Press Releases

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced the Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) Improvement Act, a bipartisan bill that would reshape EQIP to be more efficient and effective. Started in 1998, EQIP is a voluntary conservation program in the Farm bill that provides farmers and ranchers with federal cost-share grants to implement environmentally-beneficial conservation practices on working agricultural land. Despite this worthy... Read More

Washington, DC— Today U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) served as Ranking Member on a Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health Policy hearing on Somalia’s current security and stability status. During the hearing, Booker highlighted the continued threats to Somalia’s stability, including terrorism perpetrated by al-Shabab, the Somali al-Qaeda affiliate; the impact of climate change on Somalia’s refugee crisis; the role external actors, and in... Read More

WASHINGTON, D.C – U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) issued the following statement on his opposition to today’s passage of a bill to weaken Dodd-Frank banking rules put in place following the 2008 financial crisis: “Ten years ago, in the wake of the greed and excess-fueled financial crisis, big banks got a massive bailout while millions of Americans lost their homes. Too many Americans are still feeling those repercussions today, struggling to get by while Wall Street profits... Read More

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today during a Judiciary Committee hearing on reducing gun violence, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) lamented the lack of action on gun violence by the Republican-controlled Congress in the wake of last month’s tragic shooting in Florida. Citing a shooting that happened on his block earlier this week, Booker explained how such gun violence occurs every day in communities like his across the U.S. and called for increased urgency among his colleagues in... Read More

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Cory A. Booker (D-NJ), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Michael F. Bennet (D-CO), and Cory Gardner (R-CO) along with U.S. Representatives Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-09), David B. McKinley (R-WV-01), Diana DeGette (D-CO-01), and Scott R. Tipton (R-CO-03) introduced legislation to help boost hospitals’ resources in the fight against opioid addiction. After years of ravaging communities across America, the opioid epidemic is showing no signs of abating. Over... Read More

WASHINGTON, D.C – U.S. Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Bob Casey (D-PA) today introduced a bill targeting the increasing trend of corporations using profits for stock buybacks, instead of using them to raise wages for workers. Under the Worker Dividend Act, if a company buys back stocks to enrich its shareholders and CEO, it must also pay out a commensurate sum to all of its employees – the “workers dividend.” “Today, a culture of ‘short-termism’... Read More

UNIONTOWN, AL – The Environmental Protection Agency has closed two civil rights complaints filed against the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM). The complaints alleged that ADEM acted in a racially discriminatory manner by permitting a massive landfill in an overwhelmingly black community, and further failed to protect Uniontown residents from unlawful intimidation in the wake of their initial civil rights claim. U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) has been a vocal advocate... Read More

Washington, DC -- U.S. Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) this week reintroduced a resolution in the Senate urging the President to issue a posthumous pardon for the first African American heavyweight boxing champion, John Arthur "Jack" Johnson, for his racially charged conviction in 1913. Johnson's career and reputation were ruined after he was charged with transporting a white woman across state lines in violation of the Mann Act. Representatives Peter King (R-NY) and Gregory... Read More

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) today introduced a bill to crack down on collusive "no poach" agreements that are often used by large franchisors to prohibit franchisees from hiring each other’s workers. The End Employer Collusion Act would ban these "no poach" agreements, which economists have found are a key factor in wage stagnation and limited worker mobility. Congressman Keith Ellison will introduce companion legislation in the... Read More

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Tim Scott (R-SC) today introduced a bipartisan bill to improve sickle cell disease treatment, research, monitoring, and prevention. As part of the introduction of the Sickle Cell Disease Research, Surveillance, Prevention, and Treatment Act, Booker will sit down with sickle cell disease (SCD) patients and advocates for a roundtable later this afternoon at 4PM ET. It will be live-streamed here. “Sickle cell disease is a stark... Read More

WASHINGTON, D.C – U.S. Senator Cory Booker shared his candid and deeply personal thoughts on black history in the U.S., his family’s story of struggle and perseverance, and how we can gift to future generations “an America beyond our greatest dreams,” in a special bonus episode of his podcast, Lift Every Voice, released today. In the episode, Booker charts his family’s history – from the small, segregated town in North Carolina where his father grew up to the... Read More

WASHINGTON, D.C – U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) issued the following statement on his support of the bipartisan immigration bill, known as the Rounds-Collins amendment, that failed to pass the Republican-controlled Senate today: “As I have repeatedly said for months, it is a moral imperative that we identify a solution for the many Dreamers who are in crisis following President Trump’s abrupt decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. “I did not... Read More

  WASHINGTON, D.C – The Senate’s Judiciary Committee today passed the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act (SRCA), a bipartisan bill aimed at recalibrating prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and granting judges greater discretion at sentencing for lower-level drug crimes, while retaining tools to target violent criminals and ensure public safety.  The bill passed by a vote of 16-5 and was introduced in November 2017 by U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) and... Read More

WASHINGTON, D.C – U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) today became the second U.S senator to cosponsor Senator Cory Booker’s (D-NJ) landmark bill to end the federal prohibition on marijuana. She announced her support in a Facebook live earlier today with Booker. The Marijuana Justice Act would remove marijuana from the list of controlled substances, making it legal at the federal level. “Millions of Americans’ lives have been devastated because of our broken marijuana... Read More

WASHINGTON D.C. – U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) today pressed Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin to provide more information on the Treasury Department’s recent report to Congress on senior Russian political figures and oligarchs, and their financial ties to President Trump and his administration. The report is required by a new bipartisan sanctions law, the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of 2017, or CAATSA. In a series of questions, Booker pressed... Read More

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee today announced that U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) has joined the Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure and will become the top Democrat on the Subcommittee on Superfund, Waste Management, and Regulatory Oversight. “Roughly half of New Jerseyans live within three miles of a Superfund site, far higher than the national average,” Booker said. “This is simply unacceptable, and too... Read More

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Tina Smith (D-MN), and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) have sent a letter to David Shulkin, the United States Secretary of Veteran Affairs, urging him to address the consequences of the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) efforts to recoup improperly dispersed pension and disability payments on the ability of currently and formerly incarcerated veterans to reenter society and reintegrate into their communities. “We... Read More

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) issued the below statement following tonight’s budget vote: “I made a commitment several months ago that I wouldn’t vote for yet another funding bill that fails to include protections for the hundreds of thousands of dreamers who have been put in limbo by President Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. My commitment stands. “This bill includes many priorities I support... Read More

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.), members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s subcommittee on Africa, released the following statement on the political situation in Kenya: “We are deeply concerned about the continued deterioration of the political situation in Kenya.  Respect for the rule of law and fundamental freedoms are critical and necessary pillars of Kenya's democracy.  Shutting down independent media and... Read More

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) today pressed the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC) to complete a study on the use of algorithmic risk assessment tools for determining prison terms, setting bail, and even supporting findings of guilt or innocence.  The USSC failed to comply with DOJ instructions from 2014 asking for a report on the topic. In a letter sent today to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and USSC... Read More