Debate LoungeRSS Feed
Archive: 2017 February
Global Reproductive Health Services
Another one of President Trump’s first acts in office was to restore a policy preventing recipients of American foreign aid from performing or counseling on abortions. The policy — known as the Mexico City Policy by its proponents for the location of a United Nations meeting where President Ronald Reagan first announced it in 1984 — has been in effect during successive Republican administrations and revoked under Democratic ones. President George W. Bush last reinstated the policy in 2001 in an Executive order that rescinded President Bill Clinton’s Executive order issued in 1993. President Barack Obama reversed the order again…
Stream Protection Rule
On January 31, the House passed, 228 to 194, a resolution to prevent the implementation of the Interior Department Stream Protection Rule, also known as the Stream Buffer Rule. The Senate followed suit on February 2 by a vote of 54 to 45. The President signed the bill into law on February 16. The controversial Obama Administration rule updated a 1983 rule and sought to limit polluted runoff from surface coal mining into nearby water sources. When it released the final regulation in December 2016, the Interior Department argued that the updated version “incorporates current science, technology, and modern mining practices…
Consumer Bureau at Risk
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, (CFPB), which was the brainchild of Senator Elizabeth Warren (MA-D), is in danger of being weakened or abolished under a Trump Administration. Conservatives in Congress have long opposed the agency as having too much independence, and have supported legislation to restructure it by turning it into a five-member commission and bringing it into the appropriations process. The Bureau is currently funded through the Federal Reserve. Also controversial is the manner in which CFPB’s current director, Richard Cordray, was confirmed. His 2012 nomination was held up by the Republican leadership until July 2013 after Senate Democrats…