MIL USHOR-2b Engine

Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Norma Torres (35th District of California)

Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Paul Tonko (Capital Region New York)

TROY, NY — Congressman Paul D. Tonko held a reception last week at The Arts Center of the Capital Region to announce the winners of the 2025 Congressional Art Competition for New York’s 20^th Congressional District. The winning artworks were chosen from among 24 student submissions representing 16 high schools across the Capital Region.

“I am continually inspired by the remarkable talent and creativity on display in our Congressional Art Competition, and this year was no different,” Congressman Tonko said. “On Friday, I had the privilege of joining a group of outstanding Capital Region students to celebrate both their artistic prowess and their dedication to the creative process. Artistic expression plays a vital role in education, giving students a powerful outlet to share their ideas, their creativity, and their unique perspectives on the world. I’m proud to recognize this year’s gifted participants, and I’m deeply grateful to the parents, teachers, and supporters who have helped guide and encourage them along the way.”

This year’s honorees are as follows:

·         Winner: Lesly Garcia, Niskayuna High School, “A Man’s Job”

·         Runner-Up: Quinn Knaub, Bethlehem Central High School, “Living in Creativity”

·         Honorable Mention: Dominic Corey, Shaker High School, “City of Lights”

·         Honorable Mention: Alex Steur, Albany High School, “Lemons”

“Congratulations to Lesly on her phenomenal winning piece,” Tonko continued, “and congratulations to all who participated in this year’s competition. Thank you all for sharing your gifts with us!”

This year’s awardees were chosen by a distinguished panel of judges from The Arts Center of the Capital Region. The winner will be honored at a reception in Washington D.C. this fall, and her artwork will be displayed at the U.S. Capitol for the remainder of the year.

The annual Congressional Art Competition celebrates the artistic achievements of the nation’s high school students. Since the competition began in 1982, more than 650,000 high school students have participated, with more than 10,000 student artworks displayed at the U.S. Capitol.

###

Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman French Hill (AR-02)

Rep. Hill Statement Applauds Confirmation of Warren Stephens as U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom

Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman French Hill (AR-02)

Rep. Hill Statement on the Passing of His Holiness Pope Francis

Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Don Beyer (D-VA)

Congressman Don Beyer (D-VA) today issued the following statement welcoming a ruling by Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles rejecting the Trump Administration’s attempts to remove jurisdiction over the case of Beyer’s constituent, Dr. Badar Khan Suri, to Texas, where it whisked him after he was detained by masked ICE agents outside his home in Arlington, Virginia:

“Dr. Badar Khan Suri is in Texas right now because the Trump Administration whisked him there as quickly as it could to get a more favorable judicial environment to further trample his rights and the Constitution. This was blatant forum shopping, and Judge Giles wisely saw through it and rejected the administration’s feeble lies and post hoc excuses for its actions, which as she noted mirror similar behavior in other recent, high-profile cases including those of Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk.

“The Trump Administration’s tactic of rushing students and scholars to distant detention centers to seek more favorable jurisdictions for consideration of their cases has now been rejected by multiple federal judges. This practice has likely been organized, coordinated, and directed by a central authority in the administration. If what the administration was doing here was above board, they would be transparent and honest about it; instead they have been secretive and defended the practice with outright lies. They are sending multiple signals that they have something to hide in their conduct of these cases, and Congress should investigate to find out why. I will have more to come on that subject soon.”

Beyer met with Dr. Khan Suri’s counsel last week and attended his hearing before Judge Giles on Thursday, which resulted in this ruling. Beyer subsequently wrote to the Acting Director of ICE on Monday seeking reevaluation of Dr. Khan Suri’s status, including consideration of his eligibility for release and alteration of his custody status, which is currently classified as “high-risk.” He is the co-lead of Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman’s recently introduced ICE Visibility Act.

Dr. Badar Khan Suri is a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University who lives in Arlington, Virginia. He was in the country legally on a visa when he was detained without charges on orders from the Trump Administration in March by masked agents outside his home in Rosslyn, and moved to a series of prisons and detention centers, ultimately ending in Texas. He is still being held there today, over 1,300 miles away from his wife, who is a U.S. citizen, and three young children. According to Khan Suri’s counsel, “His son spent days crying uncontrollably following his father’s disappearance, and has now stopped speaking.” Dr. Khan Suri has never been charged with a crime and the government has never produced evidence that he did anything wrong.

In Thursday’s hearing, Dr. Khan Suri’s attorneys sought his return to Virginia, while the government sought to remove the case’s jurisdiction to Texas. Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles sought further information from the government on their justification for moving him to Texas, and the government claimed Dr. Khan Suri was removed to Texas to prevent overcrowding at a Virginia detention center. Yet, as Judge Giles pointed out, Khan Suri had a room with a bed to himself in Virginia whereas, for the first 10 days of his detention in Texas he “was forced to sleep on the floor of the television room with the TV blaring nonstop and the lights on 24/7.”

Source: {United States House of Representatives – Congressman Bobby Scott (3rd District of Virginia)

Headline: Scott, Connolly Demand Answers on Trump’s Attacks on Civil Rights Protections for Workers

“Cuts of this magnitude, combined with the halting of OFCCP’s EO 11246 enforcement activity, will leave workers increasingly vulnerable to discrimination and unfair hiring practices when they pursue work with federal contractors.”

Source: {United States House of Representatives – Congressman Bobby Scott (3rd District of Virginia)

Headline: On Workers’ Memorial Day, Reps. Scott, Courtney Lead Bill to Improve Workplace Safety

As originally released by the Committee on Education and Workforce, Democrats

WASHINGTON – Today, on Workers’ Memorial Day, Ranking Member Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (VA-03) and Rep. Joe Courtney (CT-02), a senior member of the House Committee on Education and Workforce reintroduced the Protecting America’s Workers Actas the Trump Administration dismantles workplace protections.   

This bill would meaningfully strengthen and modernize the Occupation Safety and Health Act (OSH-Act) for the first time in over 50 years by ensuring employers promptly correct hazardous working conditions, protect whistleblowers from retaliation, and hold unscrupulous employers accountable for violations that cause illness, serious injury, or death to workers. 

Since January 20, the Trump Administration and Elon Musk’s DOGE have proposed closing 11 Occupation Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) field offices, slashed funding and staff at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and dismantled systems that enable workers to advocate for safer workplaces.  

“Today, on Workers Memorial Day, we are called upon to honor the workers who have been killed or injured on the job and to prevent future tragedies by making workplaces safer,” said Rep. Bobby Scott (VA-03), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Education and Workforce. “The Protecting America’s Workers Act makes long overdue improvements to the enforcement provisions of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, expands coverage to millions of workers who are currently excluded from the law’s protections, and strengthens whistleblower protections. These reforms are critical to deterring the most serious violations that endanger workers’ safety on the job. Passing this bill would be a major step toward ensuring our nation’s workers can do their jobs and come home safely to their families at the end of the day.”

“While the Occupation Safety and Health Act has helped protect Americans for generations, too many workers are still facing injury, illness, or death. Now, instead of improving workplace safety which we know is still under threat, the Trump Administration and Elon Musk’s DOGE are going in the complete opposite direction by slashing the programs and agencies dedicated to protecting workers on the job. Congress must pass the Protecting America’s Workers Act to ensure workers can return home to their families safely,” said Courtney. 

The legislation is particularly important to the eastern Connecticut community after six workers died at an explosion at the Kleen Energy Systems power plant in Middletown, Connecticut in 2010. 

“I’ve seen the devastation that unsafe workplaces can bring upon a family. Fifteen years ago, an explosion at an energy plant in Connecticut left six workers dead and dozens injured. Some of the workers who died were my friends, and I watched as their families fought for justice and accountability for years afterwards. Their story, and the horrifying reality that hundreds of workers die each day as a result of hazards faced at work, is why I am a champion for the Protecting America’s Workers Act,” Courtney added.

Specifically, the Protecting America’s Workers Act will:  

• Protect millions of workers by expanding OSHA coverage to 8.1 million state and local government employees in 24 states who currently have no right to a safe workplace; 

• Ensure worker safety is protected by mandating that employers correct hazardous conditions in a timely manner; 

• Reinstate an employer’s ongoing obligation to maintain accurate records of work-related illness and injuries, and reverses President Trump’s first-term Congressional Review Act resolution that undermined OSHA’s ability to hold employers accountable who violate requirements to record workplace injuries and illnesses;

• Improve whistleblower protection for workers who face retaliation for calling attention to unsafe working conditions;

• Update obsolete consensus standards that were adopted when OSHA was first enacted in 1970;

• Deter “high gravity” violations by providing authority for increased civil monetary penalties for serious or willful violations that cause death or serious bodily injury;

• Expand injury and illness records that employers are required to maintain and report in order to enable OSHA to more effectively target unsafe workplaces; 

• Authorize felony penalties against employers who knowingly commit OSHA violations that result in death or serious bodily injury and extend such penalties to corporate officers and directors; 

• Require OSHA to investigate all cases of death and serious injuries that occur within a place of employment; 

• Establish rights for families of workers who were killed on the job by giving them the right to meet with OSHA investigators, receive copies of citations, and to have an opportunity to make a statement before any settlement negotiations; and

• Improve protections for workers in state OSHA plans by allowing the Secretary of Labor to assert concurrent enforcement authority in those states where the state OSHA program fails to meet minimum requirements needed to protect workers’ safety and health.

The bill is co-sponsored by Reps. Omar, Bonamici, and Norcross. 

To read a fact sheet on the bill, click here. 

###

Source: {United States House of Representatives – Congressman Bobby Scott (3rd District of Virginia)

Headline: Scott Statement on President Trump’s FY 2026 Proposed Budget

“Once again, Trump is weakening our economy and taking money out of working families’ pockets under the guise of ‘efficiency.’ But we know the truth.”

Source: {United States House of Representatives – Congressman Bobby Scott (3rd District of Virginia)

Headline: Scott Statement on April Jobs Report

As originally released by the Committee on Education and Workforce, Democrats

WASHINGTON – Ranking Member Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (VA-03) released the following statement after theBureau of Labor Statisticsannounced that the economy added 177,000 jobs in April, and the unemployment rate remained the same at 4.2 percent. During President Biden’s first 100 days in office, the economy created 1.7 million jobs.  In President Trump’s first 100 days in office, he created less than half a million jobs, and the economy shrank at a rate of 0.3 percent. Under President Biden, the economy added 16.1 million jobs in total and did not have a single month of seasonally adjusted job loss during his entire term. 

“Within the first 100 days of President Trump’s return to the White House, he has managed to destabilize a thriving economy that he inherited to an extent not seen since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.  The country’s strong economic recovery out of the pandemic was not guaranteed; it was a result of smart policy decisions made by Congressional Democrats and the Biden-Harris Administration that invested in workers and their families. 

“Trump has demonstrated a disregard for the privacy and welfare of workers across the country, ushering in Elon Musk to fire tens of thousands of federal workers and harvest Americans’ private data.  Trump’s so-called ‘Liberation Day’ imposed arbitrary and extreme tariffs on nearly every country in the world, including uninhabited islands.  Americans watched as their investments and retirement savings drained out of their bank and retirement accounts while the stock market fluctuated wildly.  The price of eggs continues to skyrocket, and many Americans are now relying on‘buy now, pay later’ loans at their weekly grocery trip to keep food on the table.

“The first 100 days of this administration serve as a warning sign of the real consequences of Trump’s disastrous economic policies and Congressional Republicans’ failure to act.  This week, Committee Republicans advanced a budget that would put the cost of attending college even further out of reach for millions of working families.  Meanwhile, House Republicans in other committees are working to cut nutrition and health care programs for millions of Americans, further jeopardizing the well-being of families.  The economic uncertainty we are seeing has been brought about solely by Trump’s economic decisions.” 

Source: {United States House of Representatives – Congressman Bobby Scott (3rd District of Virginia)

Headline: Scott, McBath Urge Trump DOJ to Preserve “America’s Peacemaker”

Reps. Scott and McBath lead letter urging Attorney General Bondi to reverse course on plans to eliminate civil rights agency created in the 1960s