Press Releases

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Rand Paul today released the newest edition to ‘The Waste Report.’ ‘The Waste Report’ is an ongoing project to catalog egregious examples of wasteful spending throughout the U.S. government. This week’s edition of ‘The Waste Report,’ exposes a loophole in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) crop insurance program, costing American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Each year, the USDA pays out on crop insurance claims for “prevented planting” to farmers who cannot plant their crops due to extreme weather. However, exploiting the generality of...Read more

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Rand Paul today released the newest edition to ‘The Waste Report.’ ‘The Waste Report’ is an ongoing project to catalog egregious examples of wasteful spending throughout the U.S. government. This week’s edition of ‘The Waste Report,’ uncovers millions of dollars spent each year by the U.S. government on an office to promote and study weight and measurement in relation to the metric system. Incongruously, the government is also spending $188,000 to fund a university professor to write a book to explain why Americans cannot adapt to using the metric system. ‘The...Read more

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) today secured passage of his Service Members and Communities Count Act as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Paul Amendment No. 1678 requires the U.S. Census Bureau to count all deployed service members at the base or port in which they resided prior to deployment. Presently, deployed members are counted as part of the U.S. overseas population, instead of in the community where they and their families actually reside. In 2010, approximately 10,000 service members stationed at Fort Campbell were deployed from the...Read more

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Rand Paul introduced S.1594, the Arming All Pilots Act of 2015 . This legislation will increase training opportunities to encourage pilots to participate in the Federal Flight Deck Officer (FFDO) Program. Specifically, the Arming All Pilots Act will expand the number of training facilities used for initial and recurrent training, including firearms requalification. Additionally, the bill will require a five-day initial training, with two days of in-person classroom attendance and additional on-line training options. Recurrent training for officers would...Read more

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) issued a statement today following the U.S. Senate’s vote on Sen. Joni Ernst’s (R-IA) Amendment No. 1549 to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The amendment would allow the U.S. to provide direct assistance to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), a critical partner in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS). Specifically, the amendment would provide temporary, emergency authority for the President to provide weapons and training directly to Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces. The amendment, No. 1549, failed passage with a vote of...Read more

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Rand Paul today reintroduced S.1575, Write the Laws Act, S.1572, One Subject at a Time Act, and S.1571, Read the Bills Act. These pieces of legislation, originally introduced in the 112th Congress, will restore the constitutional principle of separation of powers, end the practice of including more than one subject in a single bill, and preserve the constitutional authority of Congress. “Too often in Congress, legislation is pushed through without hearings, amendments, or debate. I firmly believe the American people have a right to be part of the legislative...Read more

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Rand Paul released the newest edition to ‘The Waste Report.’ ‘The Waste Report’ is an ongoing project cataloging egregious examples of waste within the U.S. government. This week’s report uncovers more than $850,000 of taxpayer dollars in the U.S. National Science Foundation spent on winemaking programs for Community Colleges in Washington state. ‘The Waste Report’ can be found HERE or below. The U.S. National Science Foundation – $850,000 Washington Community College Winemaking Programs It’s no secret Americans are embracing wine, leading entrepreneurs...Read more

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), chairman of the Subcommittee on Federal Spending Oversight and Emergency Management (FSO) for the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee (HSGAC) is holding a hearing today entitled, “Wasteful Spending in the Federal Government: An Outside Perspective.” During the hearing, Sen. Paul will highlight areas of domestic wasteful spending within the federal government and discuss possible approaches to mitigate and eliminate such waste. Senators Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) will also be participating in the hearing...Read more

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee today voted on Senator Rand Paul’s amendment to the U.S. Department of State Operations Authorization and Embassy Security Act. This legislation, which holds the same text as the Stand with Israel Act of 2015, would halt all U.S. foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) until the P.A. renounces violence, purges terrorists from its ranks, and recognizes the nation of Israel. In the 113th Congress, Sen. Rand Paul originally introduced this legislation in response to the P.A.'s attempts to form a unity government with the...Read more

WASHINGTON—Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced the Due Process Guarantee amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. The amendment is designed to protect Americans from being detained indefinitely, without charge or trial. The amendment aims to end ongoing legal ambiguities by affirming and strengthening the principles behind the Non-Detention Act of 1971. "The indefinite detention of a U.S. citizen without due process is fundamentally un-American. Our founding fathers believed so...Read more