Today Representatives Gerald E. Connolly, Doris Matsui (D-CA), and Paul Tonko (D-NY), co-chairs of the House Green Dogs, released the following statement in response to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s announcement that the Trump Administration intends to repeal the Clean Power Plan (CPP). “While increasingly violent storms hammer communities in the South and wildfires force evacuations in the West, the Trump Administration continues to unwind federal action on climate change — putting the costs...
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Special for The Hill by Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA) Wake up. We are sleepwalking into an armed conflict. The hidden scandal of the Iraq War — the manipulation of intelligence to support a predetermined outcome — is now an overt political strategy to undermine a multilateral nonproliferation agreement. At a time when Iran was hurtling toward a nuclear threshold not easily undone by force or persuasion, the United States struck an accord with allies and adversaries alike that averted the so...
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Jack Corrigan The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee approved legislation on Wednesday that would extend the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative and eliminate the sunset periods for a handful of key consolidation requirements. The committee forwarded the FITARA Enhancement Act to the Senate along with a handful of other bills relating to federal technology, including the Connected Government Act, SECRET Act and Hack the DHS Act. With the Government Accountability...
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Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA), Vice Ranking Member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, delivered the following remarks on the House floor in opposition to the House Republican budget that unfairly targets federal employees. The full video is available here. “Ugly is ugly. This is an ugly budget, and it exists primarily to be a vehicle for tax cuts for the already fortunate - the top 1% or 2% in America - at the expense of everybody else and it will hemorrhage red ink for ...
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Today, Representative Gerry Connolly (D-VA) and nine other Democratic Vice Ranking Members sent a letter to House and Senate leadership urging them to pursue a bipartisan and bicameral investigation into the recent data breach at Equifax that exposed the personal information of 143 million Americans. “It is unacceptable for Equifax, an organization entrusted with the personal and financial information of hundreds of millions of Americans, to be so negligent with its cybersecurity practices,” sai...
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Today, Representatives Gerry Connolly (D-VA), Judge Ted Poe (R-TX), Mike Quigley (D-IL) and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) sent a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts urging the Supreme Court to provide a live audio recording of the upcoming partisan redistricting case, Gill v. Whitford. Connolly and Poe are coauthors of the Cameras in the Court Act, legislation which would require the Supreme Court to televise open proceedings. The Cameras in the Court Act was introduced in January. “This case will impa...
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Derek B. Johnson Legislation introduced in the Senate Sept. 26 would extend the data center consolidation provisions of the 2014 Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act by two years. The bill was introduced by Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) with Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) as cosponsors. "The program has been effective, and the government should continue to support programs that modernize technology in the government," a Capitol Hill source ...
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Tajha Chappellet-Lanier The Congressional Budget Office released a cost estimate for the House version of the FITARA Enhancement Act on Friday, concluding that “there would be no significant additional cost or savings to continue those efforts under H.R. 3243.” The FITARA Enhancement Act, first introduced by Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., July 14, would amend the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act of 2015 to extend deadlines on some provisions that are set to expire. “Specifical...
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Matt Laslo Now that fellow Republicans – and not Hillary Clinton – are in the hot seat, many in the GOP are whistling a different tune. Across the Capitol this week, there were heated debates over using private email accounts for official government work, skirting federal transparency laws and accusations of partisan hypocrisy were heard, in what many see as an unwelcome rerun of the debate over Hillary Clinton's use of a private server. But unlike the last episode, when the GOP showed uniformi...
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Ben Berliner A bipartisan commission chartered by Congress recently delivered recommendations on using agency data to develop ways to evaluate the success or failure of federal programs. The final report of the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking, released Sept. 6, calls on Congress to support the better use of government data by establishing a National Secure Data Service to house confidential but essential program data. It also calls for creating the position of agency chief evaluation ...
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