This is View from the Hill's roundup of the most interesting news from Capitol Hill pertaining to North Carolina and higher education.
This past week in Washington, members of the N.C. General Assembly worked on a variety of veteran, education and environmental issues.
U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., continued to advocate for veteran affairs reform, co-sponsored a resolution to add special “Welcome Home Commemoration” celebrations on Veteran’s Day and encouraged the president to reconsider policy in Afghanistan.
U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., introduced an amendment to try to delay the deactivation of a Fort Bragg Air Force wing. Hagan also introduced a bill to help students claim associate degrees when they drop out of college.
And together, U.S. Reps. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., and David Price, D-N.C., wrote a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency urging increased standards to regulate coal ash.
U.S. Sen. Burr focuses on military issues
Sen. Burr, ranking member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, continued to push for veteran affairs reform.
“We’ve been raising the alarm for a while that the veteran affairs has been allowing work that isn’t included in veteran affairs’ narrow backlog statistic to pile up,” Burr said in a statement. “But these reports suggest that the scope of work the veteran affairs has been ignoring may be even greater, including training, quality assurance measures, and steps to ensure program integrity.”
Burr also co-sponsored a resolution that would recognize Veterans Day 2014 as a special “Welcome Home Commemoration” for those who have served in the military since 9/11.
Burr also spoke in the U.S. Senate to condemn the actions of the Obama administration in the exchange of five Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo Bay for U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.
In his speech, Burr denounced withdrawing forces from Afghanistan and urged the administration to take forceful actions against the Haqqani network.
Sen. Hagan works on education and local issues
On Friday, Sen. Hagan introduced the Correctly Recognizing Educational Achievements to Empower (CREATE) Graduates Act, a bill designed to enable people who are unable to finish college to receive associate degrees.
"Too many North Carolina community college students transfer to a four-year school but have to leave before graduation," Hagan said in a press release. "This bill will allow students to transfer their credits back to the community college where they were initially enrolled so they can receive the degree they have earned, helping them compete for a job, increase their earning potential and ultimately build a brighter future."
Hagan also introduced an amendment to the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act to delay the inactivation of the 440th Airlift Wing at Fort Bragg until 60 days after the Air Force issues a report on why it should be deactivated.
In a letter to the Secretary of the Air Force, Hagan said, “Inactivating the 440th Airlift Wing would adversely affect the readiness of units at Fort Bragg, and I remain steadfast in my opposition to that proposal.”
Reps. Price and Butterfield enumerate concerns about coal ash
On Wednesday, Reps. Price and Butterfield wrote the EPA to encourage the agency to enact harsher regulations regarding coal ash.
Using a recent spill in the state’s Dan River as an example of poor regulation, they outline the environmental issues with coal ash.
“It is troubling that it has taken large coal ash spills like those in North Carolina and Tennessee to mobilize stakeholders to engage in a frank dialogue about its dangers and propose changes to mitigate those hazards,” the congressmen wrote.
“Those catastrophes could have been avoided, and we owe it to all Americans to put the necessary safeguards in place to ensure similar disasters do not occur in the future.”
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