WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), a member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for Defense and Co-Chair of the Senate Defense Communities Caucus, was recently awarded National Guard Association of the United States Charles Dick Medal of Merit. The award recognizes the contributions to the National Guard by elected representatives to legislative bodies at the state and national levels.

“I am grateful to the Kansas National Guard for their service and to Major General Lee Tafanelli for his leadership to achieve the Guard’s mission to provide a ready military, emergency management and homeland security capability for our state and nation,” Sen. Moran said. “Particularly in the wake of the drought and wildfires that continue to burn across Kansas, I’m honored to receive this award from such committed and brave men and women.”

“Senator ‎Moran has been an outstanding supporter of our Armed Forces and a leading advocate for issues of importance to the Kansas National Guard, Emergency Management and Homeland Security,” said Maj. Gen. Tafanelli, Kansas Adjutant General. “This award serves as recognition of our deep gratitude to Senator Moran for his support of the National Guard.”

Sen. Moran has emphasized prioritization of the Kansas National Guard Readiness Center at Fort Leavenworth with the National Guard Bureau and the Department of Defense for several years, and is working to address the National Guard’s training backlog of cyber units in the Reserve Component.

The medal is named in honor of Major General Charles Dick, NGAUS president from 1902 to 1909, a major general in the Ohio National Guard, a Congressman and later a Senator. Dick was responsible for the passage of the Dick Acts of 1903 and 1908 that established the foundation of the modern National Guard.

The award will be presented later this month during the annual National Guard Association of Kansas Conference.

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I am pleased to be on the Senate floor as we begin the debate and discussion of legislation that I think is critical to certainly my home state of Kansas and important and valuable to the rest of the nation as well. Kansas is known as an aviation state. Wichita, Kansas, is known as the ‘Air Capital of the World,’ and one would expect a senator from Kansas to be especially supportive of things that improve the opportunity for aviation, and that is certainly true.

We care about the jobs that are in our state as a result of general aviation manufacturing, as a result of aviation manufacturing for large commercial airlines, and it matters. The FAA is an important component of our environment in our state as a driver of our state's economy. But I also want to point out that I am a strong supporter of general aviation and reauthorization of the FAA as a result of representing a very rural state.

Kansas is made up of a number of larger communities, but small cities and towns dot our state. Those local airports and the ability to connect with those communities as a result of general aviation – the ability to fly to visit somebody but perhaps more importantly the ability for a business to be in a community, a small rural community – exists in part because of those general aviation airports and those planes and pilots. So in communities across our state, we are able to have manufacturing and service industries that probably otherwise, in the absence of an airport and aviation, would have to be located in larger cities in Kansas or elsewhere.

GA and FAA reauthorization is important to every Kansan, regardless of whether they are a factory line worker or engineer in Wichita and south central Kansas or whether they are a hospital, a manufacturing business or a service located in a small community in our state.

I am pleased the Senate is beginning to do its work on the FAA reauthorization. I serve on the Committee on Commerce responsible for this product, and I am pleased the chairman and ranking member have worked closely together to get us to this point today in a bill that I hope – I assume subject to some amendments – I hope this bill then passes with strong support across both sides of the aisle.

This FAA Reauthorization Act of 2016 will strengthen the industry by improving the FAA's process for certifying aircraft. Again, in that manufacturing sector in our state, one of the things that would be of great value is to have a process by which an improvement, a development, the manufacturing process, the product we manufacture is more readily and more quickly, more efficiently certified by the Federal Aviation Administration, making certain that those certifications allow those airplane manufacturers to compete in a global marketplace.

This bill also addresses the Pilot's Bill of Rights. I see I have been joined on the Senate floor by the senator from Oklahoma, the champion of this issue. We are pleased it is in this bill, and it reforms, among other things, the third-class medical certificate process for general aviation pilots – something that has been long overdue and something the senator from Oklahoma, Senator Inhofe, has championed and continues to champion. Just this week, he called me asking for assistance as we make certain that this bill advances and the House approves language that is included in this bill.

Another essential piece of this bill text, S. 2549, is the TSA Fairness Act. This is a bipartisan piece of legislation that was originally introduced by Senator Merkley and Senator Barrasso. The language provides protection for some of our small airports that have commercial air service. Generally, it is possible that air service is there, that small commercial airline flight is there because of the Essential Air Service Program, but in order for Essential Air Service to work and to meet the needs of a community and the traveling public, we need to make certain that the TSA, the Transportation Security Administration, provides the necessary screeners and screening equipment that you would find in a larger airport.

We want to make certain our rural communities that have commercial service – often flying to Denver International Airport – are screened before they enter the plane to fly to DIA, and this legislation includes language that would enhance that circumstance.

I am also encouraged by the efforts in this bill to address the rapidly evolving circumstance we face with unmanned aerial vehicles. That industry is moving forward, again another Kansas industry that matters greatly. This legislation moves the ball forward for an environment where businesses, universities and countless others can tap into the potential and the vast economic benefits of UASs, while maintaining high safety standards that we would expect in the aviation world.

I know my colleagues remember – I remember well – the 23 short-term FAA reauthorizations that have occurred leading up to the 2012 FAA reauthorization bill. It is hugely detrimental to our aviation system to have to tolerate, to have to figure out how to abide by these short-term extensions that eliminate the opportunity for any long-term planning and create great uncertainty. I am pleased we are headed down the path of a longer term, FAA, more permanent reauthorization act represented by this legislation, this Act of 2016.

I would ask my colleagues to work, all of us together, to make sure the end product is something we can be proud of. We certainly start in a position in which that’s the case.

Again, I commend Senator Thune, the senator from South Dakota, for his leadership in working with the senator from Florida, Senator Nelson, getting us to this point today. This is an important piece of legislation for our country, its economy, for our citizens, and certainly matters greatly to the folks back home in Kansas.

Mr. President, I yield the floor to the senator from Oklahoma.

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WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) joined 42 of his Senate colleagues today in filing an amicus brief in the United States Supreme Court in support of a challenge by a majority of the nation’s governors and state attorneys general to the Obama Administration’s November 2014 executive actions on immigration. The state of Kansas is a co-plaintiff.

The Supreme Court took up this case (United States of America v. State of Texas) after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in November 2015 affirmed a preliminary injunction by a federal district court in Brownsville, Texas, blocking the Obama Administration from moving forward with its executive actions on immigration that are in violation of federal law. Sen. Moran also filed an amicus brief with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals when this case was being considered at the circuit level. The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on this case on April 18.

“Given that the Executive has asserted that the acts challenged here are not even subject to judicial review, what is at stake in this matter is nothing less than an effort to supplant Congress’s constitutional power to ‘establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.’ Such an action stands in stark contravention to federal law and to the constitutional principle of the separation of powers,” the Senators’ amicus brief states. “There is little doubt that the Executive adopted the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) program as part of an explicit effort to circumvent the legislative process.”

The amicus brief may be found HERE.

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HAYS, KAN. – U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, today praised Acting Army Secretary Patrick Murphy’s support to restore inurnment eligibility at Arlington National Cemetery to the Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASP) and other active duty designees. 

“Veterans who have sacrificed for our country – including the Women Air Force Service Pilots – deserve the honor of being inurned at Arlington National Cemetery,” Sen. Moran said. “I’m pleased the Acting Army Secretary supports resolving this flawed decision and will continue working to make certain veterans and their families are properly honored for their service to our nation.”

In February, Sen. Moran and a bipartisan group of senators called on Acting Secretary Murphy to use his existing authority to specify that active duty designees are eligible for inurnment, asking that the Army “resolve this matter with respect and compassion for veterans and their families.”

A 1977 law designated the Women’s Air Force Service Pilots, American Merchant Marines and 35 other groups of individuals as eligible to receive benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). A decision by the Department of the Army in 2002 authorized these active duty designees to be inurned at Arlington National Cemetery. Last year, the Department of the Army reversed the 2002 decision on the grounds that the original 1977 law only applied to VA benefits.

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