The Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council recently released its initial draft plan for restoring the Gulf Coast and will hold a public meeting about it Monday, June 17, 5:30-9 p.m. The meeting will take place at the Fish & Wildlife Research Institute, located at 100 Eighth Ave., S.E. in St. Petersburg. In addition, formal comments will be accepted through June 24.  “The Gulf… Read more »

U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Tampa/St. Petersburg, FL) today denounced a Republican anti-immigration vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to deport Dream Act students. The vote is a direct attack on the "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals" initiative that protects hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation if they were brought to the United States as children and have since led law-abiding lives. Read more »

U.S. Reps Kathy Castor (FL-14) and Dennis Ross (FL-15) introduced bipartisan legislation to prevent identity theft by uniformly truncating Social Security numbers on written documents. H.R. 2229, the Safeguarding Social Security Numbers Act of 2013 would mandate that Social Security numbers are truncated so that only a few, if any, of the nine digits of the Social Security number are visible. Read more »

U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Tampa/St. Petersburg, FL) released the following statement today regarding the repeal of the discriminatory policy regarding gay pride passed by the Hillsborough County Commission in 2005. Read more »

In an effort to keep the pressure on the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs to eliminate the massive backlog of veterans claims, U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Tampa/St. Petersburg, FL) announced today her cosponsorship of a legislative package to immediately address the problem that has nearly 900,000 veterans waiting an average of nine months before they receive a decision from the VA. Read more »

U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor today applauded the announcement of an effort to launch high-speed ferry service to link job centers across Tampa Bay, including MacDill Air Force Base. Read more »

.S. Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Tampa/St. Petersburg, FL) announced today that the proposed student loan bill to be considered by Congress this week to address the July 1 interest rate hike poses a significant risk to students and families. Read more »

U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor recently hired Vito Sheeley and Tania Fernandez, who started this week as outreach coordinator and constituent services representative, respectively. Read more »

During today’s House proceedings, U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Tampa/St. Petersburg, FL) highlighted how small businesses, young adults, seniors and children have already benefited from the Affordable Care Act that Republicans want to repeal for the 37th time Read more »

In her ongoing effort to highlight the harm caused by job losses and across-the-board federal budget cuts to important federally-funded initiatives, such as Head Start, U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Tampa/St. Petersburg, FL) discussed the drastic sequester reductions today on Hardball with Chris Matthews. Last week, Rep. Castor and several Head Start parents held a press conference to bring attention to a $1.4 million cut to Hillsborough County Head Start. Rep. Castor explained that 70,000 Head Start 3-year-old and 4-year-old students across America would likely be cut from Head Start preschool because Republicans refuse to replace the sequester. Below is a link to the entire video clip and a transcript of the interview. Read more »