#WASHINGTON, D.C.– Today, the Senate Commerce Committee approved legislation authored by U.S. Senators Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) – Chairman and Ranking Member of the Commerce Subcommittee with jurisdiction over the health and safety of U.S. Olympic and amateur athletes – that would dramatically reform the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. The legislation will now be considered by the full Senate.
Moran and Blumenthal introduced their sweeping reform bill in July following an eighteen-month investigation into systemic abuse within the U.S. Olympic movement. The joint inquiry included four subcommittee hearings, interviews with Olympic athletes and survivors, and the retrieval of over 70,000 pages of documents.Click here to read the senators’ full investigative report, findings, and recommendations, and here for a one-page summary of the bill.
“Today, the Commerce Committee moved us one step closer to passage of our sweeping reform legislation. We are grateful to our colleagues who provided support and input in the lead-up to today’s vote, helping us create an even stronger version of this legislation,” Moran and Blumenthal said.
“We could not have reached this moment without the community of survivors – athletes who traveled to Washington countless times, shared their stories, and demanded change. We told these survivors that while powerful institutions had failed them in the past, we weren’t going to. We intend to keep that promise, and look forward to moving ahead with this legislation on the Senate Floor.”
HARTFORD, CT) – Governor Ned Lamont today announced that Connecticut is receiving a seven-year, $25.8 million Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) grant from the U.S. Department of Education that will assist the state in its efforts to increase the number of low-income students prepared to enter and succeed in postsecondary education. The funding will allow three Connecticut community colleges to collaborate with local school districts to implement and carry out the project. The local alliances include Manchester Community College with East Hartford Public Schools, Naugatuck Valley Community College with Waterbury Public Schools, and Middlesex Community College with Meriden Public Schools.
“Our community colleges play a critical role in equipping our young people with the skills they need to succeed in the 21st century economy,” Governor Lamont said. “They are the engines driving the quality of Connecticut’s workforce and we must ensure that all of our young people are able to not only access these opportunities for their careers, but also are set up for success once enrolled. This partnership between local school districts and Connecticut’s community colleges will help accomplish that goal by helping students from a young age prepare for the rigors of a college education. By extension, it will Continue reading $26 MILLION IN FEDERAL FUNDING TO ASSIST LOW-INCOME STUDENTS SUCCEED IN COLLEGE
Attorney General William Tong said history is repeating itself as “20 years ago Attorney General Blumethal took on big tobacco companies because they were marking to kids”. Attorney General Tong feels that companies like Juul is marketing to kids “with different flavors and social media marketing” and he is launching his own investigation. Senator Tong hosted a forum held at Fairfield Woods Middle School last week, state officials will heard from representatives from the American Cancer Society, the American Lung Association, Sacred Heart University, Yale Health, and the Fairfield public school district about measures being taken to combat vaping among Connecticut’s youth.
Doctor JD Sidana of Docs of CT said one of the many additives in vaping materials is diastone, which is added to enhance flavored products, but once inhaled can create damage to the breathing passages. It causes the passageways to narrow similar to asthma but diastone damage is more permanent and more severe Sidana said.
Tong said there are FDA approved cessation products but Juul is not an approved cessation product which is a claim his office is investigating. Doctor Sidana said he wants to introduce an initiative to those who vape or smoke and is concerned about lung disesase can visit any of their facilities and get a free breathing test. The test takes 2-3 minutes and you will get info on the health of you lungs. Visit https://docsmedicalgroup.com/ for a location near you.
HARTFORD, CT] – On Friday, November 8, 2019 at 12:30 PM at Wall of Honor in Hartford, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) will present service medals to Specialist Third Class (SP-3) Calvin J. Manship of East Hartford in recognition of his service in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. SP-3 Manship served for over a year overseas, where his most significant duty assignment was serving with Headquarters Company, 11th Airborne Division.
The medals being awarded to SP-3 Manship are the Good Conduct (Army) Medal; National Defense Service Medal; Korean Service Medal; United Nations Service Medal; Combat Infantry Badge; and Parachutist Badge.
HARTFORD, CT) – Governor Ned Lamont today announced that the Connecticut Interagency PFAS Task Force, the group he created this summer and tasked with making recommendations for him to consider that address the potential harmful effects of a widely-used class of chemicals known as PFAS, has transmitted to his office its final action plan.
The plan recommends testing water supplies across the state, reducing the sources of PFAS in the environment, and cleaning up known contamination due to this class of emerging pollutants.
“I applaud the work of this task force, which is the result of a collaborative effort among public, private, and nonprofit stakeholders coming together to address an emerging contaminant with real impacts globally, nationally, and right here in Connecticut,” Governor Ned Lamont said. “I look forward to working with stakeholders to take the steps necessary to further protect the health of our citizens and our environment from these chemicals, which are so pervasive in consumer products and industrial processes.”
Key recommendations include:
· Testing public drinking water through a phased approach that prioritizes drinking water sources most vulnerable to PFAS pollution or that serve vulnerable populations, and communicating and educating public water systems customers and stakeholders;
· Working to develop a Safe Drinking Water Advisory Council to advise the commissioner of Department of Public Health on potentially setting a maximum contaminant level for PFAS;
· Identifying and evaluating other sources of human exposure to PFAS including fish, shellfish and agricultural products;
WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee,and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) this week introduced the ELEVATE Act (S.2761), bicameral legislation that will ensure states receive the federal funding necessary to provide high-quality instruction to students learning English. Specifically this legislation will correct a flawed funding formula the U.S. Department of Education uses to allocate funds to states by fully capturing the number of K-12 students who relocate to the mainland from Puerto Rico. This bill would allow Puerto Rican students to be fully counted in the annual grant allocation that states receive under the English Language Acquisition grant program. Correcting this flaw will be especially helpful to states like Connecticut and Florida, which have large and growing Puerto Rican populations.
Between 2010 and 2017, Connecticut’s Puerto Rican population increased from 264,000 to 292,000—an 11 percent jump. Florida’s Puerto Rican population rose from 864,000 to 1.1 million—a 27 percent increase.
“As the son of a former English language learning teacher, I know how important it is that we adequately fund these programs in our schools. The failure to completely count newly arrived kids from Puerto Rico is unfair and I’m glad this legislation will make sure that states like Connecticut, with large numbers of families coming here from Puerto Rico, will get the funding they deserve,” Sen. Murphy said.
#WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Tim Scott (R-S.C.), on Thursday introduced a bipartisan resolution designating October as “Health Literacy Month.”
“Managing your health care benefit shouldn’t be so complicated to understand. Improving health literacy will go a long way toward reducing barriers to care and bringing down the health costs for the people of Connecticut. I’m proud to join my colleagues in introducing this important resolution just days before open enrollment season begins,” said Murphy.
“Improving health literacy could help lower rates of diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure as more people understand symptoms, nutrition, and fitness. I joined this resolution to encourage people in places like Mississippi to become proactive in understanding their health needs and making suitable health decisions,” said Hyde-Smith.
“Ensuring Americans have the ability to access and understand basic health information will help patients and caretakers better understand their options and make more informed decisions. What’s more, increasing health literacy can lower healthcare costs for individuals and reduce the burden on our healthcare system nationwide. I’m proud to join in introducing this resolution, and I will continue working to expand access to resources that will improve healthcare outcomes across the board,” said Van Hollen.
“Health Literacy Month empowers Americans to make smart, proactive choices that enhances quality of life and generate substantial cost savings across the American health care system,” said Scott. “This resolution raises awareness of the importance of efforts and initiatives at every level to improve health literacy, where we too often fall short.”
This press release is made possible by:
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MURPHY INTRODUCES RESOLUTION TO PROTECT EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN IN CONFLICT ZONES
WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Thursday introduced a resolution that affirms the importance of access to safe, quality education—including protection from attacks on schools—for children in conflict zones. U.S. Representatives Nita Lowey (D-NY-17) and Steve Chabot (R-OH-1) introduced the House version of this resolution in April.
“As civil wars in places like Syria to the Democratic Republic of Congo rage on for years on end, children who are out of school risk becoming a lost generation,more vulnerable to human trafficking, child marriage, and recruitment by armed groups. That’s exactly why we must preserve access to safe, quality education for children all around the world, and continue pressing the U.S. government to adopt policies that protect this vital need we often take for granted,” said Murphy.
“Every child deserves a safe and quality education,” said Carolyn Miles, CEO of Save the Children. “It is unacceptable that children are missing out on this basic right because of conflicts they had no hand in creating. I have met with children forced to flee their homes in Syria, Myanmar, South Sudan and elsewhere, and the one thing they all tell me is that they want to be in school. We are calling on members of Congress to support Senator Murphy’s resolution, so that these children can return to education and their dreams for the future.”
This resolution does the following:
· Describes the importance of providing children with educational opportunism and how conflict limits those opportunities;
· Condemns attacks on schools and affirms the commitment of the USG to support educational services;
· Calls on the United States Government to monitor attacks on education settings and hold accountable all parties, including government and non-state actors, responsible for attacks on schools;
· Urges support for policies and programs to return refugee children, especially girls, to quality educational settings as soon as possible;
· Encourages the inclusion of child protection experts in peacekeeping missions; and
· Calls on the United States Government to adopt policies to better prevent and respond to attacks on education.
Hartford, CT) – Attorney General William Tong has joined a bipartisan coalition of 30 state attorneys general urging U.S. Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to expand loan forgiveness eligibility for students who were enrolled in schools operated by the Dream Center Education Holdings, LLC (DCEH). The letter details extraordinary misconduct and mismanagement by DCEH, which prevented students from obtaining degrees, and unfairly left them to repay federal student-loan debt from their time attending the failed schools. Click here to download the letter.
At the time the schools closed on March 8, 2019, there were 49 Connecticut students enrolled in online programs through Argosy University and the Art Institutes. Those students are eligible to have their federal student loans discharged. Attorney General Tong is now seeking to expand eligibility for loan discharge to students who may have left the school earlier due to gross mismanagement and instability.
“We have reached out directly to all 49 Connecticut students who were enrolled in Argosy and Art Institutes online programs at the time of closure to ensure they are fully aware of their loan forgiveness options. But we suspect there are more students who may have left these programs months earlier due to the gross mismanagement of these schools. Those students may also have taken out large loans and the Department of Education should allow those students to qualify for such assistance. Secretary DeVos has the authority to extend loan forgiveness options to this larger pool, and I urge her strongly to do so,” said Attorney General Tong.
Under federal closed school loan discharge guidelines, former students may be eligible for a 100 percent discharge of their federal student loans if they were unable to complete their program because their school closed. Closed school discharge is only allowed for students who were enrolled at the time the school closed; were on an approved leave of absence when the school closed; or withdrew within 120 days of the school’s closure, unless the Secretary approves a longer period.
The Attorneys General write in the letter that a “wide variety of regulators, including the U.S. Department of Education have found that DCEH violated numerous federal and state laws, was noncompliant with accreditors and grossly mismanaged its schools—including Argosy University, the Art Institutes, and South University—leading to the schools’ recent closures. These closures prevented students from completing their programs of study, leaving borrowers with substantial student loan debt and nothing to show for it.”
The letter details the myriad of ways in which DCEH violated federal and state law, and grossly mismanaged the schools, which led to the schools’ rapid closures in less than 18 months after DCEH acquired the entities. Two egregious examples include:
(1) DCEH failed to inform students that the two of its schools lost their accreditation for several months—during which time students registered for additional terms and incurred additional debts, for credits that could not be used.
(2) DCEH failed to distribute over $16 million in federal loan credit balance refunds to students. These were student loan stipends that often used for food and housing expenses.
Last March, the Office of the Attorney General sent letters to all 49 students who had been enrolled in Argosy and Art Institutes online programs to provide information about all available federal student loan forgiveness options. Neither school had physical campuses located in Connecticut. Click here for a copy of the letter concerning Argosy University and here for a copy of the Art Institutes letter.
HARTFORD, CT) – Today, in a letter to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Stephen Dickson, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, highlighted concerns and questioned the agency’s safety inspection requirements for vintage planes.
On October 2, 2019, a vintage Boeing B-17G, owned by the Collings Foundation (Collings), crashed at Bradley International Airport in Connecticut resulting in the loss of at least seven lives and multiple injuries. A previously unreleased FAA document from March 2018 revealed the FAA granted Collings’ petition to extend and amend Exemption No. 6540 – allowing the organization to carry passengers on its vintage aircraft for compensation to defray the cost of operating and maintaining its planes. However, it is unclear from the exemption letter what specific inspection protocols were required in order for this vintage plane to fly with passengers.
“If these historic planes are to be flown, the FAA must ensure the safety of vintage aircraft and address any dangers posed to passengers, crewmembers, and the public. In light of this recent accident, and as a member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation with jurisdiction over these matters, I urge the FAA to examine current standards to determine if additional requirements are necessary,” wrote Blumenthal.
“Vintage military aircraft are a profoundly significant part of our history – providing important experiences and learning opportunities for our veterans and military aviation enthusiasts across the country. However, these planes are many decades old and contain original or rebuilt engines and equipment – requiring inspection and maintenance programs that recognize the significant differences between these planes and more modern civil aircraft,” Blumenthal added.
To better understand the conditions and limitations required of Collings to operate these vintage aircrafts, and to prevent similar tragedies in the future, Blumenthal is seeking answers to the following questions:
1) How many exemptions has the FAA granted to organizations or individuals in order to carry passengers for living history flight experiences?
2) It is my understanding that the complete information, documents, and records related to the maintenance and upkeep of the Boeing B-17G involved in the crash at Bradley were stored onboard the aircraft. How does the FAA ensure that copies of all aircraft materials are maintained at a centralized location – outside of the aircraft and easily accessible?
3) Why doesn’t the FAA require vintage aircraft carrying passengers for profit or donations to install black box devices onboard the plane – similar to larger commercial aircraft?
4) How does the FAA ensure that pilots of vintage aircraft receive robust training on how to respond to emergency situations, including but not limited to, engine failure?
5) What gaps exist between the requirements included in FAA’s living history flight experience exemptions and those required by other federal aviation regulations? Please provide a detailed rationale for any differences that may exist.
6) Recognizing that vintage aircraft often contain original or refurbished equipment, how do FAA inspection requirements for these planes take into account the likelihood that these parts may fail more often than modern equipment?
7) Public reports indicate that previous engine problems had occurred on this specific B-17G aircraft, prior to the crash at Bradley. What requirements does the FAA have for reporting such problems, and what specific steps does the agency take to ensure the safety of future flights?
