GOV. GOES BACK TO WORKCongress reconvenes for first session of 2019 - Transport Secretary ousted - Pres. presents request for pipeline money
Members of Congress watch as Deputy President Michael Jardine addresses a joint session of the assembly, January 4, 2019 ELLSBURGH (FBCA)- Congress reconvened today in the nation's capital, ending its Christmas recess and beginning a session that will last until March 31.
Lawmakers of both houses, the Senate and Chamber of Representatives, were called to order at ten in the morning by Deputy President Michael Jardine in one of his office's few constitutional duties as Head of the Congress. After the roll-call was taken in each house, members of Congress gathered together in the Chamber of Representatives to listen as the Deputy President delivered a sixteen-minute address.
"You represent 25 million Almoreans," Jardine told lawmakers, flanked by Sen. Jon Fitzlane (F-Frasyrland) and Rep. Torquil Chatto (F-Warenne Island), the presiding officers of their respective houses. "It is in the Palace of Congress that the nation's dreams will be realized." In a nod to bipartisanship, the Deputy President asserted that "the administration is looking forward, and eagerly so, to working with you to achieve common goals."
Despite Jardine's words, there was little political amity to be seen outwith the Chamber of Representatives today, the first day in 2019 that the entire federal government is up and running.
The biggest piece of news came this morning, when President Alasdair Hallowell abruptly fired Transportation Secretary Maisie MacDougall in a move that was anticipated by many, but prepared for by few. MacDougall, who may have been the subject of a December 19 sealed indictment relating to the embezzlement of millions of dollars from her Department, refused to resign over the Christmas recess, according to multiple sources in the administration.
Rather than subject the administration to the embarrassment of impeachment proceedings at the hands of Federalists in Congress, President Hallowell chose instead to oust the embattled secretary, whom he appointed in November 2017. Carldon Hall has not issued an official statement on the firing.
Almorea's new Secretary of Transportation will be Samuel Yusuno, the CEO of Almorean Rail, the nation's nationalized railroad conglomerate, according to a Twitter announcement by the President. Yusuno, who is the first person of Keomoran descent to serve in the Cabinet, will take office effective immediately and is the third secretary to head the Department of Transportation in the Hallowell administration. Deputy Secretary John Bowman will continue in his current role, according to the tweet announcing Yusuno's appointment.
Yusuno inherits a complex portfolio, including an ongoing bridge project on Warenne Island that is being funded by both Almorea and Storalia. He will visit the province later this month to view progress on the bridge, according to his office.
A change of leader at the Transportation Department was not the only item on President Hallowell's to-do list today. Through one of his main allies in Congress, Rep. Damon Macaulay (A-Baranor), the President presented the legislature with an appropriations request for $4 billion to build an oil pipeline running from Gray Hills into Yhaiva, in eastern Totzka. This sum was specified in the ATAFTA trade deal signed between Almorea and Totzka in December; however, it is doubtful that Congress will vote to allocate all of it.
Federalist leaders in the Chamber, which deals with budgetary matters, are expected to visit Carldon Hall tomorrow and offer $2.8 billion for the pipeline, according to congressional sources.
President Hallowell, however, who is bound by the text of ATAFTA to cough up $4 billion, is unlikely to accept this amount, according to Press Secretary Linda Woodbead. "Anything less than the full amount would be a breach of faith with our Totzkan allies," Woodbead told the press pool this afternoon. She continued on to assert that "the dollar pipeline is a wonderful investment for Congress to make" and that it will "pay for itself many times over," using a phrase first coined by the President on December 14 when he told reporters in Parazina that they should imagine dollars, not oil, flowing through the proposed construction.
In what will likely prove to be an uncomfortably familiar distraction from his Totzkan pipeline headache, the President will visit Dragão do Mar on Monday, January 7, to attend the inauguration of Paulo Lacerda as Prime Minister.
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