In the News

House Speaker Paul Ryan and other members of the House Republican leadership held a news conference today/Wednesday.

Members of the state's all-Republican congressional delegation Tuesday panned President Barack Obama's executive order placing restrictions on gun purchases.

Dale Bumpers, a former Arkansas governor and U.S. senator who earned the nickname "giant killer" for taking down incumbents, and who gave a passionate speech defending Bill Clinton during the president's impeachment trial, has died.

U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-District 4, filed a bill late Wednesday to have the U.S. Postal Service substation in downtown Hot Springs named in honor of Chief Petty Officer Adam Brown.

Congress voted to avoid a government shutdown on Wednesday with all but one of Arkansas’s all-Republican congressional delegation voting in the minority. Arkansas’s members opposed the inclusion of funding for Planned Parenthood in the short-term, stopgap spending measure.

Last week, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies’ Michael Garrity issued a response to Rep. Ryan Zinke’s August 11 guest column (see copy on this page) about his forest reform bill. In his response, Garrity said “Zinke claimed that we have spotted owls in Montana and that logging somehow prevents forest fires.” However, a quick review of Zinke’s column indicates he actually wrote: “Frivolous lawsuits are at the heart of forest reform. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies launched more than 150 predatory lawsuits targeting legal and healthy forest projects in just the last 10 years alone. During one such project they litigated on the grounds of preserving spotted owl habitat, the forest actually caught fire and burned down for a second time during the time it took to try the case, destroying the entire area, along with the owl’s habitat.”

Members of Arkansas' congressional delegation said Tuesday that they're skeptical of the deal President Barack Obama's administration and other countries negotiated to restrict Iran's nuclear program, though several said they want to read it before passing judgment.

The nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers announced on Tuesday has been met with condemnation from Arkansas’s Congressional delegation. The six Republicans argue nothing less than an entirely nuclear free Iran is acceptable and that the deal won’t keep Iran from acquiring nuclear arms capabilities.