Issue 16


  The REAL Inconvenient Truth

Currently, the U.S. Debt is estimated at: $9,849,354,380,955.73

Your share of today's public debt is: $30,891.15

  
 
 
  Fighting for Energy Independence

Sen. Voinovich recently participated in a Senate Republican Conference hearing to discuss drilling for offshore domestic energy supplies in an environmentally safe way. Sen. Voinovich remains committed to a balanced approach to solving our nation’s energy crisis that focuses on finding more domestic energy and using less. He has called for a Second Declaration of Independence from foreign sources of energy that threaten our economic and national security. He has been frustrated for 10 years in the Senate as he’s voted time and time again to take steps to avoid this crisis but to no avail. In fact, he voted 10 times to allow for the safe production of the 10 billion barrels of oil known to be in ANWR. He also fought to lift the moratorium on responsible exploration in the Outer Continental Shelf, which is what experts believe to be the quickest opportunity our nation has to increase our domestic oil production. He fought to tap the more than 800 billion barrels of oil locked up in our vast reserves of oil shale and believes we must undertake an Apollo-like project focused on developing the clean, reliable and domestically abundant energy alternatives of the future. Though Sen. Voinovich knows we’ve got an energy crisis at our feet, he is confident that we can solve it by tapping into the resources we have at our fingertips. Congress has sat on its hands for far too long, but people across the country are raising their voices and demanding to be heard, and that is the only way we can bring about real changes in our policies and take our economy and national security back into our hands.

 
 
 
  Helping Appalachia Ohio

Recently, Sen. Voinovich’s vital legislation to reauthorize the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) at $510.9 million over five years was passed by the full Senate. ARC plays a key role in fostering economic development and improving quality of life for the 23 million people who live in Appalachia. The bill, which has already been passed by the House, will next move to the president to be signed into law. The legislation creates the designation of economically “at risk” counties and provides an appropriate federal matching rate for ARC-funded projects in those counties. Since ARC’s inception, the region’s poverty rate has been cut in half (from 31 percent to 13 percent), the infant mortality rate has been reduced by two-thirds and the percentage of adults with a high school education has increased by over 70 percent. Sen. Voinovich is particularly excited about his new initiative focused on enhancing the region's economic competitiveness through energy independence and alternative resource development. During his first term in the Senate, Sen. Voinovich authored the Appalachian Regional Development Act of 2002 (S. 1206), which was signed by the president on March 12, 2002. The bill reauthorized the economic development efforts of the ARC, providing $446 million over five years for these efforts, and enacted a new, Sen. Voinovich-created technology initiative to help improve the region’s telecommunication infrastructure and help businesses and residents take better advantage of e-commerce opportunities.

 
 
 
  Remembering 9/11

On September 11, Sen. Voinovich, a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, attended the dedication of the new 9/11 Pentagon Memorial on the seventh anniversary of the terrorist attacks. Sen. Voinovich said that the senseless brutality of 9/11 shocked the world. But rather than destroying our faith in the American ideals of liberty and freedom, it united our country in a way he has never seen before. The new Pentagon Memorial contains 184 memorial units, each of which is dedicated to an individual victim by its unique placement within the collective field. The field is organized as a timeline of the victims' ages, moving from the youngest to the oldest. Each memorial unit is specifically positioned in order to distinguish victims on board American Airlines Flight 77 from victims within the Pentagon. The memorial units representing the 59 lives lost on American Airlines Flight 77 are positioned so that a visitor to the park will face the sky when reading the name of the victim to whom that unit is dedicated. When standing at a memorial unit dedicated to a victim who was inside the Pentagon, the visitor sees the victim's name and the Pentagon in the same view. Sen. Voinovich joined many of his colleagues in the Senate to remember the victims and pay tribute to their families.

 
 
 
  Working for Passage of Great Lakes Compact

Sen. Voinovich recently praised the House passage of the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence River Water Basin Resources Compact -- a historic measure that establishes in federal law a general ban on new water diversions from the Great Lakes Basin. The joint resolution, which was authored by Sen. Voinovich and Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), was approved by the Senate in August. The legislation will now go to the president to be signed into law. Sen. Voinovich has long been pushing for timely passage of the delayed Compact. In April he led a letter with the Ohio Delegation urging the Ohio State Senate to support legislation to implement the Compact, which is an agreement among the Great Lakes states to protect the Great Lakes through better water management endorsed by the Council of Great Lakes Governors. Since the beginning of his career, Sen. Voinovich has dedicated himself to fighting what he dubbed the “Second Battle of Lake Erie” to reclaim and restore Ohio’s Great Lake. Since coming to the Senate in 1999, he has supported numerous pieces of legislation to ban oil and gas drilling in the Great Lakes, protect the Lakes from invasive species like the Asian carp, fight “dead zones” that threaten the Lakes’ vibrant plant and animal life and fund vital cleanup of contaminated sediments. Last month Sen. Voinovich also received the Great Lakers Award in recognition of his tireless leadership in Congress to advance Great Lakes protection and restoration. As Co-chair of the Senate Great Lakes Task Force, Sen. Voinovich has used his power and influence to advance important Great Lakes protections.

  
 
 
  Discussing Foreclosure Crisis in Columbus

Sen. Voinovich recently participated in a listening session at the Columbus Housing Partnership (CHP) central Ohio’s NeighborWorks affiliate. Sen. Voinovich heard first hand from CHP’s staff of professional housing counselors and community redevelopment specialists about the work they are doing and the needs of families and communities as we continue to address the foreclosure crisis that has caused so much of our current economic situation. Sen. Voinovich knows that Ohio homeowners are hurting like never before and have been looking to Congress to take real action to help protect homeowners. He has led the way in bringing them some much-needed relief, personally spearheading the first piece of foreclosure crisis-relief legislation that was signed into law by the president and securing six additional provisions to provide immediate relief and assistance for struggling Ohio homeowners and employers in the final version of a second bill, the Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008.

 
 
12/22 - DHL LETTER FROM SEN. VOINOVICH
   
12/19 - SEN. VOINOVICH STATEMENT ON AUTO INDUSTRY
   
12/17 - SEN. VOINOVICH STATEMENT ON OPEC’S PRODUCTION CUTS
     
 
12/11 - In the Season of Giving, Give of Yourself
   
11/13 - An “Ohio Proud” Thanksgiving
   
11/07 - Good-paying Jobs Key to the American Dream