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Gabe Neville

Gabe Neville, a non-lawyer, helps clients navigate the complexities of federal policymaking and proactively engage the legislative and executive branches of government. Using an intimate knowledge of the government gained over thirty years in politics, Gabe helps clients understand policymakers, conservative politics, and the legislative and regulatory tools available to advance their agendas. He also advises on responding to congressional inquiries and invitations to testify.

Gabe supports clients in sectors as varied as mining, franchising, technology, and life sciences and has substantial experience advising on appropriations, critical minerals, energy, food regulation, health, human rights, intellectual property, labor, social media content moderation, telecommunications, tax, and international trade.

He joined Covington after nearly two decades as a senior congressional staffer and chief of staff to a senior Republican member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee. He previously worked as a Pennsylvania state legislative staffer, Republican campaign professional, and journalist.

Gabe has deep relationships in Republican politics and the conservative movement. As a congressional staffer he frequently chaired meetings of the Values Action Team (VAT) and attended weekly meetings of the Republican Study Committee (RSC). Gabe continues to work with these and other center-right organizations that constitute the base of the Republican Party and frequently drive its priorities.

Gabe was chief of staff to the chairman of the Energy & Commerce Health Subcommittee, which oversees a wide range of government health programs and issues, including public health; hospital construction; mental health and research; biomedical programs and health protection in general, including public and private health insurance; food and drugs; and drug abuse. The subcommittee has jurisdiction over federal agencies responsible for public health programs, regulation, and administration. They include the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and others.

At Covington, Gabe has prepared dozens of corporate executives, nonprofit leaders, academics, and nominees for congressional committee hearings. These range from routine policy hearings to high-stakes, high-profile congressional investigations.

He is the author of The Last Men Standing: The 8th Virginia Regiment in the American Revolution and many deeply researched articles on the Revolutionary War and the Founding Era.

Contact:Read more about Gabe NevilleEmail

On November 5, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear the Trump Administration’s appeal of lower court decisions holding the imposition of certain tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (“IEEPA”) unlawful. If the Supreme Court rules that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs, the government would no…

Continue Reading Don’t Count on Immediate IEEPA Refunds: What President Trump Might Do If SCOTUS Throws Out IEEPA Tariffs

There is broad consensus among Western policymakers that China’s near monopoly on critical minerals represents an urgent strategic vulnerability for the United States and its allies. China processes over 90 percent of the world’s rare earth elements (REE), a subset of critical minerals, raising concerns that it will use its dominance to advance geopolitical goals. China processes about 80 percent of the world’s lithium and the same percentage of the world’s lithium batteries, at a time when demand for the metal has skyrocketed. As the West looks to reduce dependency on Chinese supply chains, success will require escaping policy silos and pursuing a comprehensive strategy rooted in domestic investment, international partnerships, regulatory reform, and sustained will.Continue Reading Made in America: The Outlook for Critical Minerals

On June 3, President Donald Trump sent a package of $9.4 billion in rescissions to Congress for expedited consideration under Section 1017 of the Impoundment Control Act (ICA) of 1974. The House of Representatives reportedly plans to introduce, debate, and pass a bill to implement the President’s proposed rescissions as soon as next week. The Senate would have until mid-July to send the bill to the President for his signature.  While previous presidents have proposed rescissions, Congress has never fully deployed the ICA’s procedures to rescind appropriated funds.  Because the ICA provides a statutory limit on debate for rescissions bills in the Senate, the recissions process could be a powerful tool for a Congress and a President—when both chambers and the White House are under single-party control—to cut discretionary spending.

The Impoundment Control Act and Rescission Procedure

Congress adopted the ICA in 1974 to limit executive branch authority to decline to spend (“impound”) congressionally appropriated funds.  Until the Nixon Administration, presidents generally viewed appropriation levels as “ceilings” on permissible spending.  If a project came in under budget, an executive branch agency could simply return the leftover funds to the Treasury.  Presidents Truman and Nixon both used this impoundment power aggressively.  The ICA codified an assertion that spending of congressionally appropriated funds was not optional, requiring the president to send a “special message” to Congress specifying the amount of the proposed recission and the justification for why the funds should not be spent, before withholding funds. If Congress does not pass legislation to approve the President’s recommendation within 45 legislative days, the executive branch must then spend the funds and the President may not propose to rescind them again. 

The ICA specifically limits debate on rescissions bills on the Senate floor to 10 hours, meaning these measures are not subject to the Senate filibuster and may become law if passed by a simple majority vote in both chambers.  A rescissions bill can be amended, but amendments must be germane. If a rescissions measure passes through both chambers of Congress within 45 days of the president’s transmission of the special message, the president may impound the funds.

Congress has never in the 51-year history of the ICA deployed these procedures in full.  Instead, Congress can, and often does, rescind funding through ordinary legislation (including annual appropriations bills that are subject to the Senate filibuster, and budget reconciliation bills, which are not).  In several instances, the Senate has also approved rescission bills by unanimous consent, bypassing the filibuster but also skipping the ICA procedure.

History and Precedent

According to the Congressional Research Service, four presidents have submitted rescissions packages under Section 1017 of the ICA, but the procedure has never successfully been used on a partisan basis. Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter used the rescission authority ten times, but those rescissions were not controversial and passed the Senate by unanimous consent. George H.W. Bush submitted $7.9 billion in rescissions in 1992, which also passed on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis, with 404 votes in the House and 90 votes in the Senate. In his first term, President Trump proposed $15 billion in rescissions. The measure narrowly passed the House, 210 votes to 206, but failed in the Senate, 48 votes to 50. Consequently, Section 1017 has never successfully been used to rescind funds on a partisan basis. In current case, the President’s proposal would rescind funding from bills signed by his predecessor.Continue Reading Trump Rescissions May Revive Dormant Process to Fast Track Spending Cuts

President Trump recently issued two separate Executive Orders (EOs) that will have implications for how federal agencies seek to promote the administration’s goal of attracting domestic and foreign investment to industrial projects in the United States, with particular implications for the semiconductor and critical minerals industries. 

  1. An EO on March 31st establishes an “Investment Accelerator” office within the Department of Commerce that will be responsible for overseeing the implementation of the CHIPS Program—including the negotiation of agreements under the CHIPS Act.  This office will also provide technical and regulatory support for investors, and seek to facilitate research collaborations between private industry and national labs. 
  2. An earlier EO issued on March 20th seeks to mobilize federal lending and leasing authorities at the Department of Defense (DoD), the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), and other federal agencies to support the development of domestic critical mineral projects.  Per an accompanying fact sheet, the White House is taking a broad interpretation of covered minerals under this March 20th Order and will seek to include materials such as coal. 

Both EOs are notable efforts by the White House to align federal spending and financial assistance programs with the Trump Administration’s priorities, which have variously included calls to promote self-sufficiency in critical materials and promoting “energy independence” and “energy dominance.”  These efforts come against a backdrop under which the Administration is also pursuing the use of tariffs to promote U.S. manufacturing, and taking steps to review and in some cases modify or terminate infrastructure or energy-related grants from the Biden-era.  More details are provided below.  Continue Reading Trump Administration Issues Executive Orders that Seek to Shape CHIPS Program and Promote Domestic Mineral Production

Barely noticed in the firehose stream of presidential activity since the inauguration was a brief Oval Office mention of cutting a deal with Ukraine for access to its critical minerals. Securing steady access to uranium, the rare earth elements, and other critical minerals is a natural priority for an America First agenda, so President Trump’s February 3 statement is unlikely to be his last. Changes to the tax code, permitting reform, regulatory incentives, and partnerships with allies as well as troubled nations are among the actions to watch for.

A Bipartisan Issue

Leaders of both parties agree that action is needed. “Whether it’s critical minerals with China … or uranium from Russia, we can’t be dependent on them,” Secretary of the Interior Doug Bergum asserted in his confirmation hearing. “We’ve got the resources here. We need to develop them.” Virginia Senator Mark Warner (D, VA) recently charged, “China dominates the critical mineral industry and is actively working to ensure that the U.S. does not catch up.” He urged, “The U.S. must, alongside allies, take meaningful steps to protect and expand our production and procurement of these critical minerals.” President Biden’s State Department was even more blunt, asserting that China is intentionally oversupplying lithium to “lower the price until competition disappears.”

Several recent developments have increased U.S. policymakers’ concerns about future supplies of critical minerals. New technologies, including artificial intelligence, promise to dramatically boost demand. China, meanwhile, is using new export control laws to curtail exports to the United States. A resurgent war in the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), ostensibly over tribal rivalries, is actually a fight over the country’s rich mineral resources. These include gold and diamonds, but also coltan, an ore from which tantalum is extracted. Tantalum is extremely valuable for its use in the capacitors found in smartphones, laptops, and medical equipment.

The number of minerals in question (51), the usual number of steps in the production chain (4), and the variety of international agreements, public laws, private initiatives, and emerging technologies add up to a dizzyingly complex set of issues. Nevertheless, the bipartisan alignment evident in the above statements signals that impacted industries should watch closely for fast-moving legislative and regulatory developments.

Market Overview

Critical minerals are essential for a long list of industrial and defense-related needs. Attention is often focused on the 17 ‘rare earth elements,’ (REEs) but the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has a broader list of 50 mineral commodities that are critical to the nation’s economy and national security. Uranium is excluded by a statutory definition but is often tracked in parallel. Together, these 51 elements are used for a far wider array of products than is often recognized. The 17 REEs alone are also needed for oil refining, guided missiles, radar arrays, MRI machines, computer chips, hydrogen electrolysis, lasers, aluminum manufacturing, cameras, jet engines, satellite manufacturing, and a long list of other advanced applications.Continue Reading What President Trump Might Do on Critical Minerals

Likely the most significant legislation Congress will consider this year is a budget reconciliation bill.  For weeks, congressional Republicans and President Trump have been laying the groundwork to agree on a process for advancing Trump’s agenda via the special legislative process of reconciliation, with the original aim to have a…

Continue Reading Budget Reconciliation:  Process Primer and FY25 Senate Budget Resolution Overview

We’ve seen this movie before. Conservatives, eager to bend the curve on federal outlays, are preparing to use the only leverage they have (their votes) while Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer is talking about “House Republican extremists” causing a government shutdown. In most people’s eyes, Republicans have “lost” every shutdown fight since 1995. So why are conservatives back at it again?

Beyond their preference for a smaller government, conservatives are not alone in seeing runaway spending as a dire threat and will admit that their own party shares the blame. Our political system is structurally ill-equipped to turn off spending once it begins. A new estimate that the deficit will double to $2 trillion this year and Fitch Ratings’ recent downgrade of government credit are the most recent reminders that the problem is real. Efforts to rein in the deficit date back at least to the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings agreement in 1985 and include proposed Constitutional amendments, the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 (PAYGO), the Line Item Veto Act of 1996, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, a “sustainable growth rate” for Medicare reimbursements, George W. Bush’s plan to make Social Security sustainable, the 2010 Simpson-Bowles Commission, the 2011 ‘Supercommittee,’ sequestration, the discretionary spending caps in the Budget Control Act of 2011, revenue-producing tax increases, and growth-generating tax cuts.

None of it worked and the government is $32 trillion in debt. Congress rarely makes tough decisions without an action-forcing mechanism and conservatives want to be that mechanism. The House’s two conservative caucuses, the Freedom Caucus and the larger Republican Study Committee have identified similar priorities. Most broadly, they do not want the Covid-era surge in spending to serve as the baseline for future spending. The FY 2023 omnibus, which was called a “monstrosity” by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, passed the House with almost no GOP support in the very last days of the Democrats’ majority. Conservatives want to return to pre-Covid levels or lower. With $115 billion in rescissions, House appropriators have offered budgetary authority at pre-pandemic (FY 2022) levels, but conservatives say this is a gimmick that won’t reduce actual outlays. On this point, the Heritage Foundation says, ‘This represents an unprecedented expansion of rescissions as a budgetary tool to add spending within appropriations caps.’ Many conservatives also see the President’s emergency supplemental request as an end-run around the debt-limit agreement and have a longstanding position that supplementals should be offset.Continue Reading What Conservatives Want From the Spending Spat

With just one race in each chamber still pending, we know that in the 118th Congress, Republicans will control the House with a slim majority, and Democrats will hold the Senate with either 50 or 51 votes. Republicans will field new chairs for every House committee. On the Senate side…

Continue Reading Outlook for Party and Committee Leadership and Committee Priorities in the 118th Congress

Republicans are very disappointed in the “red fizzle,” but they are still very likely to take control of the House of Representatives and they see a silver lining and a positive future in Ron DeSantis’s tremendous victory in Florida. The result has some parallels to 2020 when Democrats won the White House but lost seats in the House. There are clearly cross-currents in the electorate and neither party has a mandate.

It’s notable that the shots Donald Trump took at Governor DeSantis before the election had no impact at all. In fact, DeSantis was far the biggest winner on Tuesday. He won by a huge margin. He won Miami-Dade County. He won Hispanics. He won women. He won the suburbs. He now has a Republican supermajority in the state legislature. Florida was a purple state not long ago. It is as if the projected red tsunami occurred, but only in Florida.

House Republicans will meet on Tuesday to choose their leaders. These are simple majority votes amongst Republicans in conference, except for Kevin McCarthy who will also need a majority of the whole House in January to become Speaker. The narrower than expected majority means he may have to make some promises to various groups of members. Nancy Pelosi had to do the same thing a few years ago. Steve Scalise is fairly certain to be the majority leader, but there is an ongoing race for Republican Whip.

When it comes to committees, the key thing to remember is that Republicans have term limits for their chairmen, so we’ll have some new faces. The powerful Ways and Means Committee will have a new chairman, and there is a spirited contest underway for that. Cathy McMorris Rogers will take the gavel at the very important Energy & Commerce Committee. Virginia Foxx is favored to get a term-limits waiver to take back the gavel of the Education and Labor Committee, citing both precedent and strong support from her colleagues. Jim Jordan, a leader of the Freedom Caucus, will be chairman of the Judiciary Committee.Continue Reading A Quick Take on the New House Majority