Please join me this Saturday in the Seigle Auditorium at Elgin Community College from 9:30am to 10:30am as I lead a discussion on ensuring school safety and combating gun violence with State Rep. Michelle Mussman, U-46 Superintendent Dr. Tony Sanders, and Dan Kotowski, the Chair of the Board of the gun reform organization One Aim Illinois. Our discussion will be moderated by ABC-7’s Ravi Baichwal. You can sign up to join the event here.

Last week, I introduced legislation calling on President Joe Bident to invoke the Defense Production Act to expand our oil refinery capacity to eliminate the refining bottleneck that is currently contributing to high gas prices. While fuel prices have been primarily driven by high crude oil prices in the past, the most recent spike in gas prices is in large part a product of a lack of refining capacity as oil demand has returned to pre-pandemic levels but global refining capacity has declined by 3,000,000 barrels per day and U.S. capacity alone has declined by one million barrels per day. This shortage of oil refining capacity is the result of an unprecedented wave of refinery closures as demand for fuel plummeted during the early part of the pandemic. However, despite the current record gas prices and near historic profits, oil companies have shown little interest in restarting refineries that were shuttered during the pandemic.

While the White House issued letters to the industry last week pressing for increased production, my new legislation urges the President to take additional action by using the authorities granted to him by the Defense Production Act to provide targeted technical and financial assistance to restart certain idled refineries for a limited time. My resolution’s focus on a short-term increase in refining capacity is to address the current price spike facing consumers without making long-term investments in refining capacity that would make us more dependent on fossil fuels as we’re transitioning to a greener economy and renewable energy sources. Through using the Defense Production Act to make these targeted, bridge investments in our refinery infrastructure, we can relieve the burden of high gas prices while transitioning our economy to a lower-cost, lower-carbon future. To learn more, you can read my recent article in the Chicago Sun-Times here.

Last week, I presented Schaumburg Mayor Tom Dailly and Deputy Police Chief Kristine Provenzano with a ceremonial check for the $340,000 in federal funding I secured for the village’s mobile response unit for mental health and substance misuse. This unit, which will be implemented by the Schaumburg Police Department, Elk Grove Police Department, the Start Here Addiction Rehabilitation and Education Program, the Foglia Treatment Center, the Kenneth Young Center, and Live4Lali, will allow the department to address 911 calls through crisis intervention overseen by trained social workers and community response professionals with experience related to mental health and substance disorders. By accompanying police on dispatches and assisting with both on-site and long-term treatment and care for individuals in need, the unit will provide acute and proactive care for those who need it most.

Over the course of the pandemic our nation has seen an exponential increase in 911 calls directly related to mental health care, with the Disaster Distress Hotline, which provides emergency crisis counseling, seeing an uptick of 891% in call volume in just a single year. Despite the courageous efforts of our police officers, resources are stretched thin. That’s why I’m continuing to fight to expand funding and support for programs like this, in our community, and across our nation, because protecting our community demands we provide our first responders with the resources they need.

This past weekend, we came together as a nation to commemorate the second-ever federally recognized Juneteenth holiday, a day long celebrated by African Americans as the day slavery officially ended in the United States. On June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas to find many African Americans still enslaved despite President Abraham Lincoln issuing the Emancipation Proclamation more than two years earlier. General Granger announced that slavery had ended, and the Union had been restored. That day became known as Juneteenth, a mixture of the words June and nineteen, and was celebrated throughout Texas and the South for over 150 years before finally being recognized as a federal holiday last year. It was an honor to join Schaumburg’s Juneteenth Celebration during the weekend to reflect and celebrate the legacy of the holiday and the work that remains to form a more perfect, more equal union.

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