Recently in Washington

Simpson Cosponsors Bill to Stop the Release of Dangerous Criminal Immigrants
Legislation will close loophole in law that allows for criminal immigrants to be released
Congressman Mike Simpson is a cosponsor of H.R. 1932, the Keep Our Communities Safe Act. This bill will allow Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to detain dangerous criminal immigrants beyond six months who are under orders of removal but cannot be deported.

“Because of a court ruling, law enforcement is required to release dangerous immigrant criminals after six months of detention if they cannot be deported to their home country, even though many countries make it difficult to repatriate immigrants. This is just wrong and we need to close this absurd loophole that allows criminals to walk free in our communities,” said Simpson.

In the 2001 decision of Zadvydas v. Davis, the Supreme Court ruled that under current law, immigrants who had been admitted to the U.S. and then ordered removed could not be detained for more than six months.  In the 2005 case of Clark v. Martinez, the Supreme Court expanded its decision in Zadvydas to apply to those who entered the United States illegally.

As a result, the Justice Department and DHS have had no choice but to release thousands of criminal immigrants into American neighborhoods. In the last two years, close to 10,000 immigrants with orders of removal were released. Justice Department officials have stated that these criminal immigrants include rapists, child molesters, murderers, and other dangerous criminals. 

This bill would allow DHS to detain dangerous criminal immigrants beyond six months who are under orders of removal but cannot be deported. The legislation would also correct Circuit Court decisions interfering with the ability of DHS to detain illegal and criminal immigrants during their removal proceedings so they do not abscond.

“American families should not have to worry that dangerous criminals are walking their streets because their home country would not let them return,” said Simpson.  “H.R. 1932 takes action to make sure that immigrants who commit dangerous crimes can stay in jail and out of our communities.”

Committee Action
At 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, the House Appropriations Committee will mark up the House Defense Appropriations Act for FY12. 

At 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, the House Appropriations Committee will mark up the House Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for FY12 and the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act for FY12.

Floor Schedule

Monday, June 13, 2011
On Monday, the House will meet at 2:00 p.m. for legislative business. Votes will be postponed until 6:30 p.m. 

Continue Consideration of H.R. 2055 - The Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2012 (Open Rule) (Sponsored by Rep. John Culberson / Appropriations Committee)

The rule provides for no further general debate and makes in order any amendment offered that complies with the House rules.

Tuesday, June 14th
On Tuesday, the House will meet at 10:00 a.m. for morning hour and 12:00 p.m. for legislative business. Former Members Day will be held on the House Floor from 8:00 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.

Begin Consideration of H.R. 2112 - Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2012 (Subject to a Rule) (Sponsored by Rep. Jack Kingston / Appropriations Committee)

Wednesday, June 15th, and the Balance of the Week
On Wednesday, the House will meet at 10:00 a.m. for morning hour and 12:00 p.m. for legislative business.

On Thursday, the House will meet at 9:00 a.m. for legislative business. Last votes for the week are expected no later than 3:00 p.m.

On Friday, the House is not in session.

Continue Consideration of H.R. 2112 - Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2012 (Subject to a Rule) (Sponsored by Rep. Jack Kingston / Appropriations Committee)

Possible Consideration H.R. 1249 - America Invents Act (Subject to a Rule) (Sponsored by Rep. Lamar Smith / Judiciary Committee / Budget Committee)

In the News

Yucca a radioactive issue for Jaczko
by Darius Dixon, Politico.com, June 8, 2011
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko was a relative unknown before the Japanese nuclear crisis. But since he helped lead the Obama administration’s response, Republicans have worked to move Jaczko — a Democrat and former aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — from the spotlight to under the microscope.

No fewer than five congressional committees have been involved in efforts to dig into Jaczko’s decision making, especially his part in killing the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage project in Nevada.

Republicans are also digging into the NRC’s role in recommending the evacuation of Americans near the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan and Jaczko’s declaration of an emergency in the U.S. over the nuclear crisis across the Pacific Ocean.

Last week, a House Appropriations Committee cardinal called on the NRC chairman to quit.  
“I think Chairman Jaczko needs to go,” said Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), head of the panel that oversees Environmental Protection Agency and Interior Department spending.

Congress has tried to disarm executive agencies such as the EPA on several fronts. But its dance with the NRC, an independent regulator, is a bit more complicated.

More than with most other industries, the success — if not the continued presence — of the nuclear power industry depends on whether the independent regulator is thorough, effective and apolitical. As general supporters of nuclear power, Republicans have had to tread carefully on the NRC’s reputation, so lawmakers are seeking to portray Jaczko as a political operative who holds extreme views within the commission.

“The NRC is necessary to do their job to license reactors and so forth and so on,” Simpson said. “Taking away their funding doesn’t accomplish what we want to do.”

Most of the GOP’s investigations center on the Obama administration’s efforts to end the Yucca Mountain project. The move inflamed many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle because a 1987 law designated Yucca Mountain — by name — the nation’s sole nuclear waste repository, and the NRC’s internal licensing board rejected the Energy Department’s efforts to kill the project.

Jaczko has defended the NRC’s closeout of the Yucca program, saying Congress hasn’t provided funding for the project since Obama took office and citing DOE’s efforts to pull its application for the facility from the NRC’s approval process.

But the five-member NRC has not decided if or when it will hold a final vote on the issue, fueling speculation that Jaczko is blocking the effort for his former boss, Reid, a fierce opponent of the Yucca program.

“It’s a stated federal position by law that Yucca Mountain should be opened. That’s the legal authority. There’s no legal authority to close Yucca Mountain,” Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s environment panel, said at a hearing earlier this year.

“The only authority that’s been rendered is the administration’s, in compliance with Majority Leader Reid, to pull funding,” added Shimkus, who, along with Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), is investigating the Yucca decision. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), meanwhile, said the Republican attempts to corner and isolate Jaczko are self-serving and partisan.

“They seem to feel very strongly that Yucca Mountain ought to be opened as a repository for nuclear waste and so, based on that premise, they’re not happy with the NRC not making the decision they want,” said Waxman, former chairman of both the Energy and Commerce and the Oversight and Government Reform committees.

“I don’t think they would ever do anything like this if a Republican president had appointed the chairman,” Waxman said, adding: “I think a lot of this is partisanship.”

But Simpson said Jaczko’s decision to not hold final votes on the Yucca Mountain license application is eroding the image of the agency overall.

“The reality is that an agency [that] is supposed to be a regulatory body [and] supposed to base its decisions on science and not politics has let politics interfere with them, and I think they’ve lost a whole lot of credibility,” Simpson said. “And it is a concern to at least some of the commissioners.”

House Republicans included measures to revive the Yucca project in their 2011 spending bill in February, but they were dropped from the final deal in early April. As a result, Simpson said, Jaczko took advantage of the situation.

“I understand that Jaczko was running around telling people: ‘See, Congress doesn’t support it. They didn’t put any funding in for it.’ Which was not our intent at all,” he said. “We’ve got to take that argument away.”

The fiscal 2012 DOE and NRC spending proposal from House appropriators would put $35 million toward reviving the Yucca Mountain project, including $10 million to the NRC for continuing the agency’s review of the repository’s licensing application.

“Many people feel that the chairman is stalling,” Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), chairman of the Appropriations panel that oversees the NRC and the Energy Department, said at a hearing earlier this year. “And there’s a feeling that here in the House, we may put forth a bill to require the NRC to make a decision by a certain date.”

It hasn’t helped Jaczko that two Republican commissioners, William Ostendorff and Kristine Svinicki, have publicly opposed the NRC’s actions to close Yucca.

Not to be left out, Republicans on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee aggressively engaged Jaczko on the disclosure of technical documents associated with Yucca Mountain.

Initially, the NRC would provide only heavily redacted copies of the documents because, Jaczko said, they may be incomplete and, should they become public, could bias him and the other commissioners on the findings. But a majority of NRC commissioners decided to buck the chairman and give unredacted copies to the committee.

Even Jaczko’s decisions concerning the nuclear crisis in Japan couldn’t catch him a break with Republicans in Congress.

Less than a week after the Fukushima incident began in March, Jaczko took to the airwaves to advise Americans within 50 miles of the plant to evacuate, even though the Japanese government had recommended only a 12-mile zone.

At the time, White House spokesman Jay Carney, under heavy questioning from the press corps, insisted the difference “is not about the quality of information” from Japan. But the discrepancy created confusion since it was the first time advice from the U.S. to American citizens in Japan differed from the Japanese government’s advice.

Several environmental groups as well as many lawmakers have used the 50-mile recommendation as a new rule of thumb to assess the risk and evacuation procedures necessary for nuclear power plants in the U.S., but Jaczko has repeatedly said he remains comfortable with the decision he made, given the information his agency had at the time.

But as a result, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who is also investigating Yucca Mountain, asked the NRC to turn over documents detailing how it came up with the 50-mile recommendation.

So far, the agency has taken more than a month to respond, requiring Issa’s office to grudgingly give extensions.

Issa and Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe, top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, are also going after Jaczko for declaring emergency authority during the Japanese crisis without consulting the other commissioners.

“I am concerned that any effort by you to declare an emergency has been less than ideal,” Inhofe wrote in a letter to Jaczko, adding, “especially given your commitment to openness and transparency.”

Josh Freed, vice president for clean energy at Third Way, lauded Jaczko’s record at NRC, especially on safety. “Chairman Jaczko has provided a steady hand at NRC in a time of great uncertainty for the nuclear sector,” Freed told POLITICO. “He’s done a very good job reminding the American public that nuclear energy in the U.S. is safe.”