Additional funding for local roadwork, working with railroad companies to make crossings safer and the widespread impacts of the opioids crisis are all at the top of an Indiana senator’s to-do list.
In addition to approving tax reform, regulatory reform, the new farm bill and legislation aimed at helping educate the next generation, U.S. Sen. Todd Young, a Republican who represents Indiana, is spending at least half of his time in his home state talking about the key issues impacting residents, he said.
And what he hears from Hoosiers, from access to healthcare and affordable housing to a lack of jobs in rural areas, are issues Young brings up in Washington D.C., he said.
One of the key issues he is repeatedly hearing about across the state and nation is the opioids crisis, he said.
Legislators have been working to improve the public response to the crisis, which impacts multiple different areas, from health and finance to the judicial system, he said.
Congress is close to approving landmark legislation that will dedicate billions of dollars to the crisis, but plenty of work remains to be done, Young said.
“Experts anticipate the crisis will get worse before it gets better,” Young said.
Other measures Congress is taking to address the issue include expediting the path to FDA approval for new non-opioid pain medication, which gives people an alternative route to treatment, he said.
“We should be treating non-opioids differently, and move those to the front of the line,” he said.
Another recent measure connected to the opioids crisis is legislation aimed at developing an online, automated interstate adoption system. So many children are being removed from their homes when their parents are incarcerated or unable to care for them, and the foster system is completely overloaded. The new system would allow different states to more easily communicate, and hopefully work to get children into a permanent home faster, Young said.
And at the same time, Congress wants to be sure local and state governments have the resources they need to address the crisis, since no one-size-fits-all approach exists, he said.
Local issues continue to be important to Young, including looking for ways to make railroad crossings more safe. That has been a key issue for local mayors since CSX began running more and faster trains along the Louisville and Indiana Railroad line.
Infrastructure is another important issue Young is looking at. A main priority for him is to complete the final section of Interstate 69, which runs through Johnson County, and make sure that project is funded, he said.
But local projects also need funding, and that is an issue the federal government has been working on with an infrastructure plan, he said.
That plan promotes public/private partnerships, which Indiana has been involved in for years, prioritizes communities and states that set aside their own funding for projects and aims to expedite the approval process for projects with a goal of saving money and getting the work done faster, he said.
Young also plans to have discussions with local residents and officials about infrastructure issues in the future to get more information to bring back to Washington D.C., he said.
