Today in Washington D. C. - June 20, 2008

On The Floor: The Senate resumed consideration of the housing bill (House message to accompany H.R. 3221). Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid filed cloture on the bill this morning. Yesterday, the Senate voted against two amendments to the housing bill by Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) and a motion by Sen. Bunning (R-KY) to send the bill back to committee.

The House passed last night the supplemental war funding bill last night, 500 days after the president initially requested the money. They adopted the the Senate’s amendment adding war funding to the supplemental appropriations bill and a domestic spending amendment to send back to the Senate.

Yesterday, the House leaders and the heads of the Senate Intelligence Committee worked out a compromise on a long-delayed FISA overhaul. They are expected to pass the compromise bill today. The deal “would give telecommunications companies their much sought-after protections from lawsuits. Both the war supplemental and the FISA bill are expected to be taken up in the Senate next week.

From Senate & News Sources: This morning Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell again admonished Democrats for their lack of action on energy and gas prices for yet another week: “[W]hile Congressional Republicans have a solution to the problem, our friends on the other side have shown a stubborn unwillingness over the years to do much at all about increasing domestic supply. And the result of yesterday’s inaction is the strain that American families are feeling today in the form of record high gas prices. By failing to address supply even with gas prices at $4 a gallon, Congressional Democrats are telling the American people that $4 a gallon gasoline is acceptable, that they should get used to it. Well, Kentuckians aren’t interested in getting used to $4 a gallon gasoline, and neither am I. Congress has the power to do something about high gas prices, and we should.”

Fortunately, Congressional Democrats were stopped earlier this month from doing one of the worst things they could have done, passing an expensive cap-and-trade climate tax scheme. CongressDaily is reporting that key unions, the National Mining Association and the United Auto Workers, both told House Democrats that they could not support the climate bill authored by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA).

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