Opinions

In the middle of the night, there are few things more paralyzing than having an unfamiliar noise stir you from your sleep. If you are like me, from time to time, you hear something out of the ordinary, and that noise not only forces you to abandon a good night’s rest, but it also can lead you to wonder what exactly is happening away from the covers, fluffy pillows, and shams.

In contrast to the previous four years, trade has been at the forefront since January, and the pace has not slowed as we reach year-end. In recent weeks the administration has begun the mandatory six-year review of the U.S-Canada- Mexico Agreement, announced trade deals and frameworks with several Latin American and Asian partners, updated the Agreement on Trade and Agricultural Products with Israel, and inked a major agreement with People’s Republic of China which eases tensions and resumes Chinese purchases of U.S. soybeans.

I can never resist. Each year, the first week in December, sports coverage takes me to Minden, and each year, no matter how many times I have traveled to Nebraska’s Christmas City in the lead up to the holidays, the lights on the downtown square draw me in.

Spanning our state —Missouri River to panhandle—Nebraska’s Third District has been blessed with a breadth of natural resources. Although much of our state is naturally arid, generations of hard work, determination, and feats of engineering have maximized our resources to provide for local needs, feed the world, and minimize flooding risks. In order to help our state maximize the benefits of our many resources, I take my role in natural resource policy seriously, whether through empowering local management, providing oversight of federal involvement, or supporting projects, and I have worked on several major issues facing Nebraska over the past few years.

I know it doesn’t make any sense, but being up on a ladder really emboldens me. The past two weeks, with Christmas coming at us like a freight train, I doubt that I am the only one who has spent a couple minutes—or in the case of the past weekend, a couple days—hanging from the top of a ladder.

When I was Governor, we focused on providing great services to Nebraskans. The federal government should do the same. In the Senate, my team and I are helping Nebraskans navigate the federal bureaucracy. My team is specially trained in assisting constituents with their concerns. We have helped over 2,200 Nebraskans access federal services. We helped constituents save or recover nearly twelve million dollars from the federal government. I’m proud of our work to cut red tape and deliver wins for Nebraskans.

While we have successfully enacted major legislation this year to protect our borders, cut taxes for families, and restore faith in government this year, opportunities abound for further progress to improve the lives of Nebraska families. Nowhere is that more clear than in the House Ways and Means Committee, where I serve. We continue to make progress across the issue areas within the committee’s jurisdiction, with key developments involving trade, health, and tax.

If you are curious about how many local journalists it takes to change a lightbulb, the answer might surprise you. Let’s just say, if you happened to find a typo in this week’s newspaper, the reason is simple: We were reading the pages in the dark.

If you have ever spent an extended amount of time hospitalized, or really any time in a hospital at all, there is one thing that you can quickly become an expert on. Jell-O.

This week, as we do every November 11, America paused to remember the brave men and women who have put their lives on the line to defend liberty and opportunity for their neighbors at home and friends of freedom around the world. The following day, the House of Representatives approved the Senate-passed agreement which will reopen the federal government through the end of January. The bill, which I supported, also completes our work funding several agencies for the full fiscal year, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).