose down adjacent homes.

Deer Park Mayor Jerry Mouton Jr. described intense heat from a fire that endured for more than 12 hours as ladder trucks showered houses from above.

"A lot of the house structures that are adjacent to that are still catching on fire even though we’re putting a lot of water on them,” Mouton said at an afternoon news conference. A spewing flame still lit up the sky at sunset Monday.

Firefighters initially were dispatched at 9:55 a.m., after an explosion at a valve station in Deer Park, adjacent to La Porte, rattled homes and businesses, including a Walmart. Deer Park officials said an SUV drove into the valve after going through a fence on the side of the Walmart parking lot.

At the news conference, officials said only one person, a firefighter, sustained a minor injury. Later, Deer Park spokesperson Kaitlyn Bluejacket said four people were injured. She didn’t provide details about the severity of the injuries.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a statement that 20 miles (32 kilometers) of pipeline between the two closed valves had to burn off before the fire would stop.

Anna Lewis, who was walking into the nearby Walmart when the explosion happened, said it sounded “like a bomb went off.” She said everyone inside was rushed to the back of the store and then taken across the street to a grocery store before being bussed to a community center.

“It scared me,” she said. “You really don’t know what to do when it’s happening.”

Geselle Melina Guerra said she and her boyfriend heard the explosion as they were having breakfast in their mobile home.

“All of a sudden we hear this loud bang and then I see something bright, like orange, coming from our back door that’s outside,” said Guerra, who lives within the evacuation area.

Guerra’s boyfriend, Jairo Sanchez, said they’re used to evacuations because they live close to other plants near the highway, but he hadn’t seen an explosion before in his 10 years living there.

“We just drove as far as we could because we didn’t know what was happening,” Sanchez said.

Houston, Texas’ largest city, is the nation’s petrochemical heartland and is home to a cluster of refineries and plants and thousands of miles of pipelines. Explosions and fires are a familiar sight in the area, including some that have been deadly, raising recurring questions about the adequacy of industry efforts to protect the public and the environment.

Letting the fire burn out is better, from an environmental perspective, than trying to attack the flames with some kind of suppressing foam or liquid, said Ramanan Krishnamoorti, a petroleum engineering professor at the University of Houston.

“Otherwise it’s going to release a lot of volatile organics into the environment,” he said.

Still, there will undoubtedly be negative environmental consequences, including a release of soot, carbons and organic material, he said.

The pipeline’s owner, Dallas-based Energy Transfer, said air monitoring equipment was being set up near the plume of fire and smoke, which could be seen from at least 10 miles (16 kilometers) away at one point.

A statement from Harris County Pollution Control on Monday afternoon said no volatile organic compounds had been detected. The statement said particulate matter from the smoke was moderate and not an immediate risk to healthy people, although “sensitive populations may want to take precautions.” The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said it was also monitoring the air.

Natural gas liquids are used primarily in the manufacturing of plastics and basic and intermediate chemicals, Krishnamoorti said.

The fire burned through nearby power lines, and the website PowerOutage.us said several thousand customers were without power at one point in Harris County.

Krishnamoorti said the area’s extensive pipeline infrastructure will have to be closely inspected for damage beyond the explosion site, though the fire “won’t be a major disrupter of supply chains.”

The Railroad Commission of Texas, which regulates oil and gas in the state, said its safety inspectors were investigating.

Margaret Newman, who lives on the edge of the evacuation zone, said that when she heard the explosion she went out into her yard and could see the flame shooting above the trees. She lost electricity but has a generator to keep her home cool and planned to stay put.

This story has been updated to correct that the pipeline carries natural gas liquids, not liquified natural gas.

AP writers Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas, Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City and Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed to this report.

Hakeem Jeffries rejects GOP spending bill as 'unserious and unacceptable'

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Hakeem Jeffries rejects GOP spending bill as 'unserious and unacceptable'

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