Congress
Senate will vote on nixing California clean-air waivers, Thune says
Senate Republicans will move this week to nix California’s vehicle emission waivers, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said, setting up a high-stakes fight over the chamber’s rules.
Thune said in a Tuesday floor speech that he will move forward with three House-passed resolutions that use the Congressional Review Act to roll back EPA waivers that effectively let California set its own emission standards. Thune’s announcement comes after weeks of internal deliberations within the conference and public pressure from members of his leadership team to hold a vote.
That’s because the Government Accountability Office has found that the California waivers aren’t a rule and thus aren’t subject to the CRA, which allows Congress to nix regulations with only a simple majority, bypassing the threat of a Democratic filibuster. Crucially, Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has backed up that ruling.
Democrats have warned GOP leaders that they view moving forward with the disapproval resolution over MacDonough’s guidance to be akin to deploying the “nuclear option” undermining the filibuster.
Thune declined after his speech to detail how Republicans will get the resolution to a final vote, saying that it’s still a “little early.” Several GOP senators acknowledged this week that they were working through “options.” He and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) met with four potential GOP swing votes on Monday night — Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), John Curtis (Utah) and Bill Cassidy (La.) — to talk about the procedural mechanics of the resolution.
It’s unclear how Democrats will respond after issuing their dire warnings. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) announced on Tuesday that he would slow-walk four EPA nominees in response to Republicans pursuing the disapproval resolutions.
“If my Republican colleagues open this door and overturn the Parliamentarian’s wise safeguards on this type of abuse, there would be no practical limit, and the Senate could be forced to vote repeatedly on such matters that are clearly not ‘rules’ notwithstanding the plain language of the CRA,” Padilla said in a statement.
Republicans have brushed off criticism by noting that most Senate Democrats previously voted unsuccessfully to create a separate exception to the 60-vote legislative filibuster.
“I don’t believe that it’s nuking the filibuster,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), criticizing Democrats who previously voted for a civil-rights carve-out now raising a “hue and cry about nuking the filibuster.”
Still, multiple GOP senators have raised questions privately about if sidestepping the parliamentarian would be weakening their own chamber’s rules and setting a precedent about what qualifies under the Congressional Review Act that would come back to bite them the next time Democrats are in power.
But GOP leadership and supporters of the resolution are trying to turn the internal debate from the parliamentarian, whom many of them are wary of openly defying, to the role of the Government Accountability Office. Some have accused the agency of making a politically motivated decision.
Collins, after the meeting in Thune’s office, said that senators were still discussing the procedural path for the resolution but added that “I definitely want to see the rule overturned.”
The chair of the House Agriculture Committee said he’s not willing to “accept bad results” as a tradeoff for the benefits of advancements in artificial intelligence — a direct rebuttal to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
“As someone who practiced health care for 28 years, I’m never willing to accept bad results. I think we just need to do our best,” Rep. G.T. Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican, told reporters Monday.
He was responding to Altman’s comments to Decoded by Blue Light News that people “should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency.”
Pressed further on whether he agreed with Altman’s premise, Thompson replied, “No, I think we have to work harder to prevent any bad things from happening.”
Altman’s comments come in the wake of increased panic over the risks of catastrophic destruction from AI, with many industry leaders and experts arguing that guardrails are needed on the technology to prevent it from spinning out of human control.
Pressure is building on Congress to regulate the rapidly-advancing technology, but lawmakers are divided over whether the AI industry needs federal regulation or if it’s capable of governing itself.
The executives of major AI labs and tech companies gathered at the White House last week to discuss solutions with President Donald Trump, who believes overregulating AI will have national security repercussions. The group ended up signing a “morally binding” AI accord that critics say won’t do enough to prevent a worst-case scenario.
Thompson noted Monday he believes that AI will bring “tremendous solutions,” specifically in regards to finding cures for health issues like cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. But he also said AI has to be led with “principle” — comparing it to how he addressed digital assets in a bill to regulate the cryptocurrency industry, which he worked on as chair of the Agriculture Committee.
“The first principle is ‘do no harm.’ So we need to protect consumers, and that means, I think, building some guardrails — some guidelines — to do that,” Thompson said. He added that the second principle is to “foster innovation.”
“I think AI has a lot to do with that,” he added. “I don’t think AI works without RI: Real Intelligence.”
LE SUEUR, Minnesota — Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday there is no “consensus” yet on advancing a bill establishing permanent daylight saving time even as President Donald Trump ramps up pressure on Republicans to pass it.
Thune addressed the matter in a Monday interview after Trump used his Truth Social account multiple times over the weekend to rail against the legislation, known as the Sunshine Protection Act — going so far as to post the personal cell phone number of one of its GOP opponents, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas.
“The president feels strongly on it like he does a lot of issues,” he said. “It’s something we’re having conversations about but there’s no clear path forward or consensus on it yet.”
While Trump singled out Cotton for scrutiny, Thune made clear the opposition to the permanent daylight saving time proposal — which would lead to very late winter sunrises in some parts of the country — ran deeper than one senator.
Cotton has publicly voiced opposition to the proposal for year, citing, among other things, the fact that children in his state would be going to school in the dark for part of the year.
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) voiced similar objections Monday to reporters in the Capitol, saying he was mindful of “safety concerns in the more northern and rural states where children get on the school bus in very early hours.”
Thune, who spoke during a campaign swing in Minnesota with GOP Senate nominee Michele Tafoya, has himself opposed previous daylight saving bills. He said Monday that “a lot of it depends on where you are in the country” and that “your geography probably has as much to do with your position on that as anything.”
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who has aligned himself closely with Trump, is among the lawmakers who have been pushing to get the bill through the Senate. He recently told POLITICO, “I’m going to make sure it gets passed this year.”
Riley Rogerson contributed to this report.
Democrats have pulled back some of their ads in North Carolina’s Senate race, days after the top Senate Republican super PAC paused its future spending in the state.
WinSenate, a group affiliated with the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC, has removed roughly $1.1 million in North Carolina ad buys this week, according to ad tracking firm AdImpact. The group still has roughly $18.8 million in future reservations through Election Day.
“Senate Majority PAC is committed to seeing this race through to victory, and will continue to make spending decisions based on how to best build a strong Senate majority,” Senate Majority PAC spokesperson Lauren French said in a statement.
The move, combined with the GOP-aligned Senate Leadership Fund’s decision to pause future spending, are a signal that both parties are shifting resources amid an ever-expanding Senate map. Democrats are increasingly confident in their North Carolina Senate nominee, Roy Cooper, as he continues to hold a sizable lead in public polling over Republican Michael Whatley — but some privately say states like Michigan and New Hampshire need more resources.
Meanwhile, multiple Republican groups, not just SLF, have retreated from the state in recent weeks, effectively deciding that it’s no longer worth the money to boost Whatley’s campaign.
The Koch-aligned Americans for Prosperity Action left North Carolina off its $22 million list of future spending across key Senate contests, and Old North Action removed $6.5 million in ad reservations last month.
The Cooper campaign, however, is still treating the race as competitive, pointing to North Carolina’s closely divided electorate and the fact that President Donald Trump won the state in each of the past three presidential elections.
“North Carolina is a truly 50/50 state and Democrats haven’t won a US Senate race in 18 years. We can’t take anything for granted or our eye off the ball,” said Morgan Jackson, a senior adviser to the Cooper campaign. “DC is broken and we’re going to continue to run this race like we’re ten points down to ensure North Carolinians get the change they desperately need.”
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