Tester still pushing for bill to preserve Job Corps

During a telephonic press conference Tuesday from Washington, U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said people at the town hall meeting he held in Missoula last week discussed many issues - but the biggest topics were plans to reorganize Job Corps training centers, including closing the one in Anaconda and privatizing the management of Montana's Trapper Creek training center.

"Too often and in far too many cases, the administration acts without regard for real-world consequences for their decisions," he said.

Tester said the administration said that it was closing or privatizing management at all 25 Job Corps Centers across the country, which operated under the National Forest Service. He added that, in Montana, he had heard a lot of objection to the decision and he introduced legislation to sustain the Job Corps program. He also asked the administration to keep the Job Corps Centers as they presently are, but the administration still wanted to move forward with their decision.

He said he spoke to Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who shared in his concern because Kentucky also has multiple Job Corps Centers, and said he would apply pressure to the administration to reverse the decision.

Shortly after, the administration said it would reverse its decision.

Tester said that closing the Job Corps Centers would ultimately have a negative impact, specifically in rural America. Although the administration now says it will keep the program as it is, he added, he will still push for his bill so in the future people will not have to worry about the administration again attempting to close the program.

He added that another piece of legislation, which will have its final vote in the Senate Thursday, is the recognition of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians, which is attached to a must-pass defense package, the National Defense Authorization Act.

The Little Shell Tribe has been working to receive recognition for several generations, a fight which has spanned over multiple decades, Tester said, but this may be the closest it has been to being approved.

"It's the best opportunity to get them recognition since I have got here in 2007," he said.

He added that when he first was elected in 2007, the first bill which he introduced in the Senate was to recognize the Little Shell Tribe.

"This deal is not done yet. There are always things that can blow up as we go through the legislative process, but the fact is there is light at the end of the tunnel, and we are headed in the right direction," Tester said. "All things considered, I feel fairly positive about recognition for the Little Shell."

Tester said that the Office of Veterans Affairs also appears to be heading in the right direction. A number of bills which impact veterans were passed last year, such as the VA Mission Act, which went into effect June 6 of this year. 

"I am cautiously optimistic as the VA implements this Mission Act," he said. "We have given them a year to do it. As long as they keep their ears to the ground and keep listening to the veterans out there, whether it's through the (veterans service organizations) or hearing from them directly. I think they will continue to move in the right direction, but along the way we are going to continue to hold the VA accountable to issue this program is implemented correctly."

He added that the implementation of the Mission Act will largely impact veterans, specifically in rural areas, where it is needed the most.

"Anything less than success here is unacceptable," he said.

Another victory for veterans is the passage of the Blue Water Navy Veterans Act, which provides health coverage for Vietnam veterans who are suffering the effects of Agent Orange they were exposed to offshore, Tester said. He added that this issue has been an ongoing fight for veterans since 1997, and although the veterans were not directly on the grounds of Vietnam, being offshore they still were affected by Agent Orange.

Trade

Tester said that, last month, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue admitted that agriculture producers have been impacted by the trade war between the U.S. and China.

Tester said that farmers and ranchers are up against a variety of factors, and are seeing low prices this growing season when they should be seeing record prices for crops and livestock.

He added that the market does show an uptick in corn prices, which hopefully will help producers, but the tariffs which are hurting producers overseas' markets still have no end goal in sight.

"We end up paying for them," Tester said. "China doesn't pay for them, people who import, export, both end up paying for the tariffs. I am all about holding China accountable, because they do steal technology and they have been bad actors - no doubt about that - but I'm not sure there's an end game here, and that's the problem."

He said the administration did not bring the allies in a joint effort to impose tariffs and if the United States takes the tariffs off now, it's only going to empower China and allow them to do more bad things in the future.

"I don't know what's going to happen," Tester said.

The other thing is that the United States is not involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other countries, which are involved, are able to get to the markets the U.S. doesn't have access to, he said. He added that producers have been resilient through the time of the trade war.

"Time is of the essence here, we've got to have those markets," he said. "Hopefully we can continue to be able to take advantage of those foreign markets because they are critical if we are going to have the survival of family-farm agriculture, otherwise there is going to be a lot of land changing hands and a lot of big money coming to the state buying up family farms."

Iranian Nuclear Agreement

The U.S. has walked away from the Iranian Nuclear Agreement, which poses a risk of Iran developing nuclear weapons, Tester said.

He added that the president and several members of the Senate didn't like the deal and because of that walked away from the agreement, but now Iran has no reason not to build up nuclear arms. When the deal was originally passed, it was said Iran was 90 days, some say 30 days, from building a nuclear weapon, but with the deal absolved can quickly start building again.  

"President (Donald) Trump decided that it wasn't good enough, he was going to pull out and these folks are bad actors," Tester said, adding that he doesn't see Iran coming back to the table for negotiations

"It's a step in the wrong direction," he added.

War in Iran would look and be different from the war in Iraq, costing more money and lives, he said.

With the passage of the NDAA, some in the Senate are pushing to include an amendment so Congress could have input before any military action takes place.

"This could escalate into a military operation really quickly," he said.