Dear Oklahoma friends and neighbors: Many families and neighbors are still cleaning up the damage to their homes and communities from the severe weather in Central Oklahoma Wednesday night. We will be there with them through this as Oklahomans always are. Cindy and I are praying for and working alongside the families and businesses impacted, as they walk this incredibly hard journey. I encourage you to report any damage you have experienced through the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security. My team and I will remain engaged with state and local authorities to make sure they have what they need to serve Oklahomans during this time.
Over the Easter break, I traveled around Oklahoma to visit Atoka, Bartlesville, Claremore, Durant, Lawton, Miami, Oklahoma City, Pawhuska, Tulsa and more. I heard people’s concerns about our debt and deficit and the upcoming debt ceiling debate in Washington, DC; the needs in our upcoming Farm Bill; the national security threat posed from our wide-open southern border; the Department of Justice targeting individuals, particularly their targeting of Catholics and parents at school board meetings; and more. Now that we’re back in Washington, DC, I will keep pressing for answers on these and other issues Oklahomans are concerned about.
Last week, Cindy and I stood with the families of the 45th Infantry as they deployed once again. I was able to pray for them, encourage them, and wish them Godspeed in their mission at a deployment ceremony at the Paycom Center. If you know some of the family members left behind, I encourage you to take great care of them as their loved one serves our nation halfway across the Earth in the Horn of Africa. It was yet another reminder that the global war on terrorism continues, but Oklahomans remain vigilant.
Please continue to pray for our women and men in uniform.
Federal Fumbles, Vol. 7 Is Coming, And Not a Moment Too Soon!
Here’s an exclusive first look at the cover of Federal Fumbles: Ways the Government Dropped the Ball, Volume 7, which will be out soon!
Washington, DC, is talking about what to do about the debt and deficit as part of a debt ceiling, or debt limit, conversation—my annual Fumbles book focuses our team and every person concerned about our debt every year on this essential subject. We cannot raise the debt ceiling without doing something about our accelerating debt. Keep an eye out for more on the latest Federal Fumbles.
The SOIL Act to Stop Foreign Ag Land Purchases Last month, our state overwhelming rejected recreational marijuana. We have seen firsthand since 2018 how foreign criminal organizations have exploited vulnerabilities and loopholes in our law to destroy our families and communities for their profit.
Oklahomans are rightly concerned about our land, particularly as entities and individuals affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party are buying up farmland and properties in Oklahoma and around the country. They’re not buying our land because they love America.
Our loose oversight has allowed transnational criminal organizations to partner with Chinese nationals to buy land and businesses throughout Oklahoma and around the nation. This is a national security issue and a human rights issue. We need to know who is buying our land, how they are using it, and if any criminal activity is occurring. That’s the right thing to do to protect our state and our nation.
Oklahoma has more than 7,000 licensed marijuana grows. The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics believes about 2,000 of those farms have a Chinese connection. The marijuana market in Oklahoma has ushered in other serious crimes like human trafficking, forced labor, and money laundering.
That’s why I introduced my Security and Oversight of International Landholdings (SOIL) Act, which requires the same federal review process for foreign purchases of our agriculture land that exist for most other foreign land purchases, which is known as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) review process. I am working to get this language into the Farm Bill when it comes up for a vote later this year.
Standing Up for Life
Last week while in Durant, I weighed in on Facebook Live after a Fifth Circuit Court ruling came out that would protect the health and safety of women and girls by halting a Food & Drug Administration (FDA) rule that allowed dangerous chemical abortion pills to be mailed to women without the supervision of a doctor, without any prior medical checks and without any reporting requirements, when a woman is hospitalized with major complications after taking the drug.
President Biden is obsessed with increasing abortion on demand, no matter what it takes. The FDA’s approval of dangerous DIY abortions was not only a violation of the FDA’s drug approval process but it broke federal law. I was glad to join my colleagues in a friend of the court brief to ask the Fifth Circuit to uphold this decision. I encourage anyone to read the friend of the court brief to learn more about the facts of this drug and the FDA actions. This case is not about judges deciding drug approvals; it is about following the law.
James Lankford is a United States Senator for Oklahoma