|
|
Calls Committee vote a “key win” in effort to secure retired NASA Space Shuttle Orbiter for NMUSAF
Congressman Mike Turner congratulated Congressman Charlie Wilson (OH-6) for his successful effort to delete language that would have directed NASA to give preference to Texas and Florida locations when placing decommissioned space shuttles after the program concludes.
The Science, Space and Technology Committee voted 18-14 this afternoon to delete the prejudicial language from H.R. 5781, the NASA Authorization Act of 2010. Following the successful passage of the amendment, Wilson released the following statement:
“Dayton, in my home state of Ohio, is known as the birthplace of aviation, I am very proud of the contributions that some of our home state heroes have made to flight, including Wilbur and Orville Wright, John Glenn and Neil Armstrong.”
“Given NASA Glenn’s significant contributions to space flight, as well as the contributions of numerous Ohio companies, I think that Ohio strongly deserves consideration as a location for one of the space shuttles once they are permanently retired,” Rep. Wilson continued. “I’m proud that we were able to amend the language that would have negatively impacted states such as Ohio, California, Washington, Illinois, Oregon, and New York. Either the process to house the shuttles is competitive or it’s not. I’m glad it will now be truly competitive.”
“I appreciate Congressman Wilson’s leadership on the House Science Committee in offering this amendment today,” said Rep. Turner. “This language levels the playing field for Ohio and the National Museum of the United States Air Force so that we can compete for a retired shuttle. I look forward to continuing to work with Congressman Wilson, and the entire Ohio delegation in ensuring one of these retired shuttles finds a home in Ohio.”
The Ohio delegation has worked together expressing continued strong support for the transfer of a retired space shuttle orbiter at the National Museum of the United States Air Force (NMUSAF) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
The Secretary of the Air Force has requested a retired space-flown orbiter for long-term preservation and public display at NMUSAF. The Air Force was instrumental in determining the orbiter’s design and capabilities, and many of the shuttle astronauts have been members of the Air Force. NMUSAF has identified the Air Force Space Mission as its most important exhibit priority.
“The National Museum of the United States Air Force is the ideal facility to preserve the legacy of NASA’s Space Shuttle program,” Rep. Turner said. “The U.S. Air Force played a significant role in developing the nation’s space program. Retiring a space shuttle orbiter at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, just miles away from the historic home of Orville and Wilbur Wright, will strengthen the aerospace heritage of the region. In addition, it will serve as an educational attraction for students and residents interested in America’s space program, and encourage local tourism and economic growth. I appreciate the support of the entire Ohio Congressional Delegation in this effort.”
Ohio has a rich aerospace history. It is home to the Glenn Research Center, one of only 10 NASA research centers in the country. It is the premier NASA facility for microgravity science, in-space transportation, aerospace communications, and aero propulsion and interdisciplinary research for bioscience. NASA’s economic impact to the state exceeds $1.2 billion and acts as a catalyst for the 1,200 aerospace-related companies in Ohio – companies that employ more than 100,000 Ohioans.
Congressman Turner has led two Ohio delegation letters to NASA administrators expressing support for the transfer of an orbiter to Ohio. This request was reiterated at a meeting with Administrator Charles Bolden earlier this year. Today’s efforts to eliminate prejudicial language in the NASA bill reiterates the Ohio Delegation’s commitment to ensuring a shuttle is retired to the NMUSAF.
Only a few days after our country celebrated its 234th birthday this July 4, I had the honor to visit with our men and women in uniform in Afghanistan. I was inspired by the sacrifices our soldiers – and their families – make, day in and day out. I was grateful to have the opportunity to thank them in person and to bring the greetings of a proud nation from half a world away.
In addition to personally thanking our troops, on this, my fourth trip to the region, I had the opportunity to meet with General David Petraeus only hours after he assumed leadership of the war effort in Afghanistan. Hearing personally the views of General Petraeus, President Karzai, our U.S. Ambassador and other key leaders in the region gave me an important perspective on the status of our efforts there, and critical observations on what our goals must be.
Throughout the trip, it became increasingly clear that the many organizations operating on the ground in Afghanistan must do a better job of coordinating and working together towards the common goal of a safe and secure Afghanistan. We must prepare the Afghans to take responsibility for their own security, and adapt a counter-insurgency strategy in which Afghan people have trust in their local government and rule of law. Safety and security must be established through building native capacity, training local Afghan security forces. Corruption of the Afghan government must also be addressed if we are to succeed in establishing a long-term path to economic self-reliance. These goals can only be accomplished through interagency cooperation among a number of civilian agencies, Non-Governmental Organizations, and local Afghans.
Second, the Taliban’s financial resources, specifically through the opium trade, must be cut off. Afghanistan raw opium is responsible for 90 percent of worldwide heroin production and is the main funding source for the Taliban insurgency. In fact, according to General Petraeus, sources estimate approximately 30 percent of the insurgency is funded from drug profits. Disruption of this drug trade will substantially reduce our enemies’ ability to fund attacks against our troops and other terrorist activities. With cooperation between Afghan and international forces slowly improving, opium seizures in Afghanistan were the highest ever last year according to the Drug Enforcement Agency, and the UN projects that opium production could drop again in 2010.
This progress needs to continue. Afghan President Karzai requested additional data and reports based on information I presented during our discussions that I hope will help him and his government re-focus their efforts to halt this crucial stream of funding to our enemy. I will continue my efforts to ensure our counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan remain a priority.
Most importantly, I had the opportunity to speak to and have lunch with some outstanding soldiers from Ohio. They asked me to share with you how important the support they receive from back home is to their morale. I delivered cards and letters of support to the soldiers from the Primrose School of Centerville, and the Dayton Dragons demonstrated community support for our troops with great hometown T-shirts. Our troops make a difference in our world every day, and the support they receive every day from our community makes a world of difference to our troops.
The conflict in Afghanistan is extremely challenging, but I am hopeful that we can make significant progress through better coordination of our efforts with the efforts of other agencies on the ground, and by focusing like a laser on disrupting the opium trade. I am confident that we can never do enough to acknowledge the sacrifice and courage of our troops and their families, and demonstrating our support of these patriotic heroes.
No one needs to explain the depth of the mortgage foreclosure crisis to us in Southwestern Ohio, but the statistics are still astounding. In 2010, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took over a foreclosed home approximately every 90 seconds. By the end of March, they owned 163,828 homes. They spend 10 million dollars every month to mow the lawn of each home twice.
Foreclosure proceedings have been initiated against 2.8 million households. The Dayton Region has seen roughly 7,000 foreclosures each of the last three years; there were 3,311 through the first of May this year. This is a three-fold increase from a decade ago.
This crisis damages individuals, families, homes, and communities. Foreclosed and abandoned homes provide a haven for drugs and other unlawful activities and bring down the property values in surrounding homes, directly impacting the entire neighborhood. Because of the seriousness of this threat, both the Bush and Obama Administrations developed programs that seek to help these families keep their homes. These programs meant to provide incentives for lenders to lower the payments by lowering interest rates and writing off principle for homes that have lost significant value.
On June 24, the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, of which I am a senior member, held a hearing entitled, “Are Loan Servicers Honoring Their Commitments to Help Preserve Homeownership?” The purpose of the hearing was to examine the successes and failures of the Home Affordable Modification Program, also known as HAMP.
Earlier that week, the Administration released a report citing a very high re-default rate for those participating in the program, along with a high number of borrowers whose trial modifications were canceled. During testimony before the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner questioned the effectiveness of the (HAMP) and argued, “This program was not designed to prevent foreclosures. It was not designed to sustain homeownership at a level that would be unachievable or imprudent.”
As the chairwoman of the panel noted following the hearing, “the Secretary seemed to be saying that a program that helps only a tiny handful of families facing foreclosures is a successful program because, in effect, the rest deserve to lose their homes.”
Like the chairwoman, I find that “shocking.” Not only is Secretary Geithner responsible for ensuring the success of the program, his statements are inconsistent with what the President told the American people that this program was designed to accomplish.
Clearly the Treasury Department must closely examine the program and provide real answers on its goals and objectives. Furthermore, we must also reign in the financial institutions that got us in this mess starting with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Since they purchase the majority of new mortgages written, their standards define the market, and these standards did not make sense; they did not make sound business decisions, did not protect our community banks and did not protect capital investments. Their bad behavior threatened our entire economy and continues to affect all of us. It’s virtually impossible to get loan servicers, banks, and financial institutions to work with home buyers to avoid foreclosure. I believe that if we can avoid foreclosure everyone benefits; capital is preserved, the market is sustained and families are protected.
HAMP must be improved so that more families can stay in their homes, housing values will stay strong, and fewer neighborhoods will be at risk. The administration has to be honest about the extent of the problems with HAMP and must redouble their efforts to help more families.
We also need to better understand the depth of this problem. Our government collects excellent information on job creation and layoffs, business inventories, exports and imports, but we have no central database on national mortgage performance.
This lack of centralized consistent information makes it much more difficult to see the trends that are occurring and makes claims of price stability that much more suspect. I have introduced H.R. 3195, the National Home Mortgage and Loan Performance Registry Act, along with Congressman Brad Miller, to create a national database. With this better information, we can better focus policy; with better policy we can help more families realize the American dream of owning their home and prevent crises like this from happening again.
I am working with members of the Oversight and Government Reform, and Financial Services, committees to improve our response to the national foreclosure crisis and make our national housing policy more efficient and effective for families and our communities. The American people deserve answers, and I will continue to push the President and this Congress to address the issues that threatened millions of homeowners and our entire economy.
Congressman Mike Turner, Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, praised the United States Missile Defense Agency (MDA) for conducting its seventh consecutive successful test of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) weapon system today.
“The THAAD ground based missile defense system is one of the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense System’s critical last lines of defense against weapons of mass destruction,” Rep. Turner said. “Today’s test, conducted at the lowest altitude to date, is critical to ensuring our forward-based troops and allies are defended against shorter-range missiles.”
“Next year, the Administration is expected to begin fielding its Phased Adaptive Approach for missile defense in Europe; THAAD is an essential element of that Phase 1 plan,” Rep. Turner added. “This successful test builds further confidence in THAAD and should encourage the Administration to increase its THAAD inventory to support European and other regional missile defense architectures. The MDA deserves our congratulations for its commitment to the development of U.S. missile defense capabilities.”
The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system is a mobile, land-based weapons program designed to destroy short- and medium-range ballistic missiles in their terminal phases. Today’s test was the seventh successful intercept in seven attempts and proved the system’s ability to intercept a target in the low endo-atmosphere.
Today, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection approved legislation sponsored by Representatives Betty Sutton (D-Ohio) and Rep. Mike Turner that would hold foreign manufacturers legally accountable to American consumers injured by dangerous or defective products. The subcommittee reported the bill to the full committee for consideration.
The importation of consumer products into the United States more than doubled in the decade between 1998 and 2007. This sharp rise in imported consumer products has been accompanied by an overall increase in product recalls and a disproportionate increase in the share of product recalls involving imported products – particularly goods manufactured in China.
“Every year, many Americans are injured, sometimes fatally, by dangerous products that have been manufactured abroad and imported into the U.S.,” Rep. Sutton said. “Recent examples include toxic drywall, faulty infant cribs, lead paint in children’s toys and defective tires. These products not only hurt American consumers, they hurt American businesses. We cannot allow foreign manufacturers to continue to undercut our manufacturers by disregarding the safety of their products, thereby endangering our consumers and costing us jobs. This legislation will help protect American consumers and businesses from defective products manufactured abroad, level the playing field for American manufacturers and provide U.S. consumers with the necessary tools to seek proper redress.”
“Domestic manufacturers are responsible for ensuring that the products they put on the market are safe. Yet it is extremely difficult for injured parties to hold foreign manufacturers accountable because they are unable to serve process or establish jurisdiction. This legislation will fix that problem and I want to thank Representative Turner for his support and advocacy on this important measure,” said Rep. Sutton.
Introduced on February 24, 2010 with strong bipartisan co-sponsorship, H.R. 4678, the Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act, would require manufacturers that import products into the U.S. to register an agent to accept service of process on behalf of the manufacturer. Registering an agent would constitute acceptance of personal jurisdiction of the state and federal courts in which the agent is located. The agent would have to be registered in a state with a substantial connection to the importation, distribution or sale of products of the foreign manufacturer or producer. The Act prohibits the importation into the United States of products from foreign manufacturers that fail to designate a registered agent.
“’Manufacturers in Ohio, and throughout the United States find themselves in an uphill battle with foreign manufactures due to unfair trade practices,” Rep. Turner said. “This legislation is an important step in leveling the playing field for domestic manufacturers, and ensuring foreign manufacturers are held accountable to US consumer protection laws. I appreciate Rep. Sutton working in a bipartisan manner to move this important piece of legislation forward.”
U.S. Representative Mike Turner, Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee which has jurisdiction over our nation’s nuclear arsenal and missile defense systems, issued the following statement regarding the National Nuclear Security Association’s (NNSA) Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan:
“I welcome the release of NNSA’s Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan. The report to Congress appears to provide a comprehensive approach to sustaining and modernizing our nuclear deterrent.
“While debate continues on changes to our nuclear policy and cuts in our nuclear forces, there should be no debate on the need for our nation to take appropriate measures to ensure that our nuclear deterrent remains credible and reliable.
“This plan provides greater detail on the efforts and funding necessary to do just that—to increase the long-term safety, security, and reliability of the nuclear weapons stockpile; to modernize the supporting infrastructure; and to sustain critical scientific and engineering talent.
“Last year, the House Armed Services Committee directed the establishment of the Stockpile Management Program to provide for the effective management of the U.S nuclear weapons stockpile. I am pleased the Administration has accepted this program. However, NNSA must have technical flexibility to pursue a wide-range of options for managing the stockpile, and not be hamstrung by artificial limitations, as stated in the recently issued bipartisan committee report on the fiscal year 2011 defense authorization bill.
“I look forward to working with Administration officials, NNSA leadership, experts at the national laboratories and production plants, and my colleagues in Congress to enable the successful implementation of this plan.”
As a member of the House Armed Services Committee and the ranking member of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, I take seriously the promises our nation has made to its active duty service personnel and veterans who have endured the rigorous conditions of military service to secure our freedoms and protect our national interests. I am committed to ensuring that our veterans receive the best possible services and facilities that we can offer.
Last year, I supported the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act (Public Law No: 111-163), legislation that improves health care for veterans, and provides assistance to caregivers of veterans. The recently passed act contained a provision directing the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to carry out a pilot program geared towards improving veterans outreach, particularly for veterans transitioning from military service. The program is designed to better coordinate outreach efforts through community-based organizations, local government, and State government entities.
Two weeks ago, Congressman Charlie Wilson (D-OH-6) and I led a bipartisan effort to secure one of these five pilot programs for Ohio. Nine other members of the Ohio congressional delegation joined us in sending a letter to Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki. The letter asserted Ohio provides the ideal demographics and resources necessary to serve as a launching pad for this initiative.
Ohio has the fourth highest veterans’ population among the 50 states. The U.S. Department of Veterans’ Affairs estimates there are over 900,000 veterans in Ohio. According to the 2000 census, there are over 60,000 veterans in Ohio’s Third Congressional District alone.
The State of Ohio provides the geographical and cultural diversity to create a comprehensive pilot program. The state meets every targeted population outlined in the program. It has rural and urban locations, one of the largest military instillations in the country, Wright Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB), a significant area distant from an active military installation, areas with limited access to health care, and a substantial minority population.
In addition, Ohio contains an organized network of state programs, non-profit organizations, and veteran owned businesses that assist veterans in an array of issues. Ohio has more than 35 active veteran service organizations operating in the state, including the nation’s first chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
The Dayton Area has a heritage of providing high quality health care to those who have served our country. The Dayton VA Medical Center was one of the three original medical centers authorized by the United States Congress. It has served our community for over 140 years.
Ohio is the ideal location to launch this important initiative designed to improve outreach to the men and women who have served the United States. The sacrifices that our nation’s veterans have made in defense of our nation and our freedoms deserve our respect and our gratitude. As the representative for the Third District of Ohio, I remain committed to ensuring that our veterans receive the best possible services and facilities that we can provide. I hope Congressman Wilson and my efforts will secure a Department of Veterans Affairs pilot program for Ohio’s veterans.
From Stars and Stripes:
Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, and Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., advocate including more specific language regarding custody rights in the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, a federal law that gives troops special legal privileges not afforded civilians.
Their bill has bipartisan support and was included in the annual defense authorization act by the House Armed Services Committee late last month. (Read More)
American educator and poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once declared, “Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.”
For the last three years, Congressman Michael Turner (R-OH) and Mary Lauterbach, mother of slain Vandalia marine Maria Lauterbach, have knocked at the gate of the Department of Defense (DoD). Together, Turner and Lauterbach have crusaded for reforms in the DoD’s policies concerning victims of rape and sexual assault. It appears that this duo knocked loud enough at the gate to wake up somebody, as was evidenced by the inclusion of provisions from the Defense Sexual Trauma Response, Oversight and Good Governance Act (Defense STRONG Act), in the FY2011 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on Friday, May 1. The NDAA legislation passed the House of Representatives last Friday and now awaits a vote in the Senate. (Read More)
Mike Turner, Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, today praised the United States Missile Defense Agency (MDA) for its successful flight test of the 2-stage Ground Based Interceptor (GBI).
“This test again demonstrates our continuous commitment to ensure our homeland is defended against attackers, adversaries or aggressors,” Rep. Turner said. “The 2-Stage GBI is an important hedge to defend the homeland in case the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) threat from Iran or North Korea materializes before the Administration’s Phased Adaptive Approach for missile defense in Europe is fully operational.”
In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 20th, 2010, Lt. General Patrick O’Reilly, Director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, testified that the June test would verify any differences between the two-stage and three-stage interceptor currently fielded in Alaska and California, “and at that point, [the 2-stage GBI] will be a very mature missile.”
During the mark up of the FY 2011 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Rep. Turner offered an amendment that would have reinforced the critical hedge providing increased protection for the U.S. against a North Korean or Iranian missile threat. The amendment ensured continued development and testing of the 2-Stage GBI in the event technical challenges or schedule delays postpone the availability of the standard missile-3 block IIA interceptor, or an ICBM threat materializes prior to availability. In addition, the amendment would preserve the Missile Field-1 (MF-1) in Fort Greely Alaska, scheduled to be decommissioned in 2012. Turner’s amendment was defeated along party lines.
|
|