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Wyden Wins for Oregon in 107th Congress

January 1, 2003
Washington, DC – When the 108th Congress convenes in Washington today, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) will continue his work for the state of Oregon and for the nation. Wyden's office today is releasing the following list of the Senator's accomplishments in the recently concluded 107th Congress, which include 30 legislative measures approved by the Senate. Fourteen of those were also passed by the House of Representatives and signed into law by the President. Following is a selected list of Wyden's accomplishments for the 107th Congress.

STANDING UP FOR OREGON CITIZENS: IMPROVING SECURITY AND SAFETY

* Wyden won Senate passage of the "Science and Technology Emergency Mobilization Act," and that legislation's main provisions were incorporated into the Homeland Security Act of 2002. The legislation authorizes the creation, under the new Department of Homeland Security, of rapid-response teams of technology volunteers known as the National Emergency Technology Guard, or "NET Guard," to assist communities after a terror attack. The Homeland Security bill also creates the Federal technology clearinghouse Wyden proposed in his legislation to help new anti-terror technologies find their way to appropriate government agencies.

* Wyden won passage of his proposal to create a national Terrorist Identification Classification System. The TIC System, incorporated into the Intelligence Authorization Act and signed into law by the President, will be a centralized database of known or suspected terrorists and terrorist groups created with information drawn from the entire U.S. intelligence community and accessible to Federal, State and local law enforcement agencies.

* Anti-terrorism legislation passed by the Senate included an important provision by Wyden, Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), lifting restrictions that prevented federal attorneys in Oregon from supervising undercover investigations that help stop terrorism and aid the apprehension and prosecution of terrorists. Portland Police Chief Mark Kroeker said Wyden and Smith's efforts "made the difference by finally putting adequate pressure on the Oregon State Bar to revise its rules so as to allow lawyers to supervise covert law enforcement activities." Kroeker noted that Wyden's work enabled the capture in Oregon of six individuals suspected of seeking to aid al-Qaida in its war against the United States.

* Wyden was a conferee and original co-sponsor of port security legislation, which aims to protect U.S. ports against terrorist attacks. Wyden was instrumental in winning funds for fire safety and Coast Guard protection in Oregon, as well as removing regulatory proposals and fees that would have hurt Oregon businesses and the environment.

* Wyden and Smith secured $2 million in new equipment funding for the 1042nd Air Ambulance Company. This funding will replace the capabilities of the 939th Air Rescue Wing, which is being moved to another state. Oregon will continue to have high level search and rescue operations over the most difficult terrain of the Pacific Northwest.

STANDING UP FOR OREGON COMMUNITIES: HELPING WORKING FAMILIES

* Wyden continued his efforts to solve water disputes in the Klamath Basin. He urged patience among lending institutions regarding non-performing loans that could occur, or have occurred, as a result of the problems facing the Klamath Basin region. He worked with Smith to include a $175 million aid package in the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002. With the assistance of Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), House and Senate negotiators agreed to send $50 million of that money to clean up water supplies in the Basin and bring stability to farms and the environment there.

* The President signed into law the Klamath Basin Emergency Operation and Maintenance Refund Act, legislation authored by Wyden, Smith and Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) that compensates the Klamath Basin irrigation districts approximately $4 million for costs incurred to maintain canals in the project, despite the fact that the canals received no water. Even though water was withheld from the irrigation districts for much of the 2001 planting season, the law had required local farmers and ranchers to pay for canal operation and maintenance.

* Wyden made great strides on behalf of Oregon fishers seeking a capacity reduction program for the West Coast groundfish fishery. A Wyden-Smith initiative created a $50 million buyback program and was passed by the Senate in June 2002. The House failed to act.

* Wyden and Smith also secured $500,000 in funding to guarantee Federal loans to fishers and speed the implementation of the buyback program when it receives full Congressional approval. These funds represent Federal support of the industry-financed buyback proposal.

* Wyden secured $550,000 in federal assistance to help fund the Oregon Food Bank's new food distribution warehouse in Portland. The new, larger, statewide food distribution facility will allow the Food Bank to collect at least four million more pounds of food each year.

* In November 2002, Wyden won passage of a resolution promoting awareness and education about the importance of health care coverage. The resolution called for the establishment of a National Importance of Health Care Coverage Month.

STANDING UP FOR OREGON'S ENVIRONMENT: PROTECTING RESOURCES

* Wyden and Smith won passage of the Little Sandy Protection Act, which expands the Bull Run Watershed Management Unit by nearly 3,000 acres to include the southern portion of the Little Sandy watershed. The bill was sponsored by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) in the House. To protect water quality and quantity for Bull Run and the Little Sandy, the new law restricted timber harvesting in the area. It also authorized $10 million for Clackamas County for watershed restoration to benefit endangered fish species.

* Wyden successfully stopped the controversial Eagle Creek timber sale due to concerns that the "salvage rider" sale was not subject to adequate review and that the planned logging would result in greater environmental degradation.

* Citing significant fire safety concerns for southern Oregon, Wyden, Smith and Walden convinced the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) to halt the proposed closure of the Medford Air Tanker Base for the 2002 fire season. The base was slated for closure at the end of the 2001 fire season, with operations to be consolidated into the existing air tanker base at Klamath Falls. It will now remain open as a reload base.

* Wyden and Smith won passage of legislation allowing the National Park Service to expand the Fort Clatsop memorial, including land for a trail leading from Fort Clatsop to the Coast. Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.) sponsored the House legislation. The trail represents the last stretch of Lewis and Clark's transcontinental journey and will be preserved for the bicentennial of the expedition beginning this year.

* Wyden and Smith won passage of legislation authorizing feasibility studies for fish passage at the Chiloquin Dam on the Sprague River. The legislation was then incorporated into the farm bill, and the bill was sponsored on the House side by Rep. Walden. Improving fish passage at the Chiloquin Dam is an environmentally sound restoration project supported by all stakeholders in the Klamath Basin.

* Wyden and Smith won approval of bipartisan legislation to enable the Bureau of Reclamation to study water management on four Snake River tributaries in northeastern Oregon. These new feasibility studies on the Malheur, Owyhee, Powder and Burnt River basins will help local watershed councils conserve their own resources for the future.

* Wyden won passage of legislation providing funds for carbon sequestration projects in forests, helping to slow global warming by reducing carbon in the air and improving forest management. The Wyden initiative was included in the farm bill.

* Wyden and Smith won enactment of legislation that sanctions, in federal law, an agreement by which the Warm Springs Indian Tribes and Portland General Electric will seek a joint federal power license for the Pelton/Round Butte Hydroelectric Project on the Deschutes River.

* The Senate approved Smith and Wyden's "Wallowa Lake Dam Rehabilitation and Water Management Act," authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to participate in the rehabilitation of the Wallowa Lake Dam and in the Wallowa Valley Water Management Plan. Local stakeholders developed the two rehabilitation projects with the participation of numerous state and federal agencies and the support of the Nez Perce Tribe.

* Wyden won passage of an amendment restricting the rights of foreign investors in the U.S. to no greater than those enjoyed by U.S. investors themselves – keeping foreign investors who sue state and local governments over environmental laws from getting larger monetary awards than American businesses. The Wyden amendment became part of the Bipartisan Trade Promotion Authority Act of 2002, enacted into law on August 6, 2002.

* In July 2001, 24 nuclear waste storage tanks once at risk of exploding were stabilized and taken off a watch list created by Wyden. The "Wyden Watch List" was established in 1990 through an amendment requiring the U.S. Department of Energy to catalogue dangerous underground radioactive waste tanks at Hanford and to improve the tanks' condition.

STANDING UP FOR OREGON VOTERS: HONORING OREGON'S CHOICES

* In a vigorous Senate floor fight, Wyden won protections for Oregon's successful vote-by-mail system in federal election reform legislation. The Help America Vote Act of 2002, signed into law in October, includes a Wyden provision giving those who register by mail additional options to verify their identities, thereby deterring fraud without placing restrictive "photo ID" requirements on first-time voters in Oregon.

* Wyden won inclusion of his "Stand by Your Ad" legislation in the historic McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by the President. Wyden's provision targets attack ads by requiring federal candidates to take personal responsibility for references made to an opponent in radio or television advertising in order to qualify for the lowest usage rate available for commercial time.

* Legislation written by Wyden, Smith and DeFazio and signed into law by the President will name the new federal courthouse planned for Eugene, the Wayne Lyman Morse United States Courthouse. Morse was Wyden's political mentor, and Wyden now hold's Morse's seat in the U.S. Senate.

* Wyden filed an amicus brief with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in opposition to efforts by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to overturn the state's Death with Dignity Act. Oregon's U.S. Reps. Darlene Hooley, Earl Blumenauer, Peter DeFazio and David Wu joined him on the brief. In the brief, Wyden and the Democratic House members maintained that Ashcroft is "impermissibly interfering with the states' traditional power to regulate medicine" and argued that Ashcroft's action has no basis in law under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

STANDING UP FOR OREGON CONSUMERS: MAKING MARKETS FAIR

* Wyden won passage of his "Internet Tax Non-Discrimination Act," extending the moratorium on discriminatory and multiple taxes levied against Internet commerce. The legislation was signed into law by President Bush on November 28, 2001.

* Wyden stood up for energy consumers with an amendment creating a Federal advocate to protect their interests. The Senate passed the amendment in March 2002, even as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) investigated whether energy trader Enron artificially inflated wholesale electricity prices on the West Coast. Although the energy bill stalled in the conference process, Wyden's proposal garnered bipartisan support in the Senate.

* A report released by Wyden in summer 2001 revealed internal oil company documents raising serious questions about anti-competitive and anti-consumer practices among the nation's leading oil companies. Wyden's report, "The Oil Industry, Gas Supply, and Refinery Capacity: More Than Meets the Eye," showed that oil companies may have acted since the mid-1990's to suppress refinery capacity and control gasoline supply to drive up prices and boost profits.

* Wyden and Senator Burns won Commerce Committee approval of the CAN SPAM Act of 2001, designed to slow the flow of unsolicited commercial e-mail to Internet users and to give consumers more control. The bill aimed to prohibit senders of unsolicited mail from using misleading header information and otherwise disguising the source of their messages, and to require the inclusion of a return address that consumers can use to demand to stop receiving a sender's unsolicited messages.

STANDING UP FOR OREGON'S ECONOMY: PAVING PATHS TO PROSPERITY

* Wyden and Smith secured $500,000 to protect commerce along the Columbia River. The federal funds will support the Columbia River Aquatic Nuisance Species Initiative (CRANSI), an innovative project to study and combat the effect of invasive species released in vessels' ballast water, which often destroy native habitats and could inhibit maritime commerce along the Columbia.

* In the final hours of its 2002 session, Congress approved legislation authored by Wyden and Smith giving Prineville a paved route to U.S. Highway 20. The measure gives Crook and Deschutes counties the right-of-way to West Butte Road in exchange for transferring the right-of-way to the George Millican Road to the U.S. Department of Interior Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

* Wyden and Smith secured more than $63 million in Federal dollars to fund construction of the Interstate Metropolitan Area Express (I-MAX) Yellow Line, a 5.8 mile extension between the Rose Quarter Transit Center and the Portland Expo Center.

* A provision by Wyden, Smith and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) was passed as part of the Senate-passed energy bill to increase the borrowing authority of the Bonneville Power Administration by $1.3 billion. More borrowing authority would let BPA construct projects critical to reliable transmission, integrate and upgrade generation facilities, and increase conservation efforts. The energy bill died in the House-Senate conference.

STANDING UP FOR OREGON CHILDREN: STRENGTHENING EDUCATION

* Wyden won passage of his "Rural Education Development Initiative" to aid schools that are small, rural, or in impoverished areas of rural Oregon and the rest of the country. That legislation, as well as Wyden proposals to increase funding for teacher development and bilingual education, was included in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

* Wyden won passage of his "Student Education Enrichment Demonstration (SEED) Act" to help states design high-quality summer academic programs for students who cannot meet state achievement standards. Wyden's legislation was incorporated into the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

* Wyden won passage of legislation commissioning a 10-year study to assess the differences in the careers of science faculty members of different genders. As Chair of the Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space, Wyden issued a call for equal opportunity for women and girls in science, math, technology and engineering education. His proposal for the 10-year review of university practices in this regard was incorporated into the reauthorization of the National Science Foundation.

STANDING UP FOR OREGON'S FUTURE: SUPPORTING TECHNOLOGY

* Wyden's Cyber Security Research and Development Act of 2002 was passed by Congress and then signed into law by the President. The legislation establishes and authorizes funding for cyber security programs at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) to support education and research efforts nationwide.

* Wyden won unanimous Commerce Committee approval of bipartisan legislation to promote nanotechnology research and development in the United States. The bill funds and coordinates accelerated nanotechnology research in the United States to let scientists working on the atomic and molecular scales continue to make rapid advances in numerous areas including health care, manufacturing, and agriculture.

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