Warner Weekly Wrap-Up: Firing on all cylinders

From volunteering to voting rights to inflation letters, Sen. Warner had another busy week. He kicked it off by traveling around NoVa for a day of action on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, before returning to DC to advocate and vote for the reauthorization of a law King championed – the Voting Rights Act. Sen. Warner also continued his push to fight inflation, announced a new round of funding from the infrastructure law, and issued statements on major Intelligence Committee issues, including Havana syndrome. He’s ending the week traveling around the Commonwealth again, making stops in Richmond and Hampton Roads.

Let’s go through it:

LIVE LIKE KING JR.

For Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Sen. Warner embodied Coretta Scott King’s vision of a “day on, not a day off,” and traveled to meet with and serve alongside constituents. He started off delivering Meals on Wheels with members of Alexandria’s City Council – a bit of a family tradition, as the Senator’s late dad Robert Warner volunteered with Meals on Wheels well into his nineties. Then he met with recently resettled Afghan refugees and commended the work of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, where he and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield rolled up their sleeves and got to work sorting donated goods. Finally, he wrapped up the day by speaking about the legacy of voting rights activism at the Tinner Hill Heritage Foundation’s commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr.

Sen. Warner brought this energy back to the Capitol, where he continued the week by fighting for voting rights legislation. While the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act ultimately didn’t proceed, Sen. Warner continues to advocate for commonsense laws that protect democracy and prevent election subversion.

CURBING INFLATION

For months, Sen. Warner has continued to monitor and address inflation on a variety of fronts. From negotiating and passing his bipartisan legislation to ease the supply chain and restore American competitiveness in the semiconductor field, to support the nomination of Fed officials devoted to tackling inflation, he remains committed to addressing the issue.

While he trusts economic forecasts that suggest the effects will likely be temporary, Sen. Warner is still trying to do everything he can to get more solutions now. This week, he wrote a letter to National Retail Federation (the world’s largest retail trade association, representing companies like Target and Wal-Mart) inquiring about efforts to ease the supply chain and offering federal assistance to help these initiatives. He said:

“I write today concerned with the challenges posed by elevated levels of inflation in our economy. Despite the unprecedented challenges associated with reopening the nation and fighting the Delta and Omicron variants, our economy has recovered significantly since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, increasing prices continue to threaten our progress. I understand that persistent supply/demand imbalances and supply chain disruptions are contributing to inflation and urge you to continue working with me, my colleagues, and the Biden Administration to identify ways to alleviate these supply chain issues as quickly as possible.”

You can read the full letter here.

MONEY FLOWS INTO VA PORTS

So you’ve probably heard this one before: Virginia is getting another round of major funding thanks to the bipartisan infrastructure law that Sen. Warner negotiated.

This week, Sen. Warner applauded $359 million in federal funding for various key infrastructure projects around the Commonwealth, including $249 million for the City of Norfolk Coastal Storm Risk Management Project and $69 million for the Norfolk Harbor Deepening and Widening Project. These investments are part of a key effort to support resiliency across Virginia, and ensure that its ports are ready to face the evolving threat of climate change. These wins follow years of advocacy from Sen. Warner to get these projects more funding.

In a joint statement with Sen. Tim Kaine, Rep. Elaine Luria and Rep. Bobby Scott (all D-VA), Warner said,

“We applaud the Biden administration and the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers for recognizing the invaluable role the Port of Virginia and Norfolk Harbor have in supporting our nation’s economy. Additionally, we applaud the administration’s significant investment in the City of Norfolk to protect this community from the increasing threat of rising seas and significant flood events. After years of advocating for this funding, we are thrilled that Virginia will receive the federal dollars it needs to carry out these projects, which will help further strengthen our supply chains, mitigate the growing risks of sea-level rise, and secure our economic and national security interests in and around the region.”

INTELLIGENCE ADVANCEMENTS

As Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Sen. Warner carefully monitors the activities of the U.S. intelligence community. This week, he issued two key statements surrounding developments in these communities, first applauding steps by President Biden’s administration to improve the cybersecurity of federal government computer systems and networks. He said,

“I applaud President Biden for signing this order to improve our nation’s cybersecurity. Among other priorities, this National Security Memorandum (NSM) requires federal agencies to report efforts to breach their systems by cybercriminals and state-sponsored hackers. Now it’s time for Congress to act by passing our bipartisan legislation that would require critical infrastructure owners and operators to report such cyber intrusions within 72 hours.”

Cybersecurity remains one of Sen. Warner’s top priorities – at the end of last week, he attended a briefing in Richmond about the cyber-attack against the General Assembly last December.

In other news in the Intelligence community, Sen. Warner offered a statement after the CIA released a report by their interim task force on anomalous health incidents (also known as AHIs or so-called “Havana syndrome,” after the location where these incidents first emerged). Since 2016, more than 1000 intelligence, diplomatic and military personnel have reported a constellation of troubling and mysterious health ailments, including brain injuries. As the leader of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Warner has been working to get to the bottom of these cases, many of which have required significant medical treatment. In October 2021, President Joe Biden signed the Helping American Victims Afflicted by Neurological Attacks (HAVANA) Act into law. The new law, which Warner introduced with Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and others, authorizes financial support and ensures medical care for American public servants who have suffered brain injuries.

In response to work by the CIA to identify the cause of these mysterious symptoms, which some have speculated is the result of a directed energy weapon developed by one of our nation’s adversaries, Sen. Warner said:

“While Director Burns has earned the trust of the Senate Intelligence Committee that he is taking this challenge seriously, it’s important to note that today’s assessment, while rigorously conducted, reflects only the interim work of the CIA task force. The Senate Intelligence Committee will continue pressing for answers on a bipartisan basis, and we look forward to robust engagement with the intelligence community, as well as the conclusions of the outside experts’ panel that has been assembled to seek answers to these very urgent and difficult questions.”

The full statement can be found here.

GRAB BAG

BROADBAND BRIEFING: Today, Sen. Warner met with the Governor’s Broadband Advisory Council to discuss the path to achieving universal broadband coverage.

WMATA GOODBYES: Sen. Warner issued a statement thanking the WMATA CEO and General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld as he announced his retirement.

SUPPORTING TRIBAL COVID RESPONSES: Sens. Warner and Kaine applauded $2 million in federal funding awarded to the Chickahominy Eastern Division and Nansemond Indian Nation to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, made possible by their votes on the American Rescue Plan. This follows a visit from Sen. Warner to the Nansemond Indian Nation in April 2021.

MERGING REGULATIONS: Sen. Warner welcomed the announcement by the FTC and DOJ to update their guidelines on horizontal and vertical mergers. He also celebrated the advancement of the first major tech antitrust bill to arrive on the Senate floor, of which he is a cosponsor.

WEEK AHEAD

This weekend, Sen. Warner is traveling to Richmond and Hampton Roads. The Senate will be in recess next week, and Sen. Warner plans to use the time to get ahead on legislative planning for the rest of the year.