Sen. Johnny Isakson: Weekly Newsletter

Your Washington Desk:

This week, President Obama released his budget for Fiscal Year 2015. In it, the president called for more tax increases while backing away from entitlement reform proposals that he offered in last year’s budget.

The administration broke an important promise to Georgia when it once again failed to provide construction funding for the deepening of the Savannah Harbor. The Savannah Harbor Expansion Project, or SHEP, is the state’s number one economic development project, and has bipartisan support from Georgia’s local, state and federal leaders. The president previously included SHEP in his 2012 “We Can’t Wait” initiative, in which he specifically pledged to expedite SHEP and four other port projects. Just seven months ago, Vice President Biden visited the port in Savannah and said the project would be expedited and built “come hell or high water.”

The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014, known as the Omnibus spending bill, signed into law by the president on January 17, 2014, gave clear direction to the administration to begin construction on SHEP and to request the necessary funding. The administration’s position, as evidenced by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is that it will ignore the explicit guidance from congress, and will instead request more funding only for studies this year, further delaying the project.

Following this mind-boggling failure by the administration, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal announced that he will not be delayed any longer by the administration’s refusal to fund the Savannah Harbor deepening. The state will now move forward on its own, spending its own money to begin the critical dredging work for the harbor deepening.

I applaud this move by Governor Deal to fund what the president and vice president have said is a critical project for this nation. Governor Deal’s swift and smart action to move forward is the right thing to do for the Savannah Harbor, the right thing to do for our state and the right thing to do for our nation.

On Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew testified before the Senate Committee on Finance regarding the budget and I took the opportunity to demand answers on why the administration failed to include construction money for SHEP.

The entire Georgia congressional delegation— all 16 members of both parties— sent a letter to OMB Director Sylvia Burwell, expressing disappointment in OMB for its failure to support the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project.

The letter stated, “Our delegation is united in the belief that this project should have been funded under the explicit guidance provided to the executive branch through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014. In this legislation, we included construction funds for SHEP (which we have done since fiscal year 2009), a two-year Section 902 waiver, and language explicitly stating that SHEP was to be considered in construction for the budget process. This legislation was signed by the President onJanuary 17 of this year and had a clear directive: fund SHEP.

“With a cost-benefit ratio of 5.5 to 1 and an annual net benefit to the nation of $174 million, SHEP has wide support. The President and Vice President have joined the entire Georgia delegation, the Governor of Georgia, Mayor of Atlanta, and countless local leaders in their strong support of SHEP. …As the livelihood of this project has little alternative at this point, it is now imperative that the finalization of the Project Partnership Agreement with Georgia be completed as soon as possible and the Corps be allowed to utilize the state’s $266 million to initiate construction contracts this year. We intend to make this point clear to the Army Corps of Engineers as well.” Click here to read the full text of the letter.

Obamacare Rule Change
The Obama administration made another announcement this week that it is changing the rules of Obamacare yet again, this time allowing individuals to continue renewing insurance plans that do not comply with Obamacare without penalty until October 1, 2016. This new deadline coincides with the end of Obama’s second term as president.

The administration’s announcement of yet another delay of parts of Obamacare is an admission that millions of Americans will lose their health coverage when this law takes full effect. Instead of simply trying to postpone this harm until a new president is in office, President Obama should take responsibility and work with Congress to put an immediate end to this ill-fated experiment. Obamacare is fundamentally broken and needs to be replaced with real health reforms that focus on empowering patients and their doctors, rather than handing down more taxes and mandates from Washington.

What’s on Tap?

On Monday, the Senate will consider the nominations of Carolyn B. McHugh of Utah to be judge for the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Following that vote, the Senate will vote on bipartisan legislation aimed at improving the way that sexual assault is handled in the military. It is likely we will also proceed to S.1086, legislation to reauthorize the Child Care Development Block Grant program, in the coming weeks.

Sincerely,
Johnny Isakson