Rep. Emanuel Cleaver

Justice in Power Plant Permitting Act This bill addresses renewable energy use and facility contracting requirements and also establishes the Just Energy Transition Fund to, among other purposes, support projects to replace plants that are denied under the revised Clean Air Act permitting process established by this bill.

Alabama Black Belt National Heritage Area Act This bill establishes the Alabama Black Belt National Heritage Area in Alabama, consisting of land in Bibb, Bullock, Butler, Choctaw, Clarke, Conecuh, Dallas, Greene, Hale, Lowndes, Macon, Marengo, Monroe, Montgomery, Perry, Pickens, Sumter, Washington, and Wilcox Counties. The Center for the Study of the Black Belt at the University of West Alabama shall prepare and submit a management plan for the heritage area.

Tipped Worker Protection Act This bill increases the minimum wage for tipped employees over a phase-in period and provides a process for employers to pool and distribute tips.

Ensuring Women's Right to Reproductive Freedom Act This bill prohibits anyone acting under state law from interfering with a person's ability to access out-of-state abortion services. ( Abortion services includes the use of any drugs that are approved to terminate pregnancies and any health care services related to an abortion, whether or not provided at the same time or on the same day.) Specifically, the bill prohibits any person acting under state law from preventing, restricting, impeding, or retaliating against health care providers who provide legal abortion services to out-of-state residents, any person or entity who helps health care providers to provide such services, any person who travels to another state to obtain such services, any person or entity who helps another person travel to another state to obtain such services, or the movement in interstate commerce of drugs that are approved to terminate pregnancies. The Department of Justice may enforce this bill through civil actions; the bill also establishes a private right of action for violations.

EPA Regulatory Authority Act of 2022 This bill provides that in identifying the best system of emission reduction for purposes of a standard performance under the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency may include measures that apply beyond an individual stationary source or category of stationary sources. Additionally, the bill provides that each determination in the Clean Power Plan (i.e., the final rule titled Carbon Pollution Emission Guidelines for Existing Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units published in the Federal Register on October 23, 2015) with respect to a best system of emission reduction is deemed as authorized.

Evaluating Lynching Locations (ELL) for National Park Sites Act This bill directs the Department of the Interior to conduct a special resource study of sites within approximately 100 miles of Memphis, Tennessee, at which lynchings took place. In conducting the special resource study, Interior shall (1) evaluate the national significance of such study area, and (2) determine the suitability and feasibility of designating the study area as a unit of the National Park System.

Maddy summaryHRES 1226 designates the week of July 19-25, 2022, as "Black Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week" to highlight mental health challenges during pregnancy or after childbirth that disproportionately affect Black women and families. The resolution emphasizes that Black women are 3 times more likely to die from maternal causes than White women and that 1 in 4 women of color face these conditions compared to 1 in 7 White women. It calls for raising public awareness, promoting culturally appropriate care, and encouraging government and community efforts during this designated week. As a non-binding resolution, it does not create new programs but supports existing goals to address racial disparities in maternal health outcomes.

Clean Shipping Act of 2022 This bill directs the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to require vessels on certain commercial voyages to comply with standards for the carbon intensity of the vessel's fuel on a specified schedule, with vessels on such voyages utilizing 100% less than the carbon intensity baseline by 2040 and beyond. Additionally, the EPA must promulgate and continually revise standards to eliminate emissions of specified greenhouse gases and air pollutants associated with vessels at anchorage or at berth in the contiguous zone of the United States.

Enhancing Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Through Campus Planning Act This bill requires the Department of Education to encourage institutions of higher education to develop and implement evidence-based comprehensive campus mental health and suicide prevention plans.

This bill bars state or local officials from prohibiting or restricting the possession, sale, purchase, transportation, or use of contraceptives (i.e., drugs or devices that are primarily used to prevent pregnancy). Individuals or the Department of Justice may bring civil actions for violations of this bill.