Missourinet

Your source for Missouri News and Sports

You are here: Home / Archives for U.S. Senator Roy Blunt

Missouri officials talk about COVID-19 vaccine rollout

By

Pfizer’s manufacturing plant in the St. Louis suburb of Chesterfield is one of three company locations in America set to make a COVID-19 vaccine. The drug maker has asked the Food and Drug Administration to approve emergency use of its immunization it says has been shown to be 95% effective.

Missouri officials talk about COVID-19 vaccine rollout

Dr. Moncef Slaoui, chief scientific adviser to Operation Warp Speed – a national effort to fast track the vaccine rollout – says the plan is to ship vaccines to U.S. immunization sites 24 hours after federal approval. He tells CNN he expects that to happen around December 11 or 12. Slaoui says the efforts could get the U.S. back to normal life around May.

U.S. Senator Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, tells Missourinet affiliate KWIX in Moberly that the vaccine effort is moving quickly.

“Pfizer has applied for their use permit. We expect Moderna to do that within a couple of weeks. Between the two of them, they’ll have enough vaccine in December for the first 20 million Americans and they’re likely healthcare workers, people in nursing homes and people who would be the most at risk to get that vaccine. We expect a couple of other companies to quickly follow near the first of the year,” says Blunt. “After you get through that first group of healthcare workers and people most negatively affected, the next group – about 35% of the entire population – would be the essential workers of the country – people who are working at food processing facilities and grocery stores, daycare centers, school bus drivers, school teachers.”

According to Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services Director Dr. Randall Williams, phase 1 of the state’s plan could reach 250,000 of the most vulnerable citizens.

The department has identified five hospital sites to administer the vaccine but has not yet announced the names. Williams says patients from long-term care centers and assisted living centers, for instance, will have to be transported to an immunization site.

Both Pfizer’s and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines require two doses at varying intervals.

The vaccine must be kept chilled at -94F and can only be removed from that temperature four times. It will be sent in batches every seven days.

Copyright © 2020 · Missourinet

Missouri gets $6 million in federal aid to create thousands of tech apprenticeships

By

The Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry Foundation is deploying $6 million in federal funding to create 5,300 new tech industry apprenticeships. During a virtual event Monday, President Dan Mehan calls the investment a game changer.

Missouri gets $6 million in federal aid to create thousands of tech apprenticeships

“There is an apprenticeship revolution going on in Missouri,” he says. “Over the last two years, our state ranks second in the number of completed apprenticeships – second only behind California.”

More than 10,000 Missourians have gone through an apprenticeship program that gives them real-world and traditional learning through a paid work experience. The effort is meant to give participants a feel for whether they would like to make a living in the profession.

According to the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry, about 94% of apprentices are retained by their employers after they complete their apprenticeships and the average annual salary is not too shabby – about $70,000. The Chamber says the pay leads to a $300,000 lifetime earning advantage over non-apprentices.

Mehan says the state is “poised for strong growth” in apprenticeships thanks to a number of developments this year.

Mehan says House Bill 2046, passed this year by the Missouri Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Mike Parson, will boost the state’s apprenticeship efforts. The plan, sponsored by Rep. Derek Grier, R-Chesterfield, gives students industry credentials after they finish their program.

“This progress could not have come at a better time,” says Mehan. “We all know our state faces many challenges as we continue to confront COVID-19 and seek to grow our economy out of it. One of our biggest challenges will be training workers who find themselves unemployed or underemployed due to the pandemic. Apprenticeships will be a very important tool as we work to help get these workers back on the job and likewise ensure that Missouri employers have the talent they need to grow and power our economy.”

Another development Mehan points to is Missouri Apprentice Connect – the first in the nation apprenticeship matching program. The free service can be found by going to MoApprenticeConnect.com

Dr. Mardy Leathers, director of the Missouri Office of Workforce Development, says there is a wide variety of businesses contributing to the state’s apprenticeship success.

“In Missouri, it would be easy if I could rattle off the names of a couple employers. But the reality is, there are 493 employers who have apprenticeship programs in the state. So, we have a lot of employers who engage,” says Leathers. “It’s actually a great thing that I can’t rattle those names off because we have so many.”

U.S. Senator Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, helped to secure the federal grant. Blunt chairs a subcommittee that funds U.S. Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and others.

“Nobody has taken better advantage of this than Missouri has,” says Blunt. “We’ve got a new Office of Apprenticeships and Work-Based Learning that has been set up in the Department of Higher Education. I think what these apprenticeship programs do and what our state, what you’ve done and what Governor Parson has done and others have done, is realize we have to look at the workplace a little differently.”

Cerner Corporation – a global healthcare technology company in Kansas City – was the lead partner in bringing the federal grant to Missouri.

Copyright © 2020 · Missourinet

Blunt says final election results unlikely to change enough to make a difference

By

National media reports Democrat Joe Biden has captured more than the required 270 electoral votes to become the next president, but President Donald Trump is not going down without a fight. Trump, a Republican, Trump has claimed widespread election fraud, a “mail-in ballot hoax”, and his campaign is suing. On Saturday, Trump also said on Twitter that he won the election “by a lot”.

U.S. Senator Roy Blunt, R-Missouri

During Sunday’s ABC television news program “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos, U.S. Senator Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, said the election should be finished the way it deserves to be finished. Then, he went a step further than many of his Republican colleagues have gone.

“Almost every state, within seven to ten days of the election, goes through that entire canvas. There are always some changes,” he said. “It seems unlikely that any changes could be big enough to make a difference, but this is a close election. We need to acknowledge that.”

Blunt, a Republican and former Missouri Secretary of State, said both Biden and Trump will benefit from the vote counting process getting entirely finished.

“It’s going to be much easier to work toward the kind of transition we want, look at the inauguration which I’m going to have the honor of chairing again this time, and bringing the country together if everybody feels like we went through a process and everybody was heard – every legal vote was counted, every illegal vote was challenged and not counted,” said Blunt.

He went on to say Trump’s lawyers should present their case and let the facts speak for themselves.

Despite COVID-19 continuing to take a toll on the country, Blunt said a “normal” inauguration is planned. He said scaling back the ceremony is easier than scaling it up.

“I think we’re going to project to the world that democracy works, that this country where, with the president’s efforts and other efforts, incredible energy in this election produced a result and that this is a great time for us to show how a true democracy works. And hopefully we’ll – I’m confident we’re going to see that,” said Blunt. “I expect to see both Vice President Biden and President Trump on the stage on Inaugural Day and that will be a powerful message no matter which one of them is sworn in that day.”

The six-person Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies is made up of three senators and three house members. The theme for the 59th Inaugural Ceremonies is “Our Determined Democracy: Forging a More Perfect Union”.

Copyright © 2020 · Missourinet

Hawley says Democrats have threatened to ‘burn down the Constitution’ on SCOTUS confirmation

By

Democrats in Washington have ripped Republicans for forging ahead with the confirmation of a new U.S. Supreme Court justice after Friday’s death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. U.S. Senator Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, says if Republicans do not move forward, they will have a hard time explaining the decision to voters. During an appearance Monday on Fox & Friends, Hawley, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says the U.S. Supreme Court was a central issue in the 2018 election.

U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley (R) speaks to Missourinet during an interview on March 25, 2020 (file photo courtesy of Senator Hawley’s office)

“To say because they lost elections, that now that they will break all of our constitutional norms and standards, they’ll pack courts, they’ll conduct impeachment hearings to stop the president from carrying forward his constitutionally-authorized privileges and responsibilities – that’s insane,” says Hawley. “This is the same party that looks the other way while rioters and looters burn down our towns. Now the Democrats are saying they’ll burn down the Constitution.”

President Donald Trump says he plans to announce a nominee this week to fill the vacancy and vows to choose a woman. Hawley says the Senate could wrap up the confirmation process before Election Day.

“Less than three I would think. I would hope in the range of a week. It will be up to the chairman, Lindsey Graham, to put a schedule together,” says Hawley. “But I will just tell you, I think it should as quickly as possible. We need to move forward here.”

Hawley says he will only vote to confirm U.S. Supreme Court nominees who publicly oppose the Roe vs. Wade court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.

U.S. Senator Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, joined the CBS political show “Face the Nation” on Sunday to give his position on the matter. He also thinks the confirmation process should begin.

The current U.S. Senate party breakdown is 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats, and 2 Independents who caucus with Democrats. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has said the upper chamber should note vote to confirm Ginsburg’s successor before the election. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said ahead of reports of Ginsburg’s death that she would not vote to confirm a nominee before the election. U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a call with Iowa reporters in July that he would not recommend holding a hearing on a candidate.

Copyright © 2020 · Missourinet

Sen. Blunt on impeachment process, his role and Trump’s approach

By

Over the weekend, another whistleblower emerged who reportedly can corroborate the first account of President Trump’s conversation with the new Ukrainian president. President Trump is under an impeachment inquiry in the U.S. House to determine if he withheld aid to that country in return for intelligence information on his political rival, former Vice-President Joe Biden.

Missouri’s U.S. Senator Roy Blunt, a member of the Intelligence Committee, is also investigating the call to the Ukrainian President.

“I’m on the committee that’s supposed to look at all the things we can find and try to help come to conclusions with all of the information, rather than come to conclusions and then try to find the information that supports those conclusions.”

Senator Roy Blunt, appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday, said it doesn’t matter if there is another informant because “we’ve all seen the transcripts now so we can all back up what the whistleblower said as it relates to the transcript. I think the Speaker chose a fairly narrow topic here to move forward on, not very confusing. One way or another you’re going to decide is what the president says he said an impeachable problem or not.”

He told CBS’s Margaret Brennan Trump’s talk about asking other countries besides Ukraine to investigate Biden should not be taken seriously:  “I don’t know what the president was thinking,” Blunt said, “but I do know he loves to bait the press and he does that almost every day.”

Missourinet spoke with Sen. Blunt before the weekend talk show blitz.

He said that learning that the president knew Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was on the call and that the U.S. Attorney General was also talking to foreign leaders about their questions is actually reassuring, as opposed to critics who fear the cabinet members were doing the president’s personal bidding.

Blunt says Speaker Pelosi has set up a narrow case to decide, and he expects the Democrat majority in the House will move quickly to impeach.

He does expect to hear from the initial whistleblower, “at some point in what appears to be a closed opportunity.”

“And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if some of the firsthand information, if there is firsthand information, isn’t something that our committee hears and should hear. I do know that the Inspector General would have looked at some of this information earlier and I look forward to seeing and hearing some of the things the Inspector General may have already heard,” he told Missourinet.

While Blunt supports the law protecting government whistleblowers, he questioned why those with firsthand knowledge did not come forward first.

“If this is such an important issue, where were the people that told the whistleblower—why weren’t they the whistleblower?” he asked.

Missourinet asked Sen. Blunt if Trump’s handling of the impeachment probe was helping or hurting the situation.

At that point, Blunt said he had not been asked or offered any talking points.

“They’ll have to decide how they deal with this. They’ve gone through almost two years of the Mueller investigation so they’ve got a lot more experience trying to fight these things they believe are unfair than anybody else does and I don’t have any advice for them as to how they should do their job. I just have a sense of how I should do mine, which is quickly try to get the information put together so that we can look at it, then based on the facts in front of us, make whatever recommendations the intelligence committee decides need to be made.”

MoDOT prepared for major backups when I-70 Rocheport work begins (AUDIO)

By

State transportation officials will hold an informational meeting Thursday afternoon in mid-Missouri’s Rocheport about the upcoming massive I-70 bridge rehabilitation project.

Crews make repairs on the aging I-70 Rocheport bridge (2018 file photo courtesy of MoDOT’s Sally Oxenhandler}

Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) project manager Melissa Wilbers says three to eight-hour backups are possible, when the project starts in the spring.

“And we have actually seen those types of delays in our inspection that we had done earlier this year,” Wilbers says.

Wilbers tells Missourinet there were nine-mile backups on the bridge this summer, when MoDOT did expansion joint replacement work.

MoDOT says the 59-year-old bridge is in poor condition.

Wilbers says the current plan is to begin construction in the spring, with an expected completion date in late 2020. She says the planned $18 million rehabilitation will extend the bridge’s life for another 10 to 15 years.

“Driving surface sealing, expansion joint replacement, some painting, structural steel repairs and some substructure repairs as well,” says Wilbers.

MoDOT will hold today’s meeting from 4-6 at Rocheport’s Les Bourgeois. It’s an open house, which means there will not be a formal presentation.

Displays will be set up, and MoDOT representatives will be available to answer your questions.

Meantime, MoDOT says more than 12 million vehicles cross that bridge annually, including three million trucks. Wilbers says MoDOT is still hopeful of receiving a $176 million federal grant.

“We applied for the federal INFRA grant in March earlier this year, and we are waiting on word from the federal government whether we are going to receive those funds or not,” Wilbers says.

INFRA stands for a federal Infrastructure for Rebuilding America grant.

If the grant goes through, Wilbers tells Missourinet MoDOT would build a new bridge instead of the rehabilitation project, which means the old bridge would be used while a new one is built.

That would prevent the massive I-70 backups.

Senate President Pro Tem Dave Schatz, R-Sullivan, tells Missourinet he’s hopeful about the grant. Schatz says U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt is working to obtain the federal grant funding.

Missourians rejected a proposed ten-cent gasoline tax increase in November. Missouri’s 17-cent gasoline tax has remained the same since 1996.

Click here to listen to Brian Hauswirth’s full interview with MoDOT project manager Melissa Wilbers, which was recorded on July 17, 2019:

Copyright © 2019 · Missourinet

Blunt’s U.S. Senate committee approves emergency border funding bill

By

A U.S. Senate committee has passed a $4.5 billion emergency border funding bill to care for kids crossing the southern border illegally and without their parents. The full U.S. Senate is expected to debate the bipartisan legislation next week. Missouri U.S. Senator Roy Blunt, who chairs the committee, says the funding problem must be solved soon.

“We have to take care of these kids,” says Blunt during a GOP press conference. “We are out of appropriated money to do it.”

Blunt, a Republican, says the measure does not include funding for additional wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. He says the money would be used to care for the unaccompanied kids, process the children arriving, expand the number of detention beds and worker overtime.

“At some point very quickly, we will be basically asking the contractors, groups like Lutheran Family Services and Catholic Families Services, to just do this for free and at some point in the future we’ll pay you. That obviously doesn’t work,” says Blunt.

Whether the U.S. House will go along with the deal is unknown.

Copyright © 2019 · Missourinet

Missouri flood aid package stalls in Congress, but Blunt expects eventual passage

By

Legislation that would promise flood recovery assistance to northwest Missouri is hung up in Congress. Yet, Missouri U.S. Senator Roy Blunt does expect Congress to approve it, eventually.

Sen. Roy Blunt (Photo courtesy of KFEQ in St. Joseph)

“There will be a disaster aid bill and hopefully we get all the politics wrung out of this and get down to the real need that people expect the government to be able to respond to,” Blunt tells Missourinet affiliate KFEQ in St. Joseph.

Blunt says he’s frustrated, but likely not as frustrated as others in Congress.

“We’re probably not in as difficult of position as states that had a disaster late last year or even earlier this year,” he says. “We’re going to get in the disaster package when there is one. I wish we were in already but there’s a chance by the time we get in that package we’ll have a greater sense of actual damage done.”

Blunt says damage assessments in Missouri lag behind assessments completed in Nebraska and Iowa. He and other farm state senators are working to amend the package to cover the loss of stored grain.

“That’s not really covered under any package,” says Blunt. “You have all tens of thousands of dollars worth of grain lost sometimes in just one bin.”

A partisan fight in the Senate has stalled progress on the bill. Blunt, a Republican, claims Senate Democrats have held up approval, because they argue the federal government hasn’t done enough to help Puerto Rico recover from Hurricane Maria in 2017.

By Brent Martin of Missourinet affiliate KFEQ in St. Joseph

Blunt and McCaskill disappointed over federal agencies self-imposed missed deadline on flood project (AUDIO)

By

Senator Blunt (R)  and Senator McCaskill (D) are frustrated and disappointed over the missed March 15 deadline by three government agencies. The federal agencies failed to meet their own deadline to report on the progress on the St. Johns Bayou- a Southeast Missouri flood control project.

Senator McCaskill says delay is not an option. “They are telling us now that they will have a decision on the environmental impact study in the next 7 to 10 days,” McCaskill said. “Everyone is aware that both of us are beyond upset at the way this has been handled.”

Senator Blunt agrees. He says its a case of the government arguing with the government about things that should easily be worked out and they have failed to do so. “This project deserves to be out for public comment on the environmental impact study. The draft study should have been completed months ago,” Blunt said.

McCaskill is calling the government mishandling ridiculous and unacceptable. Blunt says it’s an unreasonable way for the Corps of Engineers, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Environmental Protection Agency to act and wants to block the EPA administrator’s nomination. Blunt says he hopes the agencies will come around sooner rather than later to get progress made on the flood project.

AUDIO: Mary Farucci reports. (1:04)

 

Sen. Blunt addresses state lawmakers about budget plan, prioritizing money and programs (AUDIO)

By

U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (R) talks to state lawmakers about passing a budget plan, and giving federal programs back to local governments.

Senator Blunt has a few words for Washington: he says planning is not “what it ought to be,” money spent should be prioritized, and local governments should be in charge of education programs.

Blunt says he and U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill both voted to pass a federal budget plan and says it’s a problem when you don’t have a budget because when you fail to plan, you plan to fail. He says one way money should be prioritized is by taking advantage of the form of government that we have.

“One way to prioritize it is to get back to the fundamentals of this unique system that we have in America that not many other people have,” he said. “The Constitutional system is unique but also the federal system is unique.”

Blunt says it’s important to get back to the question of when someone says, “this is a problem that needs to be solved,” the first question that should be asked is, “Is this really a problem that only the government can solve?”

He says the closer you put the people who solve a problem to the problem, the more likely you are going to see that problem solved with common sense. Blunt said he would be in favor of having Washington take back some programs they have created, such as Medicaid and give education programs back to the state so local governments could run it.

He adds that the state would have better solutions if more federal programs were governed by local governments.

 

 

AUDIO: Mary Farucci reports. (1:00)