Press Releases

WASHINGTON – Today U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) led a group of 28 senators in calling for Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to meet the administration’s previously set deadline of July 1 to begin printing materials for the 2020 Census and move forward without adding a politically motivated question about citizenship.Their call comes a day after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration’s rationale for adding the question “appears to have been...

WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2020, which includes two bills authored by U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i).The Schatz provisions will improve the emergency alert system and give the federal government the sole responsibility of alerting the public of a missile threat, as well as protect coastal military bases from extreme weather events by requiring them to prepare for potential disasters and other risks...

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) today led a group of ten senators in introducing new legislation to block a proposed rule at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that would strip away protections for homeless transgender people. Schatz’s bill, the Ensuring Equal Access to Shelter Act, is cosponsored by U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.),...

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) released the following statement on the Supreme Court’s decision to send the census citizenship question matter back to a lower court to consider new evidence that strongly suggests the question was added to deter participation from communities of color. Schatz led a bicameral group of over 30 current and former members of Congress on an amicus brief to the Supreme Court supporting the lawsuit to stop the question from being...

WASHINGTON – Today, as Americans celebrate LGBT Pride Month, U.S. Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and U.S. Representatives Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Katie Hill (D-Calif.) reintroduced the Restore Honor to Service Members Act. The legislation will correct the military records of service members discharged solely due to their sexual orientation to reflect their honorable service and reinstate the benefits they earned.“This bill is about confronting...

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), Chairman of the Senate Special Committee on the Climate Crisis, released the following statement following a meeting the committee held with leaders of utility companies from across the country.“Today our committee heard from utility leaders who are at the center of the clean energy revolution. Across the country, utilities are integrating renewable energy into their grids at levels we thought were impossible just a few...

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) led a group of eight senators in calling for the federal government to investigate federal contractors in charge of migrant children who the government has detained after children crossed the U.S. southern border. The letters to the Government Accountability Office and the suspension and debarment official and inspector general at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services were sent after disturbing reports of hungry,...

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) released the following statement on an agreement to include legislation to raise the federal tobacco age of sale to 21 in the Lower Health Care Costs Act. “We are making progress on Tobacco to 21. I’m pleased that Chairman Alexander worked with Ranking Member Murray and me to strip a loophole that gave Big Tobacco an opening to undermine strong anti-tobacco proposals at the state level. I look forward to continuing our...

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) led a group of 14 senators in asking the College Board to change its approach to its annual reports to better reflect the costs of attaining higher education. The College Board is a non-profit organization that promotes higher education preparation and administers standardized tests, including the SAT.“The College Board’s annual publications, Trends in Student Aid and Trends in College Pricing, are well known to...

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), Chair of the Special Committee on the Climate Crisis, has invited Dr. Rod Schoonover, a senior intelligence analyst at the State Department, to testify before the Senate Special Committee on the Climate Crisis. The invitation follows reports that revealed that Dr. Schoonover’s written testimony to the House Intelligence Committee was suppressed by the White House because it included climate science.“While your oral...

WASHINGTON—Today, U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), a member of the Senate Banking Committee and Chair of the Special Committee on the Climate Crisis, released the following statement after the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission held its first public meeting on climate-related financial risks, where Commissioner Rostin Behnam announced he is working on creating a new Market Risk Advisory subcommittee focused exclusively on examining climate-related financial...

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), members of the Senate Banking Committee, applauded Commodity Futures Trading Commissioner Rostin Behnam for leading a public meeting on climate-related financial risks. The senators also called on all financial regulatory agencies to take the threat of climate-related risks seriously and act to mitigate those risks.“Climate change impacts are likely to exacerbate market volatility, erode...

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-La.), and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) reintroduced the Explore America Act, legislation that supports the expansion of cultural heritage tourism by strengthening the Preserve America Grant Program. Changes to the program will help attract more visitors to American landscapes and cultural heritage sites in the National Parks System, enhance existing programs, and increase collaboration between communities and the...

WASHINGTON – Today U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) led a group of 13 senators in calling for the Departments of Justice and Commerce to launch internal investigations after new evidence came to light revealing deeply partisan and undemocratic motives behind the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. In a letter to the inspectors general of each department, the senators raised concerns that government officials had concealed the role of a partisan political...

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) voted to pass legislation that provides more than $80 million in new federal funding to help Hawai‘i recover from a recent series of natural disasters.“This new funding now brings the total amount of federal disaster relief dollars for Hawai‘i to more than half a billion dollars. I will continue to fight for federal resources at every opportunity to help Hawai‘i recover,” said Senator Schatz, a...

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) voted to pass the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (TRACED) Act, legislation that would provide regulators more time to find scammers, toughen penalties for offenders, promote call authentication and blocking adoption, and bring relevant federal and state agencies together to address issues with criminal prosecution of offenders who intentionally break laws. The sweeping bill also included the FCC...

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), introduced the Expanding Capacity for Health Outcomes Act of 2019 (ECHO 2019 Act), legislation to increase access to health care services in rural areas by expanding the use of technology-based collaborative learning and capacity building models. These education models, often referred to as Project ECHO, connect specialists with other health care professionals through the use...

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) released the following statement on legislation introduced by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to raise the federal tobacco age of sale to 21.“We are pleased to see Majority Leader McConnell has joined us in calling for raising the legal smoking and vaping age to 21 nationwide. However, his bill would force each state to pass individual laws or risk losing critical substance abuse prevention and...

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) today announced that Eric Einhorn will serve as Chief of Staff and will be located in his Washington, D.C. office. Before being elevated, Einhorn served as Senator Schatz’s Senior Counsel for Technology and Communications Policy, where he handled technology, telecommunications, data privacy and security, antitrust, and intellectual property matters. Einhorn has more than two decades of experience working on public policy in the...

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) re-introduced the End National Defense (END) Network Abuse Act, bipartisan legislation that would help the Pentagon stop the unacceptable use of the Defense Department’s network to possess, procure, and even produce child pornography.“The widespread abuse of the Department of Defense’s network to traffic child pornography must be stopped,” said Senator Schatz. “Our bill...