Latest news with #BrettGuthrie
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Senate candidate Colonel Pamela Stevenson visits Owensboro for town hall event
OWENSBORO, Ky. (WEHT) — A democratic candidate for the U.S Senate stopped by Owensboro today to speak with constituents during a special town hall event. Colonel Pamela Stevenson currently serves as Kentucky's House Minority Leader and is running for Republican Mitch McConnell's seat. 'People are hungry to have someone that serves them…the energy was incredible,' Stevenson says. Hosted by Indivisible Owensboro, the town hall allowed constituents to ask elected officials about hot-button issues. Several elected officials were invited to attend, including Stevenson, Senator Rand Paul, Representative Brett Guthrie, and Senator Mitch McConnell. Stevenson was the only one who showed up. Over 20 people attended, including Donna Haynes. 'This started out to try to get some answers. We wanted it to be a peaceful discussion with our elected officials about what they did, why they did it, and how it affects us,' Haynes says. Constituents asked questions about several issues, including healthcare. One person asked, 'What are your thoughts about Trump's repeated statements to repeal or replace the Affordable Care Act?' 'As far as I can tell, if you are human, you need health care. They {the audience} want to make sure the elderly are taken care of, they want to have access to health care, and they want to make sure kids eat,' Stevenson says. Constituents also asked questions about Job Corps. The second largest one in the country is located in Morganfield. The U.S Department of Labor announced plans to eliminate Job Corps Centers nationwide last week due to proposed budget cuts by the Trump Administration. 'We have to do a better job building up rural counties. No matter where you live in Kentucky, you have to have access to health care and a good job to take care of your family. We have to make sure that that happens,' Stevenson says. A federal judge filed a motion for a temporary restraining order in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York today to block the closures today. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
E&E News
4 days ago
- Business
- E&E News
House panel sets vote on energy, permitting bills
A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee will vote this week on legislation to address long-held Republican concerns around electric reliability. Lawmakers discussed the 13 bills during a hearing in April. They focus heavily on easing permitting for fossil fuel and nuclear infrastructure. 'Over the past several months, our Committee has heard from energy producers, grid operators, and experts on [artificial intelligence] that have discussed the need to produce more baseload power,' said E&C Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) and Energy Subcommittee Chair Bob Latta (R-Ohio) about the bills. '[These] specific policy proposals would help achieve this goal and ensure American energy dominance.' Advertisement Republicans believe baseload energy sources — unlike wind and solar — can better allow the U.S. to meet power demand. But Democrats expressed opposition to almost all the bills during April's hearing, wanting more attention for renewables.
E&E News
22-05-2025
- Business
- E&E News
Musk huddles with Energy and Commerce Republicans
Elon Musk was meeting with House Energy and Commerce Republicans on Thursday morning to discuss energy issues and artificial intelligence, according to a person with direct knowledge of the session. It comes a day after the head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency initiative met with Senate Republicans — many of them on the Commerce Committee — on similar issues, including bolstering competitiveness with China. Musk has taken a step back from his Trump administration duties in recent weeks after leading a major slashing of federal agencies. Advertisement Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) has taken a keen interest in AI — including proposing a 10-year moratorium on state and local regulation of AI models in his portion of Republicans' megabill that passed the House on Thursday morning, and honing in on ways to tackle the technology's high level of energy use.
Forbes
22-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
‘Total Control' To AI Firms: U.S. House Bill Barring State Oversight Draws Ire
US President Trump gestures as CEO of Open AI Sam Altman speaks in the Roosevelt Room at the White ... More House on January 21, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP) (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images) A provision tucked into a sweeping U.S. House Republican budget bill is igniting a contentious fight over artificial intelligence regulation in the United States. The measure would ban states from enforcing or enacting AI-related legislation for ten years, effectively overriding a wave of new and pending state-level laws protecting consumers, mitigating algorithmic bias and setting guardrails on emerging technologies. Introduced by the House Energy and Commerce Committee under Chairman Brett Guthrie, the proposal has incited swift condemnation from state attorneys general, children's advocacy organizations and civil society groups. Advocates warn it would hand expansive leeway to AI companies at a time when oversight is urgently needed and when federal rules remain vague or largely absent. Earlier this month, a bipartisan group of state attorneys general, including officials from California, New York and Ohio, wrote a letter to Congress urging lawmakers to scrap the provision. 'Imposing a broad moratorium on all state action while Congress fails to act in this area is irresponsible and deprives consumers of reasonable protections,' they wrote. Separately, a coalition of 77 advocacy groups argued in a letter on Wednesday that the bill would silence states without offering federal protections in return. 'By wiping out all existing and future state AI laws without putting new federal protections in place, AI companies would get exactly what they want: no rules, no accountability and total control,' the coalition wrote. 'It ties lawmakers' hands for a decade, sidelining policymakers and leaving families on their own.' The bill's language is noticeably broad: It defines AI as any computational process using machine learning, statistical modeling, or data analytics that influences human decision-making, and it would prohibit states from legislating around AI design, documentation, liability and performance. That scope, legal experts say, could derail a wide range of initiatives, from whistleblower protections to rules for algorithmic social media feeds and AI-generated deepfakes. The legislative push comes as Congress faces mounting pressure to regulate AI, but, critics argue, has failed to pass any meaningful legislation governing AI systems to date. California, Colorado and Utah have already passed laws governing cross-sectoral use of AI, and at least 15 other states are considering similar measures. Many states have also launched AI task forces or issued executive orders in the absence of federal leadership. 'States have not had the luxury of waiting for federal action on AI policy,' said the National Association of State Chief Information Officers in a statement opposing the bill, adding that the language in the measure undermines states' efforts to protect citizens. The proposal is a 'short-sighted and ill-conceived plan,' contend Marc Rotenberg, Merve Hickok and Christabel Randolph from the Center for AI and Digital Policy. 'States have established critical new safeguards to protect creators, promote accountability, safeguard children and ensure the reliability of AI,' they said. 'Now, some members of Congress are proposing a ten-year moratorium that would prohibit state legislators from protecting the public.' The issue, advocates warn, becomes all the more burgeoning as AI develops a deeper entrenchment into everyday life — concerns about disinformation, data harvesting and automated decision-making continue to mount, yet federal action remains elusive. Daniel Rodriguez, a professor at Northwestern University's Pritzker School of Law, said the situation reflects a legally dubious overreach and a broader attempt to shut down state-level momentum, calling the bill 'a shot across the bow'. 'What's bizarre about it is that it paints with this incredibly broad brush a declaration that states should just stay the heck out of this area,' Rodriguez told StateScoop, adding that that's not how preemption generally works. 'What is the federal government doing at the legislative level to promote innovation in the responsible use of AI? What exactly is it doing?' While some industry groups have encouraged the federal move as a way to avoid a patchwork of rules across states, others argue it erodes federalism and hurts innovation by limiting local experimentation. The National Conference of State Legislatures issued its own strong rebuke, warning that the bill would undermine efforts to tailor solutions to local concerns. 'A federally imposed moratorium would not only stifle innovation but potentially leave communities vulnerable in the face of rapidly advancing technologies,' the group stated. Per NCSL's analysis, 48 states and Puerto Rico have introduced AI legislation, and 26 states adopted or enacted at least 75 new AI measures. The bill could stall momentum towards meaningful oversight while offering no viable federal alternative just as states begin to confront critical challenges. Furthermore, the bill could also leave consumers and small businesses vulnerable in the absence of clear standards. '[The moratorium on state AI-related bills] could severely disadvantage consumers, innovators, small and mid-sized businesses and other stakeholders interested in ethical and fair AI design and deployment,' warn Nicol Turner Lee and Josie Stewart at Brookings Institution. At large, federal preemption of stronger state privacy laws hurts everyone, Hayley Tsukayama, associate director of legislative activism at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, wrote in a blog post earlier this month. 'It risks freezing any regulation on the issue for the next decade — a considerable problem given the pace at which companies are developing the technology. Congress does not react quickly and, particularly when addressing harms from emerging technologies, has been far slower to act than states.' If enacted, the bill could undermine existing state privacy laws. The California Privacy Protection Agency and Colorado's attorney general could be prevented from enforcing AI-specific rules already passed or under development. Advocates argue that delaying regulation for a decade is effectively a deregulation agenda. 'The future of AI governance should be built on democratic principles, shared responsibility and a commitment to the public interest,' said Rotenberg, Hickok, and Randolph. 'Not a decade-long silence imposed from above.' In Colorado, for example, several AI companies recently lobbied to delay and weaken the state's landmark AI accountability legislation — a preview of what unchecked industry influence could look like under a regulatory freeze. Tsukayama warned that the moratorium could paralyze AI oversight at a time when vigilance is most needed. 'Even if Congress does nothing on AI for the next ten years, this would still prevent states from stepping into the breach.'
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
The GOP wants work requirements for Medicaid. Here's what those rules do (and don't) accomplish.
As they work to pass a 'big beautiful bill' filled with tax cuts and spending reductions, Republicans in Congress are proposing adding work requirements to Medicaid, the $618 billion program that provides healthcare to more than 70 million low-income Americans. "When so many Americans who are truly in need rely on Medicaid for life-saving services, Washington can't afford to undermine the program further by subsidizing capable adults who choose not to work,' GOP Rep. Brett Guthrie, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce wrote in an op-ed last week. 'That's why our bill would implement sensible work requirements.' As the name implies, work requirements are rules that force people to work in order to receive a government benefit. They have been in use for decades as part of other programs, most notably cash welfare assistance, but have never been used nationally for Medicaid. Only one state, Georgia, currently has work requirements for Medicaid. Arkansas had them briefly at the end of the last decade, but the policy was struck down by the courts. The GOP's draft proposal would establish a nationwide 'community engagement requirement' that would mandate Medicaid recipients to work, volunteer, or attend school for at least 80 hours per month to maintain their benefits. It includes many exceptions that would allow pregnant women, new mothers, anyone under 19 and members of certain other groups to keep their coverage without working. Work requirements have been a popular solution to concerns about 'freeloading' in government programs since at least the 1980s. Supporters see them as a crucial step toward putting people on a path to supporting themselves and as a tool to weed out those who aren't willing to put in the effort to improve their circumstances. In the 1990s, then-President Bill Clinton signed a bill establishing nationwide work requirements for cash welfare as part of what he called 'a crusade to transform our system of welfare into a system of work; to transform a system of dependence into a system of independence.' That logic is still convincing to most Americans today. Well over half of respondents (62%) said they support work requirements for Medicaid in a poll taken earlier this year by the healthcare research group KFF. Despite how common this perception is, the overwhelming share of evidence we have from the real world suggests that work requirements don't make people more self-sufficient and create barriers that cause even those who do work to lose benefits they are eligible for. Study after study over the decades has found that work requirements — whether they're for Medicaid, food assistance or cash welfare — don't have a meaningful effect on employment. A recent government report that looked at the effects of work requirements on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the program more commonly known as welfare, found that after nearly three decades, the policy had 'little effect on employment' but had 'substantially reduced the number of people receiving the benefits they provide.' A different study on work requirements for food assistance, commonly known as food stamps, found similar results: Employment rates weren't affected, but hundreds of thousands of people lost access to support they relied on to eat. Medicaid work requirements haven't been tried at a wide scale, but research into the more limited attempts suggest that results are similar. Arkansas imposed its own 'community engagement' rules in 2018. The policy was only in place for 10 months, but in that span 18,000 people in the state lost health coverage and the rules 'did not increase employment,' one study found. Georgia's Medicaid work requirement system, which has been in place since 2023, has been plagued by low enrollment, technical glitches and ballooning administrative costs. Two years ago, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office released an estimate of the impact that nationwide work requirements for Medicaid would have. It found that the policy would cause 1.5 million Americans to lose their healthcare coverage and would have 'negligible effect on employment status or hours worked.' One of the main reasons that work requirements don't increase employment is because most people who get government benefits are already working or are unable to work. About 92% of Medicaid recipients under the age of 65 are either employed or unable to work because of disability, illness, caregiving responsibilities or school obligations, according to KFF. There is also research showing that adding extra paperwork steps — like requiring people to certify with the government that they are in fact working — can create bureaucratic pitfalls that cause even those who have satisfied all of the new criteria to lose their benefits. 'Work requirements impose administrative barriers and red tape that lead to coverage losses among both people who are working as well as people the policies purport to exempt,' Gideon Lukens and Elizabeth Zhang of the Center on Policy and Budget Priorities wrote earlier this year. Many critics of work requirements say the policy is built on the false belief that people who are struggling to get by are in that position because of laziness or some other personal shortcoming. 'More stringent work requirements implemented in the past have largely failed to boost work in significant ways because these requirements do not attack the core problems of weak macroeconomic conditions, the volatile nature of low-wage work, and other barriers to work,' Hilary Wething of the Economic Policy Institute wrote in January. Republicans are attempting to combine a laundry list of legislative priorities into a single, massive spending bill that they hope to pass before Memorial Day. With narrow majorities in both houses of Congress and zero reason to expect they will get any Democratic votes, they have very little room for error. Any part of the bill could be changed or scrapped altogether if the party can't unify behind it. Medicaid work requirements have been a point of disagreement in negotiations within the party, but so far there has not been vocal opposition to imposing them. In fact, the main critique has come from hardline conservatives who want them to go into effect sooner than they would in the initial proposal.
