In The News

It was “a sweet moment,” U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine said, delivering the commencement address Saturday for the first graduating class of the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. Sweet, indeed, for the 40 graduates, all with residencies safely secured, commencing new lives as resident doctors. Sweet, surely, for two of the region’s visionary leaders — Virginia Tech President Charles Steger, who is retiring next month, and Dr. Ed Murphy, at the time the CEO of Carilion Clini...Continue Reading

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine is introducing legislation today intended to help service members pay for occupational credentials or licenses they would need for civilian jobs after they leave the military. The bill is intended to work in tandem with a measure that the Virginia Democrat successfully proposed last year to help service members use skills learned in the military to qualify for civilian jobs that do not require college degrees. The legislation introduced this week would allow service members t...Continue Reading

Turning military training into a credential for a civilian job isn’t as easy as it ought to be, in Sen. Tim Kaine’s view, and he’s introduced a bill to smooth the path, by authorizing use of the military’s Tuition Assistance Program to pay for testing fees, testing material and licensing fees. “While some servicemembers transition out of the military and decide to pursue a degree at a college or university, countless others are ready to immediately enter the workfor...Continue Reading

The defense industry in Hampton Roads - jittery about big reductions in military spending - likes what it sees in Congress's first attempt to draft a defense spending plan for 2015. Rank-and-file sailors probably do, too. The proposal approved by a House committee last week would keep intact most major purchase contracts and calls for bigger pay raises, in contrast to what the Pentagon wants. But it would do it at the expense of training and operations for active-duty commands. The congressional...Continue Reading

WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Wednesday backed bipartisan efforts to reexamine the controversial law passed in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that opened the door to the ever-expanding “war on terror.” Although Reid did not take a specific stand on how the law should be changed, in an interview with BuzzFeed he argued the time has come to revisit the Authorization of Use of Military Force. “It’s easy to be a Monday morning quarterback, bu...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine may be one of the Silver Line's biggest fans, and he's not letting the delays in Phase One of the nearly $6 billion project dampen his feelings. "This is the most complex single project I've ever been connected with in my 20 years in elected office," said Kaine, who worked to fund the first stretch as Virginia governor. "It is so big and complicated, there's going to be challenges." In the end, he believes the construction and the wait will all be worth it. "The experience of Metr...Continue Reading

RICHMOND - U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine honored the achievements not only of students but of mothers when he spoke during Virginia State University's spring 2014 commencement on Mother's Day. Nearly 600 graduates and their friends and family attended the ceremony at the Richmond Coliseum. Kaine, D-Va., specifically recognized the work of graduates who were both students and mothers, and asked them to stand. "All of you had to achieve a lot on this day but a lot of you had to achieve this while being moth...Continue Reading

Jameelah Johnson is leaving for the Peace Corps in April. “I want to receive more international experience and eventually become an ambassador,” said Johnson, who is from San Diego. Christopher Thornton, from Appomattox, is going to Brooklyn, N.Y., where he will teach writing at a middle school. He also will start on his master’s degree as part of Teach for America, a nonprofit organization that enlists high-achieving college graduates to teach for at least two years in low-inc...Continue Reading

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — A Defense Department commission will issue a report in February 2015 on a politically charged topic: how to save money in military compensation and benefits. But before that happens, Sen. Tim Kaine wants the commission to survey military personnel on what pay and benefit packages they most value. Kaine and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, introduced legislation Tuesday to direct the commission to conduct a formal survey of military personnel before the February 2015 report. T...Continue Reading

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – Dominion Virginia Power will receive $47 million over the next four years to construct two wind turbines 26 miles off the coast for testing in ocean waters subject to hurricanes, the U.S. Department of Energy said Wednesday. The demonstration project, among three nationally announced by DOE, is intended to speed U.S. development of wind power in vast ocean tracts. The nation lags behind Europe and Asia in the development of offshore wind, making wind power an expensive...Continue Reading

Virginia can resume exporting chicken feet to China after a seven-year ban. Gov. Terry McAuliffe's administration announced Monday that the Chinese government had lifted its ban on imported Virginia poultry products. China blocked Virginia chicken exports in 2007 after a case of pathogenic avian influenza was reported on a single farm in Virginia. Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry Todd Haymore said he estimates Virginia could sell $20 million a year in poultry products to China now that the ...Continue Reading

BLACKSTONE — Local leaders in communities near Fort Pickett hope a planned $461 million training facility for U.S. diplomatic and government personnel will give struggling Southside Virginia a much-needed economic boost. “This is a culmination of a dream we’ve had, and it’s very encouraging for a rural area that has seen some tough times,” said Del. Thomas C. Wright Jr., R-Lunenburg, who was among local and state officials who toured the site Monday. When the U.S. S...Continue Reading

The derailment of a crude oil train in Lynchburg last week prompted Virginia's two U.S. senators to call for action from federal transportation officials on proposed regulations to protect communities from the threat of potentially catastrophic rail accidents. Sens. Mark R. Warner and Timothy M. Kaine released a letter they sent today to Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx in response to the derailment of a CSX train on April 30 in downtown Lynchburg, sending 17 oil-filled tanker cars off the ...Continue Reading

Earlier this week, The Constitution Project’s resident scholar Louis Fisher weighed in on the War Powers Consultation Act of 2014, a bill I’ve introduced with Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Angus King (I-Maine) to repeal the War Powers Resolution of 1973 and replace it with a more workable process for making the most serious decision entrusted to Congress—whether to initiate military action. I agree with Fisher that “the decision to go to war demands full debate within t...Continue Reading

The news business is just like everything else. We go through cycles of sorts. It’s kind of like the weather where you have warm days and cool days. In our business, you have busy news weeks, slow news weeks and those occasional periods when the headlines can go from strange to downright unusual. We had one of those weeks last week. I blame it on the recent “blood moon” lunar eclipse in the absence of a more logical explanation. Here is a quick recap of recent headlines. A man ...Continue Reading

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - The Chesapeake Bay watershed is among eight areas in the nation being designated critical conservation areas. U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine said Tuesday that designation ensures federal fundingto help implement a variety of conservation projects. With the designation, the bay is eligible to receive a portion of more than $100 million in annual funding. It would be used to help implement a variety of conservation projects and increase the sustainability of regional ...Continue Reading

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., is urging members of the Virginia Tobacco Commission to give priority consideration to Tazewell County’s funding request for the new Bluefield College School of Dental Medicine. Kaine, who is completing a tour of Virginia, stopped by the offices of the Daily Telegraph last week to update the newspaper’s editorial board on a number of topics, including the local dental school project, his efforts to break partisan gridlock in Washington, his support for the...Continue Reading

Many ships are sailing on cruises far beyond the once-standard six or seven months, and Navy leaders are eager to make these long and often unpredictable deployments the exception. They’ve developed a plan to lock in eight-month deployments, but a mounting body of testimony from Navy officials suggests that the plan may soon be another victim of budget battles — and sailors will end up paying the price. At the center of the dilemma is the aircraft carrier George Washington, which wil...Continue Reading

When Chief of Naval Operations Jonathan Greenert and Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus told the Senate Armed Services Committee today that they needed a signal about aircraft carriers, it wasn't a sailor snapping Morse message on a lamp that they had in mind, Sen. Tim Kaine knew. When they came in to talk about the Navy and Marine Corps budget, they wanted a sense of how Congress is thinking about automatic budget cuts set to start kicking in around in fiscal year 2016 and beyond. It matters becau...Continue Reading

The United States Senate is a place of famously glacial pace and painfully arcane procedure and as such often inflicts severe tribulation on the serial achievers who tend to dominate its membership. Former governors, accustomed to the powers and perks of executive office, are thought to be especially vulnerable to chronic, if not debilitating, frustration while sitting in the Senate. Virginia’s senior senator, the perpetually energetic ex-Gov. Mark Warner, has been known on occasion to com...Continue Reading