The Senate next week will take up President Trump’s pick to head the CIA in a hearing that could get contentious, even though Republicans are optimistic about getting her approved.
Lawmakers will also continue their battle over regulations, and the House will take up a bill on the proposed but long-delayed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site.
Gina Haspel, who is now serving as acting director of the CIA, will face the Senate Intelligence Committee at a May 9 confirmation hearing. The Trump administration believes she can be approved by the committee and ultimately win the 50 votes needed for confirmation, even though Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has said he would vote against her.
To get there, Haspel will be on Capitol Hill all week, and plans to meet with at least seven senators, an administration aide told the Washington Examiner. Haspel is facing opposition from lawmakers who question her role overseeing the agency’s use of enhance interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
She’ll have some time to win over senators. The Senate Intelligence panel is unlikely to vote on her nomination until the third week in May at the earliest.
Regulatory battle
The House, meanwhile, is slated to consider a resolution that would roll back a 2013 Obama administration rule governing how auto loans are approved.
The rule was first issued as a bulletin by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to regulate how car loans are provided at dealerships. The CFPB, created during the Obama administration, said the directive was needed to ensure fair lending laws are followed and that dealers do not discriminate against buyers based on race or other protected characteristics.
But the Government Accountability Office determined earlier this year that the directive is actually a rule that must be subject to congressional disapproval.
Using the Congressional Review Act, the Senate last month blocked the rule with a simple majority vote and now the House is poised to kill it.
“Issuing guidance instead of formulating a rule allowed the CFPB to side-step important aspects of the administrative rule making process that provides for accountability, transparency, and thorough evaluation,” said Senate Banking Housing and Urban Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho.
Senate Democrats, meanwhile, are formulating a plan to bring a separate Congressional Review Act measure to the floor over the objections of the GOP majority.
Democrats have gathered the 30 Senate signatures needed to force a vote on a CRA that would block a recent FCC rule gutting most of the net neutrality regulations that prohibited throttling and paid prioritization.
The Senate could easily pass the resolution with all Democrats supporting it and the help of Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, to give them the majority.
But the GOP-led House is all but certain to ignore the measure and President Trump would probably not sign it, which would end the chance to eliminate the rule before a June 12 deadline.
Senate Democrats nonetheless are eager to bring it to the floor to force a potentially uncomfortable vote on the GOP.
“Soon, the American people will know which side their member of congress is on,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement. “Fighting for big corporations and ISPs or defending small business owners, entrepreneurs, middle-class families, and everyday consumers.”
Yucca Mountain
Also in the House, lawmakers will vote on a bill that would revive and expedite the approval process for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage site, which has been blocked for decades by opponents in Congress, most notably former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
The legislation would also authorize the Department of Energy to designate an interim storage site for nuclear waste that would be used until Yucca Mountain is opened.
The legislation can likely pass the House. But the Senate, which holds a one-seat GOP majority, may never take it up.
Democrats would likely oppose it, as would Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., who is up for re-election.
House Republicans championing the legislation said it addresses a long-neglected, dangerous problem facing dozens of communities who are left to cope with spent nuclear waste from energy plants.
“We owe it to the 121 communities across 39 states, as well as to every American taxpayer forced to shoulder the daily $2.2 million burden of inaction, to get this done,” said Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., the bill sponsor.
