As the clock ticks down to the end of 2025 – and to the next government funding deadline on January 30 – Congress is furiously trying to pass the annual appropriations bills to fund federal agencies through the remainder of the fiscal year.
But on Capitol Hill, the people’s business is increasingly taking a back seat to congresspeople getting into each other’s business.
Censure is the House of Representatives’ way of registering deep disapproval of a lawmaker’s misconduct that does not quite rise to the level of expulsion. When a censure resolution is passed, the lawmaker must stand in the well of the House chamber as the Speaker reads the censure resolution out loud.
Since the founding of the Republic, the House has censured one of its own 28 times. The very first, William Stanbury of Ohio, was rebuked in 1832 for insulting the Speaker of the House. (It was a rough year for Stanbury; earlier on, he was assaulted by Sam Houston, the eventual president of the Republic of Texas, who called Stansburt a “damned rascal” and beat him with his hickory cane. Stansbury fired a pistol at Houston, but it did not go off; had it fired, Texas’ largest city might have a completely different name today. But we digress.)
From 1832 until 2020, the House censured members only about once a decade. But post-pandemic, the floodgates have opened. Since then, five lawmakers have been censured (four Democrats, one Republican).
And the week before Thanksgiving, no fewer than three censure resolutions were brought to the floor. Only one passed, against retiring Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-IL), who was censured for maneuvering to have his chief of staff be the only Democratic nominee to fill his seat in the safe blue district. Two other censure resolutions – against Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI) for texting with Jeffrey Epstein during a 2019 committee hearing and Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) for alleged federal contracting violations, stolen valor and assault – failed.
But the onslaught of attempted reprimands caused two members of Congress – Reps. Don Bacon (R-NE) and Don Beyer (D-VA) – to propose changing the threshold to censure a member from a simple majority vote to 60 percent, meaning only those misdeed worthy of bipartisan opprobrium will pass. Whether the Dons will succeed is an open question, but when lawmakers spend their time trying to punish each other, actual legislative work suffers.
Two Committees Advance Permitting Reform Bills
Regardless of whether Congress can enact any legislation, two House committees are working to move forward on permitting reform.
On November 18, the Communications and Technology Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved several bills that exempt certain telecommunications projects from Section 106 pf the National Historic Preservation Act and the Natio0na Environmental Policy Act, including projects:
- Modifying an existing wireless tower or base station through the addition, removal, or replacement of transmission equipment (H.R. 2289)
- Adding or upgrading wireless facilities on existing infrastructure (H.R. 1541/H.R. 1655)
- Deploying broadband projects on previously disturbed federal lands (H.R. 2298)
- Deploying broadband projects entirely within a floodplain (H.R. 2817)
- Replacing and improving communications facilities in Presidentially declared disaster areas (H.R. 3960)
- Deploying a broadband project entirely within a brownfields site, which is previously disturbed land (H.R. 4211)
- Broadband facilities on federal property where a previous communications facility has already been approved (H.R. 5264)
- Adding or upgrading wireline facilities (H.R. 5273)
- Deploying wireless infrastructure (H.R. 5318)
- Removing and replacing network equipment that puts our national security at risk (H.R. 5358)
Two days later, the House Natural Resources Committee approved a major NEPA reform bill. The Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development Act (SPEED) Act (H.R. 4776) would amend NEPA by, among other things:
- Clarifying that it is a “purely procedural statute intended to ensure Federal agencies consider the environmental impacts of their actions during the decision making process” and does not “mandate particular results”
- Relieving agencies from preparing environmental documents under NEPA if the proposed action is subject to another federal, state or Tribal statute
- Limiting agencies to considering only effects that “share a reasonably close causal relationship to, and are proximately caused by, the immediate project or action under consideration”
- Giving project applicants more power over whether agencies can extend the deadline for making a determination
- Exempting projects from review if the federal government does not have complete control and responsibility over the action (as opposed to current language whose threshold is “sufficient” control)
- Limiting judicial review of agency determinations
The bills all passed on mostly party-line votes, with only a handful of Democrats supporting them. What happens next is unclear: the House GOP majority could fold all the bills into a comprehensive, omnibus permitting reform bill; or they could pass them individually.
Either way, they head to the Senate, where the prospects for permitting reform are murkier. But, as a recent Senate Energy and Natura Resources Committee hearing showed, there is some interest in looking at Section 106.
ACRA and its preservation partners are developing issue briefs, talking points and other resources to educate lawmakers on the importance and benefits of the Section 106 process. As the clock turns towards the new year and debates on permitting continue, advocating for CRM will become ever more important.
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