U.S. Senators John Thune (R-South Dakota) and Bob Corker (R-Tennessee), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today led a group of 14 Republican senators in sending a letter to State Department Secretary John Kerry and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson requesting more information and calling on the administration... Continue Reading
U.S. Senators John Thune (R-South Dakota) and Tim Johnson (D-South Dakota), and Representative Kristi Noem (R-South Dakota) today sent a letter to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Director Fugate calling on the agency to develop a new flood map for Sioux Falls as soon as possible. Over the past several... Continue Reading
U.S. Senator John Thune (R-South Dakota) along with Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Michigan) today introduced bipartisan legislation that would establish a Medicare Advantage (MA) demonstration program to evaluate how value-based insurance design (V-BID) could reduce MA enrollees’ copayments and coinsurance for some beneficiaries with specific chronic conditions for certain high-value medications... Continue Reading
Today at a hearing before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, U.S. Senator John Thune (R-South Dakota), Ranking Member of the Commerce Committee and member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, reiterated the ongoing concerns of South Dakota shippers due to continued rail service issues throughout the state and... Continue Reading
U.S. Senator John Thune (R-South Dakota), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, delivered the following prepared remarks at today’s “Freight Rail Service: Improving the Performance of America’s Rail System” hearing: I appreciate the chairman agreeing to hold this hearing to elevate the profile of various... Continue Reading
Senator John Thune (R-South Dakota) today praised the House of Representatives’ passage of bipartisan legislation (H.R. 4067) originally authored by Thune, and Senators Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), and Jon Tester (D-Montana), which extends a prohibition on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) from enforcing a regulation that harms access... Continue Reading
U.S. Senator John Thune (R-South Dakota), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, today introduced legislation, the STB Reauthorization Act of 2014 (S. 2777), along with Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-West Virginia) to increase efficiency of the Surface Transportation Board (STB) by changing... Continue Reading
U.S. Senator John Thune (R-South Dakota), Ranking Member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, submitted the following comments to the Surface Transportation Board (STB) for its public hearing in Fargo, North Dakota this morning focused on the region’s rail service issues that continue to negatively impact agriculture producers,... Continue Reading
Following months of rail service delays and backlogs U.S. Senator John Thune (R-South Dakota), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, today announced the committee will hold a hearing on U.S. rail service issues on Wednesday, September 10, 2014, entitled “Freight Rail Service – Improving the... Continue Reading
Following Senator John Thune’s (R-S.D.) July 24th letter to the Surface Transportation Board (STB) calling for the inclusion of two additional reporting requirements on weekly grain order reports required by the board from Canadian Pacific (CP) Railway and Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railroad, the STB today announced it will... Continue Reading
U.S. Senator John Thune (R-South Dakota) toured the Big Stone Power Plant in Big Stone City and heard from Otter Tail Power Company and Northwestern Energy representatives about how the costly new regulations proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will increase electricity costs for South Dakotans. Thune also heard... Continue Reading
This morning, U.S. Senator John Thune (R-South Dakota), Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, joined NBC’s “Meet the Press” to discuss the dysfunction Majority Leader Reid has created in the U.S. Senate, the ongoing conflict in Israel and Gaza, and the importance of acting now on the southern border. Excerpts... Continue Reading
