Oregon’s U.S. Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden have been reacting to all the administration’s mass firings, scattered rehiring and ad hoc funding and privacy invasions about as you’d expect this last week. You either already know or can guess at all of that. But, there has also been the less reported stuff, and we’ll be sticking to that for this week’s DC highlights.
And we’ll just tell you upfront, we really-really want you to read about the CLOUD Act, Merkley’s search for answers from Google, and whatever the frick is happening to the BPA, because power grid reliability is, trust us, a thing. So, without further ado…
Wyden’s Week…
What foreign governments can learn about you: Last Friday, Wyden released a discussion draft of the Global Trust in American Online Services Act to secure Americans’ communications against abusive foreign demands to weaken the security of communications services and software used by Americans.
The bill reforms the CLOUD Act, which permits foreign governments to make surveillance demands directly of U.S. companies rather than going through the U.S. legal system.
“Foreign governments shouldn’t get a cheat code to undermine the security of American technology,” Wyden said. “My bill would fix the loopholes in the CLOUD Act, and modernize the law so American allies can request the information they need to investigate serious crimes without sacrificing the security of Americans’ communications services.”
According to news reports, the United Kingdom issued a secret order to Apple last month, directing the company to weaken the encryption protecting its iCloud backup service. The U.K. was apparently able to secretly issue the order to Apple, rather than seeking assistance from the Department of Justice (DOJ) because of the CLOUD Act. Wyden and Representative Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., urged Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to demand the U.K. withdraw its order in a letter on Thursday.
The CLOUD Act, enacted in 2018, enables foreign countries to obtain data directly from U.S. firms, bypassing the U.S. legal system once they enter into an agreement with the Justice Department. However, the CLOUD Act failed to require foreign countries to adopt the same due process requirements long guaranteed under U.S. law, enabling foreign governments to demand that U.S. technology companies weaken the security of products used by Americans and putting global trust in U.S. firms at risk.
The Global Trust in American Online Services Act addresses serious flaws in the CLOUD Act, to ensure that U.S. technology companies can continue to maintain the trust of their international customers, and that the U.S. can compete globally as a safe place for data. The legislation would:
- Prevent foreign governments from using the CLOUD Act to require U.S. providers to adopt specific designs for products, reduce the security of a product, or deliver malware to a customer.
- Allow U.S. providers to challenge foreign CLOUD Act orders in U.S. federal court.
- Require Congressional approval of CLOUD Act agreements rather than the current disapproval mechanism, and enable oversight by requiring that each agreement sunset after five years rather than lasting indefinitely.
The draft bill is available here. A one-page summary of the bill is available here.
Assault weapon age restrictions bill: This last Wednesday, Wyden said he is joining legislation to raise the minimum age to buy assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines from 18 to 21.
“If you’re not old enough to purchase alcohol, you shouldn’t be allowed to buy an assault weapon either,” Wyden said. “We need to be doing everything we can to stop America’s gun violence epidemic, including raising the legal age of purchase to 21. I am proud to support this bill that will help keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of teenagers.”
According to Wyden, gun violence claimed more than 46,000 lives in 2023 — the third-largest number of gun-related deaths in U.S. history. Assault weapons, originally engineered for military combat to maximize damage, are frequently used in mass shootings because of their ability to inflict catastrophic harm in mere seconds. Individuals under 21 have used assault weapons in some of the most devastating school shootings in U.S. history, including the mass shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
The same age requirement already applies to purchasing handguns from federally licensed dealers. This bill would expand the ban to assault weapons, large-capacity ammunition feeding devices, and related ammunition. Additionally, the legislation would bar most individuals under 21 from possessing these items, with limited exceptions for specific circumstances such as service in law enforcement or the armed forces.
Of the many co-sponsors for the bill, all are Democrats. A one-pager on the bill is here. The bill text is here.
Nope to fellow Oregonian’s confirmation: Also on Wednesday, Wyden said he’d be voting no-siree-bob on Donald Trump’s nomination of Lori Chavez-DeRemer to be U.S. Labor Secretary.
“As a proud supporter of the PRO Act that would empower Oregonians and all Americans to unionize and advocate for fair wages, benefits and working conditions, I took special note of Lori Chavez DeRemer’s bizarre disavowal today of her previous support for this vital legislation,” Wyden said. “Her reversal is blatantly anti-worker and calls into question whether she’d be anything more than another tool of Donald Trump and Elon Musk. But her troubling flip-flops didn’t stop there. Just months after telling Oregon voters she was pro-choice, she also told senators today she’s anti-abortion. I will vote against her confirmation.”
Chavez-DeRemer had previously served U.S. representative for Oregon’s 5th congressional district from 2023 to 2025. She was defeated last year by Democrat Janelle Bynum.
Merkley’s week…
Introduces bill to widen roles for advanced nurses: Advanced Practice Registered Nurses, or APRNs, face several restrictions, including physician oversight that limits their practice. So last Friday, Merkley, and several of his colleagues introduced the bipartisan Improving Care and Access to Nurses, or I CAN Act, to change that.
Specifically, the I CAN Act would remove barriers in the Medicare and Medicaid programs that prevent APRNs from practicing to the full extent of their education and clinical training. Importantly, this bill does not expand the scope of practice or impede upon state law. Rather, the bill simply ensures that the federal government honors state law, ensuring that Medicare and Medicaid patients living in states where nurses have already been granted full practice authority are permitted to choose to seek care from a nurse practitioner.
Merkley and his colleagues argue that APRNs are nurses prepared at the master or doctoral level to provide primary, acute, chronic and specialty care to patients of all ages and backgrounds, and in all settings. Their qualifications enable them to treat and diagnose illnesses, advise the public on health issues, manage chronic disease, order and interpret diagnostic tests, prescribe medication, and direct non-pharmacologic treatments for their patients. Over 40 years of vigorous, peer reviewed research has verified the safety, quality, satisfaction and cost-effectiveness of APRN care. This has led the National Academy of Sciences to call for the removal of laws, regulations, and policies that prevent APRNs from providing the full scope of health care services they are educated and trained to provide.
“As the husband of a nurse, I know just how critical the care provided by nurses is and the valuable impact nurses have on their patients,” said Senator Merkley, Co-Chair of the Senate Nursing Caucus. “Our bipartisan bill will remove barriers for advanced practice registered nurses and will increase staffing of highly-trained nurses, reduce costs, and improve patient care. I’ll keep fighting to ensure nurses in Oregon and nationwide have the support they need to deliver the very best care.”
“As a registered nurse and Vice Chair of the Congressional Nursing Caucus, I’m focused on ensuring Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs) can practice to the full extent of their education and training,” said Congresswoman Underwood, Vice Chair of the Congressional Nursing Caucus. “The evidence is clear: lifting practice barriers for APRNs is safe and makes financial sense. I’m pleased to join my colleagues in introducing the I CAN Act to remove outdated barriers to practice for APRNs and expand access to high-quality health care.”
“The reintroduction of this bill is a critical step toward expanding health care access across the country. By removing outdated barriers, it empowers APRNs to provide the care they are trained for—especially in rural and underserved communities where they are often the primary providers. Time and again, we’ve seen that when restrictions are lifted, APRNs deliver essential, high-quality care. The ICAN Act builds on that progress, making these changes permanent so every patient can get the care they need from the provider they trust” said ANA President Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, PhD, MBA, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN.
While APRNs practice in a number of specialties, there may be a specific increase of available midwives.
“Ensuring evidence-based midwifery and APRN care is accessible to everyone in all care settings is essential to improving health care in the United States,” stated American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) President Jessica Brumley, PhD, APRN, CNM.
Search for AI answers from Google: On Wednesday, Merkley joined Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) in a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai with concerns that the company has recently reversed promises to not develop potentially harmful and dangerous AI technologies.
In the letter the lawmakers write, “For years, Google’s AI Principles have allowed the public to understand the company’s values for the development and deployment of new technologies. The company first published the AI Principles in 2018 following employee backlash to one of its contracts.”
The lawmakers continue, “Google removed those limitations on the development and deployment of AI products, among other changes to its AI Principles. A blog post accompanying these revisions made no reference to the removal of these long-standing commitments. Instead, the blog highlighted Google’s new core tenets in AI developments. The closest the post came to referencing these critical changes was its noting Google’s commitment to ‘pursue AI responsibly throughout the development and deployment lifecycle.’ This vague language does not provide any guidelines on the types of technology Google will or will not develop, raising more questions than answers and sparking concerns from Google’s current and former employees.”
The lawmakers request Mr. Pichai respond to the following questions by March 7, 2025:
- Please describe Google’s rationale for revising its AI Principles, especially its decision to remove the limitation on developing AI products for weapons or certain surveillance applications.
- Is Google currently developing or has Google currently deployed any AI products or potential projects that could be considered a weapon?
- If so, please provide detailed description of those projects.
- Going forward, if Google develops AI weapons projects, how does Google intended to mitigate the risks they pose?
- Is Google developing or has Google currently deployed any AI products or potential projects that could be used for surveillance purposes in violation of internationally accepted norms?
- If so, please provide detailed description of those projects.
- Going forward, if Google develops AI surveillance projects in violation of internationally accepted norms, how does Google intended to mitigate the risks they pose?
- Is Google developing or has Google currently deployed any AI products or potential products that could cause or are likely to cause overall harm?
- If so, please provide detailed description of those projects.
- Going forward, if Google develops AI projects that could cause or are likely to cause overall harm, how does Google intended to mitigate the risks they pose?
- The new Google AI Principles state the company will ensure “appropriate human oversight, due diligence, and feedback mechanisms to align with user goals, social responsibility, and widely accepted principles of international law and human rights.” Please provide a detailed description of how Google plans to uphold these commitments.
- The new Google AI Principles state the company will “employ rigorous design, testing, monitoring, and safeguards to mitigate unintended or harmful outcomes and avoid unfair bias.” Please provide a detailed description of how Google plans to uphold these commitments, including a detailed description of the testing and monitoring Google intends to implement.
- Will Google commit that any AI development that conflicts with the 2018 principles will include robust stakeholder consultation, including collaboration with workers, relevant experts, and impacted communities? If not, why not?
Wyden and Merkley together…
Trump job cuts and electric grid reliability: On Monday, Wyden and Merkley said they are demanding Donald Trump answer questions about his administration’s deep job cuts at the Bonneville Power Administration and how they may undermine the dependability of the electric grid for Oregon and the entire Pacific Northwest.
“The imminent departure of nearly 20% of BPA’s workforce — including linemen, engineers, and power dispatchers — poses a direct and immediate threat to the reliability of the electrical grid that serves millions of American families and businesses in the Pacific Northwest,” Wyden and Merkley wrote in their letter to Trump on Friday. “We do not believe there is an energy emergency, but your actions certainly appear to be creating one through these cuts that actively jeopardize the stability of our energy infrastructure, right now.”
The Oregon senators’ letters noted how BPA plays a critical role in the Pacific Northwest’s power grid, distributing hydropower from 31 federal dams through more than 75 percent of the region’s transmission infrastructure.
“Your administration’s directives to simultaneously buy out workers and freeze hiring has resulted in the resignation of approximately 200 employees, the rescinding of 90 new job offers, and the looming layoff of up to 400 probationary employees,” they wrote. “The weight of this destabilization will bear down on the entire region, most heavily in rural areas that rely on public utilities purchasing BPA power.
Wyden and Merkley wrote how employees are already warning these actions will make it nearly impossible to strengthen and expand the grid as needed, forcing BPA into “damage control” mode, struggling just to “keep the lights on.”
“These cuts are not only reckless but also financially ludicrous,” Wyden and Merkley wrote. “BPA is an entirely self-funded agency that does not rely on taxpayer dollars, meaning these workforce reductions do absolutely nothing to reduce the federal deficit. If the administration’s goal is truly to ensure reliable, secure, and affordable energy, then why are you actively dismantling the most effective and self-sustaining power system in the country?
The senators pressed the administration to answer by Feb. 28 its justification for these cuts; how it will address the operational and safety risks posed by the loss of experienced linemen, engineers, and dispatchers; how it intends to prevent grid failures caused by understaffing; how its actions align with its stated priority of strengthening U.S. energy infrastructure; what it will do to reduce the risks from these job cuts, especially on rural communities and public utilities; if it will lift the hiring freeze on key BPA positions; and what role the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) played in these job cuts and what qualifications DOGE leadership has in managing complex energy infrastructure.
The entire letter is here.
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