With the House out of session for district work and the Senate embroiled in immigration negotiations that might not end up going anywhere, it was a slow news week in Washington.
In the absence of much formal legislative business, many members’ focus was instead on offshore wind, artificial intelligence (AI), and what should be done in Israel. Here’s some of what New Jersey’s 14 members of Congress did in Washington – and in New Jersey – this week.
A wind in the door
Reps. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) and Chris Smith (R-Manchester) have spent the last several years criticizing New Jersey’s plans to develop offshore wind farms along the Jersey coastline, and they made it clear this week that their advocacy didn’t end when wind company Ørsted canceled two major projects last fall.
At a hearing in Ocean City, Maryland on Saturday, Smith, Van Drew, and Rep. Andy Harris (R-Maryland) discussed what they argued are the harmful effects of offshore wind on marine life, military readiness, commercial fishing, and more.
“We can make, and we will make, the difference in trying to expose the myriad harms that ocean wind development will impose upon each and every one of us,” Smith said. “Both the Biden and [Phil] Murphy administrations refuse to even listen to the numerous warnings from local leaders, mayors, state senators – hard questions being raised by scientists, activists, environmentalists, those who are in the fishing industry. So many, across the board, not being listened to.”
And indeed, a few days after the hearing, the state of New Jersey awarded contracts to Leading Light Wind and Attentive Energy Two for two new offshore wind projects – a development that Van Drew excoriated.
“In all of my time in public service I have never seen projects as destructive for the state of New Jersey as these massive offshore wind farms,” Van Drew said in a statement. “How about instead of sticking New Jersey ratepayers with the bill to line the pockets of offshore wind companies, the governor works on lowering prices and improving the quality of life for hardworking New Jersey families.”
Old MacDonald Had a Farm, AI-AI-O
Much of the current discourse around AI, at least from a public policy perspective, is focused on its risks – how AI can distort reality and lead to all manner of unsavory outcomes. But U.S. Senator Cory Booker held a meeting of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Criminal Justice and Counterterrorism this week to highlight the potentially beneficial ways AI can aid criminal investigations and prosecutions.
“We really are at a point in humanity where every generation has breakthrough technologies that shape and alter the course of humanity,” Booker said. “AI is most certainly one of those things, and I know that Senator [Tom] Cotton and I both are committed to trying to find a way to capture the possibility as well as protect against the risks.”
The hearing featured testimony from several experts on the benefits of utilizing AI in crime-solving tasks like facial recognition, fingerprint analysis, and reviews of body camera footage. But they, like Booker, also noted that AI technology should be approached with caution across the criminal justice system.
“Although AI tools present exciting opportunities to render the legal system more accurate and equitable in some respects, they also present troubling obstacles to fair and open proceedings,” testified Berkeley law professor Rebecca Wexler. “To help fix this problem, Congress should do two things. First, require that AI tools used in the criminal legal system be made available for auditing… Second, prohibit either party in a criminal case from invoking the so-called ‘trade secret’ privilege to block access to relevant evidence.”
Swift justice
Booker isn’t the only New Jersey member of Congress who’s taken an interest in AI. Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield), whose hometown high school suffered an AI pornography scandal last year, has made advocating for increased regulations on AI a key priority in his first term in Congress.
The relevance of such regulations was made clear earlier this week when pornographic deepfakes featuring pop star Taylor Swift were widely shared on social media, an incident that Kean said demonstrated the need for protections against AI misconduct.
“It is clear that AI technology is advancing faster than the necessary guardrails,” Kean said in a statement. “Whether the victim is Taylor Swift or any young person across our country – we need to establish safeguards to combat this alarming trend.”
Kean has introduced his own bill, the AI Labeling Act, that would require AI-generated content to be clearly labeled as such. He and fellow New Jersey Reps. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) and Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City) have also signed onto a colleague’s bill criminalizing the sharing of nonconsensual AI pornography.
The 49ers
New Jersey’s two senators, Booker and Senator Bob Menendez, joined a coalition of 49 Senate Democrats and Democratic-caucusing independents this week on an amendment affirming support for a two-state solution in Israel and Palestine, following remarks from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that rejected the idea of an independent Palestinian state.
“The only way to achieve a real and lasting peace is through the pursuit of a two-state solution that affirms and protects Israel’s right to exist as a democratic Jewish state and ensures the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and a state of their own,” Booker said in a statement. “The current Israel-Hamas war underscores why the United States must continue its work to broker and support a negotiated solution that results in two states, with Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in mutual peace, security, dignity, and recognition.”
Booker and especially Menendez have long taken pro-Israel stances in the Senate, especially after Hamas’s October 7th attack on Israel. But they and the vast majority of their fellow Senate Democrats – with the two exceptions being Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman and West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin – say they’re not willing to abide by a one-state, Israeli-led outcome in the Middle East.
“I firmly believe that the interests of the United States and Israel are best served by ensuring that Hamas is defeated once and for all,” Menendez said. “However, as we look to a path forward after the war is eventually over, we must work to achieve a durable two-state solution that allows Israelis and Palestinians to live side-by-side in peace, freedom, prosperity, and security.”
Mr. Smith writes to Washington
Over on the House side, Smith and Rep. Kathy Manning (D-North Carolina) led a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week condemning South Africa for bringing a case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.
“We vigorously denounce South Africa’s deeply hostile stance towards Israel and thoroughly reject its charge of genocide,” reads the letter, which was signed by 210 House members. “We urge you to continue to do the same, to offer Israel all appropriate support in opposing the South African application to the ICJ, and to encourage our allies to join us in speaking out against this unfounded attack on Israel, particularly at the United Nations and in other intergovernmental organizations.”
New Jersey Reps. Kean, Menendez, Sherrill, Van Drew, Donald Norcross (D-Camden), Josh Gottheimer (D-Wyckoff), and Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch) were also signatories of the letter.
In response to South Africa’s case, the ICJ – which is a judicial arm of the United Nations – ordered Israeli leaders this morning to make efforts to prevent a genocide, but did not directly call on Israel to end its military offensive in Gaza.
Other Garden State plots
• Monday was the 51st anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, which codified the right to an abortion – and which was of course overturned nearly two years ago. The decision’s anniversary was commemorated by many New Jersey Democrats, among them Pallone, who held a press conference in Perth Amboy pushing back against GOP-led anti-abortion efforts and calling for Congress to pass legislation that would codify abortion access into federal law.
“There are a lot of people in our state – and nationally, in states where they still have abortion access – [who think] that it’s over,” Pallone said. “You know, ‘Okay, the anti-choice people managed to repeal Roe v. Wade, but that’s it. You just have to decide where you’re going to live, which state you’re going to be in, and then you’ll know whether you’re going to be okay.’ But that’s simply not true. The effort to repeal Roe v. Wade – the anti-choice movement, if you will – is more active than ever in trying to eliminate options for women across the board.”
• Sherrill visited the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in Chatham Township this week for a roundtable to discuss her Building Native Habitats at Federal Facilities Act, which would require federal agencies to prioritize using native plants over non-native plants when constructing new projects.
“What’s so important about having these local plants is, [when] you have locally adapted, ecosystem-specific native plants in these local landscaping projects, they make it so that we have better flood mitigation techniques, we have fewer invasive species, the native species here thrive, and it uses less water from our system,” Sherrill said.
Sherrill also introduced two new bills this week alongside Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Virginia), the Service Member Apprenticeship Act and College Opportunities for Service Members Act, which are aimed at connecting veterans to colleges and apprenticeships.
• In other roundtable news, Gottheimer joined a huge cross-section of New Jersey’s unions in Paramus this week for a roundtable on legislation in Congress that would help unions and their members.
“The hard-working men and women of labor have helped build our great state, our country, and have helped create the most competitive workforce in the world,” Gottheimer said in a statement. “We all stand together in the fight to create better paying jobs, safer working conditions, more job opportunities, and health care. We have a common goal: the desire to make things better for our hard-working labor force, to gain dignity and respect on the job, and to create economic growth and security for the families we care so deeply about.”