News from Representative Upton

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January 20, 2022

@MyKitchenTable: Thursday January 20, 2022

Dear Friend:

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

MLK Day: Welcoming A Time of Reflection

Every January, we celebrate Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. To honor his life and legacy, I spoke virtually to Lake Michigan College as they kicked off their MLK Jr. week. I had the honor of welcoming hundreds of folks from Southwest Michigan alongside St. Joseph Mayor Laura Goos and Benton Harbor Mayor Marcus Muhammad. I’ll admit it was a bit different with COVID-19 forcing us into a hybrid event, but it was still good to reflect together on how far our nation has come and how much farther we have to go.

Touching Base with Southwest Michigan First

Last Friday, I joined the good folks at Southwest Michigan First in Kalamazoo to talk about job Image creation and economic growth here at home. It’s a huge honor for me to sit on the board of SWMF. I praised the Supreme Court decision striking the vaccine mandate executive order for employees with > 100 workers. I’ve heard from many businesses in the last few months worried that they would lose their workforce without replacements. This is a time where I am hearing constant complaints from our businesses that can’t find workers.

Education: SW MI Takes the Cake!

Although my kids are all grown up now and with children of their own, I’ve continued to keep a close relationship with our schools here in SW MI to make sure future generations have the tools they need to succeed. Education is such an important investment in our children and I’m proud to see several of our schools ranked among the top fifty middle and elementary schools across the state! You can see the full list of rankings HERE.

More Resources for Our Brave Law Enforcement Folks 

Today I helped introduce the bipartisan Invest to Protect Act of 2022 with my colleagues Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and John Rutherford (R-FL). This bill will allocate critical funding for police departments of smaller counties that are often overlooked. The bill includes training investments in officer safety, de-escalation, and domestic training response training (a need that becomes more and more apparent every year), body cameras and secure digital storage. Additionally, the bill willImage promote recruiting efforts and mental health resources for local law enforcement.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, calls to defund the police are flat out wrong. Our law enforcement folks put their lives on the line every day to protect our families and communities, and deserve our real gratitude. Anything we can do help increase trust between law enforcement and the community they’ve sworn to protect like body cameras and increased training has my full support.

State and At-Home Testing

I don’t mean to sound like a broken record, but I’ll say it again: please talk to your health care provider about getting the COVID-19 vaccine if you have not done so already. MLIVE published an article finding that counties with higher vaccination rates had lower hospitalizations across the state from July 2021 to December 2021, a time when we were facing the delta variant. You can read the full article HERE.

We’re at a point where exposure to COVID-19 feels inevitable. Break through cases are through the roof and omicron has thrown a wrench in our plans to put the pandemic in the rearview mirror once and for all. We’re at a point in our economy where time really is money, and no one has hours to spend waiting in line for a PCR test administered at a testing site. Luckily, the CDC launched their at-home COVID-19 test program this Tuesday. All you need is a name and mailing address to sign up to receive four free at-home tests per household. Tests should arrive at your doorstep 7-12 days after submitting a request and like I said, exposure seems inevitable, so I highly encourage everyone to take advantage of this program and request your free tests today to have them when needed. You can read more about this program HERE and sign up to receive your four free tests HERE.

Accepting the Nutrition and Dietetics Public Policy Leadership Award

This week, I was honored to receive the Nutrition and Dietetics Public Policy Leadership Award. ForImage decades, I’ve worked with the Michigan Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics to help folks lead healthier and longer lives, including personalized nutrition plans that are part of a healthy lifestyle. We’ve all heard from our doctors how we can be healthier, but it’s often hard to know the next steps to take from there. That’s why I helped introduce H.R. 3108, the Medical Nutrition Therapy Act  (MNT), which is bipartisan legislation that expands coverage of medical nutrition therapy services for millions of Americans on Medicare. MNT can help folks take that step to manage any number of chronic illnesses from diabetes to kidney disease – with real success. You can read more HERE.

E&C Energy Subcommittee Hearing

On Wednesday the House Energy Subcommittee held a hearing on securing our energy infrastructure and pipeline reliability. As top GOP on the Subcommittee, I am particularly troubled by an article I read that morning prior to the hearing on what I hope is a long-shot campaign to ban liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. You can read it HERE. I explicitly asked the Deputy Secretary of Energy to confirm that DOE will not entertain these suggestions as they would truly harm American energy producers, raise gas and heating prices here at home, and give the upper hand to foreign producers like the Middle East, Russia, and China. Needless to say, he didn’t give me a direct answer. You can watch my remarks HERE.

From halting the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline to suspending oil and gas drilling on federal lands, the Biden Administration has already done serious damage to our economy and eliminated tens of thousands of good-paying jobs.

As the former Chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee I helped lead the North American Energy Independence Initiative utilizing an all-of-the-above energy program. It included the export of LNG and crude oil sending signals to the marketplace that there would be sufficient demand to increase production domestically.

We’ve also seen surging inflation rates – the highest in 40 years – cut into folks’ paychecks and labor shortages knock our small businesses on their backs. And of course, we’ve all seen the images of hundreds of freighters off the coast of California waiting to unload their cargo at our backlogged ports. You’ll remember I’ve mentioned the Ocean Shipping Reform Act in past KTs, which is another tool in the toolbox to alleviate the many supply-chain bottlenecks we’re seeing at our ports from coast to coast. This bipartisan legislation will ensure that American goods have full and equal access to foreign markets and that any fees currently being applied to American truckers and ports for delays caused by ocean carriers themselves are rightfully waived. 

On top of all this, the Biden Administration has continued an anti-American energy agenda that is only adding to the burden American taxpayers have had to suffer. There’s no way around it – the Green New Deal promising 100% wind, solar and hydro won’t meet our nation’s needs when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. You can read my opening remarks HERE.

Supply Chain Woes

I know we’ve all felt the effects of the supply chain for months now and I’ve been working hard to provide some much-needed relief through well thought-out solutions.

On Wednesday, I participated in a virtual roundtable led by Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA) and Representative Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) Auto Caucus Co-chairs to discuss the toll the supply chain has taken on the auto industry and how we can fix it.

Before the holiday season, Debbie Dingell and I led 38 of our bipartisan colleagues urging Speaker Pelosi and Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy to put the Creating Helpful Incentives for the Production of Semiconductors (CHIPS) for America Act at the top of their list. When the call fell on deaf ears, we discussed attaching CHIPS Act to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY22. We’re still looking at a pathway to get this important funding through. You can read more HERE.

Infrastructure Investments Come to Michigan

On the subject of roads, Michigan will receive $563.1 million in federal aid to update our aging infrastructure through the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (BIF) which I helped write and voted for. The BIF provided funding for the US Department of Transportation to create a brand-new bridge program which will be the biggest investment in bridges since the construction of the interstate highway system. The funds will be used at the discretion of the state and we’ll see some major changes across the Mitten over the next five years. You can read more about these overdue investments HERE. Also announced this week was the declaration that the funding to replace one of the Soo Locks will occur because of this legislation. You can read more HERE.

Burying Build Back Better

I’ll give you a brief update on the Build Back Better multi-trillion dollar social expansion. You’ll recall that the Progressive wing on the democrat side insisted for months that it be attached to the bipartisan infrastructure bill (BIF) last year. Despite the BIF passing the Senate 69-30 in August, Pelosi and the Biden Administration worked with the Progressives to try and attach them both. The Problem Solver’s Caucus successfully separated the two and then passed the BIF in November. Now the Biden Administration is still trying to pass smaller elements of the BBB months later. The biggest problem they will have is there is not a pathway to accomplish these smaller pieces and bypass the 60 vote Senate filibuster rule without garnering GOP votes. That simply won’t happen.

On a final note, here is a picture I took while taking a walk along Lake Michigan with the St. Joe lighthouse in the background. We just had our last vote and I’m looking forward to being home for the next week and will see many of you there.Image

Have a safe weekend and stay tuned for next week’s KT!

All the best,
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Fred Upton



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