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Photo Gallery
I had the honor of joining a bipartisan group of senators during the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, France. The thousands of soldiers who died on the beaches of Normandy are forever laid to rest in the American cemetery. American soldiers, many of whom were 17 or 18 years old, gave their lives against incredible odds to defend our freedoms. It was an honor to represent Oklahoma at this solemn ceremony to remember the heroic acts of the men who faced fear to save the world.
I enjoyed the opportunity to attend a manufacturing roundtable in Madill to hear how tariffs are affecting manufacturing in our state. Thank you for the insight and encouragement to keep working to solve the trade barriers we face.
It was great to be in Marietta last Friday to hear from Oklahomans on the issues they face and answer questions on trade, tariffs, immigration, and other topics.
It is one of my greatest honors to welcome new Americans to the rights and privileges that citizenship entails at a naturalization ceremony. Two weeks ago, I had the privilege of personally welcoming 99 new friends and neighbors when they were sworn in as American citizens at the US District Court in OKC. I encouraged them to live out our American values and share their stories of how and why they came to our great nation.
I had the opportunity to congratulate in-person our newest US District Court judge for the Western District of Oklahoma, Judge Patrick Wyrick, at his official investiture ceremony. Congratulations, Judge Wyrick and your beautiful family, on this big accomplishment in your legal career!
I had a chance to chat one morning recently with the “Round Table” of Sperry and learn more about the federal issues important to this energetic community in Tulsa County.
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Dear Oklahoma friends and neighbors:
I hope everyone is preparing for a great Fourth of July holiday as we remember our founding, celebrate our independence and enjoy our liberty. Every generation must sacrifice to protect the freedom we inherited and guard our values and freedom for the next generation. As President Reagan famously said in his first inaugural address, “Freedom and the dignity of the individual have been more available and assured here than in any other place on Earth. The price for this freedom at times has been high, but we have never been unwilling to pay that price.” Thank you to all who defend our freedom both here and around the world this Fourth of July.
Here’s a quick update on some of the issues we are working on in DC right now:
National Defense Authorization Act
This week the Senate passed the annual defense bill (known inside the Beltway as the NDAA) to help secure our nation and authorize defense-related programs for the next year.
This year’s NDAA included:
- A 3.1 percent raise for all service members, the largest pay raise in nearly a decade
- $2.8 billion for 15 KC-46A refueling tankers connected to the missions of both Altus and Tinker Air Force Bases
- $18 billion for family housing to address facility issues like those reported at Tinker Air Force Base
- The Paladin Integrated Management system upgrade program, which directly impacts the mission at Ft. Sill
- Authorization for the Department of Defense (DOD) to enter into a cooperative agreement with the Council of State Governments to assist with funding and development of interstate compacts on employment licenses for military spouses. This will make transfers easier for military families.
I added a bipartisan amendment to prevent the transfer of the F-35 Joint Strike fighter and its related technologies to Turkey. As long as Turkey, a NATO ally, continues to buy Russian anti-aircraft technology, we should prevent them from also having the F-35.
I also added an amendment to give more service time to older military chaplains, since many chaplains start their military service later in life or as a second career.
The NDAA is the cornerstone legislation from the Senate Armed Services Committee, chaired by Oklahoma’s senior senator Jim Inhofe. Senator Inhofe has been an incredible advocate for our nation’s military–at home and around the world–providing them with the resources, equipment, and support they need to protect our nation.
Our defense and national security communities remain vigilant about the ongoing threat posed by Iran and the instability Iran continues to cause in the Middle East. Iran remains the largest state-sponsor of terrorism in the world, propping up Bashar Assad in Syria, Hamas, and Hezbollah in Lebanon and supplying the civil war in Yemen and many other activities around the region. Iran has been an issue for every President since Jimmy Carter. It is right for us to continue to isolate Iran financially and diplomatically and to maintain a strong defense posture against their continued terrorist aggression. No one wants a war with Iran, but we must ensure our military can defend itself and our nation from an attack if it comes.
CLICK HERE to watch my speech on the Senate floor about the NDAA and my concerns with Iran.
CLICK HERE to read my full release on the NDAA and the issues important to Oklahoma military installations and our defense community.
Crisis at the Southern Border
In March the Administration notified Congress about the dramatic increase in migrants at the southern border and asked for additional resources to care for, house, and process migrant families. We’ve all seen the horrific pictures of children and families and heard the stories of overcrowded and understaffed facilities. The reality is that the unprecedented and dramatic increase in migrants at our southern border has overwhelmed the system and our ability to respond. It is as if 1,000 people showed up at your front door and asked to be housed and fed for a week. We would all do our best to care for them, but it would be a real challenge for the whole community.
By the end of May, more than 400,000 minors and family members had crossed our southern border seeking immediate care and entry into the country. We can and should ensure children and families at our border get humanitarian care while they make a request for asylum and go through the legal immigration process. I continue to vocally support keeping families together whenever possible and caring for everyone who comes into contact with authorities with honor and respect.
There is also a larger conversation we should have: the influx that we’re seeing at the southern border is an unresolved problem that has faced several presidents over the years. It’s the same problem that faced President Obama and one that ultimately needs to be solved. There are underlying loopholes in our immigration law and court decisions that have created a meaningless legal patchwork with huge gaps in our rules and requirements. Each year, the problem has grown worse and more difficult to manage.
For example, the Flores settlement requires that children and their families must be released into the country as they await a future court date after 20 days in US custody. Most of the court dates take place two to three years after their release. This means undocumented adults are allowed to enter the country for several years if they are accompanied by someone 17 years old or younger, which has encouraged human smugglers to use non-familial children as a “ticket” to cross the southern border. In the past most of the people illegally crossing the border were single adults; now the majority of people crossing are adults with children. Most of the children crossing the border alone are 15-to 17-year-old males. They are released into the country as quickly as a sponsor can be located in the United States, and the vast majority never appear at their assigned court date.
As you may have heard, the Administration announced that it will reopen emergency temporary HHS facilities at Fort Sill to house approximately 1,400 unaccompanied minors until they can be placed with family members or family friends in the US as they await asylum or other court proceedings. I saw the quality housing facilities at Ft. Sill when it was used in 2014 for unaccompanied minors. They used vacant facilities on post and certified they will have no negative impact on military readiness.
Based on my past experience, I have confidence HHS will care for these children well while they are in custody, but I certainly plan to visit and see the facilities again once children are housed there. Immigration law is complicated and emotional, which is why it has been so difficult to fix. The problems have gotten worse, not better. But this week we finally passed additional humanitarian aid after the Administration had asked for it for months. This does not slow the real immigration problems; it only provides better care for the children and families already here. We should do both.
CLICK HERE to read my release regarding the Administration’s recent announcement of the relocation of unaccompanied minors to Ft. Sill.
Before Congress passed a $4.59 billion supplemental emergency funding bill this week to address the humanitarian and national security crisis along our southern border, on June 26, I participated in a Q&A with US Customs and Border Protection and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. Members of the Committee, myself included, did not hold back our frustration at the hypocritical rhetoric swirling around Washington that President Trump is “not taking care of kids at the border” when the agencies (Homeland Security and HHS) requested the additional funding needed to take care of children and other migrants months ago.
CLICK HERE to watch my Q&A with immigration officials and get a sense of my frustration at this process of not fixing what we can clearly see are the problems with funding a policy for immigration, asylum, and border security in our nation.
UPDATE: Prevent Government Shutdowns Act
I am pleased to report that we are making progress on my bipartisan bill to prevent any future federal government shutdowns and actually keep negotiators at the table to resolve funding disputes. Senator Maggie Hassan, a New Hampshire Democrat, and I recently introduced the Prevent Government Shutdowns Act, which passed the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last week.
The Prevent Government Shutdowns Act is a simple, bipartisan proposal that would remove the threat of government shutdowns once and for all. If all appropriations bills are not completed by the beginning of the next fiscal year, an automatic extension of spending will kick in to make sure federal workers and taxpayers will not be affected, but everyone in Congress has to stay in Washington, DC, until the work is done. That means no official travel will be allowed for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) leadership or staff, Senators and Representatives, or their committee and personal staffs (except for official travel within the DC metro area).
If Washington’s dysfunction prevents us from agreeing on appropriations bills to fully fund the government, we should keep working until the job is done, not furlough our federal workers and their families while legislators and White House personnel leave town. I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues in the Senate to encourage bipartisan support and final passage. This proposal has passed the first committee with overwhelming support, and it now moves to the second hearing in the weeks ahead.
In addition to the Prevent Government Shutdowns Act, the Committee also passed an additional bill authored by Senator Hassan and me, the Grant Reporting Efficiency and Agreements Transparency (GREAT) Act, which reforms the federal grant reporting processes, and my Early Participation in Regulations Act to direct agencies to issue advance notices for major rules.
UPDATE: USMCA and my letter to Trade Representative Lighthizer
On June 18, I had the opportunity to question US Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Lighthizer in a Senate Finance Committee hearing about several areas of the nearly finished US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) that are important to Oklahomans. Specifically I asked him how the updates made in the USMCA would affect manufacturing and exports from North America, about the benefits of USMCA versus NAFTA on agricultural commodities and about updated digital trade protections in the USMCA as they compare to the Pacific Rim under the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
I am happy to report that in all of these areas, Lighthizer highlighted the benefits of moving away from NAFTA and toward the USMCA since it further benefits American manufacturing, American agriculture, and the further protection of digital trade items. The USMCA is good for jobs and economic growth in the United States.
CLICK HERE to watch my Q&A with USTR Lighthizer.
Additionally, on June 12, Senator Chris Coons of Delaware and I led a letter to USTR Lighthizer to urge him to continue to clarify and grant tariff exemptions on Chinese imports to products that previously received an exclusion until the tariffs are completely lifted. As I have discussed in previous Lankford Letters, Senator Coons and I led a bipartisan, bicameral group to sponsor the Import Tax Relief Act, which would codify these tariff exemptions into federal law.
CLICK HERE for more information and to read the letter we sent USTR Lighthizer.
On June 19, Mexico became the first nation to ratify the USMCA, and we will work through the USMCA in Congress this summer. Please check my website (www.lankford.senate.gov) or call my offices for more information when it becomes available on the timing of Senate consideration of the USMCA.
Committee Passes Government Reform Bill
For those of you who actually read the Federal Register to double confirm how some new federal regulation affects your business or industry, I have good news! On June 13, the Senate unanimously passed my Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act, which simply requires federal agencies to provide a 100-word, plain-language summary for each new federal regulation.
CLICK HERE to learn more about this straightforward bill to help people wade through federal paperwork more quickly.
(PS – this section of the Lankford Letter is less than 100 words!)
UPDATE: Election Security
I recently gave an update on the Senate floor about the status of election security efforts in our nation leading up to the 2020 election cycle, which begins in eight short months. The good news is that since 2016, the Department of Homeland Security has taken steps to increase information sharing, expedite security clearances for state and local officials, and enhance cybersecurity protections. However, we still have five states that cannot audit their elections. I believe we need bipartisan federal election security that keeps states in control of our elections but ensures they can verify the results.
CLICK HERE to watch my update on election security on the Senate floor.
Keeping You in the Loop
- Are you traveling this summer and need an emergency passport? If so, please feel free to reach out to my Oklahoma City office for help at (405) 231-4941. Additionally, here are some helpful links to apply for or renew a passport.
- If you need federal assistance after the storms and flooding earlier this year, please CLICK HERE for a list of resources and feel free to contact any of my three offices so we may help you connect with the resources you need. CLICK HERE to listen to my recent podcast, The Breakdown with James Lankford, on the efforts taking place to help those impacted by the storms.
- On June 5, NIH announced it would discontinue the inhumane use of fetal tissue from elective abortions in its medical research. This decision ensures the government is not incentivizing abortion by using tissues from aborted, unborn children for medical research. CLICK HERE to learn more about this important protection for the unborn. Tissue from children who died a natural death could be donated, like any other human tissue, but not tissue taken from an aborted child.
- You may remember that my office is working with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to combat contraband cell phones in our nation’s prisons, including and especially thousands in Oklahoma prisons. Last month, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai visited Oklahoma specifically to discuss this issue with Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter. My staff attended the meeting, and I am confident that Chairman Pai will help us address this issue in our communities soon.
- Last week, the US Supreme Court ruled in support of religious freedom to allow a “peace cross” to continue to stand and protect the First Amendment rights of all Americans. CLICK HERE to read more. They determined again that our society does not have to purge all religious symbols from our public square to satisfy our Establishment Clause.
- Earlier this month, I introduced a bipartisan bill with Senators Tim Kaine (D-VA), Jon Tester (D-MT), and Tim Scott (R-SC) to protect federal student aid for Gold Star Families. When a student's mother, father, or guardian has given his or her last full measure of devotion for our nation. We can and should ensure the survivor benefits we owe them are accessible and fully funded. CLICK HERE to read more.
In God We Trust,
James Lankford
United States Senator for Oklahoma
Stay Connected!
If you would like more information on these topics or any other legislation currently before the US Senate, please do not hesitate to call my DC office at (202) 224-5754. My Oklahoma City office can be reached at (405) 231-4941 and my Tulsa office at (918) 581-7651. You can also follow me on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram for updates on my work in Congress.
Notice: If you wish to stop ALL electronic communications from my office, visit this link to opt out permanently from this list. If you have any questions about this Notice or your right to decline future electronic mail from this office, please contact us at United States Senate, 316 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510.
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