Congressman Denny Rehberg

Supports Increase to Vets Credit Monitoring Program

WASHINGTON, DC - Montana’s Congressman, Denny Rehberg, reprimanded the Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA) at a congressional hearing this week over the loss 26.5 million veterans’ personal information, including Social Security numbers, saying the VA needs to remedy the situation as quickly as possible and our nation’s veterans shouldn’t be responsible for the bureaucracy’s mistakes.

“This was a complete dereliction of responsibility on the VA’s part,” Rehberg told Secretary Jim Nicholson.  “I know the 102,000 veterans in Montana that I represent deserve better than this as does every U.S. veteran.  This is certainly an issue that Congress needs to be involved in getting solved right now.”

Rehberg also questioned witnesses before the Military Quality of Life Appropriations Subcommittee, of which he is a member, on a plan by the VA to provide one year of credit monitoring services to affected veterans at a cost of $160 million.   The VA says personal data including names and birth dates, in addition to Social Security numbers, were stolen from an employee’s house in May.  The department recently announced the theft could impact as many as 1.1 million active-duty troops, 645,000 reservists and 430,000 National Guard members.

“It’s great that the VA wants to provide the credit monitoring service for one year, but what’s going to happen after that year is over?” asked Rehberg.  “This is the responsibility of the VA.  They need to make sure no veterans are being scammed or losing large sums of cash beyond one year.  It just seems like an arbitrary number.”

The VA has said it will take bids from private firms and provide the credit monitoring service free of charge to veterans.  Notification letters will be mailed in early August.

“This is the second time in a year the VA has come before the Subcommittee asking for money to fix one of their mistakes,” Rehberg said.  “There seems to be a culture of missteps.”

For more information: http://www.va.gov/

WASHINGTON, DC - One of the most historic roads in America and a true Montana treasure will receive funding that was previously believed to be in jeopardy after Montana’s Congressman, Denny Rehberg, secured $50 million in a House transportation bill for critical repairs to the Going-to-the-Sun Highway.  Rehberg has been working for several months to restore funding after a Senate drafting error to last year’s Highway bill led the Federal Highway Administration to declare the project invalid.

“This is the news folks in the Flathead Valley and all over Montana have been waiting for,” said Rehberg.  “After months of errors and ineffective attempts to restore this funding, Going-to-the-Sun Highway is going to get the $50 million it was promised.  I worked with my colleagues in the House to find the right way to get this done for Montana and it got done.  Now the ball’s in the Senate’s court.  If they move quickly, President Bush could sign this into law sometime this summer.”

Previous Senate attempts to restore the funding included attaching legislative language to the recently passed Emergency Supplemental bill, which is a violation of the rules of the House.  President Bush threatened to veto the supplemental if it included spending not related to the War on Terror and hurricane victims.  Rehberg approached House leaders after they balked at the plan, asking if he could sponsor more appropriate legislation that would ensure the $50 million would make its way to Montana.

“Like a lot of Montanans, I was frustrated when I learned the Going-to-the-Sun funding was in trouble,” added Rehberg.  “This project is just too important to fall by the wayside and I wasn’t going to let that happen.  Now I’m going to lean on the Senate and see this through to the end.”

Earlier this month, Rehberg secured $3 million for Going-to-the-Sun Highway in the 2007 Transportation, Treasury and Housing and Urban Development spending bill.  Of the 39 public lands projects funded in the bill, the $3 million for Going-to-the-Sun is the third-largest.

WASHINGTON, DC - Montana’s Congressman, Denny Rehberg, today introduced legislation calling for major repairs to the St. Mary’s Diversion Facilities in north-central Montana.  Rehberg’s bill will instruct the Department of Interior to enter into an agreement with the State of Montana, the Blackfeet Tribe and local stakeholders to conduct a feasibility study and authorize federal funding for the planning, design and construction for the rehabilitation of the St. Mary’s Diversion Facilities.

“This project has been a top priority for me and Conrad for several years,” said Rehberg, a member of the House Energy & Water Appropriations Subcommittee.  “I know there’s a lot of people that want to see this project get moving and completed as quickly as possible.  Conrad and I are working together to make that happen.”

Earlier this year, Rehberg pressed Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner (BOR) John Keys on the project’s progress and status, saying to Keys that “rehabilitation for this vital project needs to do more than get off the ground, it needs to fly.”

Efforts to improve the facilities by the state and water users have been ongoing, but the canal system sprung a severe leak in 2004 and a catastrophic incident could be harmful to the environmental and economic interests along the Milk River Basin and on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.  The 100-year old facilities provide water to 15,000 residents and 140,000 irrigated acres in Montana.  Rehberg’s legislation is the House companion to a Senate bill introduced by Sen. Conrad Burns.

WASHINGTON, DC - Montana’s Congressman, Denny Rehberg, joined a coalition of more than 80 House Republicans in urging the Department of Health and Human Services to drop a plan to reduce Medicaid benefits.  There are almost 84,000 Medicaid beneficiaries in Montana.

“I’ll take the President to task if it means protecting Montana’s best interests,” said Rehberg, a member of the House Appropriations Committee. “The plan to alter and reduce Medicaid benefits, without congressional review, shows that big government bureaucracies often don’t understand how their decisions impact folks.”

The Bush plan calls for Medicaid reductions of $12.2 billion over five years.  Annually, $650 million is spent on Medicaid in Montana, with the state picking up 28 percent of the tab.  Estimates show that for every $10 million cut from Montana’s share of Medicaid funds, the state could lose almost $50 million from its healthcare-related economy.

“Medicaid is an essential service,” added Rehberg.  “We need to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in government spending, but we can’t blindly slash services millions of Americans rely on.  It’s clear a lot of my colleagues realize just how important Medicaid is to the folks we represent and work for.  It’s not hard to oppose a plan that would jeopardize the quality of healthcare in Montana and the way this plan would.”

WASHINGTON, DC - Montana’s Congressman, Denny Rehberg, announced Montana’s disabled military veterans and dependents of deceased veterans will receive an increase in benefits effective Dec. 1, 2006.  The rate of the increase isn’t set yet, but is expected to be in line with inflation-matching increases in Social Security and military retired pay.  Rehberg is a member of the Military Quality of Life Appropriations Subcommittee that deals with veterans funding issues.  There are 102,000 veterans in Montana.

“We need to do all we can to help Montana’s disabled veterans and surviving dependents of fallen heroes,” said Rehberg.  “Many of our veterans were hurt or killed in combat.  Congress has an obligation to be there for them and their families.  I intend to see that obligation met.”

Each year since 1976, Congress has provided a benefits boost to our nation’s disabled veterans and their survivors.  The purpose of the annual increase is to ensure that the Department of Veterans Affairs cash benefits retain their purchasing power and are not eroded by inflation.  The most recent bill directs the Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA) to increase the rates of veterans’ disability compensation, additional compensation for dependents, the clothing allowance for disabled adult children, and dependency and indemnity compensation for surviving spouses and children.

“This bill reaffirms our commitment to disabled vets and survivors of those veterans who made the ultimate sacrifice,” added Rehberg.  “These are folks that depend on their monthly VA check to pay the bills and buy groceries.  Passage of this bill is good news for these veterans and their families.”

WASHINGTON, DC - Montana’s Congressman, Denny Rehberg, is sponsoring legislation that ensures sex offenders and predators won’t be eligible for parole once incarcerated.  The No Parole for Sex Offenders (H.R. 4621) is modeled after Minnesota’s Jacob Wetterling Act and requires that states eliminate parole for sex offenders.

“I’m a father of three and like nearly every Montana parent, I want to know my kids are safe and not targets for criminals that belong in jail,” said Rehberg.  “There are 140,000 convicted sex offenders on parole right now in the U.S.  That’s 140,000 too many.  We’re not talking about petty thieves.  These are predators that threaten our families.  These criminals don’t deserve parole, it’s that simple.”

Sexual predators released from jail are four times more likely to repeat their crime than other criminals and only half of them ever serve their full sentence, according to the Justice Department.  The No Parole for Sex Offenders Act requires states to eliminate parole for these offenders with failure to comply resulting in a 10 percent penalty to local law enforcement grants.  There are almost 5,000 sex offenders in Montana.  Parents for Megan’s Law, a group that grades states on accessibility of sex offender information and related laws, gave Montana a failing grade for 2006.

“We need to do better by Montana’s families,” added Rehberg.  “When you get down to it, it’s not about the numbers, even though they’re staggering.  This bill is about protecting kids in Montana and throughout the country.  Common sense says that the longer a criminal is locked up, the less harm they can do.”

WASHINGTON, DC - Montana’s Congressman, Denny Rehberg, in an effort to curb wasteful government spending and make Congress more accountable to taxpayers, reaffirmed his commitment to Montana’s taxpayers and voted in favor of the Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006.  The bill passed the House by a 247-172 vote.

“This is an idea that was a long time coming,” said Rehberg.  “Hard-working Americans deserve value for their tax dollars not wasteful government spending.  Families all across Montana set budgets and live within their means.  It’s high time Congress did the same thing.  The line item veto is just one way we can accomplish that objective while restoring fiscal sanity.”

Under the Line Item Veto Act, Congress must approve any spending cuts proposed by the president, making this a different proposal than the line item veto law enacted during the Clinton Administration.  The Clinton line item veto was found to be unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.  All savings would be used for deficit reduction.  The new bill grants Congress an up or down vote on all spending reductions subject to a line item veto.

“Too often, bills get larded up with wasteful projects most Americans don’t benefit from or want to pay for,” Rehberg said.  “The line item veto is important of we’re going to reform the budget process and restore faith in government.  We need to bring fiscal discipline and accountability back to federal spending.””

Rehberg noted that his House Appropriations Committee has been working to reduce wasteful spending this year and has defeated $45.2 billion in unnecessary spending while eliminating 95 poorly performing government programs.  The House-passed version of the 2007 Defense Appropriations bill contained $1 billion less in earmarked projects than the 2006 bill.

“The government doesn’t have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem,” added Rehberg. “The line item veto is a common-sense reform that brings transparency to the spending process.  It’s time to get back to basics in Washington and eliminate careless spending.”

Other highlights of the Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006 include:

* Allows the president 45 days to propose cuts on spending bills he signs into law;
* Requires Congress to act on the president’s proposed reductions by requiring an up-or-down vote on the complete list;
* Directs savings from congressionally approved reductions to deficit reduction efforts; and
* Helps address the problem of unnecessary entitlement spending.

WASHINGTON, DC - Montana’s Congressman, Denny Rehberg, announced that Summer Graff, from Scobey, has been selected as the 2006 winner of the annual Congressional Art Competition for the State of Montana.  Rehberg will join Graff and her parents in a Capitol Hill ceremony on June 28, where her artwork will be unveiled and displayed for one year in the Cannon Tunnel, a pedestrian walkway frequented by Members of Congress, staff, and the general public, leading to the United States Capitol building.

Graff’s artwork was selected from among the entries all across Montana in the Artistic Discovery contest, a U.S. House of Representatives art competition which has been held annually since 1982.  Graff’s drawing is entitled “Zip and Jess,” and is a finely detailed pencil drawing of the family’s two horses, a favorite subject of hers.Zip and Jess

“I have been drawing for as long as I can remember, said the 17-year-old junior from Scobey High School.  “I would draw horses virtually every chance I had when I was younger.  My friends and I still spend countless hours riding horses together,” Graff said.  “I am very excited to have the privilege of traveling to Washington D.C. to see my work unveiled!”

“It always makes me proud to showcase the talents of the people of my home state,” said Rehberg.  “Like Summer, I’m a horse lover, and I look forward to seeing her picture on the walls of the Cannon Tunnel in honor of the people of Montana.”

Rehberg will welcome Graff to Washington on June 28.  “Zip and Jess” will be displayed along with the artwork of the winners from other states in the Cannon Tunnel.

Summer is the daughter of Mitchell and Charlotte Graff, who manage a farm and ranch operation near Scobey.

WASHINGTON, DC - Montana’s Congressman, Denny Rehberg, voted to improve access and service for the almost 77,000 Montanans served by the state’s community health centers by voting to increase health center funding to $1.96 billion for 2007.  The funding boost comes as part of the Health Centers Renewal Act of 2006, which was passed by the House with just three dissenting votes.  The Senate will take up the measure as early as next week.

“Community health centers are the backbone of quality healthcare in rural states like Montana,” said Rehberg, a member of the House Appropriations Committee.  “Thanks to Montana’s 13 community health centers, folks living in rural areas, on Indian reservations and those without insurance have access to reliable healthcare.”

The Health Centers Renewal Act will provide access for almost 4 million new patients across the U.S. and will increase funding for federal grants.  In 2005, Montana’s health centers received almost $13 million in federal grants.  Nearly half the Montanans served by the centers lack health insurance and more than 20 percent are covered by Medicare or Medicaid.  The centers also account for 350 good-paying Montana jobs.

“Montanans rely on community health centers and the centers rely on Congress to provide adequate funding so they can carry out their mission,” added Rehberg.  “This bill just makes sense.  It puts federal funds to work at the local level, so care providers can help more people that need their services and that’s a good thing.”

Forms Bipartisan Coalition of House Members to Fight Interior Ruling

WASHINGTON, DC - Montana’s Congressman, Denny Rehberg, in a letter today to Department of the Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne questioned new guidelines set forth by the Department to block expansion of recreation opportunities on public lands, including the use of snowmobiles and ATVs.  Rehberg said he has “great concerns” regarding the impact of the guidelines on Montana’s many outdoor enthusiasts.

“These guidelines are a step in the wrong direction and I’m not going to support any initiative that arbitrarily blocks access to Montana’s public lands for those choosing to ride an ATV or snowmobile,” said Rehberg.  “Like so many Montanans, I grew up boating and riding in our parks and I refuse to see this part of our state’s heritage threatened.

“I’ve never supported any plan that blocks access to national parks and I’m not going to start now.  This is a debate about access.  Not every Montanan can afford to jaunt out of state for an exotic vacation.  Enjoying their state’s public lands and national parks is their vacation.  The Interior proposal, in its shortsightedness, also neglects seniors and folks with physical disabilities that experience Montana’s backcountry on motorized vehicles.  These are just some of the reasons why access to our national parks must be defended.”

Rehberg has begun forming a bipartisan coalition of members of Congress to approach Kempthorne regarding this decision and to illustrate the importance of recreational access in national parks to sportsmen and women across the U.S.

The Department’s proposal, which will become final in three weeks, reverses course from a 2005 plan to attract more visitors to national parks by expanding recreational opportunities.  Outdoor recreation is critical to Montana’s economy, with personal watercraft businesses alone contributing $2.7 billion annually.

“I imagine there are environmental obstructionists, probably the same ones that want to run snowmobile riders out of Yellowstone Park, that are happy with this plan,” added Rehberg.  “What they don’t realize is that outdoor recreation is a multi-billion a year industry in Montana.  We can protect the environment and maintain motorized access to our public lands, but Montanans shouldn’t be locked out of their public lands because some bureaucrat thinks motorized vehicles, in their words would ‘damage the atmosphere of peace and tranquility and natural soundscapes.’”

Earlier this year, Rehberg sponsored legislation to protect the right to ride saddle stock animals on public lands and successfully fought a Bush Administration plan to sell public lands, including as many as 14,000 acres in Montana, to fund government operations.

Letter Below:

Read the rest of this entry »