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Congressional Republican leaders are promoting long-standing infrastructure and energy priorities as candidates continue to hit the campaign trail this fall.

GOP leaders with high-profile roles in transportation policy are pressing for domestic energy independence as they call for a strict view of the $1 trillion infrastructure law’s implementation.

With the midterm elections less than a month away, each party is loudly championing its agenda as they vie to control the House and Senate next year.

“We were at a point where we were literally energy independent; we were actually exporting energy. We’ve now, again, become dependent upon OPEC and other countries because of this administration’s resistance and outright assault on American energy production,” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said recently, referring to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. Thune is a member of his caucus’ leadership team.

“This is the price that America pays when we aren’t willing to make the investment and have policies that support the encouragement of American energy production,” he continued. “By not having an energy policy, not committing to an all-the-above American energy plan, we have now a dependence upon foreign sources, including dictators like Venezuela and in places in the Middle East.”

Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, ranking member on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has taken aim at foreign policy directives as well as the White House’s energy agenda.

“Democrats are congratulating themselves because gasoline prices have slipped from their more-than-$5-per-gallon peak,” said Barrasso. “But families are still paying about $1.30 more per gallon than the day Joe Biden took office.

“It is no mystery why prices are lower — the economy is in recession. In a thriving economy still emerging from the pandemic, gasoline demand should have increased this summer compared with last summer.”

For their part, Republicans on the transportation panel in the U.S. House are again raising concerns about the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act’s implementation. The policy law was enacted Nov. 15. Central to their debate is a Federal Highway Administration memorandum from Dec. 16 suggesting state agencies prioritize maintenance of infrastructure projects. A “fix it first” approach to repairing infrastructure was a pillar of senior Democrats and the Biden administration.

“We are concerned over the promulgation of exact [U.S. Department of Transportation] rules and guidance materials that, we believe, seek to implement policies that were either rejected by Congress or are demonstrative of perverse agency decision-making,” key House Republicans wrote Sept. 23 to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “This is compounded by Biden administration-led efforts to impose partisan policies governmentwide. Furthermore, it appears as though DOT and the administration are implementing these policies that violate the spirit of law.”

The letter was signed by Reps. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), the transportation panel’s ranking member, Aviation Subcommittee ranking member Garret Graves (R-La.), Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee ranking member Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio), Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management Subcommittee ranking member Daniel Webster (R-Fla.), Highways and Transit Subcommittee ranking member Rodney Davis (R-Ill.), Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee ranking member Rick Crawford (R-Ark.), and Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee ranking member David Rouzer (R-N.C.).

Top Democrats, meanwhile, maintain a focus on their legislative record since Biden’s inauguration. The legislative achievements include the IIJA, comprehensive climate change and semiconductor production measures and big-ticket COVID-19 relief packages.

On Oct. 7, the president took aim at political challengers.

“If Republicans take control of the Congress,” he said, “these historic victories we just won for the American people are going to be taken away. Every kitchen table cost is going to go up, not down.”

The Week Ahead (all times Eastern)

Oct. 11, 8 a.m.: Axios hosts a panel discussion titled, “A Global Look at Energy Reliability, Independence & the Environment.”

Freight Corridor

Still talking about that internet of things concept.

Legislative Docket

A bill that would prohibit an administration from banning federal energy leasing and mineral withdrawals without approval from Congress recently was introduced by two senior House Republicans. Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) of the transportation and infrastructure committee and Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) of the natural resources panel are sponsoring the Transparency and Production of American Energy Act.

The bill also would require the Interior Department to resume quarterly lease sales on federal lands, according to background the sponsors provided.

“We need to make America energy independent again. We have all the tools to do it — the Biden administration just lacks the willpower to get the job done,” Graves said Sept. 29.

Westerman added, “American families have been on the front lines of dealing with the Biden administration’s failed energy policies.”

Midterms ’22

The political class got a wake up call when The Cook Political Report classified the Pennsylvania Senate race a “toss-up.” That exact announcement by the plugged-in media watcher marked a dramatic shift in what seemed as a likely victory for Democratic nominee John Fetterman. To help shift the balance of power in the race, the GOP has blanketed airwaves with hard-hitting TV ads that benefit Republican candidate Mehmet Oz, a television personality. Fetterman, who suffered a stroke earlier this year, is on the stump pushing an independent-centric Democratic policy platform.

The winner of the Pennsylvania contest is likely to solidify his party’s control of the chamber, as well as hold a powerful seat on an infrastructure committee. Whatever Pennsylvanians decide to do in November, their actions will be instrumental in determining the national outlook for the next two years.

Favorite Video

Remember: Thank you for flying the friendly skies.

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Coming soon to San Diego.

The Last Word

National Pedestrian Safety Month allows us to really focus on the solutions that keep more Americans safe when they choose to walk.

Federal Transit Administrator Nuria Fernandez on Oct. 3

We publish Mondays when Congress is in session. We also are publishing weekly during the 2022 midterm elections. See previous installments of Capitol Agenda here. Email emulero@ttnews.com with tips. Follow us @eugenemulero and @transporttopics.

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The global situation for refugees has only deteriorated — and eight months into the federal fiscal year, the U.S. refugee resettlement program is on track to resettle fewer than 19,000 individuals this year, far from that 125,000 ceiling.

By Myal Greene On 6/20/22 at 7:22 AM EDT

More than 50 government officials across 13 agencies “threatened, cajoled and colluded” with social media companies to silence online speech about subjects the Biden administration disliked such as election integrity, the origins of the novel coronavirus and COVID-19 restrictions, according to a lawsuit filed by state attorneys general.

The interaction with Big Tech, the lawsuit said, expanded upon FBI efforts during the 2020 presidential campaign to block social media posts about incriminating evidence found on Hunter Biden’s laptop.

In a 164-page legal filing, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, both Republicans, detailed a massive, sprawling “censorship enterprise” within the Biden White House to pressure Facebook, Google, Twitter and other tech companies to “suppress private speech that federal officials disfavor.”

Inappropriate speech, according to the lawsuit, includes questioning whether the virus that causes COVID-19 originated in a Chinese lab, the effectiveness of masks and the veracity of 2020 election results.

The lawsuit strikes at the heart of what critics say is a nefarious alliance between Democratic officials and Big Tech to suppress and discredit conservative voices.

According to the attorneys general, this suppression of online speech violates the First Amendment rights of citizens in their states. They said the full impact of the censorship remains unknown.

SEE ALSO: Durham’s last stand: Danchenko trial wraps up probe of FBI’s Trump-Russia collusion investigation

“These federal bureaucrats leveraged their clout and pressure on social media platforms to become deeply embedded in a joint enterprise with social media companies to procure the censorship of private citizens’ speech on social media,” the attorneys general wrote. “When the federal government colludes with Big Tech to censor speech, the American people become subjects rather than citizens.”

All told, the case names 54 individuals as defendants, including President Biden, White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, and scores of agency communications officials. The FBI, Census Bureau, departments of Justice, Commerce, Treasury, State and HHS are among 13 agencies listed as defendants.

The White House, FBI, along with departments named as defendants did not respond to requests for comment from The Washington Times.

Twitter declined to comment on the lawsuit. Other Big Tech companies identified in the suit did not respond to requests for comments. The tech companies are not named as defendants.   

Mr. Schmitt and Mr. Landry recently updated the lawsuit after subpoenas to the tech companies revealed scores of officials were communicating with them about their content.

Meta, which operates Facebook and Instagram, disclosed at least 32 individuals — including top officials from the White House and Food and Drug Administration — communicated with the company about removing content. Google’s YouTube revealed it was in contact with 11 officials, including senior State Department officials.

“The discovery provided so far demonstrates that this Censorship Enterprise is extremely broad,” Mr. Schmitt and Mr. Landry wrote. “It rises to the highest levels of the U.S. government, including numerous White House officials.”

Mr. Schmitt is also the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Missouri. Mr. Landry announced last week that he is running for Louisiana governor in 2023.

The lawsuit said that the administration can coerce Big Tech through implicit or direct threats to weaken its dominance, including supporting antitrust legislation, increasing privacy regulation, and removing the shield that protects platforms from liability for content posted by users.

However, the friendly exchanges between administration officials and tech executives show such strong-arm tactics were unnecessary.

The communications showed tech companies were as eager to comply with the Biden administration. 

For example, when a Treasury official reached out to Meta executives to discuss “potential influence operations” about COVID-19, the company quickly changed its rules.

In July 2021, after Mr. Biden said Facebook was “killing people” by allowing users to post alleged disinformation about the coronavirus vaccines, an unnamed Meta executive reached out to Mr. Murthy asking if they could “find a way to deescalate and work together collaboratively.”

Roughly a week later, the executive sent another email to Mr. Murthy, the surgeon general, saying Meta in the past week tightened its policies about anti-vaccine misinformation.

In another instance, U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly in February 2021 texted a colleague that she was trying to work with Big Tech to enable federal agencies to “prebunk/debunk” alleged vaccine misinformation.

Some of the alleged censorship took place before the Biden administration took over in January 2021, such as the FBI working to suppress information gleaned from the recovered laptop that belonged to Hunter Biden, the president’s son.

The lawsuit cites Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s statements in August that Facebook did suppress stories related to Hunter Biden and his laptop after a warning from the FBI.

Speaking with podcaster Joe Rogan, Mr. Zuckerberg said Facebook took steps to limit the story from appearing on news feeds because the FBI said it might be Russian disinformation. After the election, several news outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and NBC News, said they had Verified the authenticity of the laptop after initially dismissing it as a Russian disinformation operation.

Twitter also censored information about the laptop, which revealed details of Hunter Biden’s intimate relationships and far-flung business deals that critics say smack of influence peddling. During the 2020 presidential race, Twitter blocked tweets sharing news stories about the laptop evidence, saying it violated the company’s policy on releasing “hacked information.”

Twitter reversed that policy about two weeks before the 2020 election but continued to block posts about Hunter Biden’s laptop, citing a rule against publishing private information.

“Biden, his allies, and those acting in concert with them, falsely attacked the Hunter Biden laptop story as ‘disinformation,’” Mr. Schmitt and Mr. Landry wrote in their lawsuit.

When asked if the U.S. was heading toward recession, White House National Economic Council Director Brian Deese replied that although “we are no doubt in uncertain times,” he “thinks there’s every reason to have a lot of confidence in the U.S. position in the context of a globally uncertain environment.” His response came as he joined David Rubinstein, president of the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., for a discussion on President Biden’s economic agenda, inflation, and the global economy. They discussed a variety of topics, including the Inflation Reduction Act, economic competition with China, Russia’s war in Ukraine, energy and gas prices, and how climate change has informed current economic policy. close

U.S. streaming service Topic has inked an exclusive U.S. and Canadian rights deal with Germany’s Beta Film for four European crime series ahead of this year’s Mipcom TV programming mart in Cannes.

Dedicated to crime and suspense, Topic, part of First Look Entertainment, picked up the third season of critically acclaimed Austrian-German series “Pagan Peak”; Finnish title “Helsinki Syndrome”; “Silent Road” from Greece; and Croatian-Ukrainian co-production “The Silence.”

The agreement also includes renewals of Italian political thriller “1992” and follow-up seasons “1993” and “1994.” Described as Italy’s “House Of Cards,” the show  examines how Italian politics were shaken to the core by a major criminal investigation against widespread corruption in the 1990s.

Arriving on the eve of its third anniversary, the deal fortifies Topic’s drive to elevate crime and suspense thrillers from around the globe for its North American subscribers, the company stated. 

Inspired by Nordic series “The Bridge” and produced by Wiedemann & Berg Television in co-production with Epo-Film for Sky Germany, “Pagan Peak” follows German detective Ellie (Julia Jentsch) and Austrian colleague Gedeon (Nicholas Ofczarek), who, in Season 3, have become bitter enemies but are nevertheless forced to deal with a string of mysterious murders on both sides of the German-Austrian border.

“Beta has been an invaluable partner to work with since Topic’s launch, and we are delighted to continue collaborating with them as we approach our third anniversary as the premier curator of elevated crime and suspense programs from around the world,” said Jennifer Liang, Topic’s vice president of programming strategy, acquisitions and sales. “These hit crime-themed miniseries and series, including ‘Pagan Peak,’ one of Topic’s most-watched franchises, will help us continue our promise to our subscribers to deliver the world’s best in crime programming.”

In “Helsinki Syndrome,” Elias Karo (Peter Franzén), a caring husband and father, takes four journalists hostage and forces them to expose the bank executives and district court judge who conspired against his family and caused them to lose everything, resulting in the death of his father. The eight-part series, which also stars Oona Airola (pictured), is produced by Fisher King, Panache Productions, YLE, Arte and NDR.

The disappearance of a school bus carrying nine elementary school students leaves one of Athen’s most affluent neighborhoods in shock in “Silent Road.” The series follows the detective investigating the case and a young journalist who becomes the only person with whom the kidnappers will speak. The 13-episode “Silent Road” is produced by Mega TV in cooperation with Filmiki Productions.

Exploring the depths of underage trafficking in Eastern Europe, “The Silence” revolves around the mysterious deaths of a number of young women in the Croatian city of Osijek. While investigating the homicides, Inspector Vladimir Kovač meets Stribor, a journalist, and Olga, the Ukrainian wife of a powerful politician who discovers that her niece is one of the victims, forming an unlikely team. The six-part series is produced by Drugi Plan and HRT in coproduction with Beta Film, Star Media, OLL.TV and ZDF/Arte.

“Our fruitful partnership with course has made it possible to bring an immense variety of our high-end European content across the pond to North America,” added Jeffrey Engelen, Beta’s international sales manager for North America.