• U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) urged House Republican leadership to bring the Senate-passed bipartisan national security supplemental aid bill to the floor for a vote, emphasizing its potential to meet the nation’s security challenges and help save lives in the short and long term, according to a Feb. 14 statement from his office. Carbajal joined House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn) and other Democrats with military and national security backgrounds to push for debate and a vote on the bill. The package includes $60.06 billion to support Ukraine; $14.1 billion in security assistance for Israel; $2.44 billion to support operations in the U.S. Central Command and address the conflict in the Red Sea; $9.15 billion in humanitarian aid to Gaza and the West Bank; and $4.82 billion to support Indo-Pacific partners. “This … won’t just save lives today by delivering aid and helping defend civilian lives. This package will save lives in the future,” Carbajal said in the statement. “If Russia, in Donald Trump’s words, does whatever it wants to Ukraine, we know that it may not stop there. If we do not approve this bill today, we still have to approve it eventually. Only next time it might be to defend a NATO ally. And it would just not be American dollars. It could be the lives of American service members and, yes, civilians.”
• U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla (D-California) and Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) introduced the Health Accelerating Consumers’ Care by Expediting Self-Scheduling (ACCESS) Act to modernize health care and improve patients’ access to care, according to a Feb. 13 statement from Padilla’s office. The legislation improves digital health services by allowing patients to easily search for and book health care appointments online while protecting personal health information. “Every American deserves accessible physical and mental health care without having to jump through outdated hoops,” Padilla said. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the demand for digital health services and other innovative practices, according to Padilla. Under current law, however, there isn’t a distinction between illegal referral practices and scheduling services that reduce the barriers associated with accessing care. These barriers exist for mental health as well as physical health care—nearly half of the 60 million adults and children living with mental health conditions in the United States go without any treatment, the statement said. Self-scheduling technology could increase the ability for patients to seamlessly see which mental health professionals are nearby and available to help. The Health ACCESS Act, according to Padilla’s office, would amend the Anti-Kickback Statute to remove regulatory ambiguity and allow digital health and appointment booking platforms to work together to better serve patients.
• The California Energy Commission (CEC) approved a $1.9 billion investment plan that advances the state’s electric vehicle charging and hydrogen refueling goals, according to a Feb. 13 statement from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office. This funding builds on $1.8 billion already invested and will help deploy 40,000 new public EV chargers statewide and other zero-emission infrastructure across California, creating the most extensive charging and hydrogen refueling network in the country, according to Newsom’s office. The investments are part of the governor’s $10 billion budget for zero-emission vehicles—which is bolstered by billions of dollars for clean transportation from the Biden administration. At least half of the zero-emission vehicle infrastructure deployed through the four-year funding plan will benefit disadvantaged or low-income communities—places often hit hardest by air pollution. Combined with funding from the federal government, utilities, and other programs, these investments will help the state achieve its goal of deploying 250,000 public EV chargers at sites throughout California, such as highway corridors and shopping centers, according to the governor’s office. “Our clean transportation future is here with more than 1 in 4 new cars sold in our state being electric. That’s why California is building a bigger and better zero-emission charging network—the most extensive in the nation,” Newsom said in the statement.
This article appears in Feb 22 – Mar 3, 2024.