Hello everyone. I hope you are all enjoying your summer and staying cool. I’m sure many of you will be participating in two of Iowa’s greatest summer traditions; RAGBRAI this week and of course my personal favorite, the Iowa State Fair in August.

RAGBRAI is a 35 year old Iowa tradition and has become the largest touring bicycle ride in the world. It has even reached celebrity status bringing in Lance Armstrong and Presidential candidates. For those of you who are riding, I’d like to remind you to ride safe and stay properly hydrated.

I will be at the State Fair on Friday, August 17 as I wrap up this years Ambassadors tour. I hope to see many of you then.

This week in the Senate we began consideration of the Higher Education Reauthorization Bill. This bill contains provisions that I worked on. This includes requiring states and teacher preparation programs to improve the knowledge of new teachers about the unique needs of gifted and talented students.

Following this, we’ll begin work on the Homeland Security appropriations bill which involves everything involving the war on terror, surveillance and everything imported and exported across our boarders. The department of Homeland Security was created to focus on the war on terror and preventing future terror attacks. I will keep you updated with amendments that I have to offer as the week continues.

I’m also hoping that we’ll get to the State Children’s Health Insurance Program bill before the August break. We worked very hard in the Finance Committee to get our bipartisan bill passed and I’ll be disappointed if we don’t get to it.