Grassley Asks for Details on Justification for Costly Anhydrous Ammonia Rule
WASHINGTON - Senator Chuck Grassley is sending a letter to Labor Department Secretary Tom Perez about a rule governing anhydrous ammonia retailers.
The letter is in response to a revised regulation where the Labor Department and OSHA re-interpreted a statute governing aspects of process safety of facilities after an ammonium nitrate explosion in West, Texas. Previously, the department's interpretation of the same rule had exempted retail sellers of anhydrous ammonia.
The new interpretation eliminates that exemption and could force thousands of anhydrous retailers to spend nearly $30,000 to come into compliance with the new requirements.
"With anhydrous ammonia application being a seasonal occurrence, it will be difficult for small retailers who supply farmers to absorb those costs, and some may be forced to stop selling anhydrous," Grassley said. "Safety measures are very important and should absolutely be a top priority, but eliminating the retail exemption may be a knee jerk reaction to a granular form of nitrogen, which is very different from the anhydrous ammonia used by farmers."
Grassley's letter requests more information about how the Labor Department came to the conclusion that the retail exemption should be eliminated.
A signed copy of Grassley's letter can be found here
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Drug Caucus to Hold Hearing on Drug Trafficking Across the Southwest Border, Oversight of U.S Counterdrug Assistance to Mexico
WASHINGTON -- The Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, led by Sen. Chuck Grassley and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, will hold a hearing entitled, "Drug Trafficking Across the Southwest Border and Oversight of U.S Counterdrug Assistance to Mexico."
Date/time: Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2015 at 10 a.m. EST
Location: 226 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C.
Description: The hearing will focus on the increase in illicit narcotics crossing the Southwest border, the cartels profiting from this activity, and the nature and effectiveness of U.S. counternarcotics assistance to Mexico in reducing this flow, combatting corruption, and strengthening the rule of law. The following witnesses have confirmed that they will testify:
- Mr. Michael Botticelli, Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy, Washington, D.C.
- Ambassador William Brownfield, Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Washington, D.C.
- Mr. Jack Riley, Acting Deputy Administrator, Drug Enforcement Administration, Washington, D.C.
- Todd Owen, Assistant Commissioner Office of Field Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Washington, D.C.
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Senator Grassley on Veterans and Their Service
The video is available here.
My message today is recognizing and thanking the nation's 21 million veterans.
Iowa is home to more than 226,000 of these patriots who answered the call to serve in the Armed Forces.
As a nation, we owe them a debt of gratitude.
We also owe them a responsive, competent Department of Veterans Affairs.
That means continuing to root out employee misconduct and a culture of corruption within the VA so that veterans receive the benefits and services they deserve.
I'm looking at paid administrative leave at the VA, where employees are paid to stay home.
I'm also supporting legislation by Senator Marco Rubio to give the VA Secretary the tools he says he needs to eliminate poor performing employees.
And I'm working on legislation with Senator Mark Kirk to empower good employees by protecting whistleblowers like the ones that exposed the waiting list scandal.
Good treatment of veterans includes better mental health care.
Congress this year passed a bill I cosponsored, The Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act, that will help.
Congress also approved reforms to the Veterans Choice Program that allow more veterans to qualify to receive health care from non-VA health care providers in their local communities.
The VA is resisting efforts to implement the program as Congress intended, and I support legislation to bring the agency in line.
My six state offices stand ready to help Iowans with veterans matters. I've also set up a fellowship as my liaison to veterans all over the state. Don Bailey is the first to serve in this capacity.
His email address is VeteransFellow_Grassley@
As I say to Iowa veterans I meet during my county meetings and those from the Honor Flights in Washington, D.C.: You shall not be forsaken, nor forgotten.
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Prepared Floor Statement of Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa
Special Government Employees and Clinton Email Investigation
November 10, 2015
Mr. President, oversight of the Executive Branch by the Congress is as old as our Constitution and it is a critical role.
I believe oversight leads to better government, better laws and saves the taxpayers money.
That is why I work very hard at oversight.
I went after the Reagan Defense Department for wasteful spending in the '80s.
I held up Department of Justice nominees during the Bush Administration to get my oversight letters answered, just as I am doing now with the Department of State.
And I voted in support of giving the Judiciary Committee the authority to issue subpoenas regarding its inquiry into the firing of US Attorneys during the Bush Administration.
My belief in and exercise of the oversight role by Congress is long standing and non-partisan.
Yesterday the Senate minority leader said that my investigation into the Department of State's use of special government employee designations and how Secretary Clinton's private email arrangement interfered with Freedom of Information Act compliance is political.
This simply is not so.
This investigation involves many things, but it does not involve politics.
My investigation into the potential abuse of the special government employee designations and Secretary Clinton's use of a personal email server and the potential spillage of classified information is not political, it is evidence based.
Unfortunately, the Department has been largely uncooperative since June of 2013.
The Department's lack of cooperation has caused me to place 22 holds on its nominees.
And to correct the senior senator from Nevada, my holds do not include 600 Foreign Service officers and do not include individuals from Iowa.
But with respect to my pending requests to the Department of State, I am still waiting for a full production of documents from my June 2013 oversight request.
That is two and a half years and the State department has still not produced the materials I have requested.
The Department has implemented several clever strategies to delay the process.
The Department routinely assigns new employees to handle different requests.
Each time a new person is assigned we get the same excuses why they cannot deliver on requests - "I'm new so I don't know who to talk to and where to find the documents."
For years, the Department has delayed in productions, each time with more excuses.
For instance, the Department still refuses to answer whether or not Secretary Clinton's private server was approved.
The Department has failed to provide emails for Department personnel communicating about Secretary Clinton's private server that we have strong reason to believe exist.
The Department took over two months to schedule a single interview with a former employee.
The Department has refused for over two months to provide instructions it gave to Clinton attorney David Kendall to secure the thumb drives that contained classified information - even though the Department was quoted in the news as providing those instructions.
The Department has failed to provide travel reimbursements and leave documents for its employees.
And on August 5 of this year, I requested classification non-disclosure forms for Secretary Clinton, Huma Abedin, and Cheryl Mills.
On November 5, the Department produced those documents to a FOIA requestor but not to the Committee.
And while the Department provided the documents to that requestor, Department employees told my staff they had been unable to find those documents.
Not only has the Judiciary Committee experienced unacceptable Department of State delays in receiving information, others inside and outside of the government have experienced delays as well.
The Associated Press sued the State Department over the failure to satisfy repeated document requests under the Freedom of Information Act related to these same issues.
One of these requests dates back five years ago.
Judge Richard Leon of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, the judge responsible for this case, scolded the State Department for its failure to produce documents on time:
"Now, any person should be able to review that in one day ? one day. Even the least ambitious bureaucrat could do this."
Let there be no mistake about this investigation.
This investigation is centered on the Freedom of Information Act, a law that is within the Judiciary Committee's jurisdiction.
This investigation is centered on potential abuse of the special government employee designation that allows government employees to be paid by outside employers, in this case hundreds of thousands of dollars by a consulting firm run by a former Clinton Administration employee.
This investigation is centered on potential violations of the Federal Records Act and holding government officials accountable for their actions.
This investigation is centered on whether public officials properly handled classified information.
Nobody is above the law.
Senior government officials and regular employees should get equal treatment under the law, and that treatment should be fair and objective. It should not depend on what your position is.
When it looks like the treatment is different, we have to figure out what is going on.
For example, it looks like other government employees are subject to very different treatment when accused of mishandling classified information.
Army Lieutenant Colonel Jason Amerine, a decorated war hero, contacted Congress to try to warn about bureaucratic problems with U.S. hostage recovery efforts, problems that he believed were putting lives at risk.
He was accused of improperly transmitting classified information to Congress in the process.
This war hero was removed from his job; was escorted out of the Pentagon; had his clearances suspended; had his scheduled retirement delayed indefinitely; was fingerprinted and had a mugshot taken; was threatened with a court-martial; and was subject to an extensive investigation.
After almost a year of being investigated, the Army decided not to court-martial Lieutenant Colonel Amerine.
Instead he was awarded the Legion of Merit for "exceptionally meritorious service" and finally allowed to retire.
But look at how differently he, a war hero, was treated when accused of mishandling classified information compared to Secretary Clinton and her associates. Where was the minority leader in trying to help this war hero from these attacks from the Administration?
Nowhere to be seen is the answer to that.
It's apparent that some have a selective memory when it comes to putting value on oversight and investigations.
But, I do not.
I have been consistent in my oversight role my entire career investigating Republicans and Democrats.
My oversight and investigations unit is involved in many investigations. The vast majority of them have nothing to do with Secretary Clinton.
Looking out for the public interest isn't a waste of time, and I'll keep at it regardless of misguided attacks on my motivations or mischaracterizations of my work.
I will continue this investigation because the American people have a right to the truth and government officials have an obligation to answer to We the People.
I yield the floor.
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