8/6/2023 0 Comments Define lame duck congress![]() ![]() Like the STREAM Act, the best channel forward for this change in law is to float along with the omnibus government spending bill.Īsk your representatives to increase health and disability payments for miners with black lung!Īpproving President Biden’s nominees for the TVA Board Appalachian Voices is supporting members of the Black Lung Association asking Congress to update the benefit levels to keep up with inflation. Currently, the monthly benefit levels don’t keep up with inflation - which is an enormous problem for miners and their families during this time of record inflation. Miners with black lung disease are promised health and disability support when they can no longer work. Improving benefits for coal miners with black lung Tell your legislators to clean up acid mine drainage!! So we need Congress to attach this bill to the year-end omnibus spending bill! We’re deeply appreciative of the many advocates who have supported this bill this year. The House passed this bill with near-unanimous support over the summer, but the Senate is running out of time to consider the bill on its own despite holding a hearing in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee Dec. The STREAM Act fixes this problem, allowing states and tribes to use their allocations from the abandoned mine land fund to build acid mine drainage treatment facilities. Unfortunately, the bill had a technical error that prohibits states and tribes from using any of that funding for “set-aside accounts” that are necessary for treating acid mine drainage in streams and rivers throughout coal country.Īcid mine drainage turns waterways orange and makes them unlivable for wildlife such as fish and ducks (lame or otherwise). Unleashing funding for acid mine drainage treatmentĬoal-impacted communities won a huge victory in 2021 when Congress passed the bipartisan infrastructure law, which included a golden egg of $11.3 billion for cleaning up abandoned coal mine lands. Just this week, you helped us block efforts to attach his dirty deal to the NDAA in the House! We were able to briefly celebrate until we learned that Manchin is now trying to attach a new version of the bill, now called the “Building American Energy Security Act of 2022,” to the must-pass legislation.Ĭontact your members of Congress today and ask them to oppose Manchin and Schumer’s permitting side deal! Now, Manchin is trying to attach his bill to the National Defense Authorization Act or the omnibus government spending bill. You may recall, the Energy Independence and Security Act as Manchin’s “permitting reform” bill that attempts to green-light the Mountain Valley Pipeline and rolls back protections for communities impacted by energy projects. Manchin and Majority Leader Schumer’s energy permitting “side deal”Īfter Manchin’s Energy Independence and Security Act of 2022 failed to garner enough support in September, he vowed to keep swimming along, working on negotiations to advance his permitting bill. That’s a lot for Congress to wade into in just a few weeks, and there’s sure to involve a lot of squawking.Īppalachian Voices is working on a number of issues as these final votes near, and there are lots of ways for you to get involved to help ensure environmental protection for Appalachian communities. In addition, Democrats want to get some of President Biden’s political appointees and judges through the Senate approval process, and they’re also prioritizing same-sex marriage laws, changes to electoral certification, and possibly energy permitting reform and even a public lands package. Legislators need to get their ducks in a row to pass the Fiscal Year 2023 government funding bill as well as the annual National Defense Authorization Act. ![]() 3, 2023, and they have a lot on their agenda. The current Congress has less than a month to finish its business before the new 118th Congress is seated on Jan. House in 2023, this means that Democrats have less than a month to exercise their narrow majority in both chambers of Congress.app Because the Republican Party is taking over leadership in the U.S. It’s December after the midterm elections, so Congress is now in what is known as the “lame-duck” period, when legislators who lost their election or chose not to run for reelection are still in power until the new Congress is seated.
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