A busy week in Washington wraps up with the Senate passing a flawed immigration reform bill, big Supreme Court decisions and the President’s misguided energy tax initiative.

• The Senate Passes a Flawed Immigration Bill: There is no disputing that we need to address our nation’s porous borders, backlogged immigration system and lax enforcement of hiring practices. Unfortunately, the Senate’s legalize now, enforce later approach is the wrong way to reform our broken system.  I voted against this flawed measure.
   
• Supreme Court Strikes Down DOMA: As a firm believer that the traditional definition of marriage as a union between one man and one woman is the correct definition, and the most effective framework for raising a family, I am disappointed by today’s Supreme Court ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act. Read my full statement on the ruling.
  
  
• The President Lays Out a Misguided Climate Initiative: President Obama outlined his proposal to address climate change. Unfortunately, his initiative is nothing more than a backdoor attempt to impose cap-and-trade on the American people. President Obama couldn’t get that through Congress, so now he is turning to his regulators. Read my full statement.
  
  
• Asking the Administration for Answers on Blueways: I joined with members of the Arkansas and Missouri Congressional delegations to send a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell asking her to answer a series of questions concerning the Administration’s designation of the White River as a National Blueway. Read the full release and the letter.
  
  
• Health Care’s Rocky Ride: One of the President’s health care law’s lead authors, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), recently described the implementation of the Affordable Care Act as a “huge train wreck.” In mid-June, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report criticized bureaucratic delays, missed deadlines, and massive confusion across the federal government, acknowledging that “much remains to be accomplished within a relatively short amount of time.” Read about the problems ahead for the President’s health care law.
  
  
• Repeal the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS): While we certainly want to promote renewable fuels that don’t compete with food, the RFS mandate manipulates the corn marketplace, a commodity that can easily stand on its own, and in turn increases food costs. Read about our efforts to repeal the regulation.
  
  
• Arkansas Gets Disaster Declaration: President Obama declared Arkansas a disaster area, allowing the state to receive financial assistance to recover from severe storms. Read the delegation’s response to the announcement.
  
  
• Promoting Trade to Increase to Jobs at Home: The Increasing American Jobs Through Greater Exports to Africa Act of 2013 that I introduced with Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Chris Coons (D-DE) was approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week and sent to the full Senate for consideration. Learn how this bill will increase our exports and, in turn, jobs at home.
  
  
• Thank You DC Interns: Ten talented college students wrapped up their internships in my Washington D.C. office this week. I am grateful for their help.

The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) has run out of gas. 

Created in 2005, and expanded in 2007, the program requires refiners to blend increasing volumes of biofuels—like corn ethanol—into the nation’s fuel.

The use of corn-based ethanol does more harm than good.  Corn-based ethanol reduces access to affordable food and causes large tracts of farm land to be converted to ethanol production.  It makes it more difficult to feed poultry and livestock, and increases the price of other foods.  Although tail-pipe emissions are reduced, the use of corn-based ethanol ultimately increases overall emissions.  Also, increasing ethanol use will cause major damage to small engines.  These engines are common in motorcycles, farm and lawn equipment, and many other common machines.

While we certainly want to promote renewable fuels that don’t compete with food, the RFS mandate manipulates the corn marketplace, a commodity that can easily stand on its own, and in turn increases food costs. This has become particularly apparent after the drought conditions much of the country has faced in recent growing seasons. Not only does it drive up prices of food produced with these grains, but it also raises the prices of feed for poultry and cattle, which is in turn passed on to consumers. 

Agriculture is our state’s top industry. Poultry and cattle—sectors particularly vulnerable to the drought-related spike in grain costs—represent nearly half of Arkansas’s farm marketing receipts. The RFS is makes it harder for our ranchers to operate and more expensive for all of us to put food on the table.

Last year, a number of states, including Arkansas, petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for a waiver in light of the shortage of grain created by recent droughts. The EPA denied every single petition.

Since the EPA is unwilling to work with states to address this crisis, it is incumbent on Congress to take action. That is why I have joined with my colleagues to introduce The Renewable Fuel Standard Fuel Repeal Act (S.1195) which would repeal this harmful program in its entirety. As a cosponsor of this bill, I will be working hard with my colleagues to get it through Congress and put pressure on the White House to act. 

It’s time to leave this program on the side of the road.

This week, the State Department marked the ten-year anniversary of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).  Started under the vision and leadership of President George W. Bush, this program is a success story worth celebrating.

In 2003, when signing the legislation we passed to create the program, President Bush called PEPFAR "a medical version of the Marshall Plan." And it truly is. Prior to the program, an estimated 100,000 people were on anti-retroviral drugs in sub-Saharan Africa. Five years later, when President Bush left office, close to two million people were receiving these life-saving drugs. One million babies have now been born HIV-negative thanks to PEPFAR's mother-to-child interventions.

Along with tackling HIV in Africa, President Bush was instrumental in fighting malaria on the continent. By the time President Bush's left office, his initiative had halved the cases of malaria in fifteen African countries.

A common thread in these success stories is that neither program relies solely on the government. While the government has a role to play in these battles, faith-based organizations are doing exceptional work in tandem. As a former member of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, we examined how federal funds can help public-private partnerships and reach populations of rural Africans to improve the health and education of this epidemic. Government can’t solve the problem on its own. These organizations are vital to this fight.

As we mark the ten years of lives that PEPFAR has saved, it is not enough to celebrate the successes. We must continue to the good work of this program.

The American people have always risen to the challenge to help our global neighbors. We recognize that we have moral responsibility to respect the dignity of all human beings no matter what country they call home, and that is why I am an advocate of global health initiatives. 

On June 19^th, 1865 a troop of Union soldiers came riding in to Galveston, Texas. The news they brought with them would not only change the state of Texas, but it would change the United States.

 General Order No. 3

"The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere."

These words were the first taste of freedom that slaves had in Confederate Texas. Although President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had gone into effect two years before, there were not enough Union troops in Texas to enforce the executive order. When General Granger arrived in Galveston with his men two months after the end of the Civil War, the last slaves in the United States were set free. Slaves in Texas began moving north towards freedom, or east to find family in other Southern states.

The day General Granger arrived in Texas was eventually celebrated as “Juneteenth.” For the past 148 years Americans across the nation have come together to celebrate Freedom. Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States.

With the ushering in of the 20^th century, interest in Juneteenth began to decline. However, it resurged with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s and 60’s. The holiday was officially recognized on June 19, 1980 thanks to the efforts of African-American Texas State Legislator Al Edwards.

Although not all states participate in Juneteenth celebrations, I am proud to say that Arkansas is one of the many that does. With celebrations across the state, Arkansans come together to honor the struggles of those who came before us. We come together to commemorate Arkansas’ diverse history. We come together to celebrate how far we have come as a state and as a nation; to challenge ourselves to keep moving forward. We come together united under one common theme: freedom. I hope you gather with others and celebrate and reflect on what this holiday means to all Arkansans and Americans. Happy Juneteenth!