Photo Gallery

Our friends and neighbors in southeast and south-central Oklahoma are cleaning up after spring storms. Please keep praying for them and engage with the local nonprofit of your choice to be sure they have what they need.

I was glad to meet in my DC office with key leaders from our Oklahoma Career Tech, which is the best system in the country. We talked through new options for students and bureaucratic barriers they face as they serve Oklahoma by getting people ready for the workforce.

Oklahoma Cattlemen came to DC to talk through some of the issues our beef producers face and how they’re continuing to feed America the best beef in the world.

After several of us pushed to get the people’s Capitol in Washington, DC finally opened back up, I joined more than 50 Oklahomans who were in the area for spring break for a personalized tour of the Capitol building at night. It is a joy to walk people through the history of the anchor building of our Republic.

I sat down with Christian Law Society members to talk through some of the faith-based legal issues coming up and recently decided by the courts.

I had an opportunity to sit down again with the former Trump Administration Acting Homeland Security Secretary, Chad Wolf, to work through real solutions to secure our southern border.

Two years after they originally planned to come to DC, it was an honor to pray with students and faculty from Rejoice Christian School in Owasso when they visited Washington, DC, over spring break.

I welcomed students, parents, faculty, and administrators at Corn Bible Academy at the dedication ceremony of their beautiful new school in Clinton last weekend. What an exciting day for this community and these students.

OU President Harroz stopped by my office this week to discuss the exciting things happening at the University of Oklahoma and how we can keep working for excellence.

Dear Oklahoma friends and neighbors:

It is a very busy season in Washington, DC, right now, so this is a very long update. I chose to give you more information on more topics so you could find current information on your issue of concern. Read every word or scan through it to find the issues you are most interested in. 

This is also storm season in Oklahoma, and we are already seeing severe weather. Let’s keep serving our friends and neighbors to demonstrate our Oklahoma Standard. 

Spring usually brings another storm: a flood of illegal border crossers on our southern border. But last year, we didn’t just see illegal border crossers in the spring and summer. We saw the highest number of illegal border crossers in 20 years. And it’s getting worse. In 2019, at the height of the border crisis in President Trump’s Administration, CBP only encountered slightly more than 4,648 illegal border crossers per day. We are now seeing 7,000 illegal border crossers per day through our system, which was designed to handle a maximum of 3,500 people per day. Last year was the highest year on record for illegal crossings. In the past few months, we’ve seen illegal border crossers at our southern border from literally every country in the world.

In March of 2020, President Trump used a public health order, known as “Title 42” to expel people illegally crossing our border during the pandemic to protect the nation. President Biden kept that authority in place, but he only chose to expel half of the people illegally crossing the border. The other half he released into the United States. 

Now, the Biden Administration has decided that the pandemic is over at the border, even through people still have to wear masks on planes, members of the military are getting fired this week for not getting the vaccine, and countless other mandates are still in place. If Title 42 is lifted, we will see even more illegal border crossers flooding the border. 

Biden officials have shockingly made it clear to me and my team that their new “plan” is to simply move migrants into the US faster to reduce the appearance of chaos at the border. Oklahoma is not a border state, but Biden and his team’s failure of leadership will turn Oklahoma and every state across the country into a border state with this plan.

Faster illegal immigration is not a plan; that’s chaos. I will introduce a resolution of disapproval to maintain Title 42, and I will work to again stop any “temporary surge facilities” to process illegal border crossers from being placed in Oklahoma. Last year, I successfully stopped DHS from opening a temporary holding facility in Hinton. I am ready to push back if they try again. Once illegal border crossers are moved into the US interior, they are processed and then released into the surrounding community to figure out where to go and get a court date—the current timeline for a hearing is six years. That’s not national security. That’s chaos, and I am fighting against it. 

CLICK HERE to watch my speech on the Senate floor to warn the Senate about the Administration’s conversation with my team about what they plan to do. 

CLICK HERE to read my letter to senators about why they should be concerned about this move by the Biden Administration.

Nomination of Judge Jackson to the Supreme Court

This week, I met with President Biden’s nominee to the US Supreme Court, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. I previously voted against Judge Jackson’s nomination to serve on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, where she serves now. I enjoyed our conversation, but I will oppose her nomination to the US Supreme Court when it comes to the floor next week. 

It’s imperative that justices on the Supreme Court are committed to the original meaning of the Constitution and the rule of law. I have determined after studying her background and meeting with her directly that I cannot support her nomination to the highest court in the land. I do not agree with her expansive view of presidential authority, unjustifiably low sentences in criminal cases, and multiple other legal matters. The vote on her confirmation is currently scheduled for late next week. 

CLICK HERE to read more. 

UPDATE: Russian Aggression in Ukraine

Ukrainians continue to ask the US and other allies for MiG aircraft, air-defense systems, and anti-tank and anti-ship weaponry. I have heard directly from President Zelenskyy, and I receive regular briefings and updates. Pray for the people of Ukraine. They need our support so they can defend their own nation from Russian aggression. We should stand with free people who are willing to fight against oppression. 

During this time of international crisis, it was frustrating that Democrats played politics by tying some of the financial aid to Ukraine to the huge 2,700-page omnibus spending bill with hundreds of millions of dollars of earmarks and waste. The Ukraine aid bill actually spent more for earmarks like bike trails in Vermont, derelict lobster pots in Connecticut, and sidewalks on a country club road in Colorado than it did for aid to Ukraine. I could not support the $1.5 trillion spending bill, but I do support helping the Ukrainians fight against Putin’s aggression into Eastern Europe.

The US will likely receive 100,000 refugees from Ukraine, with at least 1,000 of those refugees coming to Oklahoma in the distant future. There is a tremendous amount of vetting that will have to be done before they travel to the United States. Several Oklahomans have approached me to ask how they can welcome Ukrainian refugees into their homes. Our NATO ally, Poland, continues to lead the refugee effort. But there are other practical ways we can help. Many aid organizations that are on the front lines will need our assistance. The world will need more oil, wheat, and corn to meet the global needs from what has been lost from Ukraine. And the people of Ukraine need our prayers. 

I also led a letter to Secretary of State Blinken advocating that the State Department should help American families who have already begun the process of adopting Ukrainian orphans. We should help those families come together as soon as possible.

CLICK HERE for additional details about our request to the State Department.

Standing Against Runaway Federal Spending 

On Monday President Biden released his annual budget request. A president’s budget is simply a wish list for the upcoming year. No president’s budget has ever passed Congress. So if you read something concerning from the President’s budget request, don’t assume it’s automatically happening.

Biden’s wish list is more taxes, more spending, and no genuine proposal to solve our skyrocketing debt. The lack of focus on lowering our debt and deficit perpetuates our nation’s growing inflation rate and cost of living. It’s time to fix the broken budget process, cut unnecessary spending on earmarks, and put the needs of the American people first.

I opposed the government waste and “pork” in the recent omnibus spending bill, which makes our $30+ trillion debt worse. That’s why I’ll release the latest installment of my government waste book, Federal Fumbles: Ways the Government Dropped the Ball, this April. Stay tuned for more information about the upcoming release, and please keep sending me your ideas and solutions for tackling some of the waste and addressing out-of-control spending in Washington, DC. We will solve this mess together. 

The VA Commission Proposal to “close” the Muskogee VA

Recently, the Department of Veterans Affairs issued a report that included their recommendations to “modernize and realign” the Jack C. Montgomery VA Medical Center in Muskogee, by closing it. Years ago, Senator Inhofe and I worked to expand the healthcare, mental health, and substance abuse options for our veterans by building a new VA hospital in Tulsa and transition the existing Muskogee hospital to mental health, substance abuse, and behavioral health. The VA commission now has proposed an option that would reduce care for our veterans in eastern Oklahoma, but we are actively fighting against their plan.

This will be a multi-year effort to protect veteran access to health care in Oklahoma. After two years of a pandemic and the long war in Afghanistan, the need for direct access to veteran-specific mental health care and behavioral health care in our state has only increased. 

We will get answers to our many questions as we work for the best interest of our Oklahoma veterans.

CLICK HERE to read more about the VA Commission recommendations and my response along with Senator Inhofe and Representative Mullin.

UPDATE: US Energy

How much did you have to pay to fill up your truck or car last time? Inflation, the high cost of living, and high gas prices are a direct result of Biden’s bad energy policies and dumping trillions of new federal spending into the economy last year as our nation was pulling out of the COVID pandemic. A recent poll noted that 63 percent of Americans disapprove of President Biden’s handling of the economy.

The first step to stop high inflation is to get energy prices down by creating more supply. I have put forward a solution to stop Biden’s worst restrictions on the US energy industry, including stopping his new “Waters of the US” rule, opening up energy development on federal lands (where a quarter of our energy comes from), stopping the new excessive emissions standards for oil and gas production, eliminating the progressive “social cost of carbon” requirements, and preventing efforts by the Federal Reserve to block loans for oil and gas companies. 

There are practical things that can be done to increase oil and gas production in the United States, but President Biden refuses to do anything that makes oil and gas production less expensive. Recently, he sold some of the American strategic oil reserves to try to temporarily decrease gas prices with more supply, but it had no effect on prices because it did not change our long-term supply issues. We need more pipelines and more energy production to make a real difference. 

Day-one of Biden’s presidency, he blocked the Keystone pipeline from bringing heavy crude from Canada. Instead, he committed us to purchase heavy crude from Russia. That was the first of many bad energy choices President Biden has made in the past year. The more we buy energy from abroad, the more we empower bad actors like Putin. America should produce America’s energy. 

CLICK HERE to read more about my proposal and my ongoing work to stand up for US energy producers.

UPDATE: COVID Mask and Vaccine Mandates

I’m continuing to fight federal COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates to put Oklahomans in charge of their decisions. 

I continue to support religious accommodations to the vaccine mandate for members of the military. The Pentagon has failed to give an adequate response to my questions as to why these accommodations are not being granted, so I have asked the Office of the Inspector General to audit the Pentagon decision process on behalf of our service members who face discharge if they don’t get the COVID-19 vaccine.

The Biden Administration has declared the pandemic over on our southern border, so people can illegally cross without delay, but at the same time they are forcing members of the US military into retirement or resignation if they do not get a COVID shot because the pandemic is so bad. They cannot have it both ways. 

CLICK HERE to read more about my successful call for an immediate audit of the Department of Defense regarding their decision to approve almost no religious accommodations for the COVID-19 vaccine, despite receiving more than 20,000 requests. 

CLICK HERE to read my op-ed in the Washington Times about why the Biden Administration refuses to take natural immunity information seriously when considering approaches to address COVID-19.

I recently voted on a resolution of disapproval, which successfully passed the Senate in a vote of 57-40, to end the federal mask mandate on planes and in public transportation. I continue to speak out against the federal mask mandates, as Oklahomans and much of the rest of the country have ended their mask mandates in public places. 

CLICK HERE to hear my remarks on the need to pass the resolution of disapproval and to read more about my work to stand against federal mask mandates.

Keeping You in the Loop

• Opposing the China Bill – This week, the Senate continued to work through a so-called “China bill” that only tries to “out-China, China” and push Green New Deal policies. In fact, the House version says “climate” in it more than “China.” The bill basically tries to push the US economy to be more like the Chinese Communist Party’s preferred government-driven economy. The bill does not deal with the critical minerals supply chain problem and a multitude of other major issues with China, but it does cost a quarter trillion dollars! CLICK HERE to watch my speech on the Senate floor about China. CLICK HERE to listen to a recent episode of my podcast on the dangers of Chinese coercion. CLICK HERE to learn more from a recent hearing in the Energy Committee on our mineral dependence.
• Preventing a Nuclear Iran – The White House is currently trying to renegotiate the Iran Nuclear Deal through Russian representatives. If that sounds like an April Fool’s joke, it isn’t. As Russia continues to pummel Ukrainian civilians, our State Department is working with the Russian foreign ministry to negotiate with Iran to reopen the Iranian economy. Re-entering the Iran Nuclear Deal only helps Iran become a nuclear power and creates additional national security concerns for Americans at home and abroad. Many Americans have died in the Middle East because of Iran’s financing of terrorism, and this deal only makes it easier for them to get the money and time they need to make nuclear weapons. I firmly oppose any re-entry into the Iran Nuclear Deal. CLICK HERE for more information.
• Protecting Sunshine – Are you tired of switching our clocks forward and back twice a year? Me too. That’s why I introduced the Sunshine Protection Act, which would “lock the clock” on Daylight Saving Time, which most states observe eight out of 12 months a year. After years of debate and slow progress, the bill finally passed the Senate earlier this month. Congress created Daylight Saving a century ago as a wartime effort to save lamp oil. It is well past time to lock the clock and end this experiment that every mom of small children hates. I have already started meeting with members of the House of Representatives to encourage them to pass this bill immediately. CLICK HERE to learn more about my bill to protect sunshine.
• Standing Up for the Second Amendment – I continue to stand up for our Second Amendment rights by calling on ATF to provide answers on their recent actions that infringe on Americans’ Second Amendment rights by preventing law-abiding citizens from creating and owning sound suppressors. I also led a letter to ATF expressing concern over their use of secret internal guidance to push new regulations. This secret guidance has been used to justify the seizure of lawfully owned property, which is unacceptable and not in accordance with the Constitution. CLICK HERE to read my letter about sound suppressors. CLICK HERE to read my letter on the ATF’s secret guidance.
• Maintaining Parents’ Rights – I support parental rights and school choice, and I recently called for the Senate to immediately pass my resolution to support parents having the freedom to choose the best educational environment for their kids and for parents to remain in control of whether or not they want their children exposed to “woke” ideologies at school, including Critical Race Theory and others. Democrats blocked my resolution, but I will keep standing up for the rights of parents. CLICK HERE to read more about my resolution to support parents.
• Helping Oklahoma Farmers – Fertilizer prices for our Oklahoma farmers and producers are rising even faster than Biden’s inflation. I led 82 of our colleagues in sending a letter to the US International Trade Commission requesting it address the strain on the fertilizer supply by eliminating duties on phosphate fertilizer products imported from Morocco and suspending the process to impose new duties on urea ammonium fertilizer from Trinidad and Tobago. It’s just one step to lower prices by getting more supply, but every little bit will help. CLICK HERE to read more from our letter. 
• Protecting Religious Liberty – To protect the religious liberty of federal employees, I introduced the Prohibiting Religious Exemption and Accommodations Databases Act, to prohibit federal agencies from sharing information about a religious accommodation request by federal workers. My bill addresses the fact that several federal agencies are creating registries of federal employees’ religious exemption requests regarding the COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Creating a federal database of religious beliefs—for anyone in our nation—with no guardrails allows supervisors to intimidate people away from living their faith, rather than encouraging the free exercise of faith. My bill stands firmly against this Big Brother proposal and prevents information on religious accommodation requests from being improperly shared. CLICK HERE to read more about my bill.
• Lowering Prescription Drug Prices - I continue to keep the pressure on drug companies, insurance companies, pharmacies, and drug pricing middlemen to bring down prescription drug prices for Oklahomans and Americans. In a Finance Committee hearing, I pressed several national leaders in drug price policy about specific ways consumers pay more because of kick backs from the pharmaceutical companies, through pharmacy benefit managers (known as PBMs), and insurance companies. CLICK HERE to read more about the hearing. We need more drug competition and more inexpensive options for consumers.
• Protecting Life – I introduced a resolution of disapproval to stop a Biden Administration regulation allowing combined payments for abortion coverage in taxpayer-funded Affordable Care Act (ACA) health plans, which violates a straight-forward separate payment requirement in law. I also introduced a resolution of disapproval to overturn the Biden Administration’s rule on the Title X Family Planning Program, which reversed the Trump Administration’s Protect Life Rule to require family planning grantees to be physically and financially separate from abortion providers. These should be uncontroversial measures to keep in place legal protections for taxpayers not to be forced to pay for abortions. CLICK HERE to read more about my resolution of disapproval for abortion payments in ACA plans. CLICK HERE to read more about my resolution to stop Biden’s Title X rule.
• Honoring a Fallen Soldier – Senator Inhofe and I introduced legislation to rename an Owasso post office the ‘‘Technical Sergeant Marshal Roberts Post Office Building.” TSgt. Marshal Roberts, who was raised in Owasso, was one of two Americans killed in action in an overnight rocket attack in Iraq on March 11, 2020, during his service with the 219th Engineering Installation Squadron, a unit of the 138th Fighter Wing of the Oklahoma National Guard. CLICK HERE to learn more about the life and service of TSgt. Roberts and the post office we plan to name in his honor. I was able to get the legislation successfully through committee this week.

In God We Trust,

James Lankford
United States Senator for Oklahoma

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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.
     
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