U.S. Senator Deb Fischer Visits Sidney

U.S. Senator Deb Fischer (R-NE) visited Sidney Friday and Saturday as she travels through Nebraska to meet with constituents during the August recess in Congress. Traditionally, U.S. Senators and Representatives travel through their home states and districts and fill their daily schedules with constituent meetings, town-hall question and answer sessions, and various community events.

On Friday, Fischer stopped in at The Coffee Corner at the corner of 10th Avenue and Jackson Street and met with a good crowd of Cheyenne County residents eager to listen to the Senator and share their concerns with her. National Defense and the upcoming Sentinel Project were major topics of discussion at the coffeehouse.

The Senator stopped at the office of the Sidney Sun-Telegraph Saturday morning for an interview. She said she was pleased with her visit so far, and impressed with Sidney. She noted how she gets in as much travel in as possible during the August recess to meet with constituents and hear their concerns, and that she had been constantly on the go since her "tour" started.

"We started this week up at Valentine and then went to Chadron and Hemingford, then to Alliance and now down to Sidney. We'll continue to go to small towns around the western part and southern tier of the state. So it's just good to be out good and hear what's on peoples' minds, and I can give them an update on what's going on in Washington," said Fischer.

"I'm on six committees and there's four that have a lot before them right now. We just passed out of the Senate the National Defense Authorization Act, and that takes care of our military men and women and provides them the resources they need. My major focus in that committee deals with strategic forces, so we have jurisdiction over STRATCOM and over missile defense. So we were able to do go out yesterday to the missile fields between Sidney and Kimball and do a tour there and visit with the military and found out how it's progressing working with Northrop changing over to the Sentinel program and replacing the Minuteman 3. That's obviously a focus of the subcommittee I'm ranking member on so I could learn more about that," said Fischer.

She also talked about the appropriations process, saying, "I'm on Appropriations and we were able to get out 12 Appropriations bills that are on the floor now. That's the first time in five years that has happened. I't's a new committee that I'm on, and the reason I wanted to get on was to get back to what is called "regular order", so you do have the hearings and you're able to get them on the floor and take action on the bills, get them on the floor. Hopefully we'll have debate on the floor and have the amendment process, maybe we'll get that done. On the Ag Committee we're working on the Farm Bill, we had a roundtable with some producers yesterday in Scottsbluff to hear what's important to them," she said.

"Obviously crop insurance is a big priority in Nebraska, to make sure we have those safety nets there for our producers, plus disaster payments-- that's something I have that hopefully will get put into the Farm Bill to streamline those payments and get them out quicker then the current two-year waiting period. That safety net is extremely important," said Fischer.

Fischer had just come from Adams Industries, which has recently announced their partnership with Simplot to manufacture and distribute fertilizer at their facility just east of Potter. When concern over the Biden Administration's "Green Agenda" policies hampering the project were brought up, Fischer said that she and her colleagues would do everything possible to ensure that the Adams/Simplot partnership, and others like it in the agricultural industry, would not be slowed or stopped by Federal mandates or heavy-handed regulations.

When asked about the current rancor in Washington D.C., Fischer said that divisiveness of the parties is mostly in the House of Representatives. She noted that the political parties in the Senate have a much better working relationship, and that they need to work together on bills and other initiatives.

She also mentioned that in spite of the overheated political atmosphere of Washington D.C., there are many positive things that are happening that will benefit citizens in Nebraska, like the Farm Bill, the NDAA and other legislation focused on veteran's services. She said that she comes back to Nebraska almost every weekend, but the August recess gives her a chance to travel through the entire state and see first hand the growth and economic successes here in Nebraska. She ended the interview talking about military and veteran's issues, noting that she is working on legislation that will increase funding for veteran's health care, educational opportunities and other benefits that will help military members, veterans and their families that do so much for the country with their service.

When she was leaving and getting into her car, she was asked "Where are you going next?" She looked at her assistant who then started thumbing through a folder packed with itinerary items. After a few moments she called back, "I think we're going south!" with a laugh. For a U.S. Senator on August recess, it's a busy time criss-crossing our vast state to meet with and hear from constituents. Senator Fischer is clearly putting in the work to get her message out and make sure Nebraskans have a representative that hears them and is focused on the needs of our state.