Senator Grassley at work ---

U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley has earned the trust of Iowans and made his mark in Washington with his commitment to constituents, more accountable government, and common sense solutions. Senator Grassley gets things done and never stops fighting for a better future. Along the way, he says what he means, and means what he says.

Chuck Grassley keeps in touch by visiting every one of Iowa’s 99 counties at least one time every year. He’s done so every year since his election to the Senate in 1980. He responds to every letter, postcard, e-mail and phone call from Iowa. He’s determined to help Iowans cut through government red tape, and Senator Grassley’s offices in Iowa and Washington are the go-to place for constituent services.

Senator Grassley goes the distance to make government more accountable. He seeks reforms that bring openness and transparency. He’s the sponsor of legislation to let cameras in federal courtrooms and create a watchdog for the federal judiciary. Few lawmakers oversee the federal bureaucracy as aggressively as Senator Grassley, who cites Congress’ responsibility to see that the laws it passes are faithfully executed. He keeps a short leash on the practices of the Internal Revenue Service, the FBI, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, the Centers for Disease Control, the General Services Administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

When he’s onto a problem, Senator Grassley doesn’t give up. He pressed for results for Iowans who worked at the Cold War Army Ammunition Plan in Middleton and then got the cold shoulder from the federal compensation program set up for those made sick by radiation and toxic materials. He successfully argued that plant workers and their families deserved a hearing, just like when he got the U.S. government to turn over a million pages of documents in 1992 about missing POWs and MIAs from the Vietnam War.

Senator Grassley continues his long-standing oversight of the Defense Department's ability to misspend tax dollars by working to cleanup the misuse of government-issued credit cards. He's raised doubts about hefty government relocation fees paid for transferring federal employees. He sought an investigation of fraud and abuse of Social Security disability payments, while also passing legislation to close the loopholes exploited by bad actors.

Senator Grassley has made tax fairness and the credibility of tax-exempt status a top priority and scrutinized abusive use of foundation tax structures, misuse of dollars given to the United Way and the American Red Cross, questionable land sales by the Nature Conservancy, fine art donations that leave paintings in donor living rooms rather than on museum walls, loopholes used to write off entire safari trips by donating stuffed animals that sat in dusty rail cares, and the extent to which nonprofit hospitals provide charity care to the needy. Until his effort, Congress hadn’t looked at the laws governing nonprofits since 1969, even while the size of the tax-exempt sector of the economy exploded.

Senator Grassley watches out for the interests of the elderly, including the 1.6 million residents in the nation's nursing homes. As Chairman of the Senate Aging Committee in the late 1990s, he exposed terrible neglect in some of the nation's 17,000 nursing homes and spurred a comprehensive effort to improve standards of care. Senator Grassley’s scrutiny of a Food and Drug Administration that became too cozy with the drug industry it regulates, resulted in more information for the public about the risks of antidepressants in young people and stronger warnings and restricted uses for other drugs on the market. He keeps the pressure on for reforms, saying consumers shouldn’t have to second guess the safety of what’s in their medicine cabinets.

Senator Grassley champions whistleblowers in government and the private sector who put their jobs on the line to expose fraud or wrongdoing for the public good. The senator co-authored the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 for government workers. He successfully fought to include whistleblower protections for employees of publicly traded companies in Sarbanes-Oxley law to encourage revelations of corporate wrongdoing. He also worked to make sure federal employees in the new Homeland Security Department could come forward with information regarding national security and public safety.

What’s more, whistleblower amendments that Senator Grassley sponsored during a 1986 update of the False Claims Act have recovered $18 billion to the U.S. Treasury that otherwise would have been lost to fraud. Senator Grassley worked at that time to empower whistleblowers against defense contractor fraud. Today his whistleblower provisions are the government’s most effective tool against health care fraud.

When it comes to making public policy, Senator Grassley is known as a workhorse, not a show horse. He’s earned a reputation as an honest broker and has achieved great legislative success.

Senator Grassley is the Ranking Member of what he calls the “Quality of Life” committee because it’s responsible for the issues affecting virtually every American from cradle to grave. The Finance Committee is responsible for tax policy, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare policy, pensions, worker's compensation, and job-generating international trade. Senator Grassley also uses his other key committee assignments -- Agriculture, Judiciary and Budget — to gain the best advantage for Iowans.

While Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee in 2001 and from 2003 to 2007, Senator Grassley guided through Congress seven international trade agreements covering 12 countries and nine major tax bills, including the biggest income tax cut in a generation, which Alan Greenspan said was key to helping the economy recover after 9-11. The 2001 Grassley tax cut made the tax code more progressive by creating a 10-percent marginal rate for the lowest-income worker, expanding the child tax credit, and reducing the marriage penalty. By spurring economic activity, the tax policy also resulted in record-breaking revenues collected by the federal Treasury.

As Chairman, Senator Grassley succeeded in making tax-free savings plans for college a permanent part of the tax code, creating the deduction for tuition, and securing the tax deductibility of interest on student loans. In 2006, he shepherded through Congress the first major overhaul of pension guarantee legislation that was enacted in 1974. It is designed to prevent Enron-type scandals from happening again and includes broad new incentives to help Americans save more for retirement. Chairman Grassley made sure that millions of American families were held harmless from the unintended consequences of the Alternative Minimum Tax. And, Chairman Grassley fought for tax fairness by shutting down tax shelters and closing tax loopholes used by corporations and wealthy individuals to avoid taxes owed.

Senator Grassley has long been one of the most outspoken advocates in Congress for developing domestically produced alternative, renewable energy. In the 1990s, he worked to create the clean air mandate that set the stage for expanded ethanol production and use. In 1997, Senator Grassley led the fight to extend the ethanol program for 10 years. As Chairman of the Finance Committee, Grassley authored another extension of the tax credit for ethanol, along with the tax incentives for small ethanol producers. Chairman Grassley also expanded and extended that tax incentive for wind energy production, which he first authored in 1992, and he created and expanded tax incentives for biodiesel and biomass energy sources. Senator Grassley was also a leading proponent of the Renewable Fuels Standard in the 2005 national energy bill. He has sponsored legislation to have 25 percent of America’s energy come from renewable sources by 2025. He is a steady force against efforts to undermine the expansion of ethanol production in the United States by prematurely lifting the tariff on Brazilian ethanol. And, Senator Grassley holds Big Oil’s feet to the fire by publicly questioning the industry’s willingness to use ethanol-blended gasoline at service stations.

Health care policy is also a top priority for Senator Grassley. Chairman Grassley developed the first-ever Medicare prescription drug benefit with extra help for lower-income seniors and won approval of landmark rural health provisions to improve unfair federal formulas that had shortchanged health care delivery system in states like Iowa. He also works to help the disabled and working poor to afford health care coverage. Senator Grassley won a huge victory in 2006 with enactment of a Grassley-Kennedy plan to allow working parents to buy into Medicaid for children with special needs. With 43 million Americans facing no health care coverage, Senator Grassley is committed to doing more to increase access to affordable health care.

Chuck Grassley is a working family farmer, who has long given farmers a voice at the policymaking tables both in Washington and around the world during global trade negotiations. Senator Grassley knows the importance of the farm safety net for Rural America and independent producers and works against anti-competitive practices like vertical integration in the meatpacking industry. Chuck Grassley is the leading advocate of payment limits on farm program subsidies to prevent the largest operators from getting two-thirds of total farm payments and perpetuating the growth of large, corporate farms and rural population decline. He doesn’t shy away from a dust up when the federal government hands down rules that are out of touch with the reality of the winds that blow across Midwestern fields. He seeks justice for black farmers who were unfairly treated by the Department of Agriculture, and he works for common sense management of both conservation and farm-related barge traffic on the Mississippi River.

As a Senior Member of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Grassley has won a major overhaul of the nation’s bankruptcy system, curbs on abuses of the class action lawsuit system, and tougher penalties and better monitoring of sexual predators who target children. He made Chapter 12 for farmers a permanent part of the bankruptcy code to help family farmers reorganize debt and keep farming. He fights for consumers to have access to affordable medicine with legislation to prohibit brand-name drug manufacturers from using pay-off agreements to keep cheaper generic equivalents off the market. He’s the lead sponsor of legislation to create a new worker verification system for employers to determine if workers are legally in the United States.

Senator Grassley is the 15th highest ranking member of the U.S. Senate.

While Senator Grassley works in Washington, he lives in Iowa and returns home almost every weekend. He and his wife Barbara raised five children in New Hartford. They have nine grandchildren.