Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and John Cornyn, R-Texas, introduced a bill last week that they said would ensure courts cannot vacate previously authorized permits for liquefied natural gas projects.
Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., introduced bills last week aimed at curbing U.S. investment in China.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which has held two hearings this year on U.S. computing chips ending up in Russian weapons, plans to hold more hearings on the subject, its chairman said last week.
More than 60 Senate and House Democrats on Sept. 27 called on the Biden administration, including the Bureau of Industry and Security, to take more steps to stop the illegal trafficking of U.S.-made guns to Haiti.
A hearing about the Time to Choose Act, a bipartisan bill that would ban consultants and other service providers from working both with the U.S. government and Chinese-owned companies, Senate Homeland Security Committee ranking member Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he agreed with a witness who said it could create a slippery slope.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., introduced a bill this week that could lead to sanctions being imposed on Chinese entities and officials involved in producing precursor chemicals for fentanyl.
While Congress began a long recess this week without passing Venezuela legislation, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere said lawmakers might address the matter when they reconvene in mid-November.
More than 70 members of the House of Representative are asking the administration to ask the European Union to delay its deforestation reporting requirements, which they say would be impossible to meet for wood chips and fluff pulp, used in menstrual pads and diapers.
The House voted 243-174 late Sept. 25 to approve a bill that would impose property-blocking sanctions on Chinese Communist Party leaders for committing human rights abuses, harassing Taiwan or undermining Hong Kong's autonomy.
Both chambers of Congress on Sept. 25 approved extending until Dec. 20 the soon-to-expire Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. The 2019 law requires the president to sanction Chinese and Hong Kong officials responsible for human rights violations in Hong Kong (see 2409230017). The extension is included in a short-term government funding measure, or continuing resolution, that the House and Senate passed and that President Joe Biden plans to sign into law.