February 9, 2012

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Iowa delegation challenges proposal to close Iowa Air Guard unit

February 7, 2012 By

Members of Iowa’s Congressional delegation are challenging a Pentagon plan to decommission a large Iowa Air National Guard unit. The proposal to shut down the Des Moines-based 132nd Fighter Wing would cost 1,000 central Iowa jobs.

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is holding meetings this week in hopes of saving the unit. “If it is a done deal, and I don’t know that it’s a done deal, it might be more difficult than if it’s still in consideration,” Grassley says. “I hope it’s the latter. Obviously, I think we have a chance to weigh in to a greater extent than if somebody says, ‘This is the way it’s going to be and just forget it.’ I don’t know why they’d come to talk to us if it was a done deal.”

Grassley will meet this afternoon in Washington (at 3:30 P.M. Central time) with Iowa National Guard Major General Timothy Orr. Grassley says, “On Thursday afternoon, I’m also going to follow up with a meeting I put together with the Iowa Congressional delegation with the Secretary of the Air Force (Michael) Donley on the same subject.”

The budget-cutting plan calls for the retiring of the Iowa Guard’s 21 F-16 fighter jets and the decommissioning of the unit, which has nearly a thousand members, including pilots, mechanics and support staff. “My concern about the Air Force strategy of targeting the Guard for cuts is that the Guard is more cost-effective for missions, such as a fighter squadrons, than active duty,” Grassley says. “And Guard pilots tend to be more experienced since they stay in the service for a longer period of time.”

One report says the Air Force is considering replacing the piloted F-16 fighter jets with a squadron of unmanned drone aircraft, which could create as many as 500 positions. It’s unclear how many staff from the current unit, if any, would be able to transfer.

Filed Under: Military, News, Politics & Government Tagged With: , , ,

Grassley says bill would prevent congressional insider trading

January 31, 2012 By

Laws passed by Congress that impact all Americans are supposed to apply to members of Congress, too, but apparently that needs to be put in writing. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says a preliminary Senate vote Monday cleared the way for a final vote this week on a bill to make it clear: no member of Congress is exempt from regulations on insider trading.

“This bill simply clarifies current law,” Grassley says. “Insider trading laws already apply to Congress, but it isn’t very clear, so this makes it clear. Today, I say it never hurts to codify that members of Congress are not above the law.” Insider trading is when someone with private information about a company uses it to take advantage of the system, buying or selling stocks or securities.

Grassley says he led a legislative effort some 17 years ago to make it known that no one in the chamber should be considered immune from the laws they pass for the rest of the nation. Grassley says, “Congress, between 1938 and 1990, passed a lot of laws exempting congressmen and senators who are employers of people from a lot of laws that apply to other employers.”

Grassley’s bill, the Congressional Accountability Act, was passed in 1995. It dealt with a host of business-related measures, from civil rights to workplace safety. “We effectively had one set of laws for employers on Capitol Hill and another set of laws for all the rest of the businesses in the rest of the country,” Grassley says.

“It wasn’t right to have two sets of laws.” The new measure on insider trading is expected to go to a vote on Thursday. It would specifically bar members of Congress from making trades based on non-public information they obtain through their jobs.

Filed Under: News, Politics & Government Tagged With: ,

Grassley says president’s denial of pipeline cost thousands of jobs

January 24, 2012 By

Reports say President Obama’s State of the Union Address tonight will be focusing, in part, on economic fairness. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says it isn’t “fair” for the president to have denied the permit last week that would have green-lighted construction of the Keystone X-L oil pipeline from Canada to Texas.

Grassley says Obama’s action will halt the hiring of what could have been thousands of pipeline workers. “He’s going to convince me he’s interested in fairness when he gets those 20,000 workers to work,” Grassley says.

“He’s the only person standing in the way of those 20,000 jobs. You can’t blame John Deere, you can’t blame Caterpillar, you can’t blame Wall Street, you can’t blame anybody else. So if he’s going to be fair and equitable, create those 20,000 jobs.”

Grassley says the pipeline also promises to create another 120,000 jobs indirectly. Grassley, a Republican, says America needs more affordable energy, in his words, “We need to drill here and drill now.” The proposed six-billion dollar pipeline would stretch 1,700 miles from Canada’s British Columbia and across six states to refineries on the Gulf Coast.

“This infrastructure project has been under review by the administration for more than three years,” Grassley says. “It could be a job-creating energy partnership with a very friendly neighbor, a relationship that could reduce America’s dependence on volatile foreign energy sources, including Venezuela, Libya and OPEC.”

Grassley says that oil will be produced in Canada and if it doesn’t come to the U.S., it’ll likely go to China. He says, Environmentalists that are objecting to harvesting this type of fossil fuel aren’t accomplishing anything by stopping the Keystone project except hurting Americans and helping the Chinese.”

Concerns were raised about the TransCanada pipeline’s original path through Nebraska as it was proposed to cut through environmentally-fragile areas, including the Sandhills and the Ogallala Aquifer.

Filed Under: News, Politics & Government Tagged With: , ,

Senator Grassley gets new password after Twitter account is hacked

January 24, 2012 By

After a hacker hi-jacked his Twitter account on Monday, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says he has a new, better password in place and his Tweets are now his own.

Someone claiming to be with the group “Anonymous” sent messages to Grassley’s 34,000 followers, making fun of the Iowa Republican and talking about legislation dealing with Internet piracy. Grassley says it was an unsettling experience.

“You feel violated from the standpoint that when somebody uses your name, they’re stealing the most personal aspect of your life,” Grassley says. “Why would people want to steal like that?” Grassley says the incident has been reported to Twitter and to the Senate’s Sergeant at Arms.

He couldn’t say yet if he’d pursue charges, should the hacker be caught.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts, News, Politics & Government Tagged With: ,

Grassley says it’s too soon to think about 2016

January 21, 2012 By

Senator Chuck Grassley suggests he doesn’t want to follow in the footsteps of long-time senators like Strom Thurmond, who exited the senate when he was 100 years old.

“I’ve seen too many people like Strom Thurmond or like Robert Byrd when they were 90 years old or 100 years old — took two or three people to try to get ‘em around the senate,” Grassley says. “One of ‘em even had a nurse with him all the time and Chuck Grassley’s not going to try to represent the people of Iowa in that state of health.”

West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd served nearly 57 years in congress and died in office at the age of 92. Grassley is entering the second year of the six-year term he won in 2010. Grassley was asked during a Friday appearance on Iowa Public Television if he would seek reelection in 2016.

“Immediately after I was reelected in 2004, you asked me if I was going to run for reelection and, you know, I said, ‘Yes, I’m going to run for reelection,” Grassley said. “…I’m 78 years old and I think I have a responsibility to the people to be a little more cautious this time. And, maybe, why don’t you ask me that question about two or three years from now?”

Grassley, who’s a Republican, became a regular jogger at the age of 65 after he became the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Aging. He goes for a run four days a week.

“I’m in very good health now,” Grassley said Friday on IPTV’s “Iowa Press” program. 

Grassley won his first election in 1958 — a race for a seat in the Iowa House. Grassley ran for a seat in the U.S. House in 1974 and served there until 1981, when he began his tenure in the U.S. Senate. With 52 consecutive years in elected office, Grassley is the longest-serving Republican office holder in Iowa.

Iowa’s other U.S. Senator, Democrat Tom Harkin, is 72 years old.  He’s been in congress since 1975.

Filed Under: Featured Story, News, Politics & Government Tagged With: ,

Braley talks about SOPA

January 19, 2012 By

Iowa Congressman, Bruce Braley, is speaking out against a controversial bill that seeks to stop the illegal sharing of music and movies on the internet. Braley, a Democrat from Waterloo, says his stance against the Stop On-line Piracy Act” or SOPA doesn’t mean he condones the illegal activity.

“The problem of on-line piracy is real and takes millions and billions of dollars away from American companies, so the fact that I am opposed to the bill does not suggest that I don’t recognize there’s a problem,” Braley says.

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican, said earlier this week he thinks the legislation is well meaning but needs some tweaking. Braley says he may have a disagreement with Grassley on “what constitutes a tweak.”

“I think that there are real serious problems with this bill. I think that good people can come together and protect the freedom of the internet, while at the same time cracking down on on-line pirates who are causing these problems,” according to Braley. “But it has to be done in a way that is sensitive to the freedom of the internet, and goes after the real target, that is people who are stealing intellectual property from American companies.”

Braley says he has heard from over 800 Iowans who have told him they are against SOPA, and he says the public outcry has had an impact on its future. “The people I talk with suggest that the Republicans who are in charge with moving this bill through the House Judiciary Committee were really caught off guard by the amount of opposition to this bill. So the question is whether they pull the bill to make to try to make significant changes to it, or they just give up and don’t do anything the rest of the year,” Braley said.

Several popular websites, including Wikipedia, went”dark” on Wednesday to protest this bill and another known as PIPA, or “Protect Internet Protocol.”

Filed Under: News, Politics & Government Tagged With: , , ,

Senator Grassley says internet sharing bills may need tweaking

January 17, 2012 By

Several popular websites, including Wikipedia, plan to go “dark” on Wednesday to protest two bills pending in Congress that aim to stop the illegal sharing of music and movies on the Internet. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says the bills, known as SOPA and PIPA, may need a little tweaking but the intent of the legislation is very well meaning.

Grassley says, “They may not be perfect the way they’re written and I’m going to be part of the process to try to perfect them so that we can find a balance between people stealing copyright, trademarks and inventions and I guess you’d call it the freedom of the Internet.”

Leaders at Wikipedia, the massive online encyclopedia, claim the bills would force websites into the impossible task of policing cyberspace. Several other major websites, including Google, Facebook and Twitter, will still be online Wednesday, but their chiefs are joining Wikipedia in opposing the two pieces of legislation.

“If these search engines, like Google, are taking the position that nothing needs to be done, they’re taking the position that stealing is okay,” according to Grassley. The bills are SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, and PIPA, which stands for Protect I-P or Internet Protocol.

Grassley says the Senate version of the bills should be out of committee next week and will go to the floor for debate. He’s hoping common ground can be reached. Grassley says, “If everybody takes the position that stealing of copyrights, trademarks are wrong or that theft just generally is wrong and we start from the premise of what can we do to stop the stealing, then I think we can meet a friendly consensus on this issue and get the job done.”

Other websites that will be joining Wiki with off-line protest on Wednesday include Reddit and BoingBoing. Their complaint focuses on how the bills would require Internet service providers to block websites that are involved in the illegal sharing of movies, music and other content.

Search engines would also be stopped from linking to those websites, which they say is in direct opposition to the concept of an open Internet.

Filed Under: News, Politics & Government Tagged With: , ,
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