How Arkansas’ congressional delegation voted

Here is how Arkansas’ U.S. senators and U.S. representatives voted on major roll call votes during the week that ended Friday.

HOUSE D Extending export-import

bank for 10 years. Passed 235184, a bill (HR4863) that would reauthorize the Export-Import Bank’s congressional charter through fiscal 2029 while renaming it the United States Export Financing Agency. The bill would increase the bank’s lending authority from $135 billion to $175 billion, and require at least 5% of its annual financing to support sales of renewable-energy and energy-efficiency products. Established in the New Deal, the bank provides taxpayer-backed financing to help foreign customers purchase U.S. goods and services when private-sector lenders are unable or unwilling to provide the financial assistance. Fewer than 2% of the export-import transactions have defaulted in recent years, and the bank usually returns a profit to the Treasury even with an exposure of $100 billion-plus in taxpayer liability. But critics say the agency distorts free markets by practicing “corporate welfare” and “crony capitalism.” Denny Heck, D-Wash., said: “Without a robust official export-credit agency … we simply lose out on overseas sales, especially for small businesses, and capital equipment makers and farmers. Every country recognizes this fact, but the U.S. alone among major economies has failed to fully act on this knowledge. If we want to maximize our exports, we need to stop the sabotage of our credit agency, the Ex-Im Bank, and enhance it.”

Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., said the bill “allows the bank to provide the taxpayer financing to entities owned and controlled by the Chinese government, including Chinese stateowned enterprises involved in military activities, human rights abuses. At a time when China is diverting massive subsidies to state-owned enterprises, specifically through the use of export subsidies, why would Congress authorize the use of taxpayer dollars to make the Chinese Communist Party’s job easier?” A yes vote was to send the bill to the Senate.

h✖ Rick Crawford (R) h✖ French Hill (R)

h✖ Steve Womack (R) h✖ Bruce Westerman (R)

F Treating fossil fuels and

clean energy equally. Defeated 188-232, a GOP-sponsored amendment that sought to remove from HR4863 (above) provisions that favor renewable-energy sales abroad over sales of fossil-fuel products. The bill requires sales of renewable-energy goods and services to overseas customers to receive at least 5% of the Export-Import Bank’s annual lending authority. In addition, energy-related transactions would have to estimate the volume of carbon dioxide emitted by projects receiving export-import subsidies. In part, the amendment would block creation of a new export-import unit aimed at promoting energy-efficiency and renewable-energy exports, and require the bank to weigh the overseas affordability of energy products before approving transactions. Bill Flores, R-Texas, said: “If emissions reductions are the goal, federal policies must focus on total performance and not favor one technology over the other. In the developing world, affordable, clean energy will give people more opportunity for a better life when expensive alternatives are unaffordable.”

Sean Casten, D-Ill., said: “The science is really clear. The climate crisis is here, and we are already seeing its devastating impact. Despite the best efforts of the current administration to the contrary, the United States must be a global leader in acting to combat the climate crisis.”

A yes vote was to adopt the amendment.

h✔ Crawford (R)

h✔ Hill (R)

h✔ Womack (R) h✔ Westerman (R)

F Barring assistance to Chinese human rights abusers. Defeated 203-218, a GOP-sponsored motion to HR4863 (above) that sought to place additional requirements on Export-Import Bank assistance designed to facilitate U.S. sales to companies owned by the Chinese government. Under the motion, the assistance would be denied in cases where the Chinese company has a record of human rights abuses.

A yes vote was to adopt the motion.

h✔ Crawford (R)

h✔ Hill (R) h✔ Womack (R) h✔ Westerman (R)

SENATE D Chad Wolf, Homeland Security secretary. Confirmed 54-41, Chad F. Wolf as an undersecretary at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The vote paved the way for his promotion a day later to the post of acting secretary of homeland security. He becomes President Donald Trump’s fifth Homeland Security Department secretary. Because Wolf’s status is “acting,” he avoids a confirmation process that would vet his qualifications to run what is the government’s third-largest department with 240,000 employees. Democrats called this a misguided end-run around the Senate’s constitutional “advice and consent” authority. A former lobbyist, Wolf has held several Homeland Security Department positions, including chief of staff under former Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, where he helped develop the administration’s

policy of breaking up migrant families on the southwest border. A yes vote was to confirm the nominee.

h✔ John Boozman (R)

h✔ Tom Cotton (R) D Steven Menashi, federal

appeals judge. Confirmed 51-41, Steven J. Menashi, a White House counsel and former Department of Education acting counsel, as a judge on the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over district courts in New York, Vermont and Connecticut. Menashi has been a law clerk to Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito, an attorney in private practice and a law-school professor. He drew Democratic criticism over his authorship of a Department of Education policy denying debt relief to students defrauded by for-profit colleges, and for his stands on issues including Roe

v. Wade, gun laws and LGBT rights. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said: “Even the American Bar Association’s standing committee on the federal judiciary, which has lately made headlines for treating President Trump’s nominees in a less-than-evenhanded way, has rated this nominee well-qualified.” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said “the Senate is going to be asked to confirm someone to be a judge who designed an illegal scheme to deny debt relief so as to defraud students. The man has no principles. The man has no conscience. The man has no morals. He should not be on the bench.” A yes vote was to confirm the nominee.

h✔ Boozman (R)

h✔ Cotton (R)