Everybody nice to have a Thursday. It's a little warmer here in DC, so we're happy about that. I know it's been warmer and sunnier at home. So the spring is on its way, which we all love. I hope spring brings government funding we are. That is the topic of the day here on Capitol Hill, the house is now joining the House passed the continuing resolution means that we will be funding the government through September, the end of September, at the same levels that we funded it last year. It's not the optimal situation, but it certainly avoids a shutdown. And so that's what we see here in the Senate. We see Senator Schumer and as the leader of the Democrats, for some reason, saying they will not support this and that they want another extension. In my view, in his own words, he has said that a shutdown would penalize brace cost, lower safety, the TSA, the Border Patrol, the Coast Guard, don't get paid during a shutdown, so it's a road to nowhere. You heard me say before. So let's get this behind us. If Senator Schumer was so concerned about this, he could have brought the bills up and sat on his desk for six months last year to be able to consider these individually, we would have had this problem way in the in the rear view mirror. So I'm going to vote for, I'm going to vote for the motion to move forward and hopefully say your head will prevail. Here, I just sent a letter and joined with the head of the art Services Committee, Roger Wicker, from Mississippi, to alert the President as to our deep interest in cyber security we've seen over the last several years, the last administration, a couple very deep dives into our cyber by the Chinese, and we want to avoid that strict enforcement mechanism to be able to defend ourselves against a cyber attack. So that's an issue that is going to be important for the nation, but also for the region of our state. We have a cyber Institute of critical infrastructure going up in in Pat Marshall, in conjunction with WVU and the guard and the Department of Defense and some cyber I think, is going to be a concern for the future safety of this country. Yesterday, the EPA Administrator took down 31 separate regulations. Yes, these regulations have cost, cost trillions of dollars. Have stopped projects have, I think, really stymied development a lot of ways. And I also think in some ways, it's been harmful to the environment, and that you can't clean up or do do repairs in the environment because of all these regulatory environments that we see ourselves in front of. So I applaud the administrators often for doing this, I think it will not just ease the cost of moving forward with projects, but I honestly think it will preserve and make better in a lot of ways, the environmental environment, the environment that we see around different projects, because we'll be able to get to the core issues of clean water and clean air. So we also are going to have a bill in front of us that I think very important for West Virginia. It's called the halt, halt Sentinel act. We will be passing it tomorrow. It's schedule. It puts fentanyl and all the fentanyl derivatives on schedule one, with very harsh penalties. 74,000 Americans lost their jobs. They lost their lives. 70. Let me say that again, 74,000 Americans lost their lives in because of fentanyl or fentanyl derivative. Last year, we know West Virginia has been particularly hard hit. So anything we can do, I'm an original co sponsor of this bill. It's extremely important, I think, to keep fighting the scourge of drug addiction and certainly of that deadly, deadly substance fentanyl, which we see killing too many Americans and certainly too many West Virginians. So I'm going to start out, will he get a call out? Yes. We start with Charles Young with WB News,
yes, ma'am. I want to talk a little bit
about the EPA deregulatory actions. So in the relief that the EPA put out yesterday, the language they used was reconsideration of a lot of these measures. So you know what the next steps are, the timelines there is for this reconsideration, the way I read, that didn't immediately mean they were being done away with. Thank you. Well, a lot of these their rules and regulations, and they've been in their final stage, which a lot of them are, it is, it is impossible to take them, take them down without a re review. So what the administration will do is review these rules and create new rules. That's a timely process, and so while he has put a hold on them for right now, I think, I think it will take a while to reformulate some of those good neighbor policies and others that really make more sense for our area and region. So I think the regulations will still be in place. It will be regulations that make more sense. They're more sensitive, I think, to not just the economy, but borders and other specific geographic areas. This is Kelly, just a quick reminder, don't drop off the call in the middle of the Q and A please basically end to do that next up to Jamie Baker. WTO be Hey, Senator capo, how are you? SBA hosted more than $1 billion nothing for nothing for local food banks. For anywhere, more than 50% of your school children rely on free meals. Is that something that is going to be coming through funding that's going to help specifically in the northern Canton Louis VA premium schools? Well, I do think, and I visited the school quite often, and you're absolutely right, particularly the breakfast at lunch, and in some cases, the final meal of the day is provided to the students to take home, and sometimes even meals over the weekend a child with hunger, believe it or not, the country is an issue, and you can't learn. You can't be emotionally in the right place if you're hungry or you're malnourished because you're not eating processed foods. So I'm sure that the Department of Agriculture, in conjunction with HHS, in conjunction with the State Education and Nutrition Department of Agriculture, will be working every morning like this. I don't think this I don't think this is going to result in any child not getting to eat a meal that they're counting on for their school. That I would reject that premise, and I think they're reformulating that program as it goes goes forward. I've also visited our food banks. They're absolutely essential, and sadly, they're growing. And why are they growing? Because there's a need, and I think we have to be very confident of that. Next up we have for Scott Hudson with next door, hi senators. Can you talk about your concerns there? President has announced there, when it comes to European goods, are you concerned there, that the calls will then be passed down to the American people, and also you worries on the back and forth that we're seeing with there? Well, I think the President has said from the beginning, when he campaigned, when he served the last time, and has he moved forward into his first several weeks of his presidency, that he believes that he believes that the American workers being disadvantaged because of tariffs that are imposed on us from other countries. We want a fair playing field. We want something that doesn't disadvantage our American products or our American workers. So that's the frame of work that he is dealing with. I see now as I think the uncertainty is what's concerning people, and I share that concern simply because it's a ping pong factor going one way to get retaliatory tariff, as you mentioned from Europe. As you know, companies can't plan. There's a lot of supply chain issues, particularly as you go to Canada and Mexico with the United States. And these are all our friends, and we need to have friendly trading policies with our friends. So I think the President is in a deep negotiation on these, and I think what you'll see is him asking for some more patience to sort of ride this out and see where it ends up, so that our American products are not disadvantaged worldwide, and they're being sold into every market. So I see us in the middle of a process right now. There is okay associated with it, no doubt. But I think in the end, I think our American workers are going to be in a better spot, and I think the consumer will be too. There is talk of prices going up. This is not a time we can afford to have our prices go up. There's no doubt. Next question is, Tom Sussman with
WMD recently, in Jackson and Mason County, and in talking with the State Department of Agriculture, a number of producers in West Virginia participated in the USDA Food school program and the food bank program, which helped supply West Virginia products and local food banks and USDA, of course, you canceled both of those, and according to the Department of Agriculture, these cuts would definitely come back to local farmers. Come back to local farmers, also West Virginia farmers and saw farmers would be impacted by the trade war. What's your message to local farmers? They're impacted by both the USDA policies of the change and the tariffs
struggle? Yeah. I mean, I think the agriculture community in general has really, really rough waters over the last several years. The price of our American ag products is below the cost of actually delivering those products. And many of our farmers, particularly in West Virginia, but also country, are offering our very same margin anyway. And there's some things that they really can't control, like the weather and and so that has an added strain in many of these are family farms. You know, I think, as I said to answer the question earlier, I think the local, local food to School program is something that I know in West Virginia, we've worked on to try to really develop makes sense. It helps the farmer and it helps the students at school to have eaters and other eating food from localities, but also to get nutritious meals. You know, we're going to go back with my friends with the administration to find out what how it is this program can be reinstated, and maybe in a different way. That's what we're finding a lot of these on these cancelations or holds that the administration is holding them so that they can make make sure they go out in a more efficient and cost effective way. And I think that's what we're going to have here right now. That's not much that's not much comfort to our farmers. So what I would say to them is I'm on your side, and I think that the questions that I'm going to be asking the Secretary of Agriculture hopefully will help us loosen some of the dollars that are provided, particularly for schools, but also for our food banks. Next up we have wtrs,
I hope your weather is a nice is ours? It's beautiful. It's beautiful. I want to go back to department. We talked about that a couple weeks ago. My question is, I've been talking to people within the northern County, among school districts. The problem they're seeing is, is there some communication between what housing in DC and what's going to the state I've got. What are we going to do? We have 50 separate systems now, 50 different states. How do they handle these pieces? Unexpectedly? So there just seems to be a lack of communication, especially when it comes down to dealing with taking over an entire system with no support from the federal government. What?
What is the issue? What do these differences have to do? Yeah, I think the issue is that the education at the federal level is a one size fits all provision with a lot of the regulatory environment that goes with any kind of federal program. And I think the feeling that the President has is that education choice and education decisions to be made closer to the students, whether it's the state or even down to the locality. And I agree with that. I agree that the dollars would be much more efficiently if they were closer to the students in West Virginia, or at least within the State Department of Education to make those decisions. We obviously have a lot of Title One schools. We have a lot of kids with disabilities. We have all kinds of we've already been talking about the food program, but we walked all kinds of different than other states. So I think what the President wants to do is try to follow those funds. So when you say without federal support, I would say the federal student would be there in terms of dollars. It's just a bureaucracy will not be present here in Washington. I can tell you, I have many people that have actually gone to the Department of Ed here in Washington to have it for help or to seek advice, and there's nobody there, because everybody's been working on remote education for federal department education. We'll be talking about educating children and figuring out the best way to deliver services. With that. Hopefully this will all hire now in terms and it will be better. It will be better for the local educators, the local principal, the local county board, to be able to deliver to those locality a higher quality, more efficient and the dollars will go farther, because they won't be diluted here in Washington with all of the regulatory environments that you see here, joining up, West
Virginia tax credit for caregivers. In the session on state legislature introduced the credit for caring tax which will provide $5,000 federal tax credits caregivers. I was wondering why this is important to you.
Well, thanks for the question, Rick. And we've worked with AARP, and you know, I've had a situation in my own family where at my parents age, we realized how difficult and time consuming and expensive caring for your elderly parents can be. We're in lucky position that we were able to do that. There's so many people that can't, and it's expensive. Families are diverse all across, all across the country, and so to pay for those services can be prohibited. So what happens is, family members, with their job, they move closer to home or nothing. You know, the care that is delivered, particularly for elderly, is not delivered at all, and then something, somebody falls or something happens. I mean, that's basically what happens in my family. So I feel this very deeply that we've got to give our caregivers, who don't get compensated, some kind of relief so that they can provide those services. But in the end, it's going to be less expensive for the system in general, and I think it's all going to provide better quality care for those that need it. So I'm hoping I'm joined as a bipartisan bill. Joined with Michael Bennett, Colorado, to introduce this, and we'll see where we go. We're going to keep
pushing it. Next up, we have Brad mcelhinin,
oh, hi, Senator. Do you see a government shutdown coming? I thought in your opening remarks, you seem fairly optimistic about averting a shutdown. It looks like there are maybe different paths forward. But if I'm understanding right, the Senate needs 60 votes to get through cloture. There are 53 senators in the Republican majority. One of your colleagues, Rand Paul, has kind of a complicated No. Do you have a sense of who is on board and can this get done up against deadline?
Well, the debt, you know, we always work more quickly against the deadline. It's certainly not the way, the optimal way to do business. I'll say that. And so what I think is when, when we look to, really the Democrats and Senator Schumer, the question is going to be, do you want to continue with the funding for the governor? Do you want to shut it down? And if you don't vote for this, you're going to shut down government, which we know is very damaging. It is not just damaging in a fiscal sense. It's damaging to the psyche of the American people. They they they're so frustrated that we can't do our work. And this is, you know, these bills have been sitting on, and I mentioned this the beginning, sitting on Senator Schumer's desk. In July, they came out bipartisan. He's saying now he wants a bipartisan product. He had a bipartisan product sitting on his desk for 12 of the 13 bills for six months, and did not bring one to the floor. So I get a bit frustrated by that, that now all of a sudden, you know, we need a 30 day extension. We're not going to do a 30 day extension. We're going to pass this, and we're going to start looking forward to 2026, that we should be doing. We should be doing it on the Senate debating all of these bills. That's what we're here for, and I hope that's what we do. So yes, I think it will pass on Friday, because I think in the end, at least 10 Democrats will say to themselves, I don't want to shut the government down again. That's what it's going to boil down to next week. Mike Tony with Trump, we it
up now. Just wanted to follow up on your support for the EPA fallout of rollbacks planned yesterday. There's fun to drill down on there's concern that a lot of this goes too far, but very, very broad reaching, not just power plants, but air quality, food the wetlands, chemical facilities, estimated economic damages from pollution, scientists are finding the basis for the US fight against climate change. Just wanted to see to what extent you're concerned that could make West Virginia's permanent change impacts more vulnerable to those effects, making it water dirty, or West Virginia sticker. And I also wanted to see what you call it, the legal state of play regarding the endangered findings of social concerns that may be overreaching constitutional
Okay, let me I'll
address the regulatory data. I'll address the engagement finding on the second part, I believe, I think, very vocal about this. It should come as a brad the Biden administration follow the steps of the Obama administration, but double down on on regulations that don't look at the effects of what they're doing in the whole or the practical applications of these regulations. And so I think what it's done is stymied projects, even even so many things as new chemicals. We can't get new chemicals out. Hold on.
That sounds
like we're the ones that are gonna have to use our line. Sorry about that. That was the found white powder in the men's room. So they had to now tell us that it's it was negative. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't something nefarious. So sorry about that.
So in
to begin again, the moves that administrator Zeldin made, some of these regulations, as I said, difficult to implement, if not impossible. And I was starting out talking about the chemicals office, for instance, a new chemical trying to come online couldn't get licensed because of all the regulatory environment. Well, is that cleaner for the environment? When a new chemical would take an old chemical that's probably older, dirtier and less, less refined than a new chemical. No, it's not. But because of the bureaucratic regulatory regime that President Biden, his administration took, none of these, none of these new chemicals were able to make it through the licensing procedure. So to me, this is what we're trying to do. We're trying to, you know, I reject the premise, if we're going to make water dirtier and air dirtier and people thicker, I don't believe anybody wants that. I certainly don't want that. But I do want a environmental framework that people can a follow, can afford, and this is the best it takes into consideration all of the different impacts. And so that's what I think administrator Zeldin has done in terms of the endangerment finding. It is a little more far reaching. You are correct. And I was quoted yesterday as saying that it has some legal encumbrances that it will have to face. And I think that is definitely true, because it's endangerment finding was made in 2009 I believe, and and so let's, let's see how that one plays out,
and it will definitely be litigated in the court.
Our last question
a follow up from Rashad Hudson, and then after the senator answers this, she does have to hop so if you have additional follow up to shoot me a text or an email. Rashad, you're up,
Senator. We're hearing that there's a shortage on ICE detention
beds and that funding is needed to increase the amount of beds given the amount of deportations that are taking place. Are you hearing that, and do you think funding is needed immediately? Yes, we are absolutely hearing that there are not enough detention beds because President Trump is serious about making sure that dangerous criminals that are here illegally, gang members and others, are deported out of the United States. And they need, they need detention beds to be able to put people in while they're waiting for their proper paperwork and all the adjudication to occur. So yes, we also are having in this continuing resolution another $485 million for that specific reason. So we're answering the President's call for more ICE detention beds to be able to move forward with his goal of making this country safer. Thanks, everyone. Thank you.
