Category: US Senate

Source: United States Senator for Maryland Ben Cardin

June 08, 2021

VBOC at UMD will Provide Services, Training and Support to Veteran Entrepreneurs in Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship Chair Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and U.S. Small Business Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman today announced Maryland’s first Veterans Business Outreach Center (VBOC) established through a grant awarded to the University of Maryland, College Park, which will operate the new center. The VBOC at the University of Maryland will provide services, training and other support across Maryland, as well as in the District of Columbia, Delaware, and Pennsylvania.

Maryland is home to nearly 400,000 veterans and 15 military bases, including the U.S. Naval Academy, the Aberdeen Proving Ground and Fort Detrick. Senator Cardin has fought for more small business resources for veterans in Maryland and an expansion of SBA VBOC program. Most recently, he chaired a hearing to improve resources for service-disabled veteran federal contractors, as well as women and socially and economically disadvantaged contractors.

“Empowering more of our veterans with the tools they need to become successful small businesses will provide a boost to the entire entrepreneurial ecosystem across Maryland,” said Senator Cardin. “I thank SBA for this critical, timely investment that will increase Maryland’s capacity to service the region’s veterans and transitioning service members. Support for our service men and women must stay strong when they are uniform and when they transition to civilian life.”

“The military small business community – which includes entrepreneurs from active duty military, reserves, National Guard, veterans and military spouses – are a driving force in our nation’s economy. The SBA’s 22 Veterans Business Outreach Centers work hard to support these entrepreneurs, and give them the tools and support they need to live their American dream, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it’s important for our continued economic recovery and growth,” said Administrator Guzman. “The can-do spirit of our service men and women is the entrepreneurial spirit – the grit, determination and resilience it takes to start, grow and sustain a small business. At the SBA, we want our military entrepreneurs to know that we’re here to help them harness that spirit and use the skills and expertise they gained in the military to start, grow and sustain successful small businesses. We’re doing that work with this award to the University of Maryland. Our message to our nation’s military entrepreneurs is this:  You invested in our country. Now, it’s our turn to invest in you.”

“We are very proud to be part of this initiative and to leverage the University of Maryland’s entrepreneurship resources and networks to help our region’s veterans and their spouses pursue their dreams and grow their businesses,” shared Julie Lenzer, Chief Innovation Officer at the University of Maryland.

The SBA VBOC program is a national network of twenty-two locations around the country serving as a one-stop shop for transitioning or active duty service members, veterans, National Guard or reserves, and military spouses. VBOCs provide the Boots to Business transition assistance program as well as business training and workshops, mentoring, government contracts guidance, and resource referrals.

Source: United States Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV)

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, during a hearing of the U.S. Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee (HSGAC), U.S. Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV) questioned Joseph Blount, President and CEO of Colonial Pipeline, on the recent ransomware attack the company experienced, and how the U.S. can improve critical infrastructure cyber vulnerabilities, including through Senator Rosen’s Cyber Sense Act, bipartisan legislation introduced last Congress that would improve our nation’s energy grid cybersecurity and resilience. A transcript of the Senator’s exchange can be found below, and a video of the Senator’s full exchange can be found here.

ROSEN: We know that a cyber-attack is what happened to [Colonial Pipeline]. Last Congress, I introduced the Cyber Sense Act, bipartisan legislation that would create a voluntary Cyber Sense program at the Department of Energy to test the cybersecurity of products and technologies intended for use in our bulk-power system. This bill also directs the Energy Secretary to consider incentives to encourage the use of analysis and testing results when designing products and technologies; although I think the incentive would be not to be hacked.

Mr. Blount, while the program my bill would establish is solely for electric utilities, do you think a similar program for pipelines would be helpful for gas companies like yours to collaborate and communicate and have some sense of what’s going on in the industry?

BLOUNT: Senator, thank you for that question. I think that’s a great program for electric utilities, and I think that would help our side of the business be more secure and less susceptible to any threats is a great idea.

BACKGROUND: Introduced Last Congress, the bipartisan Cyber Sense Act would:

• Create a voluntary Department of Energy ‘Cyber Sense’ program that would identify and promote cyber-secure products for use in the bulk-power system.
• Establish a testing process for the products along with a reporting process of cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
• Require the Secretary of Energy to keep a related database on the products, which will aid electric utilities that are evaluating products and their potential to cause harm to the electric grid.
• Direct the Secretary of Energy to consider incentives to encourage the use of analysis and results of testing under the program in the design of products and technologies for use in the bulk-power system. 

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Source: United States Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV)

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and James Lankford (R-OK), co-founders and co-chairs of the Senate Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism, led a group of 56 Senators – representing over half the Senate – in announcing the re-launch of the Task Force. First launched in 2019, the collaboration is the first of its kind in the United States Senate, serving as a corollary to the House of Representative’s Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism.

“As antisemitism surges in the United States and around the world, we must do all that we can to put a stop to these hateful actions. In recent weeks, we’ve seen attacks on Jewish communities and Jewish-owned places of business and foreign leaders who have invoked antisemitic conspiracies. With studies showing that a majority of young Americans lack basic knowledge about the Holocaust, we have a duty to act now,” said Senator Rosen. “As Members of Congress, our responsibility to our neighbors, our friends, our community, and our children is to work together in a bipartisan way to prevent antisemitism before it starts, and to call it out when it happens. We are proud to re-launch this bipartisan Task Force once again with a total of 56 United States Senators – equally divided by party – as we continue to combat antisemitism by educating and empowering our communities.”

“Antisemitism remains a significant threat to our Jewish friends and neighbors. Senator Rosen and I and our fellow Task Force members are taking action. Antisemitism cannot continue to escalate, as we’ve seen in recent months and years both here and abroad,” said Senator Lankford. “I hope to welcome even more of our colleagues into the Task Force to call out instances of antisemitism where we see them, so when we say, ‘never again,’ we can demonstrate that we mean it.”

BACKGROUND: In 2019, Senators Rosen and Lankford launched the Senate Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism. Last Congress, the Task Force had 38 Members.

The Task Force now includes 56 Senators, with an equal number of Democrats and Republicans: Senators Michael Bennet (D-CO), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Cory Booker (D-NJ), John Boozman (R-AR), Mike Braun (R-IN), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Tom Carper (D-DE), Bob Casey (D-PA), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Susan Collins (R-ME), Chris Coons (D-DE), John Cornyn (R-TX), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Steve Daines (R-MT), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), James Lankford (R-OK), Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Gary Peters (D-MI), Rob Portman (R-OH), James Risch (R-ID), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Mike Rounds (R-SD), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Tim Scott (R-SC), Todd Young (R-IN), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Jon Tester (D-MT), John Thune (R-SD), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Mark Warner (D-VA), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Roger Wicker (R-MS), and Todd Young (R-IN).

Last month, Senators Rosen and Lankford introduced a bipartisan resolution condemning recent antisemitic incidents in the United States and around the world. The Senators’ resolution also calls on leaders to denounce antisemitism and take specific steps to address and prevent it. The resolution is now co-sponsored by 68 Senators – evenly divided by party – representing more than two-thirds of the U.S. Senate.

Senator Rosen holds the distinction of being the third female Jewish Senator in U.S. history, as well as the first former synagogue president to serve in the United States Senate.

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Source: United States Senator for Oklahoma James Lankford

06.08.21

CLICK HERE to watch Lankford’s Q&A on YouTube.

WASHINGTON, DC – Senator James Lankford (R-OK) today participated in a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing entitled, “Threats to Critical Infrastructure: Examining the Colonial Pipeline Cyber Attack.”

Lankford’s questions to Mr. Joseph Blount, Jr., the President and Chief Executive Officer of Colonial Pipeline, focused on the lessons learned by Colonial Pipeline after the cyber-attack in early May and how other companies can apply their experience to be prepared for and prevent cyber-attacks. Lankford noted that in one of his first actions as President, the Biden Administration has halted the Keystone Pipeline and that Canadian and American producers now have to try to find trains or trucks to meet our energy needs. President Biden also signaled he would not move forward with sanctions on those involved in the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would transport natural gas from Russia to Germany and threaten the energy security of the US and our European allies.

Last month, Lankford participated in a Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing in which he asked about cyber security readiness in the wake of ongoing threats from ransomware and other cyber-attacks, including the attack on the Colonial pipeline. The hearing focused on the late-2020 Russian attack on the SolarWinds Orion cyber supply chain that, over time, was determined to have impacted numerous federal agency networks.

Excerpts

On the nature of the attack on the Colonial Pipeline

Lankford: I want to ask a couple of things here. You had to do a physical inspection and a cyber-inspection of this pipeline or just going through the digital portion of it. Did y’all have a physical inspection as well?

Blount: In the early hours of May 7th, we did not know exactly what we had. We had the ransomware, but again, we’re always concerned about the security of the pipeline. And you may have read in the press—and it’s a factual statement—we drove over 29,000 miles of the pipeline, and again remember it’s only a 5,500 mile pipeline. So we had constant ground surveillance…Again, we didn’t know that it was just a cyber-attack. We had to make sure that it wasn’t potentially an attack on our physical structure as well.

On the importance of pipelines and the need to be prepared for an attack

Lankford: So I said to several people that I’ve talked to in the last month, when we saw suddenly gas lines appearing and a pipeline go down at this point, that everyone learned the importance of pipelines. If I rewind two months before that, all the conversation was about slowing down the permitting new pipelines, maybe we’re not going to do pipelines at all, make it harder to be able to do maintenance on federal lands on pipelines. Two months ago, the conversation was, well maybe we need fewer pipelines, and maybe we need to make this harder to be able to develop new pipelines. Obviously Keystone Pipeline was in the news to say, ‘We’re just not going to do that at all.’ And so products coming out of Canada, and out of Montana are just going to find trucks and trains to be able to get there. I’m not going to ask you this same question because that’s not going to be fair to you, but I’ve told a lot of folks, what we watched happen with the sudden shutdown of a pipeline is the ghost of Christmas future for the entire country if we don’t continue to maintain our pipelines, increase capacity of pipelines, if we don’t continue to expand and have a duplication of pipelines in spots to be able to make sure we have redundancy for this. Pipelines are essential to America, and the two and a half million miles of pipelines we have scattered around the country, we lose track of how incredibly important they are.

So I’m grateful that your company’s had such a good reputation. This is terrible to be a victim of a ransomware attack. And there’s something that you have that every CEO in America would like to hear, and that is, what are the lessons learned on cyber issues that you’ve already identified. Obviously, your team’s taken on, the number one’s already come out: looking for legacy entries into your system that don’t have two-factor authentication on it. What else has been identified that you need to be able to take on and to pass on to others?

Blount: Again, I think the most important thing is to not be complacent about what you have because of the pace of change on the outside from the criminal side, and then secondary to that, and equally as important is the ability to have an emergency response process in place. If we had not been trained for the last 57 years to respond to any threat, whatever that threat is. It’s an extension cord on the ground that hasn’t been taped down that someone might trip over and hurt themselves. If we hadn’t been trained like that and our employees hadn’t been trained by that, who knows how many days it would have taken to bring the asset back online? We know the importance of the asset. We’re dedicated to the American public as a result of all the training we’ve done through the years to make sure that we have the fuel that we need.

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Source: United States Senator for Florida Marco Rubio

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) introduced a bipartisan resolution remembering the 32nd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests and their violent suppression. The resolution also condemns the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Chinese Government’s ongoing violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms. 

Last week, Rubio issued a statement on the anniversary of the Chinese government and Communist Party’s violent crackdown against protestors in Tiananmen Square and the CCP’s ongoing efforts to erase the events of June 4th from memory.

The full text of the resolution is here. 

Rubio is a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

Source: United States Senator for Arkansas – John Boozman

WASHINGTON– U.S. Senator John Boozman (R-AR) commended Air Force leaders for selecting Fort Smith as home for the Foreign Military Sales F-35 Squadron and the Singapore Air Force F-16 Squadron.

“Secretary Roth we appreciated your phone call last week regarding the basing of the F-35s and the Singapore Air Force F-16s. That was good news,” Boozman said during a Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. “It’s good for the area, but that really is the best decision for the country.”

Last week the Air Force announced the selection of Ebbing Air National Guard Base in Fort Smith to host the future F-35 fighter planes and Singapore F-16 Squadron. The decision came on the heels of the announcement that the Arkansas Air National Guard’s 189^th Airlift Wing at Little Rock Air Force Base was selected as the new home of the Air National Guard’s C-130J Super Hercules training program. 

Boozman is a co-chairman of the Senate Air Force Caucus where he actively works with Members of Congress and Air Force leaders to ensure the U.S. has the resources and tools to maintain air superiority.

Source: United States Senator for Colorado Michael Bennet

Washington, D.C. — Today, Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet released the following statement after the Senate confirmed Regina Rodriguez to serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado by a bipartisan vote of 72-28: 

“Throughout her distinguished career, Regina Rodriguez has demonstrated a deep commitment to service, justice, and the rule of law. Her overwhelmingly bipartisan confirmation signifies that she will make an exceptional judge,” said Bennet. “Today, Regina made history as the first Asian-American to serve on the U.S. District Court in Colorado. Her seat on the court will make it more reflective of and responsive to the people it serves, and I have no doubt that Regina will serve the people of Colorado with integrity.”

Bennet and U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) recommended Rodriguez for the U.S. District Court seat in February. In addition to her legal background, Rodriguez was a founding member of Latinas First Foundation, served on the Board of Directors for the Family Star Montessori, and was a Founding Board Member of Colorado Youth at Risk.  

Rodriguez is the daughter of a Mexican American father and a Japanese American mother. Rodriguez’s historic confirmation makes her the first federal district court judge in the District of Colorado of Asian-American descent. 

Earlier today, Bennet spoke on the Senate floor to support her nomination to serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado ahead of her confirmation vote. 

Watch Bennet’s floor speech HERE.