Press Releases

Already this year we have found surprise after surprise in legislation, like the stimulus bill, when it was rushed through without seeing the light of day. A three-day window to examine legislation and consider its cost is reasonable, responsible and provides the oversight we desperately need. The president and the American people have said they want greater transparency and this resolution provides it.

During my visit to the UAE earlier this year, I was impressed by their sincerity and commitment to use nuclear power for peaceful power generation purposes and to forsake enrichment. This agreement could very well be a model used not only in the region, but around the world for the development of nuclear energy.

This proposal should be labeled ‘cap and tax.' It is nothing more than a tax disguised as an experiment to halt global warming. If you turn on a light, drive a car or buy groceries, you will pay more if this passes. When this legislation comes before the Foreign Relations Committee, where I serve, I will be asking hard questions about the impact it will have on Idahoans.

The number of places where people can safely and responsibly take part in recreational shooting and target practice has decreased over the decades.

Our trade agreements and rules must be upheld to better ensure Idaho and American softwood lumber companies and workers can compete in a just market.

The costs of catastrophic wildfires over the past decade have grown significantly. Those costs have taken funding intended for the management of our public lands. This Act protects that funding and allows foresters and other land managers to clear the backlog of projects to better protect and preserve our public lands.

This is the right thing to do. When funds are budgeted for forest fire mitigation that is where they need to be spent. There is a real need for those funds here in the western states. It is not acceptable to have bait-and-switch tactics used with the taxpayers' dollar with any funds. This amendment puts a stop to it in this instance. Assigning nearly three million dollars in forest fire money to Washington, D.C. is exactly the kind of wasteful spending I feared when Congress bypassed the regular committee process in its rush to pass the Stimulus bill.

One of my first votes as a U.S. Senator was against the release of the second half of TARP funding. This program has never worked as it was originally set up. Instead of taking troubled assets off the books of banks, it has been used to purchase stock in companies like Chrysler and GM and to finance bonuses at other banks.

Idahoans have told me time and again they do not want a government takeover of their health care delivery and that is exactly what this proposal is. This plan costs nearly one-trillion dollars, it raises taxes on America's families and small businesses and no one understands the consequences of acting on it. If we want responsible health care reform, we need to scrap all of the current proposals, slow the process down, focus on the component parts and, most importantly, understand the consequences of any changes before they are enacted. The reform also needs to be bi-partisan-something every proposal to

Over the past decade we have seen positive signs that habitat improvement and other efforts are working to restore salmon and steelhead in the Northwest. The new Administration's support of the current BiOp Plan is welcome news. I agree with the president that we should do everything we can to save salmon before anyone even considers a discussion of dam breaching. The recovery plan negotiated by the many groups with a stake in viable salmon populations should be allowed to move forward. A discussion of breaching at this point is divisive and frustrates efforts we all agree upon. Collaboration has