In The News

ORANGE COUNTY, Va (WVIR) - U.S. Senator Tim Kaine visited the town of Orange Wednesday as part of his statewide tour focusing on improving Virginia's economy. Sen. Kaine met with county supervisors and members of the chamber of commerce before touring several businesses in town. Leaders suggested that the senator consider reforming railway shipping safety regulations, increase training for trade jobs, and improving high-speed internet access in the area. "You want your citizens at home to be abl...Continue Reading

Older, puncture-prone tankers hauling crude oil would be taxed to pay for new rail safety measures under a bill backed by Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine. The bill, announced Thursday on the anniversary of Lynchburg’s downtown derailment, attaches a fee to the controversial DOT-111 tankers used to move crude oil, ethanol and other flammable liquids across the country. The fee wouldn’t extend to newer CPC-1232 cars — the model that ruptured and caught fire in Lynchburg — ...Continue Reading

A year after a train carrying millions of gallons of crude oil derailed in downtown Lynchburg, U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine co-sponsored legislation today that would apply a fee to every old-model rail car transporting highly volatile crude from the Bakken shale fields in North Dakota. The proposed annual fee of $175 per rail car would raise money that would be used to pay the clean-up costs of rail accidents involving Class 3 flammable liquids, provide training grants for local emerg...Continue Reading

U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott will be in the thick of a Democratic push on the federal minimum wage, sponsoring legislation to increase the floor $12 over the next five years. Democrats plan to roll out the particulars this afternoon in a press conference with the U.S. secretary of labor and Democratic minority leaders from both chambers. Scott, D-Newport News, will sponsor the House version. The bill would bump the minimum wage up 75 cents next year, then another dollar a year to hit $12 by 2020. It's ...Continue Reading

There’s much to love about the Old Dominion: its history, its heritage, its natural beauty. But with growth and progress, those natural treasures of the commonwealth come under increased pressure from development. That’s why an initiative Gov. Terry McAuliffe launched last week is so important. “Virginia Treasures” is designed to protect, in perpetuity, ecologically sensitive sites, lands that harbor endangered or threatened species and locations such as boat landings and...Continue Reading

There's likely to be some political posturing over an Iran nuclear agreement as the Senate considers giving Congress review authority this week, but Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., is confident the measure won't be derailed. Kaine has been a leader pushing for congressional oversight, despite his longtime support of President Barack Obama. He's working closely with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and ranking Democrat Ben Cardin of Maryland on how to respond to any amendme...Continue Reading

AFTER HOUSE Republican leaders announced last week that they would not act on President Obama’s request for an authorization of military force against the Islamic State, critics asked a fair question: How come legislators who insisted on congressional review of the pending nuclear accord with Iran see no need to vote on the military campaign now underway in Iraq and Syria? The obvious answer is that Republican leaders are eager to go on record opposing the deal with Tehran but have little ...Continue Reading

WASHINGTON — The deaths of two hostages in a drone strike in Pakistan shouldn't raise questions about the use of drones, says Sen. Tim Kaine, a leading voice on foreign policy on Capitol Hill — but he says they should raise questions about the mission the United States is pursuing in the region nearly 14 years after the 9/11 attacks. "A drone isn't any different than a bomb; it's not any different than other weapons that are used, where there is always a capacity for people to be kil...Continue Reading

A bipartisan group of senators called on President Obama Wednesday to immediately establish humanitarian safe zones for civilians in Syria. “With the brutal Syrian conflict entering its fifth year, the Syrian people are facing a humanitarian nightmare of unspeakable proportions,” said a letter to the president by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.). “More than 200,000 Syrians have been killed in the past four years, m...Continue Reading

Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine as asking the  Senate Appropriations Committee to increase funding for maintaining the nation's harbors. They said additional funding could help expand the Port of Virginia’s capacity and bolster commerce along Virginia’s inland waterways. Warner and Kaine joined 18 others asking to increase the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers allocation from the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund. The Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund is paid for by user fees, but only a ...Continue Reading

The National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium (NASDCTEc) announced April 17 that Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) is the winner of its Congressional Star of Education Award for his leadership, vision and dedication to Career Technical Education (CTE). “Senator Kaine is a vocal advocate, passionate spokesperson and true champion for Career Technical Education,” NASDCTEc Executive Director Kimberly Green said. “From the very beginning of his tenure in ...Continue Reading

STAUNTON — Kids should start learning about career options in technical fields before they get to high school, said U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, who lobbied for a vocational counseling provision included in federal legislation this week. Since joining the senate two years ago, Kaine, D-Va., has made education and employment in vocational areas one of his personal causes. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee made early technical education counseling part of a bill to renew No ...Continue Reading

Getting legislation recognizing six of Virginia’s historic American Indian tribes through Congress has been a personal goal of U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine ever since his days as Virginia’s governor. Today, he may be closer than he’s ever been in the past. It’s been a long, hard slog for the Monacan Indian Nation and the Chickahominy, Eastern Chickahominy, Upper Mattaponi, Rappahannock and Nansemond tribes during the past decades in their quest to gain federal recognition. One hur...Continue Reading

On the eighth anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine blasted the National Rifle Association for working to block state and federal efforts to adopt stricter background checks for gun purchases. Kaine said in a Senate floor speech he's come to believe the NRA doesn't care about gun owners and is focused on protecting gun manufacturers' ability to sell as many firearms as possible. The Virginia Democrat was governor in 2007 when a gunman killed 32 students and educators in ...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine came to th floor of the Senate to read the names of the 32 Virginia tech students and faculty who died in the mass shooting of April 16, 2007, and to call on Congress to pass comprehensive background check legislation -- the kind of law that would have kept shooter Seung Hui Cho for getting the high-powered weapons he used on that terrible day. Kaine said Congress needs to stand up against groups like the National Rifle Association that oppose such legislation -- and he told his f...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) says his colleagues on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee haven’t given up on passing a resolution authorizing the use of military force (AUMF) against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. “Oh, no. Not at all,” Kaine told reporters Wednesday when asked whether he agreed with recent remarks by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) that President Obama’s request was essentially dead on Capitol Hill. Kaine said he had heard about McCarthy...Continue Reading

The bid to get federal recognition for the Monacan Indians and other Virginia tribes has enough votes to pass the Senate, provided it can make it to the floor for a vote, said U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, a sponsor of the bill. “We’re trying to strategize how to do that now,” said Kaine, D-Va., adding he’s encouraged the bill already got an early nod of approval in committee. “If I can get it on the floor for a vote, it’s going to pass,” he said. “I won&rs...Continue Reading

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine  on Friday defended efforts by Congress to get involved in the Obama administration's negotiation of a nuclear deal with Iran. Kaine  said he understands the White House's worries over what he called subtle, "high-stakes" talks. "Congress can screw it up. There isn't a guarantee that Congress won't screw it up. But Congress is there for a reason," the Virginia Democrat said, arguing that the Constitution requires legislators to be engaged. "The American public wants...Continue Reading

His party lost control of the Senate and the White House isn't all that happy with his push for a congressional review of any Iranian nuclear weapons agreement, but by and large Sen. Tim Kaine is feeling pretty optimistic these days. He's seeing signs that Congress actually wants to get things done – and that there might be room for legislators to put aside bitter partisan differences to act on issues that matter to the country. One sign came two weeks ago, at about 3:30 a.m., when he won ...Continue Reading

Inside cavernous Hall C at Jefferson Lab in Newport News, Sen. Tim Kaine  stood under massive structures of concrete and steel that are used to help blast electrons at targets in the name of science. Nuclear physicist Cynthia Keppel was walking the senator through the ongoing $340 million upgrade to the lab's electron beam accelerator to double its energy and enable it to peer even deeper into the inner structure of protons and nuclei. "And all of the experiments," Kaine  said, "are ba...Continue Reading