MADISONVILLE, La. – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) today addressed the United States’ response to Russia’s ongoing attack on Ukraine. Key excerpts from his remarks are below:

“Weakness invites the wolves. That’s always been true, and we’re seeing it with the Russian aggression—Putin’s aggression—into Ukraine. The American record in standing up to Putin has not been good under Democratic presidents.

“President Obama, Vice President Biden, and President Biden have blinked with respect to past Russian aggression in Belarus, in Crimea, in Syria. The debacle in Afghanistan, I think, emboldened Putin.

“What do we need to do now? We need to teach Putin about time travel and knock him into next week. I’m not talking about a war. I’m talking about expelling Putin, not just from international markets, but from the international community. We need to make him a pariah.”

. . .

“All of the world’s people who love democracy need to stand together and say, ‘No,’ to Putin, that, ‘If you want to act like this, you can’t be part of the international community, and you can’t be part of the international markets.’ We need to crush the ruble, we need to stop all exports to Russia, and we need to make sure Putin knows we mean business.

“This will send not just a message to Putin, but to President Xi in China, to the Ayatollah in Iran. I think that Putin and President Xi in China and the Ayatollah are working together. This is a defining moment in history.” 

. . .

“We’ve got to sanction not just Russian banks, not just Russian governmental officials, but we’ve got to sanction all the oligarchs and plutocrats who keep Putin in power and who have money hidden all over the world, including in the United States.

“We need to seize their assets, including Putin’s assets in the United States, and don’t think that he doesn’t—through surrogates—own assets here.

“We also need to throw Russia out of the SWIFT financial system—it’s an international payment system, of which Russia is a part. We need to throw him out of that.”

. . .

“One more thing: President Biden needs to stop his frontal assault on oil and gas, on pipelines, on LNG.

“He needs to open up drilling in the Gulf. . . . He needs to open up every pipeline we’ve got, including the Keystone Pipeline. He needs to call all of his regulators and tell them to stop telling banks not to loan capital to the oil and gas industry.”

. . .

“For the last 14 months, President Biden and his people have done everything they could to shut down oil and gas in this country. If the president doesn’t reverse that immediately, we’re going to see $6, $7, $8, $9, $10/gallon gas, and America’s going to be weak as rainwater.”

View Kennedy’s complete remarks here.

MADISONVILLE, La. – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, and the Louisiana congressional delegation urged leaders on the Senate and House Appropriations Committees to dedicate additional disaster recovery funds for Louisiana.

“This is an urgent crisis: families across Louisiana are struggling to house people and meet their basic life-sustaining needs today. We respectfully request swift action to make good on the promise of the down payment in the September Continuing Resolution and appropriate additional supplemental funding dollars for unmet needs in Louisiana. South Louisiana has been hit by unprecedented disaster and needs the support of the Congress to put them on the path to a full recovery,” the lawmakers wrote.

Congress must pass an additional government funding bill by March 11, 2022, and a year-and-a-half of natural disasters—including a historic winter storm, severe flooding and Hurricanes Laura, Delta, Zeta and Ida—has left Louisiana in need of additional recovery aid.

The delegation also called for Congress to invest more in pre-disaster mitigation and protection from future floods.

Kennedy also spoke on the Senate floor ahead of the most recent funding extension to urge Congress not to forget Louisianians’ need for disaster relief aid in the upcoming government funding deal.

Kennedy fought for nearly $600 million in disaster relief to be included in the short-term funding bill that became law after passing the Senate on Sept. 30, 2021. The legislation also extended the National Flood Insurance Program without raising the debt limit. This law provided $595 million to Louisiana.

Kennedy is the only member of the Louisiana delegation who sits on an appropriations committee.

Background:

• On Feb. 16, the Senate Small Business Committee passed the Disaster Assistance for Rural Communities Act, which would allow rural homeowners, renters and small businesses to access disaster relief more easily in the wake of a natural disaster. Kennedy helped introduce the bill.
  
  
• On Oct. 19, 2021, the Senate passed the State, Local, Tribal and Territorial Fiscal Recovery, Infrastructure and Disaster Relief Flexibility Act, which Kennedy helped introduce. The bill would allow state governments to use unspent pandemic relief funds from the American Rescue Plan Act’s State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund to provide relief for natural disaster victims and to invest in infrastructure needs. The bill is waiting for a vote in the House.
  
  
• On Aug. 2, 2021, Kennedy offered an amendment to the Senate’s infrastructure bill providing $1.1 billion in disaster relief to Louisianians recovering from Hurricanes Laura, Delta and Zeta. The Senate blocked the amendment.  
  
  
• On July 21, 2021, Kennedy joined Louisiana’s congressional delegation in urging the Office of Management and Budget to prioritize Louisiana’s request for supplemental disaster relief. 
  
  
• On July 15, 2021, Kennedy introduced and asked the Senate to pass the Gulf Coast Hurricane Aid Act of 2021. The bill would provide $1.1 billion in disaster relief to Louisianians recovering from historic storms. The Senate blocked the bill’s passage. 
  
  
• On May 18, 2021, Kennedy urged President Biden to provide supplemental disaster relief for southwest Louisiana. 
  
  
• On Sept. 4, 2020, Kennedy wrote to Senate leadership, Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), to request that the Senate consider emergency supplemental aid to help Louisiana residents recover from Hurricane Laura.

The letter is available here.

WASHINGTON – The Senate passed a resolution to honor the National Future Farmers of America (FFA) Organization with support from Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who joined Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) in introducing the resolution.

The resolution designates Feb. 19-26, 2022, as “National FFA Week.”

“Farmers are part of America’s economic and cultural backbone. The National FFA does excellent work equipping the next generation of American farmers, and I’m proud to join Sen. Young in recognizing their work,” said Kennedy.

“Hoosiers agree FFA plays a critical role in the development of students through agricultural education. The lessons, tools, and resources gained through the FFA program equip Indiana’s future leaders with the skills needed to succeed in a variety of fields, including agriculture. I’m glad to introduce this resolution establishing National FFA Week in support of the more than 11,600 FFA members in Indiana,” said Young.

The resolution recognizes the important role that the National FFA plays in developing students’ leadership and career skills through agricultural education. The resolution also celebrates 70 years of the National FFA Organization’s membership magazine, New Horizons.

More than 40 other senators also cosponsored the resolution.

Text of the resolution is available here.

MADISONVILLE, La. – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) today joined Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) and more than 100 other lawmakers in writing to Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Robert Califf to condemn the FDA’s decision to permanently eliminate longstanding patient safeguards associated with the chemical abortion drug mifepristone, and to urge the FDA to rescind this decision.

“Removing the in-person dispensing requirements from the drug’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) and permitting mail-order dispensing of this drug will increase risks to women. This action recklessly ignores the clear data showing the dangers of chemical abortions and abandons FDA’s responsibility for ensuring safety of drugs,” the lawmakers wrote.

“In addition to the loss of the unborn child, chemical abortion drugs present serious risk to the health of the mother, including severe bleeding, infection, the need for surgical intervention, and even death. In fact, chemical abortions are four times more dangerous than surgical abortions. These health risks necessitate, at minimum, in-person screening by a physician,” the lawmakers continued.

“Make no mistake: the relaxation of these requirements will hasten a new regime of mail-order abortion, where women ingest these dangerous medications alone without any meaningful oversight from a doctor. Without physician involvement and the associated quick access to care in the case of adverse events, women are likely to face additional complications from these do-it-yourself chemical abortions,” concluded the lawmakers.

The letter is available here.