The House of Representatives, which is controlled by Republicans, passed a bill that would make it harder for international governments and NGOs to give money to the Taliban. The No Tax Dollars for Terrorists Act (H.R. 260) says that the U.S. government’s foreign policy is to “oppose the provision of foreign assistance by foreign countries and nongovernmental organizations to the Taliban, particularly those countries and organizations that receive United States-provided foreign assistance.”
Tim Burchett, a Republican from Tennessee who proposed the bill, said on the House floor on Monday that Afghans who don’t want the Taliban to rule have told him that international money is going to the government.
Burchett said, “They say that almost all of the cash aid that goes to Afghanistan ends up with the Taliban.” “Mr. Speaker, they will hate us for free.” We don’t have to give them hard-earned American tax money.
The Act says that the Secretary of State must come up with a plan within 180 days to stop foreign governments and groups from helping the Taliban, find ways to help Afghan women and former US military partners, and send Congress a series of reports on aid to Afghanistan.
Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.) said that the measure had support from both parties, but he criticized the Trump administration for not being clear about its plans for Afghanistan.
Jackson said, “There isn’t a consensus on what the Trump administration is doing in Afghanistan because they won’t tell us.” “We need more information and assurances from the Trump administration right away about their plans for Afghanistan and now Iran.”
The House passed the measure by voice vote with no one objecting. It will now go to the Senate for final approval.
The House passed a bill earlier this month by a vote of 226 to 188 that will stop future administrations from stopping oil and gas drilling without Congress’s permission. This is another big win for President Donald Trump.
Lawmakers voted on Friday to pass the “Protecting American Energy Production Act,” which says that the president can’t “declare a moratorium on the use of hydraulic fracturing unless Congress authorizes the moratorium.”
All of the Republicans in the House voted for the bill to pass, but 118 Democrats voted against it.
Former President Joe Biden put a stop to future oil and gas drilling on 625 million acres of coastal and offshore waters, among other rules related to oil and gas, just weeks before he left office. The bill comes after what he did.
Rep. August Pfluger of Texas, a Republican who introduced the bill, said that worries about possible fracking bans during the Biden administration led to the bill. “When President Biden took office, his administration took a ‘whole of government’ approach to wage war on American energy production, pandering to woke environmental extremists and crippling this thriving industry,” Pfluger said in a statement after the bill passed. “My legislation that passed today is a necessary first step in reversing Biden’s war on energy by preventing the federal government from banning the use of hydraulic fracturing,” he said.
President Donald Trump has promised to let loose energy produced in the United States since the campaign trail as part of his “drill, baby, drill” strategy.
If the president signs the bill into law, future administrations won’t be able to ban the drilling method.
On Monday, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum started internal investigations into agency actions that “burden” energy development. This got rid of “coercive” climate policies and oil lease bans that were put in place during the Biden administration.
This comes after a new national poll shows that most Democrats are unhappy with how their party’s members of Congress are doing their jobs.
A Quinnipiac University poll found that 53% of Democrats who answered said they didn’t like how congressional Democrats were doing their jobs, while only 41% said they did.
