Campaign season is when candidates make big promises to the voters about what they will accomplish if they are elected. And while the two main candidates for the White House have been criticized for their paucity of policy specifics, both are vowing to advance bold ideas through Congress if they are sworn in next January.
But Congress is showing that even the most basic of legislative duties is an almost Sisyphean task.
With government spending authority slated to run out Sept. 30, Congress is nowhere near finishing any of the 12 appropriations bills that fund government agencies. This necessitates the need for a short-term continuing resolution (CR) to keep the lights on. That basic task is proving difficult.
Democrats in the White House and Congress, and even many Senate Republicans, have pushed for a CR that lasts until just after the election, when a lame-duck session of Congress could finalize spending for the new fiscal year. But bowing to demands from his more conservative members, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has spent the last two weeks trying to convince the House to pass his plan to extend funding until next spring and pair it with a bill to prevent noncitizens from voting in federal elections. (Noncitizens are already prohibited from voting in federal elections, but the GOP argues the bill will make it easier for states to remove noncitizens from voter rolls.)
House Democrats have been almost united in opposition to the plan, and with a very narrow majority, Johnson has needed nearly all his Republican members to support the bill. But between 10 and 15 GOP members have remained staunch holdouts against it: some defense hawks worry that delaying full-year funding for the Pentagon will hurt the military; and some far-right members want deeper spending cuts.
The opposition forced Johnson to delay a vote on the bill for more than a week while he and his lieutenants twisted arms. Apparently, barely any arms were successfully twisted, because when Johnson called for a vote last week, the plan failed. The final tally was 202 in favor and 220 against, with 14 Republicans joining all but three Democrats to oppose it.
Even if the bill had passed the House, the Democratic-controlled Senate was not going to take it up. But House passage could have placed pressure on Senate Democrats to negotiate. Now, with Johnson’s Plan A dead, he is moving to Plan B, a short-term funding bill lasting into December, without the bill on noncitizens voting. In essence, House Republicans are agreeing to what virtually everyone else in Washington wanted to do from the start.
With both chambers of Congress likely to see narrow partisan margins next year, legislators’ ability to get even the most basic tasks done will be crimped, much less their capacity to enact far-reaching legislation. So when the Presidential candidates promise to sign into law big, bold bills, keep in mind that Congress might not be able to do its part.
ACHP Terminates Idaho Wind Project Consultation After SHPO Withdrawal
The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) announced on Sept. 6 that it is terminating consultation on the development of a Section 106 agreement with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for the Lava Ridge Wind Project in Idaho.
The proposed undertaking includes the construction, operation, maintenance, and eventual decommissioning of the wind energy project by Magic Valley Energy, LLC, within a BLM right-of-way (ROW). The project plan has called for 241 wind turbines across 104,000 acres along with new substations, transmission lines, access roads, and related infrastructure. The ACHP said that it had been participating in consultation since 2021, when BLM determined that the project may have substantial impacts on numerous known historic properties.
In consultation with the Idaho SHPO and several consulting parties, BLM determined it would develop a programmatic agreement (PA) to allow for phased identification and evaluation, in addition to the development of a Historic Property Management Plan and site-specific Historic Property Treatment Plans.
However, according to Boise State Public Radio, “the project has faced pushback from a variety of stakeholders, including legislators, ranchers and wildlife advocates concerned over its environmental impact. Japanese-American community members have also objected to the project’s proximity to the Minidoka National Historic site, where 13,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II.”
The Idaho SHPO terminated further consultation last August, citing widespread opposition to the project from a number of stakeholders, including the Idaho State Legislature and Idaho’s congressional delegation. In announcing the termination of its consultation, ACHP said that, “Without the SHPO’s participation, [it] concluded it could not assume the SHPO’s role or effectively resolve the adverse effects outlined in the PA. Given these limitations, the ACHP determined that further consultation would not lead to feasible measures to resolve these effects and therefore terminated consultation.”
ACHP said it will develop its final advisory comments on this undertaking to the head of the agency.
ACHP Unveils Far-Reaching Program Comment on Climate and Communities
The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) has released a Proposed Program Comment on Accessible, Climate-Resilient, Connected Communities and is inviting public comments.
The ACHP says that “the intent of the Program Comment is to help accelerate the review of federal agency actions to rehabilitate existing housing or create new housing in existing buildings, to maintain and update buildings and their immediate environs in response to climate concerns, and to rehabilitate or create new climate-friendly transportation infrastructure. It would apply to all agencies proposing to carry out, license, permit, or fund the covered undertakings which elect to use it.”
The Program Comment would provide all federal agencies with an alternative to Section 106 for a wide range of undertakings.
Comments can be submitted to the ACHP by Wednesday, October 9, by email to [email protected].
The ACRA Government Relations Committee will be reviewing the program comment. If you have feedback for the Committee, please email [email protected] no later than Sept. 30.
On Demand: Q&A with National NAGPRA Program Manager Melanie O’Brien
Late last month, National NAGPRA Program Manager Melanie O’Brien took part in a Q&A session with ACRA members about the new NAGPRA rules.
If you missed it, the recording is now available: ACRA members can log in and view the recording here. The password to view can be found on the Members-Only Webinars on Demand page.