|
|
The
Congressional Connector:
The Week of July 18-July 22, 2005
House
Votes to Renew PATRIOT Act
On July 21, a divided House of Representatives voted 257
to 171 to renew 16 sensitive provisions of the USA Patriot Act. Congress approved the PATRIOT Act, soon
after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Most of the 166 provisions of the PATRIOT
Act are permanent law and enjoy broad bipartisan support, but 16 sections of
the Act have a serious potential impact on American’s fundamental liberties;
for this reason, these provisions were made to sunset at the end of 2005 so
that Congress would be required to review them. The legislation approved by the House on
Thursday would permanently extend 14 of these sensitive provisions, and
provide a lengthy ten-year sunset for the other two provisions. Speaking in opposition to the permanent
extension of these far-reaching provisions, Rep. Levin said, “These 16
provisions involve the power of the government to enter and search people's
homes without notice, to tap people's communications with roving wiretaps,
and obtain people's library and health records. Because these provisions
touch on the most basic liberties of citizens, we included sunsets so
Congress would be required to revisit them.
The sunsets balance the extraordinary powers given to law enforcement
with oversight and accountability.
More than that, the sunsets give Congress the opportunity to regularly
review the PATRIOT Act and fine-tune it to adapt to changing
circumstances. The bill before the
House takes away the sunset provisions for 14 of these sensitive provisions,
and sets ineffectively long ten-year sunsets for the other two
provisions. In so doing, this bill
throws assured oversight and accountability out the window.” Rep. Levin voted against passage of
the bill.
Lawmakers
Introduce Legislation to Address China’s Unfair Trade Practices
On July 14, Rep. Levin and other key House Democrats
introduced the Fair Trade with China Act to address problems in the U.S. trade relationship with China. Over the last four years, the U.S. trade deficit with China has
skyrocketed – reaching a record $162 billion last year. In May, the monthly trade imbalance with China reached
$15.8 billion. The Fair Trade with
China Act would address the four most urgent problems in the U.S.-China trade
relationship: 1) Chinese subsidies to manufactured and agricultural exports;
2) Chinese currency manipulation; 3) export surges caused by China’s
non-market economy and the Bush Administration’s refusal to apply the
China-specific safeguard provision of U.S. law, and nonpayment of import
duties on Chinese exports; and 4) market access barriers to U.S. exports to
China and poor enforcement of U.S. intellectual property rights.
House
Approves NASA Policy Bill
On July 22, the House overwhelmingly approved the NASA
budget for the next two years and set space and aerospace policy goals. Breaking with the decision made by NASA
earlier this year to abandon and de-orbit the Hubble Space Telescope, the
House directed NASA to devise a plan to send a crew to extend the life of
this extraordinary scientific instrument.
Despite the broad support for the NASA legislation, many Members of
Congress remain unconvinced about the extraordinary costs associated with the
Bush Administration’s long-term goal of returning humans to the moon by 2020,
and then sending humans to Mars. The
cost estimates for the moon/Mars missions have run as high at $750 billion.
The
Economy, Health Care and the War in Iraq Top Constituent Concerns in
E-survey
Two weeks ago Rep. Levin sent out an informal e-survey to
an email list of residents in the 12th Congressional District.
This was an effort to gather feedback from constituents and get a glimpse of
opinion on key federal issues, not to be a scientific public opinion survey.
At the top of the list of respondent concerns were the economy, health care
and the war in Iraq.
Respondents opposed plans to divert money from Social Security to individual
private accounts by a margin of 3 to 1. More on the email responses next
week.
|
|
