Congressional Republicans hold Ocean Science Hostage Over Failed Anti-health Care Bill
All summer and into the fall, Congressional Republicans have been attempting to pass a bill to defund Planned Parenthood, an organization that provides critical health care needs to women across the country. After the latest bill failed, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promised to put forth a “clean bill” that would avoid an October government shutdown. With news breaking today that Speaker John Boehner will quit his post at the end of October and fresh predictions the the shutdown is now unlikely, you might think that this recent quixotic quest has foundered, at least for the moment.
You would be wrong.
S.764 is originally An Act to reauthorize and amend the National Sea Grant College Program Act, and for other purposes. This was the bill that authorized funding for the National SeaGrant program, one of the flagship marine science, conservation, and fisheries agencies in the United States. Funding for Sea Grant is a truly bipartisan issue. Both sides see the value in continuing this support for ocean issues. How bipartisan? In an era of increasingly schismatic politics, the SeaGrant reauthorization bill passed the senate with unanimous support.
If you wanted to read S.764 today, however, you would be met with this:
Resolved, That the bill from the Senate (S. 764) entitled “An Act to reauthorize and amend the National Sea Grant College Program Act, and for other purposes.”, do pass with the following Amendment: This Act may be cited as the “Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2015”