In the News
With the hours dwindling until Joe Biden is sworn in -- officially taking the helm of the US government during its worst health crisis in 100 years -- a sense of nervousness has set in among those advising the incoming President on the pandemic.
On the same day the U.S. House impeached President Donald Trump an unprecedented second time, U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood on Wednesday called Trump "a clear and present danger" to the country and urged his removal from office after last week's violence at the Capitol.
"Donald Trump is a national security threat," Underwood, a Naperville Democrat, said in a phone call with the media. "Congress must take action."
Underwood was joined by members of the Illinois delegation on both sides of the political aisle in calling for impeachment.
U.S. Reps. Lauren Underwood and Bill Foster were among the Illinois members of Congress who urged Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to rescind a rule which they said would improperly divert federal funds away from public schools.
U.S. Rep. Bill Foster highlighted Obama-era federal investments he argued were key to successful vaccine development during a committee meeting on Friday.
Foster, D-Naperville, questioned Dr. Anthony Fauci, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, during a hearing of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.
U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Naperville, introduced a bill Friday to designate the U.S. Postal Service facility in Elwood after Larry Walsh Sr., the longtime Will County official who died earlier this year.
The bill would name the post office building at 303 E. Mississippi Ave. the "Lawrence M. ‘Larry' Walsh Sr. Post Office," according to the bill.
Walsh died June 3 at age 72, after battling prostate cancer.
Two Will County-area members of Congress praised the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to reject the Trump administration's attempt to end legal protections for undocumented residents who came into the country as children.
Rather than searching for the "secret sauce" that's caused a disproportionate amount of people of color to get sick and die from COVID-19, several structural inequalities need to be identified and addressed, according to a member of a round table on the subject Tuesday evening, hosted by three local members of Congress.
U.S. Rep. Bill Foster is focusing on any potential waste, fraud and abuse in his new role on the House Select Committee on the coronavirus pandemic in Congress.
Foster, D-Naperville, and other members of the committee are tasked with oversight of the trillions of dollars in federal aid passed to combat the pandemic and its economic consequences across the country.
"Most work will be making sure money gets to where Congress intended," Foster said in a phone interview on Monday.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Wednesday named Rep. Bill Foster, D-Ill., to a new bipartisan House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis tasked with making sure the billions of dollars Congress is shoveling out the door is not "exploited by profiteers and price-gougers."
Foster is among seven Democrats Pelosi selected for the panel. It is not clear yet if Republicans will appoint anyone to the panel, created as part of the CARES Act. It is supposed to have seven Democrats and five Republicans as members.
U.S. Rep. Bill Foster joined his Congressional colleagues this week in urging federal agencies to speed up the process to evaluate and approve a vaccine for the novel coronavirus.
Foster, D-Naperville, wrote the letter with 36 other members of Congress to the Health and Human Services secretary and the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, according to a news release. The legislators asked the officials to prepare to rapidly deploy a vaccine to the public once it's approved.