A congressional committee approves a second bill to limit travel to Cuba.By Juan O. Tamayo.ElNuevoHerald.com. A second bid to overturn President Barack Obama’s easing of restrictions on travel to Cuba has been endorsed in the U.S. Congress, this time an amendment submitted by South Florida Republican Rep. David Rivera and approved in a strongly bipartisan 36-6 vote.The move approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee late Thursday was an amendment to a State Department authorization bill, which Congressional analysts said could be easily stripped of the Cuba language as it makes its way through Capitol Hill.">A congressional committee approves a second bill to limit travel to Cuba.By Juan O. Tamayo.ElNuevoHerald.com. A second bid to overturn President Barack Obama’s easing of restrictions on travel to Cuba has been endorsed in the U.S. Congress, this time an amendment submitted by South Florida Republican Rep. David Rivera and approved in a strongly bipartisan 36-6 vote.The move approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee late Thursday was an amendment to a State Department authorization bill, which Congressional analysts said could be easily stripped of the Cuba language as it makes its way through Capitol Hill.">

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2nd bill limiting Cuba travel approved in Congress

A congressional committee approves a second bill to limit travel to Cuba.By Juan O. Tamayo.ElNuevoHerald.com. A second bid to overturn President Barack Obama’s easing of restrictions on travel to Cuba has been endorsed in the U.S. Congress, this time an amendment submitted by South Florida Republican Rep. David Rivera and approved in a strongly bipartisan 36-6 vote.

The move approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee late Thursday was an amendment to a State Department authorization bill, which Congressional analysts said could be easily stripped of the Cuba language as it makes its way through Capitol Hill.

But the vote tally showed surprising support by Democratic Congress members for a measure that runs counter to Obama’s policy of easing limits on Cuba travel — 20 Republicans and 13 Democrats in favor, and six Democrats against.

The amendment was similar to one that another South Florida Republican, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, attached to a U.S. Treasury appropriations bill by a voice vote last month. Appropriations bills are considered to be much harder to change than authorization bills.

Both the Rivera and Diaz-Balart amendment set Cuba travel regulations back to what they were under President George W. Bush, before Obama eased them significantly for Cuban-Americans as well as non-Cuban residents of the United States.

Rivera’s move was essentially an amendment to an amendment submitted by Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-NY, a supporter of expanded travel to Cuba, requiring that the president enforce the Cuba travel regulations.

Rivera’s amendment, submitted at the very end of a committee session, inserted the words “as in effect on January 19, 2009,” therefore requiring Obama to enforce the much tighter Bush-era regulations.

The committee’s 36-6 vote sent “a clear message to President Obama that Congress does not support the unilateral concessions that his administration has granted to the Castro regime,” Rivera said Friday in a statement.

Source: /www.miamiherald.com/2011/07/23/2326749/

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