Representative Turner
Major Votes:
None
Other Activity
July 2: Rep. Turner is a House conferee for the National Defense Authorization Act. He will negotiate the differences in the version passed by the House and that passed by the Senate. According to his Facebook and Twitter postings, he will work to maintain the House’s $182 million for an expansion project at WPAFB. He also will fight to keep provisions that expedite hiring and help the Air Force Research Lab work with small businesses.
July 5, 6, 7: No comments on Pruitt resignation found.
Senator Portman
Major Votes: None
Other Activity
July 2: In an op-ed for the CINCINNATI ENQUIRER, “Congress Taking Action to Combat the Growing
Influx of Fentanyl,” Senator Portman promoted his Synthetics Trafficking & Overdose Prevention Act or
STOP Act. The bipartisan legislation passed the House in June and the full Senate will vote very soon. It
will help identify and stop synthetics from being shipped (mainly from China) through the US Post Office
to traffickers in the United States.
July 3: In a press release, the Senator announced that on June 29, he introduced the bipartisan Restore Our Parks Act to deal with almost $12 billion of deferred maintenance backlog at the National Park Service. Ohio has $103 million in maintenance backlog for our 8 national parks. Locally, $1.8 million is needed by the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park; almost $2 million is required by Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument in Wilberforce.
July 5, 6, 7: No comments on Pruitt resignation found.
July 6: During the holiday week, the Senator toured the new PreventionFirst facility in his home base of Cincinnati. He also held an Opioid Roundtable with local religious leaders, officials, and law enforcement.
July 6: Senator Portman reiterated his opposition to immigrant family separation on Twitter and voiced support for the Keep Families Together & Enforce the Law Act. Also on Twitter, he linked the 213,00 new jobs reported this week to the tax cut and said wages are rising as well. Other reports seem to be contradicting the idea of any meaningful wage increases for Ohioans.
July 6: Senator Portman attended the swearing in ceremony of 73 citizens at the Cincinnati naturalization ceremony and expressed his congratulations to these new Americans.
Senator Brown
Major Votes: None
Other Activity
July 2: Senator Brown visited the Life Revitalization Center in Toledo to discuss the shortage of Ohio workers created by the addiction epidemic. He is leading bipartisan legislation to combine federal workforce and job training grants to deal with these shortages. Employers cannot fill jobs right now because workers cannot pass the drug tests. This combining of resources is a provision in the Senate’s Opioid Crises Response Act which is based on his CARE Act.
July 2: In a press release and on Twitter (July 4), the Senator praised the FBI for their arrest of the terror suspect in the Cleveland incident. He said Clevelanders should be grateful to the FBI and all law enforcement for their work on this case and stated that these members of law enforcement are certainly working hard to keep us safe and secure from homegrown terrorists, too.
July 3: As ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, & Urban Affairs, Senator Brown blasted the Federal Reserve for having private conversations with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and offering them a deal that allows them to maintain their capital payouts and receive “conditional non-objection” stress test grades instead of failing the tests. In a release, as well as on Twitter and Facebook, the Senator said, “In the past, bank stress tests were real stress tests. These days, it is more like a cozy conversation between friends.”
July 5: Senator Brown issued a statement on the Pruitt resignation. (In the past, Senator Brown called for this because of reliable reports of the misuse of taxpayer monies.) In the release, the Senator stated that Pruitt used our dollars to benefit himself while “working to gut Lake Erie cleanup & the Renewable Fuel Standard.” Many Ohio jobs depend on these programs. He emphasized that Pruitt should never have been confirmed in the first place.
July 6: The Senator led a bipartisan group in writing a letter to the CDC calling for the Center to furnish better resources and support for medical examiners, coroners, and toxicologists who are involved in and often overwhelmed by the addiction crisis. The letter points to the terrible strain, both physical and emotional, placed on these people. Read the full text of the letter on Senator Brown’s website under Press Releases.
July 6: Senator Brown, co-chair of the House & Senate Joint Select Committee on Pensions. announced that he and Committee Member Senator Portman will host a hearing at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus
on Friday, July 13, on “Understanding What’s at Stake for Current Workers and Retirees.” The meeting is in the Richard H. Finan Hearing Room 126 at 2:00 p.m. The members of Congress will hear from workers and retirees affected by a pension crisis that will involve 1.3 million Americans and thousands of small businesses. Ohio pensions nearing bankruptcy without Congressional action include Central States Teamsters Pension Plan, The United Mine Workers Pension Plan, Ironworkers Local 17 Pension Plan, the
Ohio Southwest Carpenters Pension Plan, and Bakers and Confectioners Pension Plan. Check out Brown’s website for further information. Any solution the Committee produces would be guaranteed an expedited Senate vote without amendments.