As the bill stands, it is a missed opportunity to provide for long-term retirement security for American workers and families. The bill was put together looking through a rear view mirror, as opposed to what the future role of the private sector would be for providing pensions. It doesn’t sufficiently deal with the underfunding of pension plans by corporations. It doesn’t deal with the taxpayer risk in the pension program.

I am eagerly awaiting a Senate vote on their version of the House’s DOER Act, the outer-continental shelf drilling bill. After years of supporting the oil and gas industry in Louisiana, the state has suffered the effects on both the environment and its infrastructure. Although the Federal Treasury receives $6 billion to $8 billion each year in royalties from drilling in federal waters, Louisiana receives next to nothing. It is time Louisiana gets its fair share.

The Louisiana Legislature passed a constitutional amendment that will require revenues go toward repairing our battered coastline, which continues to erode each second, and to building a comprehensive hurricane protection program. The majority of coastal Louisiana has no federal levee system protecting its citizens from powerful hurricanes such as Katrina and Rita.

Offshore revenue-sharing would provide the funding Louisiana needs for these projects, as well as lower energy costs, increase domestic energy production and reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil. This is not about Louisiana wanting money. It is about Louisiana getting its fair share of what it needs so we can protect ourselves.

By: Peter Ogden, National Security Analyst

One year ago yesterday Congress finalized the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Yet it is hard to find anyone who would say that our country’s energy security has increased over that time. To the contrary: In a recent bi-partisan survey of leading foreign policy experts, nearly two-thirds of respondents said that our existing energy policy has had a negative effect on U.S. national security. 82 percent of respondents said that reducing our dependence on foreign oil should be our government’s highest priority.

The Bush administration must finally recognize that Dick Cheney’s 2001 effort to drill our way to energy security has failed. Unfortunately, while the administration is more than happy to lament America’s addiction to oil and the way energy politics “warp� foreign policy, it has yet to put forth a viable strategy for insuring our energy security.

There is a way forward, however, and it is one that both Democrats and Republicans can support. At an event yesterday at the Center for American Progress, the high-level National Security Task Force on Energy released Energy Security in the 21st Century, a strategy that tackles a range of energy security issues – from oil dependence to nonproliferation to global warming. Click here to read the report.

I believe that there is a consensus for enforcement first. No tricks, no triggers, no overly-complicated compromises. They’re my good friends, but I don’t believe this is the correct remedy.

As a nurse, I know first hand the need for substantial improvement in the use of Health Information Technology (HIT) in America’s Health Care facilities, and I want to see the expanded use of health information technology, such as electronic medical records.  I know that expanded use of HIT holds great promise for facilitating better care, reducing medical errors, and eliminating burdensome paperwork.

Unfortunately, the bill the House will consider today has a glaring omission - it has no privacy protection for patients.  That means your personal, sensitive health information is vulnerable to theft or abuse. That also means there is no recourse you could take to hold individuals accountable for improperly obtaining or disclosing your most personal information.

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I met with Japanese Ambassador Ryozo Kato this morning to receive a direct briefing on the resumption of U.S. beef imports. Japan’s ban on U.S. beef adversely impacted Nebraska producers, who have suffered $850 million in lost beef sales since the ban began in 2003. Ambassador Kato assured me today that following the recent inspections of U.S. production plants, U.S. beef shipments are good to go, which is great news for beef producers in my state and across the country. He told me that it is Japan’s wish to see beef trade between our countries remain on stable ground in the future. He also mentioned that he’s been serving and enjoying US beef throughout this ordeal.

I’ve been in communications with Ambassador Kato for some time now, working together to reopen this important agricultural trade. I’m pleased with this latest progress and look forward to quickly resuming a strong beef trade between our two countries. U.S. beef is the best and safest in the world. There is no reason we shouldn’t be allowed to get back to where we were before the trade ban was originally instituted in 2003.

I think that he said what the Iraqis would like to see happen and what he hoped the American public would believe. He didn’t address the real problem - Iraqis fighting Iraqis - but rather, he talked about terrorism.

Look beneath the speech and you see no plan. How do you solve it?

There wasn’t much there. I felt fairly bored.

I did find interesting the difference between him and the President’s National Security Adviser, who said this wasn’t terrorism in Iraq, that it was sectarian strife.

I didn’t get the sense that he was being fully honest with us.

I think it was a wonderful speech clearly embraced in a bipartisan manner. With all of the hype about boycotts, I’m glad it was so well received.

I’m optimistic that the Senate will vote on their version of the legislation. That gives us the month of August to work on it. Given that it’s an election year, the sooner that we can vote on it, the better. We’re expecting them to break the filibuster with 60-plus-one on Monday.