In The News

Energy Secretary nominee Jennifer Granholm easily moved out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee this morning on a bipartisan 13-4 vote. Lawmakers will now race to see whether they can get her approved by the full Senate before the chamber gets bogged down by impeachment next week. That vote has not yet been scheduled. The former Michigan governor earned bipartisan praise from lawmakers on the committee. Incoming Chairman Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) heralded her leadership during the 2008 financial crisis and its effects on the auto industry. “She helped save the auto industry. She helped diversify Michigan’s economy. She

Two senators have introduced legislation to extend the reinstatement period for tens of thousands of military retirees who have lost their health care coverage because they didn’t set up their payments for the new enrollment fee.

By law, in order to continue coverage under Tricare Select, retiree sponsors were required to start paying new monthly enrollment fees as of Jan. 1, and they were required to set up a payment plan with their Tricare contractor by the end of 2020 by allotment, bank account or credit card. If they didn’t take this action, their coverage was dropped as of Jan. 1, and some may not realize it until they seek medical care and a claim is denied.

The proposal introduced Tuesday by Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., would extend the grace period from June to the end of 2021 to allow retirees to reinstate their coverage. Defense Health Agency officials had previously extended the grace period to six months, but military advocates have asked for one year’s grace period.

“This extension helps ensure no retired service member is left without health care coverage, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Manchin, in a statement announcing the proposal.

In 2021, for the first time, retirees and family members enrolled in Tricare Select must pay enrollment fees in order to continue their coverage. This doesn’t apply to retirees and family members enrolled in Tricare for Life. Nor does it affect active duty families on Tricare Select, survivors of deceased active duty members, or medically retired retirees and family members.

The new enrollment fees are:

• for individuals: $12.50 per month or $150 a year

• for families: $25 per month or $300 per year

Those affected are so-called “Group A” retirees and their dependents — working-age retirees under age 65 who entered the military before Jan. 1, 2018, their family members and survivors. Previously, these beneficiaries didn’t have to pay enrollment fees for Tricare Select, but a 2017 law required the Defense Department to start charging these enrollment fees by Jan. 1, 2021.

As of early January, about 20 percent of this population, or 174,754 out of 872,886 beneficiaries, hadn’t taken action to set up their payments, or to actively opt out, according to data provided by the Defense Health Agency. Those beneficiary numbers include the retiree sponsor as well the retiree’s eligible family members enrolled in Tricare Select.

Anyone who is dropped from Tricare Select will have access to direct medical care only at a military treatment facility, and only if space if available. Claims for medical treatment after Dec. 31, 2020 will be denied, but coverage can be reinstated if back enrollment fees are paid. Tricare will then pay the claims that were denied back to Jan. 1 because of the coverage termination.

The grace period is currently through June. Officials previously said that at the end of January, regional Tricare contractors would start sending out letters to these beneficiaries notifying them about their disenrollment. Contractors have also started sending emails to those who haven’t yet paid.

“Our bipartisan bill will help ensure we take care of our veterans and continue to provide quality health care for their service to this nation,” Daines said, in the announcement.

HELENA, Mont.- The future of the Keystone XL pipeline project remains unclear, and so does it’s impact in Montana. On his first day in office, President Biden stopped production, saying plans were not consistent with the administration’s economic and climate values. The 1,700 mile project runs through a large part of the state and would ship nearly 800,000 barrels of oil a day from Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast. Both sides oppose the President’s permit suspension because of significant job loss in Montana. Exact numbers weren’t easy to find because it’s winter and there aren’t many Montanans working on

A bipartisan, bicameral group of lawmakers is once again pushing to remove mandatory payments toward the health benefits for future U.S. Postal Service retirees, aiming to eliminate a controversial requirement  upon which the cash-strapped mailing agency has defaulted for years. Congress first established the prefunding mandate in the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, the last major legislative overhaul of the Postal Service, and the requirement has hampered the agency ever since. Shortly after the law’s passage, the recession hit and mail volume began to decline precipitously. That trend has continued to this day, leaving USPS without the financial means

Montana Republicans have introduced bills in both chambers of Congress in a longshot effort to override President Joe Biden and reauthorize construction of the long-disputed Keystone XL oil pipeline.

Biden canceled the project in one of many executive orders on his first day in office, angering Republican lawmakers who have derided his efforts to mitigate climate change as an attack on the U.S. energy sector. The pipeline’s construction would have supported more than 10,000 jobs in 2021, but a much smaller number of workers would be needed to operate it in the long term. Biden, meanwhile, has touted his clean-energy initiatives as opportunities for job creation and warned that climate change presents “an existential crisis.”

U.S. Sen. Steve Daines and U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale said Tuesday they had introduced legislation to reauthorize the pipeline, which would run through Montana and five other states, transporting crude oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to ports and refineries along the Gulf Coast. The two-page bill would allow TC Energy Corp. to “construct, connect, operate and maintain” pipeline facilities at the international border without a presidential permit.

“We must reverse Biden’s disastrous decision and send a clear message that supporting American workers is more important than supporting Saudi Arabia and allowing radical environmentalists to cash in on campaign promises,” Daines said in a statement.

U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, the lone Democrat in Montana’s congressional delegation and a longtime supporter of the Keystone XL, meanwhile signed a letter Tuesday urging Biden to reconsider his decision.

“This project has the potential to support thousands of good-paying jobs, increase tax revenue into local communities, and support a safer, more efficient alternative to transporting fossil fuel by truck or railroad,” Tester wrote. “The completion of the Keystone XL pipeline would be a powerful economic driver for Montana. I continue to support this project as long it is built to the highest safety standards, uses American steel, respects private property rights and includes robust consultation with tribes.”

Tester acknowledged that Native communities and environmentalists have raised concerns about the route of the pipeline and the potential for leaks and spills that could hurt water quality.

“With a straightforward conversation and commonsense safeguards, I believe we can make adjustments to the proposed project that will provide even stronger protections for people and clean water, while still supporting jobs and economic development along the pipeline route,” Tester wrote.

Tester voted for a previous bill to authorize the pipeline in 2015 and later that year joined 61 other senators in an unsuccessful vote to override a veto by then-President Barack Obama. On Tuesday, Tester’s office said he, Daines and Rosendale all share “the same goal,” but legislation may not be a simple way around Biden’s executive order.

“Our team is looking closely at every option available to get this pipeline built, and Jon is glad to have the rest of Montana’s delegation pushing alongside him toward that goal,” a Tester spokesman said in an email. “The reality is, whatever the status of the presidential permit, there are still outstanding court cases surrounding other aspects of the project. That’s why Jon is focusing not just on the presidential permit, which the Daines bill covers, but is trying to bring everyone to the table at once, so we can get these issues resolved once and for all and get folks to work building this pipeline as soon as possible.”

It’s unclear whether the Daines and Rosendale bills can gain any traction in the Democrat-controlled House or the evenly split Senate, which has Vice President Kamala Harris as a potential tie-breaking vote.

Daines and 25 other Republican senators signed a letter last week demanding to meet with Biden about his climate and energy actions. On Friday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Biden had no plan to grant the meeting, noting concerns about COVID-19, but he would remain “engaged on an individual basis” with lawmakers of both parties.

In an interview with the Daily Inter Lake last week, Tester said he doesn’t understand the “mystique” of the Keystone XL, noting thousands of miles of other pipelines already traverse the country. Pipelines are a safer way to transport oil than trucks and railways, and in the meantime the U.S. should work to fight climate change by investing in research and development of cost-competitive renewable energy sources, he argued.

“Some people think that if you just deprive people from carbon-based fuels, that things are going to get better. I don’t see that,” Tester said. “I’m a farmer. I put diesel fuel in my tractor. I don’t have any other options. Until we get those options, that’s where we’re at. So we need to put some money into R&D to make sure we get some alternative sources that are more climate-friendly.”

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said during a press conference Tuesday that President Joe Biden “wiped away” America’s energy revolution with the stroke of a pen.

McCarthy, speaking alongside several other House Republicans at Enterprise Products in Houston, slammed Biden’s anti-American energy policies:

We’ve watched America in the last few years become almost energy independent, making America stronger, creating more jobs, lowering the price of energy for Americans, and also making the world safer against our adversaries. I had never envisioned all of that success could be wiped away with one pen.

Reps. Kevin Brady (R-TX), Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), Brian Babin (R-TX), Michael McCaul (R-TX), Randy Weber (R-TX), Michael McCloud (R-TX), Troy Nehls (R-TX), Stephanie Bice (R-OK), and Yvette Herrell (R-NM) joined McCarthy for the press conference.

“I had never envisioned President Biden, on the day of being sworn in, talking about unity, but in less than two weeks, wiping away tens of thousands of Americans’ jobs, of empowering our adversaries to be stronger, and putting the energy costs of Americans on a path to go higher,” McCarthy added.

McCarthy also added that Biden’s actions to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline and new oil and natural gas mining permits on federal lands would harm Americans that service the energy industry.

The House GOP leader asked rhetorically, “What about the small hotel owner or the restaurant owner that are now losing their jobs because of his action?”

McCarthy said he and other House Republicans will join with Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND) to introduce the Keystone Pipeline Preservation Jobs Act. Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) will introduce the Senate version of the legislation.

“If President Biden is serious about any unity, come to Houston, come to middle America, come look in the faces of those workers, who earn $80,000 a year and tell them why you took their jobs away without even talking to them,” McCarthy said.

Founder and chairman of the Senate Pro-Life Caucus Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) speaks out about the new administration’s reversal of pro-life policies. One America’s John Hines caught up with the Montana lawmaker as the 48th annual March for Life kicks-off virtually this year.

Down syndrome abortions are “eugenics,” the Senate pro-life caucus chair told CNA in an interview this week. “This is eugenics, and we cannot allow this to continue in our country,” Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), chair of the Senate Pro-Life Caucus, told CNA in an interview on Thursday. Daines was referring to abortions conducted because of a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome. He admonished fellow senators who support the Special Olympics but who won’t vote to ban these abortions. “On one hand, these pro-abortion thinkers and leaders will applaud the Special Olympics. On the other hand, they support selective abortions for

Sen. Steve Daines, the founder and chairman of the Senate Pro-life Caucus, slammed President Biden over his executive actions to roll back two Trump policies that restricted government support for abortion. Specifically, Biden will issue a presidential memorandum that will rescind the Mexico City Policy, which prevents the federal government from funding international organizations that provide abortion. In a similar move, Biden’s memorandum will direct the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to reconsider Trump-era regulations that require separation between family planning programs funded under Title X and abortion. This includes the actual performance of abortions, referrals for abortions