The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Work Plan for Fiscal Year 2014 released today included $400,000 to help continue progress for the Skagit General Investigation Study (G.I.). The Skagit G.I. will help identify long-term flood control projects that will protect lives and property in the Skagit Valley that are vulnerable to regular and harmful floods along the Skagit River. Congresswoman Suzan DelBene and Congressman Rick Larsen have consistently called on the Administration to provide federal fun...
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Congresswoman Suzan DelBene introduced legislation that expands tax credits for small businesses to make offering health coverage to their workers more affordable. Her bill is the companion to legislation introduced last week by Senator Mark Begich from Alaska. Congressman Frank Pallone (NJ-3) and Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter (NH-1) are also original cosponsors of the House bill. Called the Small Business Tax Credit Accessibility Act (H.R. 4128), the bill is a fix to the Affordable Care Act ...
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Today, after the announcement by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that it is initiating a process under the Clean Water Act to protect the world's largest sockeye salmon fishery in Bristol Bay from the potentially destructive impacts of the proposed Pebble Mine, Congresswoman Suzan DelBene issued the following statement: “As I have said all along, the EPA’s decision to take steps that will protect Bristol Bay from the incredibly destructive Pebble Mine is the right one and is good news ...
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Today, Congresswoman Suzan DelBene, along with 121 other members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to US Trade Representative Michael Froman, urging him to continue to push for a robust, fully enforceable environment chapter in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal. “TPP must include new and robust commitments for member countries to protect and conserve forests, oceans, and wildlife and obligate member countries to comply with both domestic environmental laws, not derogati...
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While House Republicans have been adamant that immigration reform is all but dead this year, a coalition of women’s groups is hoping to revive the issue, wrapping it into the “war on women” offensive. Arguing that women and children bear the brunt of the burden from a broken system, and that women will be decisive in the 2014 and 2016 elections, organizers said that Republicans should reconsider their approach to immigration reform. “Unless we actually have action from House leadership, from Spe...
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SEATTLE (AP) — U.S. Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Suzan DelBene on Tuesday brought their fight to raise the national minimum wage to $10.10 an hour to Seattle, where advocates want to raise it $5 higher. The small-business owner who hosted their news conference thinks the national proposal would be easier to swallow. Molly Neitzel, owner of Molly Moon's Ice Cream, said she already pays most of her employees more than Washington state's minimum of $9.32 an hour and the people who make the ice cream ...
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Congresswoman Suzan DelBene issued the following statement regarding Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposal to issue new rules to preserve net neutrality protections that were struck down by the D.C. Circuit Court earlier this year: “Ensuring a free and open internet is essential to innovation and economic growth, which is why I am pleased that Chairman Wheeler is taking action to respond to the recent court ruling that struck down the FCC’s Open Internet rules....
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President Obama is doubling down on a $10.10-an-hour federal minimum wage as a cause that will lift thousands out of poverty, assist millions in reaching the middle class and help Democrats in the 2014 midterm election. He’s getting support back home during the President’s Day recess. “Raising the minimum wage is about bringing back the middle class,” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., told a Tuesday media event at Molly Moon’s Homemade Ice Cream on Capitol Hill. Never underestimate the common touch — ...
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Today the US House of Representatives passed by a vote of 221-201 legislation to extend the nation’s borrowing authority for one year, through March 15, 2015. The measure will allow the government to fully finance government operations until that time, averting an economic catastrophe that many economists predicted if the debt ceiling limit was not raised. Congresswoman Suzan DelBene voted to support the bill and issued the following statement today: “The House’s bipartisan vote today ends the ...
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EVERETT — The 500 low-income Snohomish County families who received notices last month about federal rent subsidies running out are off the hook — for 2014, at least. The Housing Authority of Snohomish County on Monday mailed a second letter informing those households that their Section 8 vouchers will last through year’s end. That came as a relief for Destinaey Nicholson, 33, a single mother who lives in south Everett. One of her worries, if the loss of rent subsidies had forced her to move, wa...
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