Bills pushed as Congress nears recess

As Congress’ August recess neared, U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., continued to push on issues, including following up on another bill related to leaks of classified information about government surveillance and on a companion to a bill by Rep. Steve Daines, R-Mont., dealing with nuclear missiles.

Tester and Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., added an amendment to a military spending bill that blocks a proposed study on the environmental impact of removing nuclear missile silos. Both Tester and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., have said that could have led to elimination of some of Malmstrom Air Force Base’s missile silos.

“Keeping our nation safe should be our top priority, and Malmstrom’s ICBMs do that in a way that saves taxpayers money,” Tester said Thursday in a press release.

“A strong ICBM force is one of most cost-effective ways to keep America safe. It simply doesn’t make sense to waste taxpayer dollars on studies that look at cutting what we already know gives us maximum nuclear deterrence for our money,” Baucus said in the release.

Daines joined other representatives in sponsoring a similar amendment that passed the House last week.

“We face a world today in which nuclear threats to the United States are increasing and our conventional military capabilities face dramatic reductions. Given this, our nuclear deterrent is becoming more important — not less,” Daines said during the debate on the bill.

Tester also followed up on his bill a committee passed Wednesday giving more government oversight over background checks on people with access to classified information. Thursday he co-sponsored a bill introduced by Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., requiring the government to release more data about the type and amount of private information it is collecting under the Patriot Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. His bill also lets companies like Google and Microsoft publicly disclose what kinds of information the government forces them to collect.

“Montanans have the right to know if they’re being spied on,” Tester said Thursday in a press release.

Tester also claimed success in some overseas measures, backing a bipartisan measure requiring the president to follow the law and wait for congressional approval if he wishes to deploy U.S. troops in Syria. He also helped pass an amendment out of committee cutting foreign aid to Afghanistan if the Afghani government charged “the U.S. steep fees to ship American military equipment out of the country,” a Tester press release said Thursday.

“In response, the Afghan government dropped its plan and American shipments will continue free of charge,” the release said.