Transparency Champions Sens. Cardin, Lugar Call On House To Block Effort To Roll-Back Transparency, Anti-Corruption Standards For Oil, Gas, Mining Industries

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a member of the Senate Finance Committee, and former Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), called Wednesday for Members of the House of Representatives to block H.R. 4519 from further consideration after it passed the House Financial Services Committee. The legislation would repeal Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, commonly known as the Cardin-Lugar … Continue Reading

Cardin Expresses Concerns, Raises Questions about Presidential Use of Military Force Issues

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Ben Cardin, Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, delivered the following opening remarks Wednesday at a hearing on "The Use of Force: Strategic, Political and Legal Considerations.": "Mr. Chairman, thank you for convening this hearing. As I said when Secretaries Tillerson and Mattis were before our committee this is perhaps one of the most important responsibilities we have in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to consider circumstances and l… Continue Reading

Cardin Delivers Senate Speech On State Of State Department Concerns

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, delivered a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday regarding ongoing personnel, management and mission statement issues at the State Department. The following remarks were prepared for delivery: "M. President. I come to the floor today to share my deep concern over the current state of America's global diplomacy. A multitude of decisions made by this administration in the last year have caused… Continue Reading

Cardin Remains Concerned About Damage Inflicted on State Department, USAID Following Tillerson Address to Employees

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released the following statement Tuesday after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson addressed employees of the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development: "Secretary Tillerson missed an opportunity today to put the State Department back on a path to full health and definitively end his poorly conceived and ill-executed hiring freeze at State and USAID, among the only agenc… Continue Reading

Senators to Tax Budget Conferees: Remove Harmful Renewable Energy Provisions, Protect Clean Energy Blue-Collar Jobs

WASHINGTON - As Republicans on the congressional tax scam conference committee try to finalize their partisan plan this week, Senators Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) are demanding removal of renewable energy provisions from the final conference report that would devastate clean energy deployment and jo… Continue Reading

Cardin Condemns Deadly Attack On UN Peacekeepers In Democratic Republic Of The Congo

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released the following statement Friday after UN peacekeepers were attacked in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing at least 14 and injuring at least 40: "I strongly condemn today's brutal attack in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on UN Peacekeepers, in what the international body is calling the worst attack on peacekeepers in recent history. "I am deeply concerned about the in… Continue Reading

Cardin, Van Hollen Announce $5 Million for UMD Cybersecurity Scholarships

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen (both D-Md.) today announced that University of Maryland (UMD) College Park has been awarded a $5,046,316 grant by the National Science Foundation (NSF) for the CyberCorps: Scholarship for Service Program. This funding will provide scholarships and internship opportunities for 36 students in UMD's Advanced Cybersecurity Experience for Students (ACES) Program, the first undergraduate honors program in cybersecurity in the United States. T… Continue Reading

Cardin Welcomes W.H. Engagement on Yemen as Millions Continue to be at Risk of Starvation

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released the following statement Thursday related to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Yemen: "I am relieved that the White House is finally engaged on the crisis in Yemen. The humanitarian crisis in Yemen has been tragically, needlessly exacerbated in recent weeks by the closure of ports of entry into Yemen and blockades of both humanitarian aid and commercial imports. I agree with Presid… Continue Reading

Cardin Statement on Senator Franken’s Resignation

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), released the following statement in response to Senator Al Franken's announcement that he would resign in the coming weeks. "Senator Franken has done what Americans expect from their public servants - he put his constituents, the people he was elected to serve, first. I took the allegations against Senator Franken very seriously. As he said, 'all women deserve to be heard and their experiences taken seriously.' The women of this country deserve to b… Continue Reading

Cardin Reacts to Jerusalem Announcement by Trump

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released the following statement Wednesday in reaction to President Trump's announcement that the U.S. will recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and eventually relocate the American embassy there from Tel Aviv: "The President's announcement today implements what Congress affirmed in 1995 with the passage of the Jerusalem Embassy Act: Jerusalem is the capital of the State of Israel and the… Continue Reading

Cardin Leads SFRC Democrats In Letter To Tillerson: Reverse Course And Support, Not Marginalize, State Department

WASHINGTON - The entire Democratic membership of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led by Ranking Member Ben Cardin (D-Md.), wrote to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Wednesday, raising a number of concerns about his attempt to reorganize the State Department, cut its budget and personnel, and the manner in which the Administration continues to question the Department's work, mission and value. In part, the Senators asked for the Department's hiring freeze to be lifted immediately, and ha… Continue Reading

Cardin Expresses Concern about the Political Crisis in Honduras

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, issued the following statement Tuesday regarding the current political crisis in Honduras: "The reports by the Organization of American States and European Union election observation missions raise serious questions about the legitimacy of the Honduran presidential election, but also identify steps that must be taken to restore transparency and citizen confidence in a final result. The OAS an… Continue Reading

Cardin Requests GAO Study of Trump Changes to Key Measure of Carbon Pollution Cost

WASHINGTON - Seven Senators, including U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), a senior member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, have asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to examine the government's method for calculating the social cost of carbon - the measure of long-term damage done by carbon pollution - after the Trump administration dramatically reduced estimates of the costs of climate change in recent actions. Using a lower estimate for the social cost of carbon c… Continue Reading

In Letter to State Dept., Cardin and Young Express Concerns About Reorganization Effort

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senators Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.) sent a bipartisan letter to Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan Tuesday expressing concerns regarding reorganization efforts within the Department of State and their impact on our country's diplomatic capacity and national security. Both senators serve as members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, with Cardin serving as the Ranking Member. "We share a goal of improving the Department's efficiency and effec… Continue Reading

Cardin Joins Colleagues in Urging FCC Chairman Pai to Delay Vote Rolling Back Net Neutrality Rules

WASHINGTON - Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.) today joined 27 of his colleagues in a letter to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai, expressing concern over reports that bots filed hundreds of thousands of comments to the FCC during the net neutrality policymaking process and calling on the Chairman to delay the planned December 14th vote to roll back net neutrality rules until an investigation of the state of the record is conducted. "A free and open Internet is vital to ensurin… Continue Reading

Cardin Says Republican Tax Reform Bill Was Designed to Fulfill a Campaign Promise, Not To Help Our Economy

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, issued the following statement after Republicans passed their hyper-partisan tax bill with a bare majority of votes. The plan, cobbled together with last-minute changes meant to buy additional votes but not solve critical flaws, will give permanent tax cuts to corporations at the expense of working- and middle-income Americans while adding more than a trillion dollars to our national debt. "The tax legislati… Continue Reading

Cardin Statement on Deadline Extension for GSA to Report to Congress on FBI Headquarters Project

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), ranking member of the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee, released the following statement in response to the letter from U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY), chairman of the Senate EPW Committee, and Senator Tom Carper (D-DE), ranking member of the EPW Committee, to General Services Administration (GSA) Public Building Service Commissioner Dan Matthews regarding the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) h… Continue Reading

Cardin Commemorates World AIDS Day 2017

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, entered the following statement into the Congressional Record Friday in commemoration of World AIDS Day 2017: "Today, I rise to recognize World AIDS Day. It may be hard to remember, but there was a time when Congress could put bitter partisan rancor and finger-pointing blame games aside and unite around a cause. We did so to fight HIV/AIDS globally. Since 2003, the President's Plan for Eme… Continue Reading

Corker, Cardin Urge President Trump To Prioritize Elimination Of Slavery In U.S. Policy Toward Libya

WASHINGTON - Expressing deep concern over recent reports of slave auctions in Libya, U.S. Senators Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.), the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today urged President Donald J. Trump to make elimination of slavery a priority for U.S. policy toward Libya. President Trump is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj of the Government of National Accord (GNA) on Friday, and the senators in a letter asked the presi… Continue Reading

Cardin, Van Hollen Announce More Than $275,000 in Federal Funding to Fight Opioid, Heroin Epidemic

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen (both D-MD) have announced $288,445 in federal funding to help state and local authorities fight the ongoing heroin and opioid epidemic. The funds - issued by U.S. Department of Justice's Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Office - will go to the Maryland State Police to support their efforts investigating unlawful activities related to the distribution of prescription opioids and heroin. "The prescription opioid and heroin epi… Continue Reading