Category: US Senate

Grant Awarded	Recipient	Project Description
$1,501,399.25	Calcasieu Parish Police Jury	This grant will provide federal funding for emergency protective measures as a result of Hurricane Laura.
$11,211,864.12	Louisiana National Guard	This grant will provide federal funding for emergency protective measures as a result of Hurricane Laura.
$1,469,117.75	Iberville Parish	This grant will provide federal funding for emergency protective measures required as a result of severe storms, tornadoes, and flooding.
$2,355,492.76	Vermilion Parish	This Flood Mitigation Assistance grant will provide federal funding for the elevation of 8 flood-prone properties.

05.26.23

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA) announced the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will grant Louisiana $16,000,000.00 in Grid Resilience State and Tribal Formula Grants in 2023 from his Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). The grant will go towards projects that modernize the electric grid to reduce impacts due to natural disasters. 

“Modernizing Louisiana’s power grid can help keep the lights on in the wake of natural disasters,” said Dr. Cassidy. “The infrastructure law provides the funds needed to ensure our state is better prepared when the next storm hits.”  

Louisiana plans to build the next-generation grid that can provide the attributes necessary for increased reliability and economic development. Louisiana can expect to receive additional funds in 2024, 2025, and 2026. 

In total, the IIJA includes $65 billion to bolster American energy and strengthen the electrical grid.

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05.26.23

WASHINGTON – The American Press highlighted a recent visit from U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA) to Lake Charles where he hosted a Rural Community Funding Summit, toured the home of Ms. Lucille Hebert, which was damaged by Hurricane Laura, and toured the Port of Lake Charles.

“U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy paid Lake Charles a visit on Wednesday during his last leg of the Rural Community Funding Summit. 

“Cassidy, the USDA Rural Development and the Louisiana Housing Corporation visited eight cities in Louisiana to connect community members with state and federal funding opportunities such as the Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act.  

“Cassidy said he believes events like the Rural Community Funding Summit are vital to connect local communities to funding sources.

“Cassidy was a lead author for the historic bipartisan Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act, which will funnel billions of dollars into Louisiana infrastructure — including roads and bridges, water infrastructure, broadband and resiliency. 

“The current amount IIJA funds for Louisiana projects sits at $1,581,181,967. 

“‘The bipartisan infrastructure bill is bringing billions of dollars to our country. It has the ability to transform our communities, but only if we use the money,’ Cassidy said. ‘If it is not accessed by people in the state and local level, it is like all this work never happened.’

…

“Local leadership is a vital component to increase connectivity between funding sources, local municipalities and citizens.

“‘It’s one thing to say that there’s $500 million coming over five years to Louisiana for small towns to redo their sewer and water systems, but it’s another thing for that mayor or that police juror to look in the eye of the person who’s going to give them that dollar, to get their phone number … that’s the missing ingredient. We are trying to make that connection.’”   

“During his stop, Cassidy visited the home of 92-year-old Lucille Hebert, who recently benefited from one such effort — the Lake Charles Housing Rehabilitation Recovery Program.

…

“‘The idea being that everybody is elevated by this so it doesn’t become just a pack of housing only for one type of person, but becomes a housing in which that kind of community spirit makes everybody better.’ 

“The ultimate goal is to elevate Southwest Louisiana communities above where they were before storms. ‘I like to say that when we come back in 10 years, people will look at this as another inflection point of where Southwest Louisiana hit the bottom after the storms,’ he said. 

“‘The recovery after Laura and Delta was a recovery, but the bipartisan infrastructure bill does more than get us back to baseline. It brings us further along.’”

Read the full article here.

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05.26.23

CLICK HERE to watch Lankford’s remarks on YouTube.

CLICK HERE to watch Lankford’s remarks on Rumble.

OKLAHOAM CITY, OK – Senator James Lankford (R-OK), lead Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Government Operations and Border Management, visited the US-Mexico border in Nogales, Arizona this week after Title 42 authority had been lifted. The visit was to continue to conduct oversight and see the ongoing crisis firsthand, and to hear from Customs and Border Protection (CBP), US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

The Nogales, Arizona border is one of the highest traffic locations for illegal migrants and illegal drugs. With 75 percent of CBP agents focused on processing asylum claims it leaves 25 percent of the agents to cover a vast terrain due to gaps left in the unsecured border. The inability to secure the border has led to deadly and dangerous drugs like fentanyl coming across the border and into states like Oklahoma. CBP has seized 17,000 pounds of fentanyl from October 2022 to April 2023.

In a hearing last month, Lankford had the opportunity to ask Chief of Police for McAlester, OK, Kevin Hearod about the situation facing local law enforcement from increased criminal activity and drugs due to illegal immigration across our southern border. In August, after touring the southern border in the Rio Grande Valley, Lankford penned an op-ed about how the chaos at the southern border is literally killing Oklahomans through drug trafficking.

Excerpt

Lankford: We’ve got to be able to actually close gaps in the fence and provide the technology and the infrastructure here to be able to assist the agents that are here on the line  We’ve got to fix the asylum process so it’s actually real asylum, and people that qualify for get in, and then we’ve actually get the resources to ICE ERO that people that have been told by a court, ‘You have to leave,’ actually are escorted outside the country. Every country in the world is always trying to be able to manage their borders  We’re a country also that should be able to manage our border. We can do it. Let’s do it.

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May 26, 2023

ITA Must be Transparent About Its Policy For Trade Promotion of Spying and Policing Technology

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., called on the International Trade Administration (ITA) to answer questions about its promotion of dangerous surveillance technology in foreign markets, and explain what steps it is taking to prevent such technology sales from harming human rights. 

Wyden chairs the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over international trade policy. He first requested information from ITA about its activity promoting the sale of surveillance technology abroad in May 2022. The agency informed Wyden’s office last year it had promoted the sale of surveillance technology, but declined to share which products it promoted, or which foreign markets it targeted. In March 2023 ITA informed Wyden’s office that it had issued a new policy to restrict promotion of surveillance products, but refused to share that policy without a formal letter. 

“As you know, the Biden Administration has recognized that surveillance technologies are frequently used by governments to invade the privacy of their citizens, enable violence and discrimination, and disproportionately harm marginalized and vulnerable communities,” Wyden wrote to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. “Given the Administration’s stated interest in limiting the human rights abuses made possible by these technologies, ITA must be transparent about its past and current promotion of these technologies abroad.”

The ITA is a component of the Department of Commerce responsible for promoting the sale of American products and services in foreign countries. 

Wyden requested answers to the following questions: 

1. To what surveillance, policing, or public safety technology companies is ITA providing trade assistance, or has it in the last five years provided trade assistance, including companies selling any of the following technologies or services:

• predictive policing systems, including any system that uses historical crime data and other data to suggest where to deploy law enforcement or military resources or to identify individuals likely to commit a crime;
• biometric surveillance technologies, including facial, voice, iris, and gait recognition and analysis software;
• high-altitude aerial surveillance systems;
• international mobile subscriber identity catchers and other cell-site simulators;
• software or hardware used to gain unauthorized access to a mobile phone, computer, computer service, or computer network;
• databases containing sensitive personal information, including location data and web browsing records;
• surveillance products that exploit vulnerabilities in SS7 and Diameter to remotely track phones, intercept text messages and calls, and deliver malware;
• bulk internet monitoring technology; 
• social media monitoring software, including any tools that facilitate the creation of false accounts, monitor lawful speech, or identify and physically locate specific users;
• gunshot detection systems; and
• data management systems that provide storage, integration, and analysis of data collected from surveillance technologies.

2. For each company ITA has worked with, what assistance is ITA offering, or has ITA offered in the last five years, including to which foreign markets and clients that assistance has been targeted?

3. What laws or rules, if any, limit the discretion with which ITA decides to assist companies in these sectors?  

4. What training do Commerce officials, including FCS officers, receive about surveillance, policing, and public safety technologies, including the dangers such technologies pose when used by foreign governments or in foreign markets where the risk of human rights violation is high?

5. Does ITA coordinate or seek the advice of other Commerce Department bureaus or Executive Branch agencies, including those with privacy or human rights expertise and responsibilities, before agreeing to work with specific companies or industry sectors?

The full letter is available here.

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