Press Releases

WASHINGTON – Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) Wednesday headed a congressional oversight letter to Secretary of Defense Mark Esper expressing opposition to the Trump Administration’s reversal of the policy limiting the use of antipersonnel landmines to the defense of South Korea, and seeking answers to questions on the justification for the reversal and future plans. In a letter signed by Leahy, McGovern and over 100 other members of the Senate and the House, they no... Read More »

WASHINGTON -- Today, Congressman James P. McGovern (D-MA), Chairman of the House Rules Committee, joined the Massachusetts Congressional Delegation to announce that Massachusetts was awarded a total of $3,994,913 under the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)'s Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP). The federal funding, which was appropriated in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act to ease financial hardship caused by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pan... Read More »

WASHINGTON – Today, Rep. Jim McGovern (MA-02), Rep. Mike Thompson (CA-05), Rep. Rodney Davis (IL-13), Senator Kamala D. Harris (D-CA) and Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) joined Chef José Andrés and World Central Kitchen in introducing the FEMA Empowering Essential Deliveries (FEED) Act. The full text of the bill is available here. This bill allows the Federal government to pay 100 percent of the cost to states and localities so that they can partner with restaurants and nonprofits to prepare nutritious... Read More »

WASHINGTON – Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) Tuesday headed a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to confirm that U.S. policy does not preclude companies and humanitarians from providing essential medical equipment, food, and information to the people of Cuba to combat COVID-19. In a letter signed by Leahy, McGovern and 25 members of the Senate and the House, they note that it is “dangerous and contrary to our longstanding ... Read More »

WASHINGTON—Congressman James P. McGovern (D-MA) Chair of the bipartisan and bicameral Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), joined United States Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), Co-Chair of the Commission, in sending a letter to President Donald Trump expressing concern about the Chinese government’s “increasingly draconian” restrictions on press freedoms and freedom of expression and asking him to “advocate for the release” of unjustly imprisoned journalists, bloggers, and free speech ... Read More »

WASHINGTON – Today, Representative James McGovern (D-MA.) and Christopher Smith (R-NJ), co-chairs of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, along with U.S. Senators Chris Coons (D-DE.) and Thom Tillis (R-NC.), co-chairs of the Senate Human Rights Caucus, issued the following statement: “As co-chairs of the Senate Human Rights Caucus and the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, we call on foreign governments to release arbitrarily detained Americans and all prisoners of conscience on humanitarian... Read More »

“We have sent trillions of dollars out into our communities - they should be going to small businesses and not corporations; our workers, not the wealthy and those already well-off.” Read More »

“Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump don’t have to worry about where their next meal is coming from – but they don’t think other families should be afforded the same right.” Read More »

WASHINGTON – This week, Congressman James P. McGovern (D-MA), Chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) and Co-Chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, worked with Hong Kong pro-democracy leaders Joshua Wong and Sunny Cheung and the Demosisto and Network DIPLO organizations to secure a donation of one thousand Hong Kong-made surgical masks to UMass Memorial Medical Center caregivers. In addition, Congressman McGovern was pleased to welcome a donation from Taiwan ... Read More »

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Congressman James P. McGovern (MA-02), Chairman of the House Rules Committee, alongside Worcester Regional Transit Authority (WRTA) Administrator Dennis Lipka announced that the WRTA has been awarded a $5,000,000 grant in federal funding to support operations during the coronavirus crisis. The funding, which Congress approved on March 27, 2020, was authorized through the CARES Act and provides a total of $25 billion to urban and rural transit agencies to help to prevent,... Read More »