November 7, 2009
Wyden News Now
You will find the lastest issue of Senator Wyden's e-newsletter below:
Welcome to the August issue of Wyden News Now. It is an exciting time in the nation's capitol and I am working hard to reform health care, attack government waste, end oil speculation that plagues our energy marketplace, and save Oregon's special places.
Working for the Nation
Choices Are the Key to Reform
America is all about choices. Health care should be no exception. But the sad fact is that close to half of Americans who have health insurance through their employer get only one plan option. That is not choice. One size does not fit all, especially with something as complex and important as a family's health insurance. Americans who are happy with their current plan should be able to keep it, but those who are unhappy with their plan should be able to reject it and have the choice of finding something better.
With this in mind, I have created a plan called the Free Choice Proposal that will give people more choice of health care plans without blowing up the employer-based system. Through my plan, employees will be given the choices and portability that are needed in a health care system through a national insurance marketplace known as an "exchange." Employees will receive more coverage options through their employer or receive a fixed voucher for the amount their employers would have paid for health insurance that can be used to purchase the coverage they want inside the exchange. It also gives employers the option to bring their entire group to the exchange and get a discount on the group's coverage. That will give employers more bargaining power with insurers to help them get the better value at a lower price. Thanks to the size of the exchange, Americans will have the choices and the savings that come from a large pool of buyers without upending the employer-based system.
Click here to read about my Free Choice Proposal.
Fighting Wasteful F-22 Spending
With our economy struggling, the need to clamp down on government waste has never been greater. Last month, I had the opportunity to vote against spending $1.75 billion on F-22 fighter jets sought by the Air Force. I was successful in helping to block the purchase of seven F-22 Raptors that even the Pentagon said they didn't want.
Click here to read my floor speech.
Click here to watch it on You Tube.
Fixing Bureaucratic Mistakes To Give Vets Their Back Pay
The nation's fighting men and women have sacrificed so much for this country. But thanks to a bureaucratic mistake, some 20,000 servicemembers - 864 from Oregon -- were denied back pay for their paid leave. Under the provision I authored in the 2010 Defense Authorization Bill that passed the Senate last month, those servicemembers will be eligible to collect up to $200 per day retroactively under the Post Deployment and Mobilization Respite Absence (PDMRA) program.
The program was designed to give servicemembers who had been deployed longer than they were supposed to be, the additional time they needed to adjust to civilian life. Due to a delay between the announcement of the leave program by the Department of Defense and the establishment of the program by the individual military services, thousands of servicemembers left the military before receiving the added pay they were due. They slipped through the cracks because the military didn't implement the system before they left the service. This legislation honors their service by giving them the back pay they deserve and would have gotten without the bureaucratic delay. I thank the committee for recognizing this important legislation, and my fellow Senators for voting for it.
Click here to read the press release when it passed out of committee.
Bringing Fairness Back to Oil Markets
Recent years have seen an epidemic of commodities speculators driving up the cost of oil and natural gas. They have used complex financial strategies to distort prices to such an extent that the effects have been felt in nearly every corner of our economy. To make matters worse, the tax code favors these financial speculators, like hedge funds and university endowments, over businesses like airlines and trucking companies that rely on low, steady oil prices just to remain in business.
That is why I have introduced the Stop Tax-breaks for Oil Profiteering (STOP) Act to tax the gains and losses by these oil speculators just as airlines and trucking companies and other commercial consumers are taxed. These speculators enjoy an unfair advantage because the money they make in the market is taxed at lower capital gains rates than other companies, or in some cases not taxed at all. This creates a perverse incentive to engage in activities that distort oil markets and harm consumers. My bill would inject some much needed fairness into the marketplace and will have the added benefit of helping to keep $4 a gallon gasoline from returning anytime soon.
Click here to read more about the STOP Act.
Working for Oregonians
Preserving the Pristine Silence of Crater Lake
Crater Lake is one of those few special places where absolute quiet can still be achieved in this age of machines and media. That is why I have taken a firm stand against the proposal to allow helicopter tours over the lake that will disrupt the silence that has attracted people to Crater Lake National Park for decades. I was recently heartened by conversations with Jonathan Jarvis, President Obama's choice to head up the U.S. National Park Service. During a private meeting as well as a public hearing on his nomination, I asked him to join me in protecting Oregon's fragile beauty. Mr. Jarvis agreed to be "a guardian" of Crater Lake and to preserve "that extraordinary experience of standing on the rim, looking down at that lake, unobstructed, in the dead quiet..."
Click here to watch the You Tube video of Mr. Jarvis' confirmation hearing.
Click here to read the press release.
Making Headway on Preserving More of the Oregon Caves
There was movement last month in my push to have the boundary of Oregon Caves National Monument expanded to include another 4,084 acres of this beautiful area. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee's subcommittee on National Parks heard testimony from directors from the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service as well as Greg Walter, a member of the Illinois Valley Community Development Organization who came all the way from Cave Junction, Oregon to speak on behalf of the bill. The conversation was excellent, and I will continue my efforts to keep Oregon's natural resources preserved.