House hunters: Six issues GOP will target in first bills of new Congress
Virginia Aabram
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The Republican-led 118th Congress will establish six priorities in its first week fully up and running, with bills and resolutions tackling everything from oversight of federal agencies to shoring up domestic energy to investigating China.
After a raucous first week delayed by a historic four-day election for House speaker, the bills include GOP priorities messaged extensively on the campaign trail last year. In order to pass anything this session, Republicans need to be almost fully united since five dissenting votes can sink legislation due to their slim majority.
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Here are the bills and resolutions at the top of Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s (R-LA) docket as Republicans ramp up the new session of Congress.
Roll back IRS funding
Last year’s Inflation Reduction Act allocated the Internal Revenue Service an additional $80 billion for the hiring of 87,000 more agents. Though Democrats said this is meant to replace 50,000 employees retiring in the next few years and increase the number helping taxpayers navigate the federal code, Republicans point to an analysis from the Joint Committee on Taxation that found it would increase audits on taxpayers earning less than $200,000.
Rep. Adrian Smith’s (R-NE) H.R. 23, the Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act, would rescind much of the money granted to the IRS in the Inflation Reduction Act but keep funding for more customer support agents and IT updates.
Investigate China
In H.R. Res. 11, the House will establish the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) will chair the committee, which will be composed of nine Republicans and seven Democrats. It will look at detangling America’s economic reliance on China, ending Chinese theft of U.S. data and intellectual property, and human rights abuses within the communist system.
Scrutinize intelligence and law enforcement agencies
Republicans will vote on H.R. 12 to create a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee “to investigate the weaponization of the federal government against everyday Americans.” It will target the FBI and Department of Justice along with other federal agencies involved in the collection of private data of U.S. citizens and organizations.
It will be composed of eight Republicans and five Democrats and give “sweeping investigatory powers that include access to information shared with the House Intelligence Committee and the authority to review ongoing criminal investigations.”
Strengthen domestic energy production
H.R. 22, the Protecting America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve from China Act, sponsored by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), will prevent sales of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China.
Support law enforcement
Two resolutions have to do with affirming the pro-law enforcement stance of the new Congress. Rep. Ken Buck’s (R-CO) House Continuing Resolution 4 offers “sincere thanks and appreciation to the nation’s law enforcement officers” and rejects calls to defund the police.
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis’s (R-NY) legislation, H.R. 27, the Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act, requires that public prosecutors make public the number of cases they are declining to pursue, the number of prior offenses committed by “career criminals,” and the number of criminals they release.
Oppose abortion
Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO) is bringing forward H.R. 26, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which would require medical treatment and life-saving measures for babies born alive after a failed abortion. Under the legislation, doctors or other medical professionals could face fines and up to five years in prison. A version of this bill failed in the Senate in 2021.
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Republican Conference Vice Chairman Mike Johnson (R-LA) is sponsoring H. Con. Res. 3, condemning the attacks on anti-abortion facilities and churches in the wake of the Dobbs decision.
The bills face a steep or extremely unlikely path forward in the Democratic-controlled Senate.