U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Hot Springs, is hopeful that the last of the appropriations bills approved by the House – now pending in the U.S. Senate – can be passed before Friday, Jan. 30 and a government shutdown avoided.
The House completed its passage of all appropriations bills last week through regular order.
“If we look at those appropriation bills, we passed all 12 of them out of the House. They came out of the committees in regular order and they were debated as separate bills and voted on in groups on the House floor, and they’re all over at the Senate,” he said in an interview for Talk Business & Politics D.C. Edition.
Westerman thinks the only bill that will have difficulty passing in this final round is the Department of Homeland Security [DHS] measure, which funds the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which is at the center of controversy after two U.S. citizens were killed in Minnesota by ICE. Even if the DHS appropriation is detained, a shutdown should not be largely felt by the public.
“If they [Senate] pass those bills, the government will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 plus percent funded. And so if there was any kind of a shutdown, it would just be a partial shutdown and I don’t think most people would realize the difference,” he said.
The Fourth District Congressman weighed in on the killings by ICE in Minnesota and joined a growing chorus of legislators wanting a bipartisan investigation and oversight by Congress.
“It’s tragic some of the things that are happening there, and we’d never want to see American citizens get killed when they’re protesting. We also know that those law enforcement officers are sworn to do a job and they’re out there doing their job to enforce the law,” said Westerman. “Now, I get it that people have problems with the law and I think we need to change the immigration laws. I think it’s time to create a system that works much better. But when you see, especially the videos of the guy that got this weekend, Alex Pretti, that raises a lot of questions and I think there will be a thorough investigation. There’s enough video evidence there that I think it would make anybody ask, ‘what in the world’s going on here and how did that happen?’
“I trust that they will do a thorough investigation, and I know that some of the committees in Congress that had jurisdiction in that area are already putting out statements saying there should be a thorough investigation,” he said. “Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-New York), the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, is one of them that put out a statement about there should be an investigation. He obviously chairs the committee that could do that along with I guess probably the oversight committee and even the judiciary committee could get involved. I think it’s very important that we have a thorough investigation, important for our citizens, and important for those law enforcement officers who again, are out there doing the best they can to do the job they were sworn to do.”
Other takeaways from Westerman’s interview include:
- His focus on this coming year’s appropriations versus the possibility of another omnibus reconciliation bill.
- Discussion of the Fix Our Forests bill that he led through the House, he’s hoping the Senate will act soon on it.
- The one-year anniversary of the EXPLORE Act, which focused on the outdoor recreation economy.
Read more or listen to his full interview here.
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