Sen. Steve Daines and the head of the Montana Stockgrowers Association were present Monday when President Donald Trump signed a limited trade deal with Japan expected to benefit ranchers and farmers in the Treasure State.
The deal will eliminate tariffs and expand market access on farm, industrial and digital products. But it does not address the bigger hurdle of autos. President Donald Trump indicated the two countries were still working on a broader agreement.
What began as a facility for Rocky Mountain College equine students has morphed into a form of therapy to help veterans,
“ I’ve been raised around horses all my life, so I realized the value of horses in therapy,” Barbara Skelton, treasurer and co-founder of Horses Spirits Healing.
On Thursday, U.S. Sen. Steve Daines stopped by to celebrate securing a grant from the Department of Veterans Affairs to assist veterans.
“We’ve been working hard, and making requests for getting grants from the VA. And we were successful in getting a nice grant just this week,” the Montana Republican said.
The $75,000 grant will go toward mental health counseling, and assistance for those with physical disabilities or other war related injuries through equine therapy.
Sens. Perdue and Daines concluded a series of high-level meetings with senior Chinese government officials in Beijing, China.
Prior to the two senators’ trip, Sens. Daines and Perdue spoke with President Donald Trump, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. Perdue and Daines plan to brief President Trump when they return to the United States.
“Senator Daines and I traveled to China with one goal: to help reinforce President Trump’s efforts to level the playing field with all of our trading partners. We were there to emphasize that the President and his negotiating team have strong support from Congress,” Sen. Perdue said in a statement Wednesday.
Sens. Perdue and Daines met with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, China’s top trade negotiator, as well as National People’s Congress Chairman Li Zhanshu, and vice chairman Wang Chen. Perdue added:
While Congress is in recess, Sen. Steve Daines is traveling the state discussing topics from wildfires to the Endangered Species Act to gun violence.
At Bridger Aerospace in Belgrade on Tuesday, Daines, a Bozeman Republican, spoke about a bill he plans to introduce this fall aimed at reducing wildfire risk. The legislation, which he will cosponsor with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, will include efforts like more aggressively thinning trees near roads and trails because he said most human-caused wildfires start within a half mile of roads or trails.
“Either we need to better manage our forests or our forests are going to manage us,” he said.
Standing yards above the makeshift range where a person shooting exploding targets sparked a wildfire last month, Tri-Lakes Fire Chief Bob Drake grabbed the top of one of the 3 ½-foot tall Ponderosa pine saplings populating the area that he said presented a huge problem when trying to fight the fire.
“It was a really difficult initial attack,” Drake said. “ … (Firefighters were) doing everything they can, and this is what they’re dealing with and they can’t even get through that. You can’t stop it in this. I don’t care what you’ve got.”
The North Hills fire grew to nearly 8 square miles within days and caused the evacuation of 500 homes before fire crews were able to get it under control. Many factors contributed to its rapid growth, including a rough road to access the blaze, and winds that didn’t cooperate.
But Wednesday during a tour of the burned area with Montana U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, Drake focused on one element he says was controllable and he wants to see addressed: an abundance of fuels in the area that gave the fire plenty of material to grow.
“The thicker the fuel, it’s happy. And it was happy,” Drake said. The landscape in the hills north of Helena is filled with pine needles covering the ground, as well as brush, downed dead trees, standing Ponderosa and regrowth trees ranging from about 1-8 feet.
Sen. Daines introduced the Budgetary Accuracy in Scoring Interest Costs (BASIC) Act Thursday, which would require both the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation to include projected interest expenses associated with legislative proposals. Daines said that including interest is necessary to accurately account for the budgetary cost of the legislation.
Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and David Perdue (R-GA), two fiscal hawks, also cosponsored Daines’ BASIC Act. Daines’ legislation arises as the Senate passed a two-year budget agreement,that would increase federal spending by $320 billion over two years.
The federal government requires both the JCT and CBO to provide budgetary and revenue scores to legislation; however, they both do not account for interest expenses, which often result in the agencies underestimating the cost of legislation.
The Montana conservative, who voted against the two-year budget agreement, said he introduced this bill to help lawmakers bring down the debt.
“It’s no secret Washington, DC, has a massive spending problem and debt crisis,” Daines said in an exclusive statement to Breitbart News. “Just today the Senate approved a deal to increase spending by more than $300 billion with few offsets, and suspend the debt ceiling for two years with absolutely no reforms to bring fiscal sanity to Washington. It’s long overdue and basic common sense that the American taxpayers have all the information about how much DC is driving up the debt. That’s why I introduced this bill.”
Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines introduced a resolution forcefully condemning what he called the “failed experiment” of socialism on Monday, warning that the United States had “two paths to take” — with one leading to “freedom,” and the other, “complete government control, undermining our constitution and our American way of life.”
The resolution comes as a new Fox News poll showed 54 percent of voters thought the U.S. moving from capitalism toward socialism would be a “bad thing” — even as 53 percent of Democratic primary voters said it would be a “good” development. The growing divide is expected to play a pivotal role in the 2020 presidential election.
In his prepared remarks introducing the resolution, obtained by Fox News, Daines criticized the Green New Deal and “Medicare-for-all” — as well as the increase in partisanship on Capitol Hill. Less than an hour earlier, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., similarly condemned “hyperventilating hacks” seeking to sow division, rather than make policy.
“We are at a pivotal time in our great nation’s history,” Daines said. “We have shown the world time and time again the genius of American ingenuity and the grit of American determination. However, a radical, socialist, far-left movement is growing across this country. And it has taken root as the new voice of the Democratic Party.”
President Donald Trump signed the Fairness for Breastfeeding Mothers Act on Friday, a bipartisan piece of legislation introduced by Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., which requires designated breastfeeding rooms in federal buildings.
The law requires federal buildings that are open to the public and contain a public restroom provide a lactation room, other than a bathroom, that is hygienic and is available for use by federal employees or members of the public who are breastfeeding, Daines said.
Senator Steve Daines is honoring one Montana native for her achievements in our armed forces.
Major General Barbara Holcomb is the first female commanding general at the US Army Medical Research and Development Command at Fort Detrick.
She’s also the chief of the US Army Nurse Corps.
Major General Holcomb grew up in Miles City.
She first joined the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps following her first year of nursing school.
Senator Daines is calling her a trailblazer and a Montana leader.
A bipartisan attempt to cut prescription drug costs more than $100 billion passed out of Senate Finance Committee with the support of the U.S. Sen. Steve Daines.
The bill intended to save the Medicare program $85 billion and individuals $27 billion over 10 years passed on a 19-9 vote. Much of the savings comes from drug price caps. The savings estimate comes from the Congressional Budget Office.
The bill is known as the “Prescription Drug Pricing Reduction Act of 2019.”