Daniel William Lipinski

As a life-long environmentalist, I fought Big Oil companies, and helped enact the most significant energy policy change in a generation – reducing energy costs, fighting global warming, making our nation more secure, and creating new jobs. I authored a new law – the H-Prize Act – advancing the use of hydrogen as a pollution-free replacement for gasoline. I also wrote a law requiring the use of high-efficiency light bulbs in federal buildings; this will cut energy usage for lighting by 75%, reducing global warming and saving taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. Locally, I helped to pressure BP to abandon its dumping plan for Lake Michigan.

To ease the middle-class squeeze, I helped protect 82,000 families in the district from the Alternative Minimum Tax. I helped cut the student loan interest rate in half and significantly increased grants for college students. To make health care more affordable, I fought to overturn the President’s veto of a bill to provide health care coverage to 10 million uninsured children. I cosponsored and passed a bill to reduce the cost of prescription drugs for seniors by requiring Medicare to negotiate better prices with drug companies. I am also cosponsoring legislation to protect children from unsafe products.

I am proud to have brought back tens of millions of dollars to the district, including funds to expand mass transit, clean up the local environment, provide care for abused children, house homeless veterans, provide communications equipment for first responders, protect food safety, and fix local water infrastructure. To improve daily commutes on the roads and rails I obtained over $125 million for local transportation projects. I also brought back millions of dollars in federal grants for more than 25 local fire and police departments.

I have also been a leader in the battle to responsibly bring our troops home from Iraq. I joined my Democratic colleagues numerous times in voting to redeploy our troops, and I helped introduce a bill to implement the expert recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. This legislation shifts the mission of American forces to training and counter-terrorism, requires the Iraqi government to implement reconciliation measures, and sets a goal for completing troop redeployment. This bill has more bipartisan cosponsors than any other legislation changing the President’s policy.

I would appreciate your vote on February 5th.