Wall Street Reform: The Strongest Protections for Washington Consumers Ever

Last week, I voted to pass a Wall Street Reform bill that provides families across our state with the strongest consumer protections in our history. The bill also guarantees that Washington state taxpayers will never again be on the hook to bailout Wall Street.

I have heard from so many people across our state whose stories demonstrate the need for us to act. Families facing foreclosure due to mortgage fraud, seniors who have lost their retirement savings, small businesses that can’t hire because they can’t borrow, and those who have lost everything due to Wall Street’s ‘anything goes’ rules. These families deserve not only accountability, they deserve protection. This bill provides it. – Details

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Howard Hanson: Protecting our Homes, Businesses, and Economy

On Thursday, May 13th, I announced that I have worked to secure $44 million in emergency funding for critical repairs to the Howard Hanson Dam. This funding will go towards efforts to repair the dam and reduce the risk a flood would have on families, businesses, homes, and our state’s economy. – Details

“U.S. senator, local officials express hope, triumph over Hanson Dam funding”
– Auburn Reporter

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Police Week: Honoring our Fallen Officers

On Thursday, May 13th, I went to the Senate floor to introduce a resolution honoring Washington State law enforcement officers who gave their lives in the line of duty in 2009. Law enforcement officers throughout the Nation and in Washington State risk their own lives to protect the lives of others every day, and this resolution honored those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for the safety of their communities.

Read the full text of the resolution.

“Always a hero; never forgotten” – The News Tribune

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Big Oil: Washington State Taxpayers Should Never Pay for Big Oil’s Mistakes

I have recently co-sponsored a bill that would make sure oil companies are held accountable for the enormous economic costs resulting from spills. Currently, the responsible party in an oil spill must cover all costs related to clean up; however there is a $75 million cap on its liability for economic damages, such as lost business revenues from fishing and tourism, natural resources damages or lost local tax revenues.

The Big Oil Bailout Prevention that I co-sponsored would raise that cap to a much more appropriate $10 billion.  Unfortunately, Republicans blocked this legislation from passing. This is extremely disappointing and I will continue to fight to make sure Washington state taxpayers are never on the hook for Big Oil’s mistakes. – Details

I am also calling for a permanent ban on drilling off the West Coast to ensure that we never face the devastating economic and environmental damage that the Gulf Coast is currently experiencing.

“West Coast senators seek ban on Pacific offshore drilling” – Seattle Times

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Homeland Security: Securing the Puget Sound

I recently announced major investments in our state’s security infrastructure. Over $20 million is going to help protect our ports from terrorism attacks by enhancing their risk management capabilities, training and exercises, and capabilities to prevent, detect, respond to, and recover from attacks involving improvised explosive devices and other non-conventional weapons.

Additionally, funding was allocated to protect high risk facilities such as stadiums and nuclear and electrical power plants, and to increase emergency communications abilities among state, territory, local and tribal governments.

– Details

“Washington gets $27.5M from Homeland Security” – SeattlePI.com

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Fairchild Air Force Base: Questioning Air Force Brass about Much Needed Improvements

On Wednesday, May 12th, I questioned the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force about much needed improvements to Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane. I sought answers to why Fairchild construction projects were left off the Pentagon’s Fiscal Year 2011 military construction budget. I also questioned the Air Force about making Fairchild a home to the next generation of aerial refueling tankers.

Listen to the entire exchange.

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(CNN) — Days after a boisterous protest on Rhode Island’s House floor, a state official decided that a bill copying Arizona’s immigration law will not be heard by lawmakers this session.

House Speaker Gordon Fox has decided not to take up the bill, a spokesman said Tuesday, because the speaker believes immigration matters are best handled at the federal level.

The move effectively kills the bill, which — like a recently passed Arizona law — would have allowed police to check people for proof of legal U.S. residency.

The State House became the latest battleground in the nation’s racially charged immigration debate. On Thursday, about 100 demonstrators chanted slogans and called on the bill’s sponsor, Democratic State Rep. Peter Palumbo, to resign.

Critics say the Arizona law will lead to racial profiling, while supporters say it involves no racial profiling and is needed to crack down on increasing crime involving illegal immigrants. Police are allowed to check a person’s residency status only if the person has been stopped or arrested for another reason.

What does Arizona’s immigration law do?

Palumbo’s House colleague Rep. Douglas Gablinske, who was in the chamber during the ruckus, said protesters were chanting, “Hey hey, ho ho — Peter Palumbo’s got to go.”

As the House speaker banged a gavel calling for Capitol Police to clear the room, Gablinske said, the young protesters chanted and draped themselves in a banner that read “Do I look like an immigrant?”

“I guess I found that somewhat strange because none of them looked like immigrants,” said Gablinske. “I don’t remember any Latinos there; I don’t remember any African-Americans. What I remember was a group of mostly younger people — white, Caucasian who were milling about.”

The whole disturbance lasted 20 minutes, according to Gablinske, and protesters offered no resistance to the handful of police who quickly ushered them out of the chamber.

The floor demonstration and an upcoming State House rally by Rhode Islanders for Immigration Law Enforcement and Rhode Island Tea Party “had nothing to do” with Fox’s decision not to take up the bill, said Fox spokesman Larry Berman.

“This is a bill that came in very late and we’re ready to wrap up our session and we want to focus on the budget and economic issues and adjourn within a few weeks,” said Berman.

Berman said Fox “feels that states shouldn’t be interfering with federal immigration laws anyway.” Berman said a similar bill could be considered again in the next session, which begins in January.

Feds may challenge Arizona immigration law

Palumbo could not be reached for comment after Fox’s announcement, but earlier on Monday he said he expected the bill to come to a committee vote this week.

“The speaker was nice enough to allow me to put [the bill] in … because I have a good relationship with the leadership right now,” said Palumbo.

Palumbo said he sponsored the bill because Rhode Island has its own “problems associated with illegal aliens. We have something like 40,000 plus in Rhode Island right now.”

At the heart of his state’s immigration problem, Palumbo said, is state funds spent on illegal residents.

“We spend a ton of money on housing, conservation, law enforcement, hospital care — all the different areas you would take care of an immigrant, we would spend on illegal aliens,” he said. “If you subtract the illegals from that equation, then we don’t have a budget deficit.”

One of the protesters, hospital worker Mayra Paulino, told The Providence Journal, “I think that this is a racist law. It’s just going to cause more racial profiling than we already have.”

Palumbo said racism has nothing to do with it. “There’s a big difference between someone who comes over here as an immigrant and someone who comes over here and just completely ignores the laws of the country,” said Palumbo, who acknowledged that it might surprise people that he’s a Democrat. “It isn’t a Republican versus Democratic issue.”

The bill shows “there’s a vocal but very small minority in the state’s political leadership that wants to express solidarity with their very conservative compatriots in other states — or in Palumbo’s case — he just may be searching for headlines,” said political science professor Anthony Affigne of Providence College.

The overwhelming majority of Rhode Island’s 123,000 Latinos are citizens and legal immigrants, said Affigne, and their community makes up a little more than 10 percent of the state’s population, concentrated in the capital Providence, Central Falls, Pawtucket, Woonsocket and Newport.

Copycat measures

Rhode Island is just the latest of several states where officials are encouraging the enactment of similar laws, said Michael Hethmon general council of the Immigration Reform Law Institute.

Lawmakers from at least four states that Hethmon refused to name have come forward looking for advice on writing new legislation. So how many other states will be following Arizona?

Whatever the number, it’s “too many,” Hethmon said.

“We greatly support state laws as a policy option in the face of federal gridlock, but you can’t take the Arizona bill and copy it and just drop it into another state legislature.”

Will other states follow Arizona’s immigration law?

Hethmon expressed concern about the pace of some of these “copycat measures,” like in Rhode Island, because many of these laws likely will face judgment in lawsuits.

A danger exists, experts warn, that state lawmakers will play too fast and loose with immigration laws by exercising a kind of “do-it-yourself” and “one-size-fits-all” mentality.

“I worry about other states going forward with these bills and not considering these very complex federal issues,” said Hethmon. “The technical language is critical and it’s not something that most state legislatures are familiar with.”

If there is one economic

issue that drives me up the wall it has to be the trade deficit – not just its size but the fact that we talk so little about it.  Maybe you don’t pay attention to the trade numbers, but I am sure you’ve noticed that most every consumer good on our shelves is made in China or East Asia – including American flags.  Contrary to popular belief, the United States is a trading wimp that has run up trillions of dollars in trade deficits for thirty consecutive years. The evidence of our lack of competitiveness is littered in thousands of blighted communities from sea to shining sea that have been devastated by the loss of millions of manufacturing sector jobs since 2000. There’s a word for that – de-industrialization. If you want to rub a little salt into our Great Recession wound, here is little factoid that might shock you; the U.S. ran a trade surplus in nine of the 10 years of the Great Depression.

Now, before you overdose on Prozac, here is the good news – the trade deficit declined to $380 billion in 2009 about half of what it was in 2006. And the main reason for that was that recession-hammered American consumers restrained their appetites for imported goods and the weak dollar made our exports more attractive to foreign consumers.

So who was responsible for the trillions of dollars in trade deficits and the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs? The short answer is the American consumer. And who shrunk the deficit in 2009? Same answer – we did. Those two answers lead to a simple conclusion – it will be entirely up to patriotic consumers to continue reversing the trade imbalance. Here is a list of things you can do to help the cause and, while you’re at it, improve your finances.

1. Save energy. We’re importing close to 12 million barrels of oil each day. The less gas you burn, the less we’ll have to fork over for foreign oil. In 2009, the U.S. imported $204 billion in petroleum-based products. That accounted for more than half our trade deficit.

2. Check the label and be willing to pay just a little extra for a “Made in America” brand. The job you save maybe your own.

3. Keep your car longer. Even domestically manufactured cars have a high content of imported parts. If you really care about the environment and want to demonstrate your love of country, try doing without a second car.

4. Buy smaller houses. For one thing, you consume less energy when you live in a smaller home. For another, we import many of the materials that go into the construction of a house, from lumber to appliances and wiring.

5. Cut down on your electronics consumption. Virtually no TVs, audio equipment, computers, or gaming consoles are Made in America.. If you can do without that extra HDTV, just don’t buy it. Chances are you’ll do just fine by keeping that notebook computer for another year, even if the newer models are five ounces lighter.