Promoting Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency
Dear Friend,
I hope you and your loved ones had a happy Fourth of July weekend. This week, Congress returned to Washington and the House continued debate on the Fiscal Year 2014 Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act. Read on to learn what else I’ve been up to this week.
Promoting Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency
Bringing Transparency and Accountability to the FISA Court and NSA
More than $500,000 in Grant Funding for Memphis
Health Care Reform: Getting Ready to Enroll
Consumer Protection
Subsidizing Billionaires Instead of Supporting Nutrition Programs?
Democratic Whip Task Force on Poverty and Opportunity
Protecting the Right to Choose
Grant Announcements
Promoting Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency
Solar power is the most abundant energy resource on the planet and demand for solar power right here in America is at an all-time high. Investing in renewable energy will result in lower heating and cooling bills across the country, help private-sector employers in Memphis like Sharp Electronics create jobs, and push our nation towards greater national security by increasing our energy independence. That’s why I introduced an amendment this week to the Energy and Water Development Appropriations bill that would have shifted $50 million in unnecessary—and unrequested—funding from nuclear weapons programs to green energy and energy efficiency programs. I was disappointed that my amendment failed in a late-night vote.
Bringing Transparency and Accountability to the FISA Court and NSA
Before I came back to Memphis when Congress left for the Fourth of July, I introduced the FISA Court Accountability Act to help bring transparency to the Court that makes decisions regarding whether or not federal agencies like the National Security Agency (NSA) can spy on American citizens. You can read a little more about the legislation here and here. Right now, the Court’s 11 unelected judges are all appointed by one unaccountable individual: Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Of the 11 judges that he appointed who are currently serving on the Court, 10 of them were first nominated to the Federal bench by Republican Presidents.
The FISA Court is not like a regular court. In fact, the judges hear only one side’s argument—the government’s. No one is there to argue in favor of our civil rights or our personal privacy, so it’s not all that surprising that in the more than 1,000 cases that came before the court last year, it ruled in favor of the government and in favor of surveillance in every single case except for one. And in all but a handful of cases, the FISA Court refuses to disclose to the public—or to Congress—what the details of their rulings are. So we don’t know what they are doing or how it impacts us as citizens.
My legislation would change the way that members of the court are appointed by making sure that elected representatives have a say in who ends up on the court, increase the threshold the court must meet to issue decisions, and mandate that all of the court’s decisions are disclosed to Congress.
The FISA Court Accountability Act won’t resolve all of our concerns about the FISA Court or NSA surveillance of American citizens, but it’s a start. It will bring accountability and transparency to the FISA Court and fix some of its most egregious problems.
I’ll be on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal tomorrow morning starting at 7:30AM CT to discuss my bill and other topics. You can tune in online here.
More than $500,000 in Grant Funding for Memphis
This week, I announced more than half a million dollars in grant funding for Memphis. The University of Memphis was awarded $83,289 for a project that will help students obtain real-world, hands-on field and laboratory experience, and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis received $22,089 to help train nurses to apply anesthesia to patients, a crucial and potentially dangerous aspect of many operations.
I also announced almost $450,000 in funding that will be used by Christ Community Health Services and the Memphis Health Center to help enroll uninsured Memphians in the new health coverage options that will be made available through President Obama’s health care reform law on October 1st.
Health Care Reform: Getting Ready to Enroll
The grants to our local health centers are just the latest steps by the federal government to help make applying for and enrolling in health coverage options through the Affordable Care Act as easy as possible. In addition to these grants, the Administration also recently launched a new, consumer-focused HealthCare.gov website and 24-hour call center to help Americans across the country prepare for and better understand open enrollment in the new Health Insurance Marketplace. If you are uninsured and would like to learn how the health care reform law can help you, just stop by one of these health centers, visit the website, or call 800-318-2596.
Regulations play an incredibly important role in protecting consumers and all Americans from potential abuses—both from big business and from the government. This week the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law, on which I am the ranking member, considered a series of bills aimed at slowing down the federal regulatory rulemaking process so much that it would be virtually impossible to protect public health and safety. I spoke out against these bills and will continue to work to make sure that we adequately protect consumers across the country.
Subsidizing Billionaires Instead of Supporting Nutrition Programs?
Just minutes ago, the Republican Leadership in the House broke their own rules requiring that legislation be posted online for 72 hours before a vote and jammed through a radical, last-minute Farm Bill that continues to subsidize rich farmers and big agriculture conglomerates but provides nothing for nutrition, food-stamp, and local food bank programs that children and the less fortunate across the country rely on. I am disappointed by this baldly partisan maneuver and will continue to fight for these important programs.
Democratic Whip Task Force on Poverty and Opportunity
The Democratic Whip Task Force on Poverty and Opportunity met with Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan on Tuesday. During our meeting, I enjoyed discussing how we can work to shrink and eliminate the opportunity gap many young people face and implored the Secretary to reach out to Memphis and include our city in any federal aid programs available. I’m glad to have a partner in Secretary Donovan who understands that in too many places in this country, a child’s opportunities are determined by their ZIP code rather than their abilities, and I look forward to working with him in the coming years.
Protecting the Right to Choose
This morning, I spoke with Planned Parenthood Greater Memphis Region’s Joan Carr as well as U of M and Rhodes students visiting DC to let Congress know how important the right to choose is for women everywhere. Each of the young women who visited today have received a HOPE Lottery scholarship and made me very proud. Women’s rights are human rights and human rights are women’s rights. I will continue fighting to ensure that this critical human right is protected and not curtailed.
I regularly release a list of grant announcements from federal agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Transportation, and others. These federal funding opportunities are available to faith-based and neighborhood associations, nonprofits and other community organizations in the 9th district. The announcements are updated regularly on my website.
As always, I remain.
Most sincerely,
Steve Cohen
Member of Congress