Fishing with heroes

Late last month, the nonprofit Fallen Veterans and the Community Military Appreciation Committee sponsored a day of fishing on the Columbia River for veteran heroes to show our community’s appreciation. The event gave me the opportunity to meet up with several of our region’s veterans in Ridgefield, share my own words of gratitude, and have some fun with those who have served our country. We owe our veterans and military our most sincere “thanks,” and I am committed to doing everything in my power to ensure those who have bravely served our country are honored through word and action.

Public safety needs to be a top priority as train traffic increases in Southwest Washington – and that starts with properly equipping our firefighters and first responders. To ensure that our communities have the equipment to respond to an oil-by-rail or other hazardous materials incident, I wrote the Fire Department Proper Response and Equipment Prioritization Act (FD PREP Act).  This legislative solution makes hazmat response efforts to oil-by-rail accidents “high priority” in FEMA’s grant funding criteria.

On June 22, 2016, the U.S. House Appropriations Committee approved its Homeland Security funding bill for 2017 that includes a provision based on the FD PREP Act to improve response to oil train accidents. More information on the oil emergency response can be found here.

The U.S. House Appropriations Committee Homeland Security funding bill also included another provision I authored in order to make the TSA more accommodating to passengers traveling with breastmilk, formula and infant feeding equipment. Many parents report harassment-like treatment by TSA agents even when they’re following TSA guidelines, which sometimes ends in missed flights and broken equipment. This provision requires TSA to hold its agents accountable for consistent compliance with its own regulations that allow parents to travel with these items.

The legislative provision on TSA compliance has been adapted from the BABES Act – legislation that I introduced in April. More information on the BABES Act can be found here.