Aisha Wahab

Congressional Review Act resolution nullifying the EPA decision at 90 Fed. Reg. 1998 that partially authorized California to enforce amendments to the Air Resources Board's Commercial Harbor Craft regulation. The amendments require tugboats, ferries, excursion vessels, workboats, and commercial fishing boats operating in California waters to move to cleaner diesel engines or to zero-emission power, with standards and compliance dates varying by vessel class and engine model year. Introduced by Rep. James Gallagher (R-CA-1) and managed on the floor by Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL), who argued the standards would impose billions in costs on boat operators, that diesel particulate filters have not been certified as safe for maritime use, and that the Coast Guard and several maritime labor unions had raised fire risk objections with California. Energy and Commerce Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-NJ) said the harbor craft standards would avoid up to $5 billion in health care costs, and that both the Government Accountability Office and the Senate Parliamentarian have ruled California Clean Air Act waivers are orders rather than rules and so cannot be repealed under the CRA at all. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) said every California House Democrat opposed the resolution and repeated that a federal court had ruled days earlier that EPA broke the law by relabeling these waivers as rules. Passed 214-208 on the last day of session before a seven-week pre-election recess: Republicans 210-1 with Fitzpatrick (PA) the lone nay, Democrats 3-207 with Cuellar (TX), Davis (NC), and Gonzalez (TX) voting yea, and Kiley (I-CA) yea. Project 2029 position is nay: this is the second of two back-to-back repeals of California port and harbor air rules, taken under a closed rule in the final hours of the Congress, against a standing court ruling that the waivers were never eligible for this process, and it shifts the cost of diesel exhaust from the operators who generate it onto the people who live and work at the waterfront.

House passage of a bill by Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) requiring the head of any state agency administering a listed federally funded program to provide the Attorney General, on written request, 'such information as the Attorney General may require' for investigating or prosecuting alleged fraud in that program. The bill sets no probable cause standard, no reasonable suspicion standard, and no requirement that any named person be under suspicion. The listed programs are Medicaid, SNAP, TANF, state unemployment compensation, the Coronavirus Relief Fund, State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, Emergency Rental Assistance, school emergency relief grants, the BEAD broadband program, Community Development Block Grants, FEMA public assistance and hazard mitigation, and the State Small Business Credit Initiative, followed by a catch-all covering any other state program the Attorney General identifies as vulnerable to fraud. The records covered are identity verification records, benefit disbursement logs, provider billing statements, demographic information tied to an active investigation, and 'any other information, as determined appropriate by the Attorney General.' Section 3 requires handling under the Privacy Act and HIPAA, encryption, use limited to fraud law enforcement, and destruction of records when the investigation or proceeding ends. Introduced September 10 and passed September 16 under a closed rule, with no hearing, no subcommittee hearing, and no markup. Judiciary Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) argued the bill legislates what DOGE was blocked from doing in court, that states already share program data with federal fraud investigators under program-specific statutes that carry privacy standards, that 21 state attorneys general are currently fighting a DOJ demand for blanket access to the records of everyone ever enrolled in SNAP, and that the two open-ended clauses let Attorney General Todd Blanche define both which programs and which records are covered. Van Drew cited Minnesota SNAP and child care billing fraud rings and state agencies that refused federal data requests. Rep. Kiley (I-CA) voted yea while agreeing that Raskin's process objections were legitimate. Passed 217-207: Republicans 210-1 with Massie (KY) the lone nay, Democrats 6-206, Kiley (I-CA) yea. The Democratic yeas were Cuellar (TX), Davis (NC), Golden (ME), Gonzalez (TX), Gray (CA), and Perez (WA). Project 2029 position is nay: fraud in benefit programs is real and is already prosecuted with grand jury subpoenas and existing data-sharing mandates. Writing a statute that lets a politically directed Attorney General demand any record about any beneficiary of any program he names, with no suspicion standard and no judge in the loop, builds the master database the courts have repeatedly blocked, and it puts the private records of tens of millions of people who are suspected of nothing inside the Department that has been prosecuting the President's critics.

Concurrent resolution directing the President, pursuant to Sec. 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution, to remove U.S. Armed Forces from hostilities against Iran absent a declaration of war or a specific congressional authorization, exempting only those elements needed to defend the United States, an ally, or a partner from imminent attack. Introduced by Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), a Marine veteran of the Iraq war. Passed 220-204, the widest margin of the six Iran war powers votes the House has taken this Congress: Democrats 213-0, Republicans 7-203, Rep. Kiley (I-CA) nay, Rep. Garamendi (D-CA) not voting. The seven Republican yeas were Barrett (MI), Davidson (OH), Fitzpatrick (PA), Massie (KY), Mace (SC), Miller-Meeks (IA), and Nunn (IA). Mace, Miller-Meeks, and Nunn had not voted for any of the five earlier resolutions, and their defections seven weeks before the midterms took the Republican crossover from four to seven. Foreign Affairs Chairman Brian Mast (R-FL) controlled the opposition and used most of his time demanding that Moulton name the specific aircraft, ships, and personnel he wanted withdrawn, calling the resolution political theater. Ranking Member Gregory Meeks (D-NY) told the House the war was in its seventh month after the President said it would take four to six weeks, that 19 service members had been killed and more than 750 wounded, that Americans had paid over $100 billion more for gasoline and diesel since it began, and that the Foreign Affairs Committee has still not held a single public hearing with an administration official on the war. Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) counted 200 days of fighting with none of the four original war aims achieved. Moulton said the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, Iran's nuclear program is intact, and the administration lifted sanctions on Iran in the middle of the war. The resolution was received in the Senate on September 16 and referred to the Foreign Relations Committee. Project 2029 position is yea: Congress issued this same directive in June, the President ignored it, and the constitutional answer to a defied directive is to issue it again on the record rather than to stop voting.

Congressional Review Act resolution nullifying the EPA decision at 88 Fed. Reg. 72461 that authorized California to enforce amendments to the Air Resources Board's Ocean-Going Vessels At-Berth Regulation. The regulation requires large ships docked at California ports to shut down their auxiliary diesel engines and either plug into shore power or run an approved emission capture and control system. The amendments at issue extended that requirement to additional categories of ocean-going vessels, including tankers and vehicle carriers. Introduced by Rep. Vince Fong (R-CA-20) and managed on the floor by Energy and Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie (R-KY), who said the compliance technology does not exist at scale and that the costs would be passed to consumers on every good moving through California. Rep. Doris Matsui (D-CA) led the opposition and said the rule is expected to cut cancer risk in communities near major ports by as much as 55 percent and deliver roughly $2.3 billion in public health benefits, that compliance reached 95 percent in 2025 with more than 3,400 vessel visits using shore power, and that the pass-through cost works out to about $3 a year for the average California driver. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), chair of the California Democratic delegation, told the House that a federal court had ordered EPA on September 12, three days before the vote, to withdraw or correct its reclassification of these Clean Air Act Section 209 waiver decisions as rules, the maneuver that made them eligible for CRA repeal in the first place. Passed 216-211: Republicans 212-1 with Fitzpatrick (PA) the lone nay, Democrats 3-210 with Cuellar (TX), Davis (NC), and Gonzalez (TX) voting yea, and Kiley (I-CA) yea. Kiley said he supports the two-decade-old shore power program for container, passenger, and refrigerated ships and objected only to extending it to tanker boilers. Project 2029 position is nay: this strips a rule that is already working, at 95 percent compliance, from the port communities that breathe the exhaust, in exchange for a fuel price benefit its own supporters measure in fractions of a cent per gallon, and it does so through a Congressional Review Act maneuver a federal court had ruled unlawful days earlier.