House
Lawmakers' insider trading: Passed 417-2. House version of a Senate-passed bill (S 2038) that bars members of Congress and congressional staff from using confidential legislative information in their personal stock trading. House GOP leaders dropped a Senate provision that would submit "political intelligence" operatives - those in the private sector who sell legally obtained policy information to Wall Street - to the same rules that govern lobbyists. The bill contains only a study of this unregulated activity, which is reported to generate at least $100 million annually in revenue from financial firms in search of inside information for guiding their trades. A yes vote was to pass the bill.
Voting yes: G.K. Butterfield, D-1st District; Renee Ellmers, R-2nd District; Walter Jones, R-3rd District; David Price, D-4th District; Virginia Foxx, R-5th District; Howard Coble, R-6th District; Mike McIntyre, D-7th District; Larry Kissell, D-8th District; Sue Myrick, R-9th District; Patrick McHenry, R-10th District; Heath Shuler, D-11th District; Melvin Watt, D-12th District; Brad Miller, D-13th District
Voting no: None
Line-item veto: Passed 254-173. Sent to the Senate. Bill HR 3521 gives presidents authority to veto individual discretionary-spending items in overall appropriations bills if both houses of Congress go along with the proposed cancellations. Under the measure, presidents could send Congress "special messages," or veto packages, disapproving of one or more items in a given spending bill. The House and Senate would be required to promptly vote on these presidential rescissions, with majority votes needed in each chamber to put them into effect. A yes vote was to pass the bill.
Yes: Ellmers, Foxx, Coble, Kissell, Myrick, McHenry, Shuler
No: Butterfield, Jones, Price, Watt, Miller
Not voting: McIntyre
New accounting rules: Passed 245-180. Sent to the Senate. GOP Bill HR 3581 requires the government to use private-sector-style accounting rules for figuring the cost of its direct-loan and loan-guarantee programs. This bill would sharply increase the cost of these programs in government budget calculations and thus make them larger targets for spending cuts. Under the bill, the loan programs would be valued at the fair-market value of the assets to which they are linked. This measure would replace the existing method of counting money actually spent and revenue actually received to determine the budgetary impact - plus or minus - of specific federal loans and loan guarantees. The bill also would include Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac balance sheets in the federal budget. These giant home-mortgage firms, known as Government Sponsored Enterprises, are privately owned but federally protected. A yes vote was to pass the bill.
Yes: Ellmers, Jones, Foxx, Kissell, Myrick, McHenry
No: Butterfield, Price, Coble, McIntyre, Shuler, Watt, Miller
Senate
Federal aviation budget: Passed 75-20. Sent to the president. Bill HR 658 authorizes federal aviation programs through Sept. 30, 2015, at a cost of $63.3 billion, including $13.4 billion for airport improvements, tens of billions of dollars for Federal Aviation Administration programs and $190 million annually to subsidize commercial air service to smaller cities. The bill was disputed mainly because it raises the threshold workers in the transportation industry must meet to conduct elections on whether to unionize. The bill releases $3 billion annually from the Aviation Trust Fund to finance the gradual transfer of air-traffic control from a radar-based system to one based on global positioning satellites. The bill gets its funding from a combination of appropriations and user fees such as fuel and passenger-ticket taxes. A yes vote was to pass the bill.
Voting yes: Kay Hagan, D; Richard Burr, R
Federal transportation budget: Passed 85-11. Advanced Bill S 1813 to authorize federal road, bridge, transit and highway-safety programs through Sept. 30, 2013, on a budget of $109 billion. All but $10 billion of the cost would be funded by the Highway Trust Fund, which draws its revenue from the 18.4 cents-per-gallon federal gasoline tax and the 24.4 cents-per-gallon federal diesel tax. The bill's remaining costs would be covered by revenue measures such as higher taxation of Individual Retirement Account inheritances. A yes vote was to begin debate on the bill.
Yes: Hagan, Burr
