Weekly Columns and Op-Eds
In the fight against hunger, the United States has been the global leader in delivering much needed aid for decades. For nearly 70 years the Food for Peace program within the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has successfully fed over four billion people in more than 150 countries with American agriculture products. With the recent decision by the Trump administration to freeze all funds for USAID to examine and identify waste, fraud, and abuse, my colleagues and I introduced legislation to move the Food for Peace program from USAID to the U.S.
As fentanyl continues to ravage communities across the United States, the Trump Administration has taken measures to ensure Canada, Mexico, and China are doing their due diligence to address this crisis. With illicit drugs flowing over the southern border from Mexican cartels, serious security gaps at our northern border, and China manufacturing fentanyl precursors, the tariffs announced by the administration serve as a reminder of the responsibility these nations have in mitigating the crisis.
As a proven reliable and affordable source of baseload energy, hydroelectric dams supply the Pacific Northwest with nearly 90 percent of the region’s renewable energy. Here in Central Washington, these carbon-free sources are the key to our demand-driven grid and a variety of other benefits like transportation, barging, and irrigation.
Over 80 million acres of forests in the United States are overgrown and undermanaged, primarily due to burdensome federal regulations. These conditions are the kindling to the wildfires that ravage our lands every year, a challenge Central Washington is certainly no stranger to. For far too long, the federal government has cast massive, one-size-fits-all rules and regulations on forest management and put those that deal with disasters at a serious disadvantage. That is all beginning to change now.
The last four years of inaction at the southern border resulted in over 10 million illegal immigrant encounters nationwide and a record-high number of violent, illegal criminals encountered throughout the United States. By terminating catch-and-release policies, ending the ‘Remain in Mexico’ program and a full stop on construction of the border wall, President Biden and Vice President Harris have created a crisis that now permeates through the entire country.
This week marks the beginning of the 119th Congress and just the third time in the last 70 years that Republicans have controlled both chambers of Congress and the White House. Over the past four years, we have had an administration that sidestepped Congress and wielded the executive branch to tighten the federal government’s grip on taxpayers, small businesses, farmers and ranchers, and countless other industries while pushing inflation to record levels.
