Al Franken's Blog, page 62
July 11, 2013
Star News: Senator tours energy hubs in Elk River
At the start of a holiday week’s recess from meetings and other business at the Capitol, U.S. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., came to Elk River early during a vacation in his state to see and learn more about what is still making this city “Energy City.”
After starting Saturday, June 29, with a stop in St. Cloud, the senator and some staff continued across central Minnesota first by visiting the landfill-gas-to-electric generation plant and environmental learning center, at Highway 169 and 221st Avenue in Elk River.
Franken stepped inside the classroom, like countless school children and other guests have done, and sat at the room’s conference table, resting his arms on the top, hard surface that was compressed and created from recycled newspapers. Outside, the plant’s generators continued converting landfill gases – including 52 percent methane, 40 percent carbon dioxide – into electricity that equals 25 million kilowatt hours annually to meet some of the city’s needs.
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July 9, 2013
Star Tribune: St. Paul immigrant’s back after 10 years at the back of the line
Minnesota Democrats Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken fully support the bill in the Senate on moral and economic grounds. “No one benefits from a broken immigration system,” Franken said of the status quo. “Families are kept apart by interminable visa waits. Our businesses can’t get the workforce they need. And American workers have to compete with undocumented folks getting paid under the table. A pathway to citizenship fixes so many of these problems.”
Klobuchar called the recent 68-32 Senate vote a historic achievement. “There are moral reasons,” she said, “but there are also very clear economic reasons.”
Opponents are not ceding the moral high ground. Nor do they trust a new analysis by the Congressional Budget Office that finds more legal immigrants in the workforce mean more government tax revenues and lower budget deficits.
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The post Star Tribune: St. Paul immigrant’s back after 10 years at the back of the line appeared first on U.S. Senator Al Franken, Minnesota -- Official Campaign Website.
June 30, 2013
MinnPost: Franken, Democrats try again to lock in student-loan interest rates
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats are trying again to delay a student-loan interest rate hike in lieu of a long-term deal on the matter.
A group of Democrats, including Sen. Al Franken, introduced a bill Thursday to delay the doubling of the 3.4 percent interest rate on federal subsidized loans for one year to give lawmakers time to come to a long-term deal.
Republicans and Democrats are fighting over whether to tie the interest rates to the financial markets, and at what rate, but will not be able to come to an agreement before their July 1 deadline.
Democrats say they want to hold off on a long-term fix until Congress reauthorizes federal higher education policy next year, warning that moving too quickly on major reform would force students to pay higher rates than they need to.
“We can’t make things worse for our students, and so we are talking about a one-year fix, and then working on longer-term solutions,” Franken said.
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June 28, 2013
Duluth News Tribune: Married same-sex couples in Minnesota will gain tax, pension, other benefits
ST. PAUL — Minnesota same-sex couples who can wed beginning in a little more than a month will receive the same benefits as other married couples because of Wednesday’s Supreme Court decision invalidating the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
Among the most important of those benefits is allowing same-sex couples to file joint income tax returns to receive a lower tax rate and Social Security to be collected based on a spouse’s income, said Chuck Samuelson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota. Federal pensions, including those from the military, also will benefit gay spouses, he said.
“It’s incredibly good news,” said Gary Anderson of Duluth, a community organizer who helped defeat last November’s constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and is now a community organizer for OutFront Minnesota.
“On a very practical level, it means better protection for family. A surviving spouse is now entitled to Social Security benefits from a same-sex partner. … It means benefits for kids and families that otherwise wouldn’t have been eligible.”
By striking down DOMA, the court cleared the way for legally married couples to claim more than 1,100 federal benefits, rights and burdens linked to marriage status.
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Huffington Post: Wendy Davis Receives Praise In Thank You Letter Signed By 31 Democratic Senators
Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis (D) drew nationwide attention on Tuesday for her 12-hour filibuster against a restrictive, GOP-backed anti-abortion bill. Even senators in Washington, D.C. tuned in, they said Wednesday in a letter to Davis from Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) on behalf of 26 of their Democratic colleagues.
“Thank you for your courage and determination in defeating S.B. 5, a bill that would have severely limited women’s reproductive choices in Texas,” the letter read. “Your steadfastness sets an example that one person’s voice and commitment can make a difference. As Senators, we were awestruck as we watched you stand on the Senate floor of the Texas Legislature for hours in the face of ideologically based attempts to pass legislation that would threaten women’s health. Thanks to your dedication, Texas and the rest of the country will rethink efforts to enact similar laws. We are proud to call you an ally and a friend.”
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June 21, 2013
The Free Press: Walz, Franken bill would ease VA backlog
NORTH MANKATO — Nearly 600,000 veterans have waited 125 days or more to get a disability rating, the doorway for other benefits.
A bill authored by U.S. Rep. Tim Walz and Sen. Al Franken would take incremental steps to reduce that backlog. A staff member from each official stopped by South Central College on Wednesday to take advice from a veteran and a veterans benefits director.
The Quicker Benefits Delivery Act does not make “sweeping changes” to clear the backlog, but it takes small steps and every advance helps, said Shawn Schloesser, veterans field representative for Walz, a Mankato Democrat.
It has two main provisions.
The first would require the Veterans Benefits Administration to accept medical evidence from private providers or explain why they reject it.
Apparently, the bureaucrats who determine disability levels are not inclined to accept medical evidence from private doctors and instead tend to order appointments by government doctors. These extra examinations cause delays and are sometimes unnecessary.
Gary Evenson, Blue Earth County’s veterans services officer for more than 30 years, gave the example of audiology exams, saying they are time-consuming for Department of Veterans Affairs doctors. He suggested the change could speed up the benefits process.
The second change would allow the VA to more quickly allow partial or temporary benefits to disabled veterans.
The department can already award so-called “pre-stabilization” ratings at the levels of 50 percent and 100 percent. The bill allows for a third rating, at 30 percent, which the bill’s sponsors believe would allow more benefits to receive a minimum level of benefits more quickly. This measure does not have a large fiscal cost because veterans already get back-pay when they get their disability rating later on; the change merely allows that money to be disbursed earlier.
The bill would also authorize the VA to pay housing benefits under the GI Bill before the first of the month. If a veteran starts school in early September, he or she might not start getting benefits until Oct. 1.
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June 18, 2013
Take Part: Al Franken May Succeed in Simplifying the Financial Aid Process
Anyone who has ever applied for college financial aid knows how confusing it can be.
Many times, students—and parents—will incur debt that will haunt them years after college is in the rearview mirror.
That’s why this week Minnesota Sen. Al Franken reintroduced a bill, The Understanding the True Cost of College Act, to create a universal financial aid award letter. And surprisingly, in the hostile Washington climate, Republicans and Democrats have signed on as cosponsors.
“My legislation will require schools to use a universal financial aid letter so students and their families will know exactly how much college will cost and will help them compare apples to apples when deciding what school a student will attend,” Franken said in a statement.
A press release by Franken’s office states that schools do not use standard definitions or names for different types of aid. That means parents and students cannot often differentiate between grant aid, which doesn’t require repayment, and student loans, which must be repaid.
Franken’s timing on the issue is pitch-perfect, as the student loan debate is raging in Washington.
This Is Why We Can’t Let Student Loan Interest Rates Double on July 1st
There’s the July 1 deadline, when student loan interest rates on new subsidized Stafford loans will double unless Congress acts. Last week, more than 2,000 MoveOn.org members delivered their student debt stories to members of Congress. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has an online petition calling for students to receive the same low interest rates on their loans that Wall Street banks receive.
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June 17, 2013
Echo Press: Franken pushes bill to help break VA claims backlog
U.S. Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.) told members of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Wednesday that the current backlog in processing claims for veterans in Minnesota and across the country is unacceptable, and he urged passage of his legislation to speed up the process. The current national average wait time for a veteran’s benefit claim to be processed by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is nearly 300 days.
In his testimony Wednesday, Sen. Franken pressed the committee to support his Quicker Benefits Delivery Act to give the VA the tools it needs to get benefits to veterans more quickly.
“The fundamental issue is that we need to make sure veterans are getting the benefits to which they are entitled as quickly as possible,” Sen. Franken told the panel. “And that is what my legislation will do.”
The measure was introduced in the House by Rep. Tim Walz (D-Minn.).
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June 14, 2013
MPR News: Franken calls for more transparency for FISA court
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota U.S. Sen. Al Franken says he’s co-sponsoring legislation to make secret government surveillance more transparent.
Franken told MPR’s Cathy Wurzer on Morning Edition he would like to see the federal government release court orders issued under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). He said they can be redacted to protect national security, while but let Americans see for themselves what the government is doing.
“I want people to see the reasoning of the FISA court. And I want to see those opinions, and I want the American people to see those opinions, so the American people aren’t relying on the government to say ‘Oh, don’t worry, we’re respecting your right to privacy,’ ” Franken said.
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June 12, 2013
Ventura County Star: Vilsack launches Minn. farm water quality program
ST. PAUL, Minn. — ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – Four Minnesota watersheds have been selected to test a first-in-the nation voluntary pilot project that offers farmers incentives to reduce water pollution from their operations in exchange for protection from tighter future regulations, federal and state officials announced Monday.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack joined Gov. Mark Dayton and other officials at the University of Minnesota to announce details of the Minnesota Agricultural Water Quality Certification Program. Farmers who sign up must agree to adopt good conservation practices to control soil erosion and the runoff of manure, fertilizers and insecticides. In return, they’ll get the guaranteed certainty that they won’t be subjected to stricter rules for 10 years as long as they meet their obligations. Technical and financial assistance will be available.
The pilot areas are the Whitewater River watershed in southeastern Minnesota, the Middle Sauk River watershed in central Minnesota, the Elm Creek watershed in south-central Minnesota and the Whiskey Creek watershed in the northwest. The immediate goal is to use these small areas to refine the program, then take it statewide within three years and eventually nationwide.
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