On Monday at 4 p.m. (ET), Sen. Grassley met with a delegation from the Russian Duma.
On Tuesday at 10 a.m. (ET), Sen. Grassley will conduct a hearing to raise awareness about the growing problem of Ecstasy use by teenagers and young adults. Ecstasy is advertised as a safe drug, and many take the pills to maintain a high while at all-night rave parties. Sen. Grassley will conduct the hearing as chairman of the Senate Narcotics Control Caucus.
In May, Sens. Grassley and Bob Graham of Florida introduced a bipartisan bill to enhance the federal sentencing guidelines for Ecstasy. Their legislation would require the U.S. Sentencing Commission to make its guidelines for Ecstasy equivalent to the base offense levels for offenses involving methamphetamine. Then, 50 grams of Ecstasy would lead to a five-year prison sentence, while a dealer trafficking 500 grams of Ecstasy would receive a ten-year prison sentence. This week, the senators will offer this legislation as an amendment to the annual spending bill for the Treasury Department.
On Tuesday, Sen. Grassley will announce his plans to introduce another amendment to require the Energy Department to submit a plan to Congress on how it will address the increasing price of natural gas.
On Wednesday, Sen. Grassley will introduce an environmental tax credit bill for super energy-efficient clothes washing machines and refrigerators. The legislation is targeted to work in conjunction with new federal energy efficiency standards for appliances to save electricity and water and go beyond federal regulations.
On Thursday, a Judiciary Subcommittee will mark-up a bill co-sponsored by Sen. Grassley to let the federal government take action againstprice fixing by OPEC, the 11-member Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries that supplies 77 percent of the world’s crude oil reserves. Sen. Grassley HAS said he will work for prompt consideration and full committee approval of the measure because if these nations had been a group of international private companies rather than foreign governments, they would have been hauled into court a long time ago.