Merkley, Wyden vote ‘no’ on year-end spending bill

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., released the following statement Friday after the U.S. Senate voted to pass an end-of-year spending omnibus bill, which he voted against.

The package also included extensions of tax provisions and legislation to lift the ban on U.S. exports of crude oil.

“This omnibus and tax bill contains many good provisions, including those I was proud to fight for on behalf of Oregon in the Appropriations Committee and important tax provisions to help working families that Senator Wyden worked hard to secure.

“Unfortunately, it has been packaged into a mega-bill that also includes a repeal of the ban on crude oil exports. This repeal is a huge mistake, and because of its inclusion in this package, I could not support this bill today.

“The essential challenge facing human civilization today is to transition quickly from a fossil fuel economy to one built on renewable energy. The United States needs to provide leadership in this vital global effort, as we did in Paris last week. Lifting the oil export ban harms not only our efforts to make that transition but also the credibility of our leadership.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., voted against the legislative package because he said it contained a dangerous “cybersecurity” bill and provisions to undermine independent oversight of government surveillance programs.

Wyden said Republican leaders inserted an extreme version of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) and the flawed 2016 Intelligence Authorization Act into the broader package of spending and tax bills.

“These unacceptable surveillance provisions are a black mark on a worthy package that contains the biggest tax cut for working families in decades, an accomplishment I fought for in weeks of negotiations,” Wyden said.

“Unfortunately, this misguided cyber legislation does little to protect Americans’ security, and a great deal more to threaten our privacy than the flawed Senate version. Americans demand real solutions that will protect them from foreign hackers, not knee-jerk responses that allow companies to fork over huge amounts of their customers’ private data with only cursory review.

“Ultimately, I cannot vote for this badly flawed CISA bill. The latest version of CISA is the worst one yet – it contains substantially fewer oversight and reporting provisions than the Senate version did. That means that violations of Americans’ privacy will be more likely to go unnoticed.

“And the Intelligence Authorization bill strips authority from an important, independent watchdog on government surveillance, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. This will make it easier for intelligence agencies – particularly the CIA – to refuse to cooperate with the Board’s investigations. Reducing the amount of independent oversight and constricting the scope of the PCLOB’s authority sends the wrong message and will make our intelligence agencies less accountable.”