Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Susan Collins, a member of the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies (MilCon-VA) Appropriations Subcommittee, and Angus King announced today that the State of Maine will receive up to $2,705,671.57 for a renovation and expansion project currently underway at the Maine Veterans’ Home facility in Bangor. The funding was awarded through the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) State Home Construction Grant... Continue Reading »
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) today spoke on the floor of the U.S. Senate to address threats to the Affordable Care Act’s healthcare marketplace. “I’m rising today in sadness, but also in some anger because there’s a lot of talk about the Affordable Care Act collapsing,” said Senator King in his speech. “Mr. President, it is not collapsing – it’s being mugged. It’s being stabbed in the back. It’s being... Continue Reading »
BRUNSWICK, ME – U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) today released the September edition of his podcast, Inside Maine. In the September edition, Senator King interviews Matt Jacobson, Executive Director of the Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative, and Genevieve McDonald, a lobsterman from Stonington. Senator King and his guests discuss the importance of the lobster to Maine, including its impact on jobs and tourism, areas of potential growth, future challenges and the hope for a... Continue Reading »
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Angus King (I-ME) and U.S. Representative Chellie Pingree (D-ME) announced today that the U.S. Navy awarded contracts to Bath Iron Works to build two new DDG-51 destroyers. The first ship will be in the Flight IIA configuration, and the second will be in the Flight III configuration. The Flight III ship will incorporate the SPY-6 Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) and upgrade the electrical power and cooling capacity plus... Continue Reading »
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Susan Collins and Angus King applauded Fourteenth Street School in Bangor, Connors-Emerson School in Bar Harbor, and Falmouth Elementary School for being recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as 2017 National Blue Ribbon Schools. These Maine schools are three of only 342 public and private schools across the nation being recognized for this achievement in 2017. “The highly prestigious Blue Ribbon designation achieved by these three... Continue Reading »
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine), a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, today announced his support for the Energy Storage Tax Incentive and Deployment Act of 2017, bipartisan legislation that would establish an investment tax credit (ITC) for business and home use of energy storage. The proposed tax incentives are modeled on the current ITCs for solar energy and would apply to either large, grid-connected energy storage systems or... Continue Reading »
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Angus King (I-ME), a member of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, announced his support for a series of campaign finance bills called the We the People Democracy Reform Act of 2017. This bicameral legislation proposes a series of wide-ranging electoral reforms to restore integrity, accountability, and transparency to our broken political system. The legislation includes proposals to comprehensively reform campaign finance laws, increase... Continue Reading »
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, during a Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee oversite hearing on Encouraging the Next Generation to Visit National Parks, Senator Angus King (I-Maine) and Angela Fultz Nordstrom, Vice President of Digital at NIC, a provider of digital government services, a witness before the committee, underscored the success of a King-backed National Park Service (NPS) pilot program that made entrance passes for parks available online. “I can tell... Continue Reading »
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Angus King (I-Maine) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) today announced the introduction of a bipartisan resolution designating September as National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month. Earlier in the day, Senator King spoke on the floor of the Senate to share the stories of Maine people in recovery as examples of just how well-funded recovery programs and health insurance that covers treatment can save lives and benefit communities. “I’m... Continue Reading »
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senators Susan Collins and Angus King today announced that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has awarded the Aroostook County Action Program (ACAP) grant funding totaling $304,291. The funding, allocated through the DOL’s Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations grant program, will support women seeking training in non-traditional jobs in northern Maine. “Expanding access to opportunities for women in Aroostook County strengthens our... Continue Reading »
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine), a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Budget, released the following statement in response to the tax plan revealed today by the Trump administration: “My approach on taxes is simple: we don’t need to increase the already too-heavy burden on middle class families but, at the same time, we can’t tax our companies so much that they close up shop and move overseas, taking jobs away from already strapped working... Continue Reading »
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Susan Collins and Angus King announced that the Aroostook Band of Micmacs and the Penobscot Indian Nation have each received $600,000 through the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Indian Community Development Block Grant Program (ICDBG). “Indian Community Development Block Grants provide important assistance to tribal communities working to maintain and improve safe living environments,” said Senators Collins and King in a... Continue Reading »
WASHINGTON, D.C. – During today’s telehealth expo hosted by the Senate Broadband Caucus and American Telemedicine Association, U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine), a co-founder of the Senate Broadband Caucus, commended the Senate passage of the Creating High-Quality Results and Outcomes Necessary to Improve Chronic (CHRONIC) Care Act. The bipartisan legislation, co-sponsored by Senator King and passed by the Senate on Tuesday night, would help address the needs of Medicare recipients... Continue Reading »
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senators Susan Collins and Angus King today announced that the University of Maine System will receive a grant of $454,532 from the U.S. Economic Development Administration to create the Maine Mass Timber Commercialization Center, which will establish a center for forest industry partners, trade organization, construction firms, architects, and other key stakeholders to revitalize and diversify Maine’s forest-based economy by advancing new forest products... Continue Reading »
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) today questioned General Joseph F. Dunford, Jr., the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the risks of rising tensions with North Korea. “I have a queasy feeling that we’re in 1914, stumbling towards Sarajevo,” said Senator King during his questioning. “And what worries me is not an instantaneous nuclear confrontation, but an accidental escalation based upon the rhetoric that’s going back and forth.... Continue Reading »
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Angus King (I-Maine) released the following statement in response to the Congressional Budget Office’s preliminary score of the Graham-Cassidy healthcare bill: “Today’s CBO report on the previous version of Graham-Cassidy does nothing to alleviate concerns raised in outside studies that the plan will hurt Maine people. The latest version – which the CBO will not score before the September 30th deadline – is merely an attempt to... Continue Reading »
BRUNSWICK, ME – U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) today wrote to the Unicode Consortium requesting it include a new lobster emoji in the 2018 release of its standard character set. The new emoji would be available for use on social media platforms and smartphones. Currently, emoji exist for crabs, shrimp, fish, and other marine animals, but not lobsters. A lobster emoji, however, is currently short-listed to be added in, subject to approval by the Consortium’s Technical Committee at... Continue Reading »
JACKMAN, ME – U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) today met with local business leaders, town officials, health professionals and community members in Jackman to hear their concerns about the health care crisis facing the Jackman community. Senator King toured the Jackman Community Health Center, where Penobscot Community Health Care (PCHC) now operates as the town’s sole emergency medicine provider, and hosted a roundtable discussion on the challenges related to the decreased... Continue Reading »
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) today joined a bipartisan group of his colleagues to announce the introduction of the Protecting Jessie Grubb’s Legacy Act (Legacy Act), legislation to help ensure that medical professionals have full knowledge of their patients’ previous opioid addiction if the patient gives consent. This will improve health care coordination and reduce the risk of overdose death for people with substance use disorders by allowing their... Continue Reading »
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Susan Collins and Angus King today joined a bipartisan group of Senators to call for immediate action to extend critical funding for community health centers before funding runs out at the end of this month. In a letter to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Collins, King and 68 other Senators expressed their strong support for community health centers, which provide access to cost-effective primary and preventive care for... Continue Reading »
