PARKERSBURG — U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said she’s pleased the annual defense authorization bill will include an end to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for the military but disappointed it will not deliver environmental permitting reform.
“We’ve already lost 8,000 members of the military because, for one reason or another, they did not (get) the COVID vaccine,” Capito, R-W.Va., said during her weekly virtual briefing Thursday.
The Associated Press reported that a compromise provision requiring Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to rescind the requirement is in the National Defense Authorization Act expected to be passed this week by the Senate and House of Representatives. If required to do so, the Pentagon is prepared to dump the requirement and instead strongly encourage troops to get vaccinated, AP says.
The bill does not include any order to allow the 8,000 troops who were discharged for refusing to obey a lawful order to return.
Capito said the bill is important because it funds the military and includes a pay increase for personnel. But she called the lack of permitting reform language “an enormous disappointment.”
Streamlining the process for federal authorization of projects like oil and natural gas drilling and pipeline construction was part of the compromise negotiated by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., in exchange for his support of the $737 billion Inflation Reduction Act in the evenly divided Senate, but it has not yet made it to a vote.
Capito said she was willing to accept a proposal she felt was imperfect to get something passed. She pointed to the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which is 95% complete but still has outstanding permits, as an example of a project that could be finished as a result.
“We have pipelines that we can put in the ground and have be very, very safe,” Capito said. “At the end of the day, (House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi and (Senate Majority Leader) Chuck Schumer pulled the rug out from under a deal that they said they made.”
Schumer will remain in his position when the new Congress takes office, but Pelosi will no longer be her party’s leader in the House, where Republicans won a majority in the mid-term elections.
Capito is optimistic about that, even though Republicans lost a seat in the Senate after Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Georgia, defeated Republican Herschel Walker in this week’s runoff election, giving the Democrats an outright 51-49 majority. It will force President Joe Biden to be “more moderate” to get legislation passed, Capito said, adding that’s what she believes a majority of the electorate wants.
“I think the stopper in the House is going to be critical,” she said. “It will definitely put an end to some of the extreme policies.”
Capito said she feels like Republicans didn’t do a good enough job in the midterms convincing voters that the Biden administration’s policies were contributing to inflation and an insecure border. That could be due in part to some candidates, she said, citing “election deniers” and those too focused on the past.
“We didn’t make the case strong enough that we have the ideas of the future,” Capito said. “In either party … you can’t win a general election with the far-out edges of your party.”
Asked about the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ recent opposition to the Respect for Marriage Act, which would ensure recognition of same-sex and interracial marriages, Capito reiterated her support for the measure. She said the bill, which passed the Senate and is expected to pass the House this week, includes protections for religious organizations and schools “so they can’t be penalized for their beliefs.”
On the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner Thursday in a prisoner exchange with Russia, Capito said she was happy the basketball standout is coming home, especially after being transferred to a penal colony. But she called the accompanying U.S. release of arms dealer Viktor Bout “very troubling.”
“We have other prisoners that are being held in Russia unjustly that need to be addressed,” she said.