FRANK PALLONE

House Republicans have passed a sprawling energy package that would counter virtually all of President Joe Biden’s agenda to address climate change.

The Republican-controlled House has voted to block oil from the country’s emergency stockpile from going to China.

The Environmental Protection Agency says it will nearly double — to almost $1 billion — the money available for states to acquire electric school buses.

A U.S. congressional delegation headed by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has arrived in Armenia.

After decades of failed attempts, Democrats this month passed legislation that aims to rein in the soaring costs of drugs for some in the United States.

U.S. lawmakers are anxious to hear from Twitter’s former security chief, who has alarmed Washington with allegations that the influential social network misled regulators about its cyber defenses and efforts to control fake accounts.

President Joe Biden has signed Democrats’ landmark climate change and health care bill.

House Democrats are accusing oil companies of “ripping off the American people” and putting profits before production as Americans suffer from higher gasoline prices amid the war in Ukraine.

The Senate has unanimously approved a measure that would make daylight saving time permanent next year.

Ex-Facebook employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen implored lawmakers to avoid falling into the usual congressional stalemate as they weigh proposals to curb abuses in social media platforms by limiting the companies’ free-speech protections against legal liability.

A huge social and environmental policy bill passed by House Democrats includes a plan to impose a fee on emissions of methane.

Two congressional aides say Democrats have made significant progress on adding compromise provisions curbing prescription drug prices to their massive social and environment package.

As President Joe Biden visited one disaster site after another this summer he declared climate change “everybody’s crisis.”.

President Joe Biden’s “build back better” agenda is poised to be the most far-reaching federal investment since FDR’s New Deal or LBJ’s Great Society.

President Joe Biden’s “build back better” agenda is poised to be the most far-reaching federal investment since FDR’s New Deal or LBJ’s Great Society.

A House committee has dealt an ominous setback to President Joe Biden’s social and environment package.

Senior Democratic senators are introducing legislation that responds to the ravages of COVID-19 in nursing homes.

Medicare is launching a formal process to decide whether to cover the new Alzheimer’s drug, Aduhelm, whose $56,000-a-year price tag and unproven benefits have prompted widespread criticism and a congressional investigation.

Tens of thousands of Oklahoma residents are now covered by health insurance as a result of Medicaid expansion in the state.

Democrats are committed to passing legislation this year to curb prescription drug prices.

Two leading congressional Democrats are calling for ideas on a “public option” health insurance plan, a campaign promise of President Joe Biden’s that faces long odds politically.

A majority of Americans agree that government should help people age in their own homes, not institutional settings.

Scott Applewhite)WASHINGTON – The latest news from a House committee questioning the CEOs of Facebook, Google and Twitter. ___2:30 p.m.Rep. Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican, raised the long-running conservative talking point that Twitter, Facebook and Google are biased against conservative viewpoints and censor material based on political or religious viewpoints. Scalise highlighted Twitter’s blocking of a New York Post article on Hunter Biden, which CEO Jack Dorsey said was a mistake that the company corrected within 24 hours. AdThis would include product vice presidents of integrity, trust and safety and vice presidents of platform policy — at Facebook, Twitter, YouTube (rather than Google, which owns YouTube) and perhaps an upstart like TikTok. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Sundar Pichai, CEO of YouTube parent Google, are facing questioning at a hearing by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Now, the COVID-19 relief bill is offering states a generous funding boost for home- and community-based care as an alternative to institutionalizing disabled people. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)WASHINGTON – With the memory of the pandemic's toll in nursing homes still raw, the COVID-19 relief law is offering states a generous funding boost for home- and community-based care as an alternative to institutionalizing disabled people. As it has grown to cover about 1 in 5 Americans, it's also become the nation's default long-term care program, although qualifying is often an arduous process. While the federal government requires state Medicaid programs to cover nursing home care for low-income people, that's not the case for home- and community-based support services. For now, states and advocates for the disabled are awaiting guidance from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on how the money in the COVID-19 law can be spent.

This Friday, Jan. 8, 2021 image shows the suspended Twitter account of President Donald Trump. On Friday, the social media company permanently suspended Trump from its platform, citing "risk of further incitement of violence." (AP Photo/Tali Arbel)Twitter banned President Donald Trump's account Friday, citing “the risk of further incitement of violence" following the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. On Thursday, Facebook suspended Trump's account through Jan. 20 and possibly indefinitely. Twitter merely suspended Trump's account for 12 hours after he posted a video that repeated false claims about election fraud and praised the rioters who stormed the Capitol.

FILE - In this Oct. 10, 2020, file photo, President Donald Trump speaks from the Blue Room Balcony of the White House to a crowd of supporters in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)WASHINGTON – The Trump administration is trying to revive the president's stalled election-eve plan to send millions of Medicare recipients a $200 prescription discount card. White House spokesman Judd Deere confirmed the administration is continuing to move forward. “It’s simply good policy, and demonstrates President Trump is continuing to deliver on his promises to our nation’s seniors to lower drug prices." Pallone dismissed the latest White House push.

A White House official had no comment on the status of the prescription cards, which Trump announced with a flourish last month during a health care speech in Charlotte, N.C. We will provide more information about the prescription drug cards soon.”One administration official said the odds are 75-25 the plan will not happen. Among them:— The White House asserted that Medicare could legally send out the discount cards under its authority to conduct “demonstration programs” testing new ideas. The $200 would test if extra cash made seniors more likely to stay on their medications and avoid costly hospitalizations. “It would do relatively little for seniors with truly catastrophic prescription drug expenses,” she said.

(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)WASHINGTON – The House has approved a modest bill to promote “clean energy” and increase energy efficiency while phasing out the use of coolants in air conditioners and refrigerators that are considered a major driver of global warming. The House approved the bill, 220-185, Thursday, sending it to the Senate, where a separate energy bill is pending. The Senate bill, like the House measure, would phase out hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, that are used as coolants, after an internal dispute among Senate Republicans was resolved earlier this month. It also boosts electric cars and programs to finance clean energy projects. House Republicans disputed that, saying the bill would cost more than $135 billion while including no serious reforms.

The measure needs to be passed by the end of the budget year on Sept. 30 to prevent a shutdown of nonessential government functions. As previously announced, the bill does not contain COVID-19 relief, leaving that issue in all likelihood for a post-election lame duck session — or for the next administration. The House is slated to pass the stopgap funding bill — called a continuing resolution, or CR in Washington-speak — next week. Earlier this week, Pelosi said the House would stay in session until a COVID-19 deal was reached. Instead, lawmakers appear likely to leave Washington next week and be on 24 hours' notice to return if there is a coronavirus relief deal to vote on.

The measure needs to be passed by the end of the budget year on Sept. 30 to prevent a shutdown of nonessential government functions. As previously announced, the bill does not contain COVID-19 relief, leaving that issue in all likelihood for a post-election lame duck session — or for the next administration. The House is slated to pass the stopgap funding bill — called a continuing resolution, or CR in Washington-speak — next week. Earlier this week, Pelosi said the House would stay in session until a COVID-19 deal was reached. Instead, lawmakers appear likely to leave Washington next week and be on 24 hours' notice to return if there is a coronavirus relief deal to vote on.

(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)WASHINGTON A key House committee on Wednesday gave bipartisan approval to legislation to create national standards for the horse racing industry to prevent fatalities and discourage illegal medication practices. The Senate's top Republican said he would press to pass the bill before the year is out. The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act" comes after the racing industry has been hit by a series of doping scandals and a rash of fatal breakdowns in recent years. The legislation is aimed at empowering an independent Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority with federal recognition and enforcement power to set uniform standards for medication, track safety, and testing of horses for PEDs. In recent years, tragedies on the track, medication scandals and an inconsistent patchwork of regulations have cast clouds over the future, McConnell said in a floor speech.

WASHINGTON With coronavirus cases rising in about half the states and political polarization competing for attention with public health recommendations, Dr. Anthony Fauci returns to Capitol Hill on Tuesday at a fraught moment in the nation's pandemic response. White House officials later tried to walk back Trump's comment on testing, suggesting it wasn't meant to be taken literally. Fauci has recently warned that the U.S. is still in the first wave of the pandemic and has continued to urge the American public to practice social distancing. Giroir was tapped by the White House to oversee the expansion of coronavirus testing. However, not all Republicans have lined up to defend the White House.

(Leah Millis/Pool via AP)WASHINGTON Compounding the hardships of the coronavirus, some nursing homes have demanded that low-income residents turn over their $1,200 economic stimulus checks, a cash grab lawmakers want to halt. Low-income Medicaid recipients must not be coerced into wrongly handing over their checks for fear of being kicked out of their homes, wrote Neal and Pallone. We are not aware of widespread issues with resident stimulus funds," the American Health Care Association said in a statement. Generally, a Medicaid recipients taxable income is taken into account in determining their eligibility for the program. CMS chief Seema Verma tweeted on Tuesday that nursing homes engaging in this behavior will be subject to enforcement action.