{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=9dc9a473-88c5-465c-967b-812899fe84fb", "Thune & Shuster Support Use of Civil Reserve Air Fleet to Aid Ebola Efforts", "2014-10-23", "2014", "2014-10", "Republican", "House", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Washington, D.C.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0\r\n\t\t\r\n\t\t\r\n\t\tSenator John Thune (R-South Dakota), Ranking Member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, and Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pennsylvania), Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee,\u00a0urged President Obama to consider all existing options to protect U.S. citizens and deliver aid and resources to West Africa in the ongoing effort to contain the Ebola virus outbreak.\r\nThe committees\u2019 top Republican lawmakers with jurisdiction over our nation\u2019s transportation system wrote to the President to highlight the capabilities of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF), a voluntary program involving the Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of Transportation (DOT), and U.S. commercial air carriers to augment the DOD\u2019s aircraft capability during a national defense or humanitarian crisis.\u00a0During such times, the CRAF program enhances the DOD\u2019s ability to move individuals and supplies to almost any region of the world.\r\nThune and Shuster, who have called for a temporary travel ban from affected West African countries, wrote that the utilization of CRAF carrier agreements would continue to allow relief supplies and qualified personnel to be carried to the West Africa region at the center of the Ebola outbreak, even with a travel ban or travel restrictions in place.\r\n\u201cCRAF carriers could replace, or even expand, payload capacity that has exited the market as foreign commercial airlines have reduced services to the region since the beginning of the crisis. The activation of CRAF would also be entirely consistent with your decision to deploy U.S. military personnel to West Africa, as the containment of Ebola and the humanitarian crisis are together a top national security priority,\u201d wrote Thune and Shuster. They cited previous utilizations of CRAF carrier for similar humanitarian relief scenarios during and after Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the Rwandan genocide, and the earthquake and tsunami in Fukushima, Japan.\r\nThune and Shuster concluded, \u201cAs this crisis continues, it is imperative that all measures to protect Americans from further exposure to the disease be fully considered.\u00a0At the same time, all available means to increase the level of aid to West Africa without unduly increasing the American public\u2019s risk of exposure should be vigorously pursued.\u201d\r\nThe complete letter is available here.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=9dc9a473-88c5-465c-967b-812899fe84fb"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.5864560846239328, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}