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Senator Lamar Alexander (RTN)

By Geof Koss, E&E NewsMay. 18, 2017 , 2:45 PM

Originally published by E&E News

Top Senate Republicans are urging President Trump not to slash funding for Department of Energy (DOE)research programs, following reports that the full fiscal 2018 budget will seek deep cuts at the department.

In alettersent today, six GOP senators called on Trump to "maintain funding for these critical" energy development efforts.

"Government-sponsored research is one of the most important investments our country can make to encourage innovation, unleash our free enterprise system to create good-paying jobs, and ensure American competitiveness in a global economy," wrote the group, led by Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, chairman of the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee.

"The United States cannot overcome scientific obstacles without the combined support of both the private and public sectors," they wrote. "Federally funded research is imperative to ensuring we meet our energy, science, and national security needs for generations to come."

Also signing the letter were Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mike Rounds of South Dakota. Collins, Murkowski and Graham are also appropriators.

The letter follows reports that the full fiscal 2018 budget due to be released next week will seek upward of a 70 percent reduction for DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. The White House also envisions deep cuts to nuclear and fossil research (Greenwire, May 17).

We cannot lose the technological advantages we have gained through our country's investment in research and development.

The senators noted that all these offices received "record funding levels" in the fiscal 2017 omnibus Trump signed early this month.

"We cannot lose the technological advantages we have gained through our country's investment in research and development," the letter concludes. "Governing is about setting priorities, and the federal debt is not the result of Congress overspending on science and energy research each year."

Separately, Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee today released areporthighlighting growth in clean energy jobs, which totaled 3.3 million last year.

"In 2016, more Americans worked in solar electricity generation (374,000) than in fossil fuel electricity generation (150,000). Another 100,000 Americans worked in wind generation and 97,000 in other clean energy electricity sources," the report said.

An additional 2 million Americans work in the energy efficiency sector, including manufacturing and construction. One in five construction jobs, said the report, are related to efficiency.

JEC is preparing similar reports on "the importance of expanding and prioritizing the clean energy economy," according to a statement from Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), ranking member on the panel.

"I have long advocated for growing the clean energy economy in New Mexico and across the nation to create millions of good-paying jobs especially in rural communities," Heinrich said.

"Congress has an opportunity to act now and make sure that the United States is a leader in this emerging market and see that American companies and workers are the ones producing and exporting the technology and products to meet this demand.

"Though President Trump and Congressional Republicans have sought to cut programs and reverse policies that support this sector, we must prioritize advancing clean energy to create jobs, spur economic growth, and meet the needs of the future of our economy."

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Key Republican lawmakers urge Trump not to cut DOE research - Science Magazine

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

On Wednesday, Nevada Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval signed a bill prohibiting mental health professionals in the state from attempting to change a minors sexual orientation or gender identity. The Nevada measure comes on the heels of a similar New Mexico ban approved by Republican Gov. Susanna Martinez. Nevada and New Mexico join California, Vermont, Oregon, New Jersey, New York, Illinois, and the District of Columbia in outlawing the widely discredited practice of LGBTQ conversion therapy for minors.

Mark Joseph Stern is a writer for Slate. He covers the law and LGBTQ issues.

Sandovals signature contributes to a growing bipartisan consensus regarding conversion therapy bans. Remarkably, a full half of state bans on the practice were signed by Republican governors, albeit in blue-to-purple states: Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner signed Illinois, and Chris Christie signed New Jerseys shortly before his fall from grace. These governors obviously view the bans as good politics and good law. Yet Republicans in Congress continue to oppose federal legislation outlawing conversion therapy for minors with near uniformity.

This gap between Republican governors and the congressional GOP isnt entirely surprising. Sandoval, Martinez, Rauner, and Christie were each presented a proposed ban and given two choices: Sign it or veto it. A veto would have created a publicity nightmare by handing Democratswho, by and large, sponsored the bills in the first placea winning talking point: We oppose torture; the governor does not. For each governor, quickly and quietly approving the ban was almost certainly the smartest political option.

That, however, doesnt mean it was the easiest political option. The 2016 Republican Party platform opposed conversion therapy bans for minors, declaring that we support the right of parents to consent to medical treatment for their minor children. Plenty of Republican legislators in purple states have also objected to these bans: In New Hampshire, where Democrats have struggled to draw GOP support for a ban, one Republican claimed that conversion therapy helped to protect social norms"; another said that the proposed ban would erode religious liberty. Even New Hampshires relatively moderate Republican Gov. John Sununu has kept mum on conversion therapythough he did appoint one of its supporters, Frank Edelblut, to lead the states Department of Education. (Not all GOP governors are created equal.)

The battle over conversion therapy represents a clear intraparty schism over the broader question of LGBTQ equality. Centrist governors like Sandoval recognize that conversion therapy itself constitutes an affront to LGBTQ dignity: It is, after all, premised on the myth that sexual orientation and gender identity can be forcibly altered by professional therapists who are licensed by the state to treat children. (None of the bills target religious counselors or parents.) By suspending or revoking the license of any therapist who performs this practice, a state refuses to put its imprimatur on borderline torture. It also acknowledges that LGBTQ identities are worthy of respect.

But the Republican Party does not believe that LGBTQ identities merit respect. It continues to oppose marriage equality and trans rights while supporting the legalization of religious-based discrimination against LGBTQ people. As the New Hampshire experience indicates, many Republicans still discuss conversion therapy in terms of religious liberty, endorsing the freedom of therapists to abuse LGBTQ children. On the national level, and in deep red states, Republicans are too obsequious to religious extremists to accept the scientific reality that conversion therapy is pure barbarity.

Some deeply reactionary portion of the country will always resist laws that recognize the equal dignity of LGBTQ people. But these pockets are quickly shrinking, and their influence over the GOP may soon begin to wane. Democrats may be leading the fight against conversion therapy, but Republican governors deserve credit for carrying their bills across the finish line. It is tempting to conclude that the modern Republican Party will forever cater to the cruelest, most ignorant faction of its baseand maybe it will. But the recent victories in Nevada and New Mexico prove that there is a more humane path forward if the fever ever breaks.

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Why Republican Governors Keep Signing LGBTQ Conversion Therapy Bans - Slate Magazine (blog)

A group of about a dozen Republican governors is pushing for its own set of national healthcare reforms, flexing its considerable muscle in the national debate over the future of Obamacare as the U.S. Senate begins writing its bill.

Led by Governor John Kasich of Ohio, the governors are using a nine-page proposal they crafted in February as the platform to shape what they think a critical portion of an Obamacare replacement law should look like, according to a half dozen people who helped write the plan.

Among the groups recommendations for the Senate include maintaining the expansion of Medicaid, the government healthinsuranceprogram for the poor and disabled, while also limiting federal spending for certain populations, according to a copy of the proposal.

Members of the group, which include governors from Utah, Tennessee and Michigan, are also now looking to form a bipartisan coalition of states to propose reforms for the individualinsurance market, according to one source, that they hope the Senate will also use.

Gov. John Kasich

They have not yet met or decided on specific reforms about the individualinsurancemarket, but the goal is to address issues such as how to makeinsurancemore affordable and stabilize the markets.

The House of Representatives narrowly passed its national healthcare bill earlier this month, called the American Health Care Act, which would slash federal Medicaid funding by more than $800 billion over the next decade.

It has prompted fierce criticism from both Republican and Democratic governors.

Kasich recently called the bill inadequate, and said it would leave millions of people without affordable coverage and living in the emergency rooms again.

Pressure is building from their constituents.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll, which has been tracking public opinion on health care issues for the past several years, has found that Republicans are more supportive than they were in 2013 of benefits including expanded Medicaid andinsurancesubsidies for low-income families and a government requirement that small businesses provideinsurancefor their employees.

The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online in English across the United States and gathered responses from 2,126 adults, including 887 Republicans. It has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 2 percentage points for the entire group and 4 percentage points for Republicans.

The governors group is looking to the Senate for massive changes as they begin writing their own bill.

Several groups, from insurers and hospitals to medical groups and patient advocates, are trying to influence the Senate. But the governors carry extra weight because they will ultimately be responsible for implementing whatever healthcare overhaul is signed into law, and Republicans in Congress have repeatedly spoken about the need to have fewer federal regulations apply to Medicaid and commercialinsurance.

Under Obamacare, more than 30 states, including about a dozen Republican-led states, expanded Medicaid. One of the thorniest issues Republicans have grappled with is treating both expansion and non-expansion states equally. Governors from both types of states united to craft Medicaid proposals in the hope that their voice would carry added weight and provide a surer path for lawmakers.

The governors are also in the same boat politically as U.S. senators because both are elected statewide, rather than in smaller districts as House representatives are. So many governors and their senators have been better aligned on what healthcare reform should look like, several of the sources said.

Several governors and their staff said they have been in regular contact with their senators, and will be pushing for the Senate to use the governors set of reforms as a framework in writing its bill.

Senator Rob Portman of Ohio wrote in an op-ed Monday that he and other senators tasked with writing a healthcare bill have continued to engage with governors, many of who share my concerns about Medicaid but who also want more flexibility to ensure they can design health care programs that meet the individual needs of their states.

He added that the Senate will continue to work with governors on healthcare reform.

They are definitely hearing our concerns and questions. They have been very attentive to our interests, said Nathan Checketts, deputy director of the Utah Department of Health.

The group of Republican governors has worked to have a unified voice to reconcile needs among a diverse set of states, including Arizona, Illinois, Wisconsin, Arkansas and Nevada. Its leaders, which also include Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan and Governor Doug Ducey of Arizona, deliberately chose some participants from states with influential Republican senators who would become key players in a federal healthcare overhaul.

A 13-member Senate panel has been tasked with writing a healthcare bill, and at least five of its senators are from states from the Republican governors group, including Portman, Orrin Hatch of Utah, Mike Lee of Utah and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee.

Other Republican senators with governors in the group including Dean Heller of Nevada and Jeff Flake of Arizona are up for reelection in 2018.

As Senate Republicans take up the bill, one of the most complicated policy and political issues they must grapple with is Medicaid reform.

States that expanded Medicaid, such as Ohio and Michigan, have said a healthcare overhaul must protect those who gained coverage under Obamacare. Non-expansion states, meanwhile, have said they do not want to be penalized with less federal funding because they did not expand and therefore cover fewer people.

The governors proposal recommends maintaining Obamacares Medicaid expansion and giving other states the opportunity to expand, but capping federal spending on certain populations through either block grants or per capita caps.

It would provide states the option to phase in other groups, such as parents and children, to per capita caps or block grants, and it recommends reducing federal regulations on states and their Medicaid programs.

(Additional reporting by Chris Kahn; Editing by Caroline Humer and Edward Tobin)

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Republican Governors Have Own Ideas for Healthcare Reforms - Insurance Journal

New York Times

Republicans Pivot and Make Comey the Capitol's Most-Wanted Man New York Times WASHINGTON Republicans on Wednesday abruptly pivoted and rushed to call on James B. Comey, who was fired as F.B.I. director by President Trump last week, to testify before several committees, produce memos and provide greater detail of his ... The Republican Party Is Just Starting to Realize How Much Donald Trump Is Screwing ThemGQ Magazine Republicans and Democrats demanding answers after Comey memoABC News Vulnerable Republicans flee from TrumpPolitico McClatchy Washington Bureau -NBCNews.com -Washington Post -Washington Post all 8,216 news articles »

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Republicans Pivot and Make Comey the Capitol's Most-Wanted Man - New York Times

A group of House Republicans who have called for a new $500 million fund to upgrade the governments aging tech tools huddled with President Donald Trump and his top aides on Thursday.

The meeting convened in part by Jared Kushner, one of Trumps leading advisers and the chief of the White Houses new Office of American Innovation comes as the administration begins its work to rethink the way government buys software, upgrades its computers and provides services, like electronic health records for veterans.

In attendance at the previously unannounced meeting was House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., along with nine other GOP lawmakers, a spokesman for McCarthy confirmed to Recode. Representing the White House, with Kushner, were Reed Cordish, one of the presidents top tech advisers, and Haley Van Dyck, the co-founder of the United States Digital Service. Trumps predecessor, President Barack Obama, created the group known as USDS in the aftermath of the Healthcare.gov technology meltdown.

Sources described the session as introductory. A White House aide said the focus was improving citizen experiences with government services. A spokesman, however, did not immediately provide a readout of what might have been said by Trump, who unexpectedly joined the gathering.

Still, the meeting comes a day after House Republicans joined with their Democratic counterparts to pass the Modernizing Government Technology Act, a proposal thats now awaiting Senate consideration and, potentially soon, a signature from the president.

The huddle with the GOPs tech-minded lawmakers also precedes another, larger confab between the Trump administration and top executives from Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, IBM, Intel, Oracle and other tech companies, which is slated for June 19. The White House announced that meeting when Trump signed an executive order last month commissioning the American Technology Council, which is tasked with figuring out how to transform and modernize the aging federal bureaucracy and how it uses and delivers information.

We are excited to work with President Trump, Vice President Pence, Jared Kushner and the White House Office of American Innovation as we continue to advance legislation that embraces new technologies and harnesses the innovative spirit of our citizens to solve problems and better serve our constituents, McCarthy told Recode.

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Trump and his top aides met with Republican lawmakers to discuss ways to modernize government - Recode