Congress Approves Iraq Accountability Act / White House Threatens Veto

This week the House of Representatives and Senate voted to give final approval to the Iraq Accountability Act [H.R. 1591].  The House approved H.R. 1591 on a vote of 218 to 208, while the Senate passed the measure on a vote of 51 to 46.  The White House is threatening a presidential veto of the legislation.

H.R. 1591 is an emergency funding bill totaling $124 billion.  Approximately 77 percent of the funding in the bill would go for supporting U.S. troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Congress also included funds for unmet health needs of wounded service personnel, as well as additional money for veterans health care.  The measure also provides for emergency needs here at home, including funding for Gulf Coast recovery from Hurricane Katrina and funds to prevent hundreds of thousands of children from being dropped from the State Children's Health Insurance Program over the next several months.

The key point of disagreement between Congress and the President are the provisions in H.R. 1591 that require accountability from both the Bush Administration and the Iraqi government.  The legislation requires the Iraqi government to take control of Iraq by meeting key security, political and economic benchmarks that were laid out by President Bush himself.  There is broad agreement that the U.S. military alone cannot provide a solution to the conflict in Iraq and that the Iraqis themselves must do more to forge the political compromises needed to end the violence.  Although the Iraqi government has publicly embraced the benchmarks contained in H.R. 1591, after many months there has been virtually no progress made in meeting them.

H.R. 1591 puts pressure on the Iraqi government by establishing a series of benchmarks that Iraqi leaders would have to meet for U.S. troops to remain in Iraq.  At regular intervals, President Bush would have to certify to Congress that Iraq is making substantial progress on these benchmarks.  Further, the legislation establishes a responsible timeline for the phased redeployment of U.S. combat troops from Iraq, with redeployment beginning no later than October 2007, with a goal of being completed by March 2008. 

The White House has indicated that the President will not support a bill that includes either a timeline or enforceable benchmarks for the Iraqi government.  In contrast, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently remarked that the "strong feelings expressed in the Congress about the timetable probably have had a positive impact . . . in terms of communicating to the Iraqis that this is not an open-ended commitment."

Rep. Levin voted in favor of the Iraq Accountability Act. 

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House Adopts Bill to Limit Trash from Canada

On April 24, the House unanimously approved the International Solid Waste Importation Act [H.R. 518].  The measure was sponsored by Rep. John Dingell, and cosponsored by the entire Michigan House Delegation.  In 1992, the U.S. and Canada reached a bilateral agreement to regulate transboundary shipments of municipal solid waste, but the agreement has never been implemented.  H.R. 518 requires the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to issue regulations to implement the agreement within two years.  The bill also allows states to enact laws or issue regulations to control foreign municipal solid waste until the Administrator issues final regulations to implement the bilateral agreement.  Speaking in favor of the bill, Rep. Levin said, "Our nation has no closer friend in the world than Canada, but the current trash arrangement in which hundreds of trash trucks cross the border each day on their way to Michigan landfills i! s simply untenable."  The Senate must approve H.R. 518 and the President must sign it in order for the measure to become law.  For more information, click here.
 

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