Columns

In response to both burdensome and unnecessary regulations coming from the Biden White House, I am launching a Regulation Rewind initiative. President Biden has not held office for 100 days yet and we are already experiencing his bureaucratic overreach. Because we know we can expect more Executive Orders from this administration, my initiative will be an ongoing project to call attention to harmful regulations and stand against them on behalf of the Third District.

At the forefront of many Americans' minds right now, including mine, is the situation at our southern border. The surge of illegal immigrants attempting to enter our country at the Unites States-Mexico border is a serious problem with sweeping implications for national security, drug smuggling, and public safety, before even considering the health and safety of the skyrocketing numbers of unaccompanied children. Our country is a beacon of freedom and opportunity, but our legal process must be upheld and abided by to ensure the continued existence of such opportunity.

Our Constitution's framers affirmed our right to bear arms through the Second Amendment for an important reason; to provide Americans with means of protection and self-defense. This week Democrats brought to the House floor two bills they claim would protect safety by restricting gun ownership. I will always be vigilant in protecting Nebraskans' Second Amendment rights, and I opposed both bills because they would do far more to harm the rights of law-abiding Americans than to address any real problem.

The backbone of our American republic is the guarantee of free and fair elections. Regardless of whether the candidate you supported won or lost last November, we should all be concerned when states deviate from election laws through judicial activism and executive overreach. After the Florida recount debacle in 2000, Congress came together to form a bipartisan consensus so states could fairly and accurately count every legally cast ballot. Unfortunately, this standard of bipartisan election reform was not considered in the House this week. I voted against H.R.

Defeating COVID-19 includes reconnecting unemployed Americans. Before the pandemic, America's economy was thriving. Workers at the bottom of the income ladder were seeing the largest wage gains in recent history. Two principle achievements from the last 25 years - the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and the 1996 Welfare Reform Act - ensured Americans benefitted from hard work.

Nebraska is a biofuels powerhouse - the second and third largest producer of ethanol and corn, respectively, in the country. With 25 active ethanol plants and a capacity of more than 2.5 billion gallons, the importance of biofuels to our state economy cannot be understated. Biodiesel production in Nebraska has seen exponential growth as well. Thanks to innovation and technological developments, biodiesel production has grown from 25 million gallons in 2004 to 2.9 billion gallons in 2019.

Getting Americans back to work has been one of the primary challenges facing our nation since the COVID-19 pandemic began nearly one year ago. While the employment situation varies widely from state to state, ensuring every unemployed American can reconnect with work must be a top priority. In Nebraska we are fortunate to have an unemployment rate of just 3%, making us one of 18 states that have an unemployment rate below 5%. Other states which have had more restrictive lockdowns are seeing much higher rates of unemployment.

Budget reconciliation is a longstanding tool intended to provide an expedited track for making changes to federal law relating to long-term budgeting. The primary purpose of reconciliation is to allow budget-related policies to pass through the Senate with a simple majority, without the need to reach a 60-vote majority to end debate. It has been used regularly under majorities in both parties to change tax policy, enact spending cuts, and to implement policies like welfare reform.