Tester: Support Ukraine, hold Putin responsible

Montana's senior U.S. senator said during a press conference last week he will continue to work to support Ukraine as it fights invading Russian forces and that Russia's president must be held accountable.

"Vladimir Putin has single-handedly started an unprovoked war with the sovereign democratic nation of the Ukraine," Tester said Thursday. "His actions are making the world far less safe today than it was a month ago. There should be no reluctance to condemn Putin as an enemy of America and an enemy of freedom around the world.

"We must always stand up to bullies who attack democracies, and I am continuing to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who are serious about defending our core values here at home and abroad," Tester added.

He said that, as the chair of the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, he is working with Republicans and Democrats to craft packages that support Ukraine and strengthen the North Atlantic Treaty Organizaiton as well as isolating Russia from the global economy through sanctions and halting Russian energy imports.

He said he will be traveling to Poland in a week or so with Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Jack Reed, D-R.I., to talk to representatives of Ukraine and Poland and countries in the Baltics about their successes and what they need to move forward.

"They are fighters, and we have supplied them already," Tester said, "By the way, NATO is on top of this. They have supplied them with a lot, too."

But, he said, the challenge is where is the red line to determine when to do more.

"The challenge with whatever the red line may be is that is you're dealing with Russia. They're a nuclear power," he said.

He said he heard Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., say the U.S. should supply aircraft to Ukraine because Putin is bluffing.

"Well, in this particular case, we better make damn well sure Putin is bluffing because it could end up in a nuclear conflict and a nuclear conflict brings in the whole world," he said.

He added that the situation is different than most people expected.

"I think, what we've seen with Russia is they're not as good as they thought they were, and Ukraine could win this," Tester said. "... I think a month ago people would have said the Ukrainians were going to lose, there was just no other option."

The Associated Press reports that Russia's military said today it would "fundamentally" cut back operations near Ukraine's capital and a northern city, as talks brought a possible deal to end a grinding and brutal war into view.

Tester also said people just need to look at the pictures from Ukraine on the nightly news to see Putin needs to be held accountable, but that can add to the risks.

"I'm going to tell you, this guy is a war criminal, and he's going to be held accountable for his actions, and I think he knows," Tester said. "It's kind of like having a wild animal cornered. You don't know where he's going to go."

He also said "the Ukranians putting the heat on him" and the impact of sanctions - which Tester said are having serious impacts in Russia - could lead to his advisors and the Russian honor guard to influence Putin about continuing the war.

"I'm not saying it's going to happen, but I think it could,"' Tester said. "We might see a different outcome to this war than people thought would happen."

Inflation

Tester also said reining in inflation is crucial at this point, especially rising prices at the gas pump, and he is pressing the Biden administration to pursue an all-of-the-above approach to increase domestic energy production, including releasing oil from the strategic petroleum reserve.

"It includes working with oil and gas producers to shore up our domestic supply," he said. "It includes going back and reviewing the Keystone XL pipeline and similar projects to secure reliable energy sources from allies and keep refined products here in the United States of America.

"And, perhaps most importantly, invest in domestic clean energy generation transmission and storage," he added. "It is clear that folks are hurting, and we feel it every day at the gas pump, but we also can't let immediate crisis unwind decades of clean energy research and development. We need to invest in all sectors of American energy to lessen the burden on Montanans and we need to start today."

Tester said some factors already are working toward that, including that he believes production in the Bakken Formation is increasing.

Another impact is the surge in the COVID pandemic in China slowing its economy, which puts more energy on the international market.

"We saw crude oil go from 130 to about 95 bucks," Tester said. "I look forward to seeing that correlation happen at the pump, because I haven't seen it. It seems like when crude goes up the pump follows it; when it goes down we always have to wait a while."

He said the government also is talking to companies that have idled oil wells or started wells but stopped when the price went down - and, he said, a number of those exist - because they need to go finish those wells and start pumping at idled wells to try to shore up production in both oil and natural gas.

He said he sees many opportunities to get more energy into the marketplace and he believes that, ultimately, will result in prices going down.

Postal service

Tester also applauded the Senate passage of reforms to the U.S. Postal Service which he said will help put the service on solid financial ground and benefit the people of the United States.

"It's about time that the United States Postal Service worked for everybody, including those of us in rural America," he said. "... That bill we've been working on for the last, count them, the last 15 years and it finally came to fruition.

"What this is going to do is it's going to put some reforms in that are a long time overdue," he added.

Tester said those reforms include integrating the USPS workforce into Medicare, which will save the service about $23 million over 10 years, and also remove the requirement that retirement medical benefits are prepaid - a requirement only the postal service has.

"It's not like we're bailing anybody out, they just are treated (under this bill) like any other agency, " he said.

Other reforms include requiring six-day-a-week delivery, adjusting rates for rural newspaper to mail editions to their subscribers, and adding services like allowing the postal service to partner with state, local and tribal governments to sell things like hunting and fishing licenses.

"That's what was done in that bill," Tester said. "It ends up making (the USPS) financially more resilient moving forward because they don't have all these negative bills hanging over 'em.

"Now, I will also tell you that we still have more work to do," he added, saying mail distribution centers have been eliminated and some need to be restarted.

Tester said if someone in Missoula has to ship mail to Spokane, Washington, or Seattle before it comes back, someone in Plentywood has to ship it to Billings before it comes back, that's a big problem.

"So we're still going to be working to make the Postal Service more efficient," he said.