WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine and U.S. Representatives Donald McEachin, Gerry Connolly, Don Beyer, and Bobby Scott sent a letter to the Trump Administration requesting that Virginia be exempted from its offshore drilling proposal, citing localconcerns over the risks to tourism, the watermen’s industry, and the country’s Naval operations.

The Virginia legislators cited Secretary Zinke’s announcement that drilling off the Florida coast was taken “off the table” after listening to “local and state” voices, and asked that the Trump Administration take similar concerns from Virginians just as seriously. Virginia’s coastal leaders -from the Democratic mayor of Norfolk to the Republican mayor of Virginia Beach and the current Governor and Governor-elect of Virginia - have all voiced opposition to drilling off of the Virginia coast.

“As Members of Congress from Virginia, we request you remove the Virginia offshore area from your proposed 2019-2024 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program. We note your willingnessto listen to local voices in Florida with grave concerns over the risks of offshore drilling there. We ask that you likewise consider local opposition in Virginia’s coastal communities as well as opposition from its Governor, Senators, and House members to a new five-year plan at this point,” the group said.

The full text of the letter appears below.

Dear Secretary Zinke:

As Members of Congress from Virginia, we request you remove the Virginia offshore area from your proposed 2019-2024 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program. We note your willingness to listen to local voices in Florida with grave concerns over the risks of offshore drilling there. We ask that you likewise consider local opposition in Virginia’s coastal communities as well as opposition from its Governor, Senators, and House members to a new five-year plan at this point.

The statement from your office announcing the removal of the Florida offshore stated, “Local voice matters.” We couldn’t agree more.

While many states have long histories of energy production, states like Florida and Virginia have robust economies based on other sectors like tourism, aquaculture, outdoor recreation, deepwater port commerce, and especially Department of Defense infrastructure. Florida is home to some 20 DOD installations, while Virginia’s coastal area alone has more than a dozen across every service branch, including Naval Station Norfolk, the world’s largest naval installation. While it is within DOD’s mandate to work with Interior, any look at a map displays vast offshore areas in which drilling could conflict with military activities. In a time of relatively stable prices and booming oil and gas production elsewhere, the risks outweigh the benefits.

Opposition to offshore drilling is an opinion broadly shared by communities on the Virginia coast, including by the Democratic mayor of Norfolk and the Republican mayor of Virginia Beach. In fact, the city council of Virginia Beach (Virginia’s most populous city) actively voted to shift its prior support for offshore drilling from supportive to neutral, then from neutral to opposed.

We hope you will take opposition from Virginia coastal communities as seriously as you took the concerns from Florida residents and elected officials.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

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WASHINGTON —Today, U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine (both D-VA) sent a letter to the White House recommending Patricia Tolliver Giles and Judge Rossie David Alston, Jr. to fill the vacancy on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District following the retirement of Judge Gerald Lee.

Giles and Alston both were recommended by an independent panel of attorneys from across the Commonwealth selected by Sens. Warner and Kaine to interview qualified applicants. Giles is currently an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, and Alston has served as a judge of the Court of Appeals of Virginia since 2009.

“Under his tenure, Judge Lee served with great distinction on the bench and in the legal community. While presiding over a court with one of the busiest dockets in the country, Judge Lee tirelessly mentored youths in the community and fostered the careers of generations of lawyers from the minority Bar,” wrote the Senators. “Consistent with these values, we believe both Ms. Giles and Judge Alston would continue Judge Lee’s legacy…Ultimately, we believe either of these individuals would serve in the judiciary with great distinction and we are honored to recommend them to you.”

The White House will now nominate one individual to be considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The nomination is subject to confirmation by the full Senate.

The full text of today’s letter appears below.

The Honorable Donald J. Trump

President of the United States

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

We are pleased to recommend Ms. Patricia Tolliver Giles and Judge Rossie David Alston, Jr. for the vacancy in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia left vacant by Judge Gerald Bruce Lee, who retired in September. Under his tenure, Judge Lee served with great distinction on the bench and in the legal community. While presiding over a court with one of the busiest dockets in the country, Judge Lee tirelessly mentored youths in the community and fostered the careers of generations of lawyers from the minority Bar.

Consistent with these values, we believe both Ms. Giles and Judge Alston would continue Judge Lee’s legacy. As Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, Ms. Giles serves on the Major Crimes Unit, where she has risen to prosecute some of the most serious cases in the office, including prosecution of MS-13 gang members for capital murder of a federal witness. Our advisory panel and various Bar Associations in the Commonwealth found her record most impressive.

Key members of the Virginia Bar also spoke highly of Judge Alston, who first joined the Commonwealth bench in 1998 and received an appointment to the Virginia Court of Appeals in 2009. He has also devoted significant time to the legal community, where he is an active member of various Bar associations, including the Old Dominion Bar. As a Distinguished Adjunct Professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, he has taught courses in trial advocacy, criminal courts, and professional development. On Friday nights, Judge Alston changes his judicial robe for referee stripes to officiate Virginia high school football games. 

Ultimately, we believe either of these individuals would serve in the judiciary with great distinction and we are honored to recommend them to you.

Sincerely,

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WASHINGTON – U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine (both D-VA) announced today that communities in Hampton Roads will receive $2,201,300 from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to provide assistance in repairing or reconstructing federal roads and land damaged by Hurricane Matthew. The October 2016 storm brought torrential rains, high winds, coastal flooding and road closures across Hampton Roads due to washouts and flooding.

“These funds will give communities in Hampton Roads needed resources to continue repairs to area roads damaged by the storm so they can be brought back to a safe and suitable condition,” the Senators said.

The first grant of $2,000,000 will go to the Virginia Department of Transportation to help with the repair or reconstruction of federal-aid highways and roads on federal lands in Southampton County and the cities of Chesapeake, Suffolk, and Norfolk that suffered serious damage or catastrophic failures as a result of the storm. The second grant of $201,300 will go to the Virginia Fish and Wildlife Service to do similar repairs in the cities of Virginia Beach, Suffolk, and Gates. 

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WASHINGTON— U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA), a member of the Senate Finance and Budget Committees, today responded to the announcement by President Trump that he will unilaterally cut off the Cost-Sharing Reduction (CSR) payments required under the Affordable Care Act, thereby increasing Americans’ health premiums by 20 percent or more.

“The Trump Administration is determined to inject chaos and confusion through its unilateral efforts to sabotage the Affordable Care Act, even though these actions will again raise costs and limit healthcare choices for working families. There is no debate about the results of President Trump’s irresponsible actions in the past 24 hours. By taking a wrecking ball to the ACA, the Trump Administration has itself created additional hardship and anxiety for many Virginia families, and undermines real progress on the Senate’s bipartisan efforts to bring stability to the individual health care marketplace,” said Sen. Warner.  

Fifty-six percent of Virginians who buy insurance in the ACA marketplace rely on cost-sharing reductions to keep their health care costs affordable. In fact, in some Virginia localities—including Lee, Scott, Wise, Halifax, Sussex, Accomack, Page, Madison, Rappahannock, and Richmond counties—approximately 100% of marketplace enrollees receive some form of cost sharing reduction.

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), eliminating the CSRs will raise ACA premiums for next year by an estimated 20 percent as insurers raise prices to make up for the lost payments. It’s also expected that the number of uninsured Americans would rise by 1 million in 2018, relative to current law, and by 2020, premiums are expected to increase by 25 percent. Ending the payments is also expected to cost the government an additional $194 billion over the next decade, compared to current law.

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WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) released the following statement after the Senate approved legislation last night to fund the Department of Veteran Affairs’ (V-A) Veterans Choice Program and authorize 28 delayed V-A medical facility leases?: 

"The Veterans Choice Program was meant to reduce wait times and give veterans a broader range of options to access quality health care in their communities. The legislation the Senate approved last night, which now heads to the President's desk for his signature, provides $2.1 billion to continue funding the Choice program for six months. It also provides $1.8 billion to address longstanding staffing needs at V-A hospitals, including Hampton VAMC.

"Moreover, it authorizes more than two dozen leases for new V-A medical facilities across the country, which has been one of my top priorities. This is long overdue. It includes two new outpatient clinics in Hampton Roads -- which has one of the fastest-growing patient populations in the V-A system -- and in Fredericksburg, which will ease the burden at existing V-A facilities and allow veterans to receive treatment closer to their homes. These steps move us forward in our commitment to our nation's veterans." 

For more than a year, Sen. Warner has been spearheading a bipartisan effort in Congress to approve the overdue medical leases. In September 2016, he led a bipartisan group of Senators in introducing the Providing Veterans Overdue Care Act to authorize leases for 24 Department of Veterans Affairs medical facilities in 15 states, most of which had already been waiting for congressional approval for more than a year. At the beginning of the new Congress in January 2017, Sen. Warner teamed up with Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) to reintroduce? the legislation. 

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WASHINGTON—The U.S. Senate unanimously passed legislation early Saturday to ensure that veterans who suffer service-ending combat-related injuries are not taxed on the severance payment they receive from the Department of Defense (DOD). The U.S. House of Representatives passed the legislation earlier in the week. Now the bill is headed to the President’s desk to be signed into law.

The Combat-Injured Veterans Tax Fairness Act of 2016 directs DOD to identify veterans who have been separated from service for combat-related injuries and received a severance payment that was improperly taxed by the federal government. It instructs DOD to determine how much the combat-wounded veterans are owed and allow veterans who have been improperly taxed to recover the withheld amounts.

Under federal law, veterans who suffer combat-related injuries and who are separated from the military are not supposed to be taxed on the one-time lump sum disability severance payment they receive from DOD. Unfortunately, taxes on combat-related disability severance payments have nonetheless been withheld from qualifying veterans for a number of years due to the limitations of DOD’s automated payment system. Veterans are typically unaware that their benefits were improperly reduced as a result of DOD’s actions.

U.S. Senators Mark Warner (D-VA) and John Boozman (R-AR) introduced identical legislation in the Senate in March.

“It is unbelievable that Congress needed to act to clear up this issue. Severance pay for service members who suffered combat-related injuries should not be taxed under any circumstance,” said Warner, a member of the Senate Finance Committee. “I am comforted by the fact that this bill now heads to the President, and soon the 700 disabled military veterans in Virginia will be able to recover the compensation they are owed for their courageous sacrifice.”

“I’m pleased that the Senate passed this critical legislation to right a wrong for our veterans who were unfairly penalized for injuries they sustained while in service to our country. This will ensure that our nation’s wounded receive the benefits they earned,” Boozman, a member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee said. 

“Our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines risk their lives every day to protect our freedoms, our values and our republic. The revelation that there are thousands of veterans who did not receive their full disability severance pay is unacceptable. This legislation is a common-sense solution to ensure that these veterans who had their severance payment wrongfully taxed will receive every penny that they are rightfully owed. These veterans deserve no less for their service and sacrifice to our nation,” said Rep. David Rouzer (R-NC), the House sponsor of the bill. 

The Senate language was included as an amendment to the Taxpayer Protection Act of 2016, which passed the Senate Finance Committee in April.

The problem of improper taxation of the severance payments to combat-injured veterans was originally identified by the National Veterans Legal Services Program (NVLSP), an independent, nonprofit veterans service organization that has served active duty military personnel and veterans since 1980. NVLSP estimates that over 13,800 veterans may have been denied full severance pay as a result of wrongful taxation, including approximately 165 veterans in Arkansas and 720 veterans in Virginia.

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