Rep. Jake Auchincloss

09/17/2026

Icelanders can often be spotted in Massachusetts, taking advantage of direct flights to shop and see everything on offer. Vice versa, too – Bay Staters travel frequently to our near-Arctic ally. I met with the Icelandic Ambassador to emphasize congressional support for our alliance at a moment when the president is embarrassing and undermining the nation and its allies; to discuss geothermal innovation and collaboration; and to encourage Iceland to deploy its own polar ice-cutter. The Arctic circle is increasingly contested, and it's critical that the United States and its partners, like Iceland and Finland, work together to ensure freedom of navigation year-round. Without Arctic Security Cutters, which are medium-sized icebreaking ships, we cannot. America & Finland are partnering to build 11 more ice-cutters, and Iceland could enhance this partnership.

09/17/2026

At both an Energy sub-committee hearing and speaking to the National Clean Energy Week conference, I emphasized the potential for nuclear-energy partnership with India. India imports a lot of Russian oil, which is bad. It's also making reforms to enable more nuclear deployment, which is good. Congress just passed (and I voted for) legislation that makes it harder for India to import that Russian oil, which funds Vladimir Putin's war economy. We should pair that 'stick' with the 'carrot' of combined efforts on R&D and manufacturing of AP1000s and other nuclear reactors.

It's a win-win. Nuclear power is deeply affordable — when it's built on time and at scale. Two big countries, with lots of good engineers and electricity demand between them, working together to build out nuclear baseload could achieve economies of scale & scope faster than either one by itself.

09/16/2026

In Washington, I continue to build broad support for clinical trials modernization and R&D funding. I met with the life sciences trade associations for California & Massachusetts; the Speak Foundation, which advocates for Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy patients; and the Business for Federal Research Funding Coalition roundtable.

In each, I made the same points: America is not investing enough in medical science, and too many of the dollars it does invest get swallowed up by bureaucracy around clinical trials, rather than in experimentation & testing itself. My work to support & defend the National Institutes of Health and to build out a national clinical trials infrastructure are both aimed at more – and more efficient – research & development.

09/11/2026

I was honored to deliver the keynote remarks at Taunton’s commemoration of the 25th anniversary of September 11. Below are my remarks:

“It’s an honor to address this solemn assembly as we commemorate the 25th anniversary of the attacks on September 11. That day is increasingly used as a marker – a pivot point – for what came before and what came after. It ended the innocent 1990s sense of one global village that had taken hold since the fall of the Soviet Union. It launched a series of wars whose seismic shocks are still shaking the Middle East today.

Yet we owe it to the victims and heroes who experienced that day – and to my children’s generation who did not – to memorialize September 11 unto itself. Not for what came before. Not for what came after. But for the blood, sweat and tears of that awful event itself.

It was a day of unbearable tragedy. Office workers jumped from skyscrapers rather rather than burn in an inferno. Airplane passengers lurched to collision in terrifying final moments.

It was a day of remarkable heroism. Police officers and firefighters ran into those skyscrapers, into those infernos; many did not return. Airplane passengers stormed the cockpit, so that the final, terrifying collision did not kill other innocents.

And it was a day of solidarity. Ferry boat pilots flocked to southern Manhattan to shepherd hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to safety. Allied leaders pledged support and mutual defense. Americans from all walks of life felt strum those mystic chords of memory that bind us together as a proud people.

Tragedy and heroism are with us still, every day, in measures grand and mundane. Solidarity, though, feels in short supply. We as Americans must restore our unity by reminding ourselves that we, all of us, are in a covenant to defend one another’s natural rights.

These self-evident truths about equality and freedom are set forth in our opening statement as a people, the Declaration of Independence.

Every one of us has a set of intrinsic rights:

• to survive;
• to not be tyrannized;
• to live the life we choose for ourselves;
• and to take part in determining who represents us and in holding them accountable.

That’s the American Promise, our mutual pledge to uphold these inalienable rights.

And the American Experiment is a project to protect one another’s rights by governing ourselves.

We are a people united by our commitment to uphold and defend this Experiment, lest it perish from the Earth.

These are the ideals Frederick Douglass championed in every speech he gave. This is the Founding Fathers in Philadelphia, Lincoln at Gettysburg, and Martin Luther King Jr. on the National Mall.

Americans fought for these ideals at Valley Forge, Shiloh and Normandy; we advanced them at Seneca Falls, Selma and Stonewall. The American Experiment is what the enemies on 9/11 so despised, and also why we felt so stubbornly proud that day, amidst the tremendous sorrow and suffering.

We honor the heroes and victims of September 11 – and we re-animate our shared spirit as a people – when we recommit ourselves to our American Promise, our covenant to defend one another’s natural rights.”

09/10/2026

Huntington’s Disease (HD) is a progressive genetic disorder that causes the degeneration of nerve cells in the brain, leading to movement, cognitive, and psychiatric disorders. There is no cure. There are, though, treatments to manage symptoms, which often first present when patients are in their 30s and 40s.

Because HD is inherited on a single gene, it ravages families. Individuals who spent a decade caring for a mother with HD then discover that their son has the disease too – and spend another decade in shared suffering. I went to Beth Israel's Huntington Disease center to meet with patients, caregivers, and experts about HD. They spoke of the wrenching toll that HD puts on families, including the decision as prospective parents about whether & how to have children, knowing they could carry the gene.

I also heard of hope, in the medical science and clinical trial network of which Beth Israel is a global leader. We discussed how my bipartisan clinical trials modernization legislation can help HD centers of excellence enroll and support patients, so that medicines can sooner come to market that prevent this dreadful disease.

09/09/2026

The Department of Energy spends more than $2 billion annually to handle spent nuclear fuel. Meanwhile, fuel is a third of the cost of nuclear energy production at large plants. Project Omega, operating out of a UMass industrial lab in Fall River, is working to solve both problems for a win-win on clean, affordable & reliable energy. With a federal R&D contract, Project Omega is recycling spent nuclear fuel to be used by reactors.

This would prevent the fuel from being stored underground, where it might leach, lower taxpayers' bill for managing spent fuel, and reduce energy prices. As a Member of the Energy subcommittee, I am a strong proponent of nuclear energy and am seeking the policy & technology to build more reactors, faster & cheaper. This is especially critical for Bay Staters, who pay some of the highest utility bills in the country – and would pay a lot less if more nuclear were on the grid.

09/08/2026

The West Newton Cinema screened Homegrown, a film that examines the lives and political evolution of three young men involved in the American far-right movement, which took violent form in the insurrection on January 6. I joined a panel afterwards along with the film-makers. I am so impressed by the producer and director's capacity to both unsparingly depict extremism & violence while maintaining curiosity and empathy about the subjects. Both of them (a husband & wife team) were surprisingly & refreshingly optimistic about the American character and our prospect for renewal based on common sense and decency.

For my part, I noted how January 6th was my second day in Congress and my first hard lesson: I watched so many Members of Congress vote to de-certify the election results, not out of conviction but from fear. I resolved to never take a vote out of fear.

08/28/2026

To unlock the money for states and to dial down the distractions for children, Congress must pass my Parents Over Platforms Act. This bipartisan, bicameral bill establishes age assurance at the firmware level while protecting privacy. Without that protocol, the money and the measures that Meta has promised will melt away.

A landmark agreement both reshapes Instagram and Facebook for teenagers, and adds fuel to legislative debate about permanent reforms.

08/28/2026

With visits to Freetown, Berkley and Lakeville, I completed my annual calendar-year circuit of each of the 35 cities & towns that I represent. I conducted Q&A sessions at the Freetown Council on Aging and the Lakeville Center for Active Living, while in Berkley I reviewed education & infrastructure priorities with town leadership, including walking a pedestrian pathway to connect the middle school with the town common for which I have earmarked federal funding.

The biggest city I represent – Fall River – voted for Donald Trump in 2024, while in the second biggest city – Newton – 3 out of 4 voters chose Kamala Harris. There are even bluer & redder pockets throughout. I engage with constituents who have sharply different opinions about MAGA, immigration, guns, taxes, health care, Israel and much else besides. I have spoken in hundreds of rooms over the last 6 years, and have yet to find one where everyone agrees with everything I say. But I always seek to listen with curiosity, explain based on shared values and candid trade-offs, and avoid abstractions in favor of specific deliverables.

08/27/2026

In Mansfield, pharmaceutical fulfillment supports more than 100 warehouse & maintenance jobs. Cencora is a large pharmaceutical solutions & supply-chain company, and I visited its Mansfield warehouse to meet with the people who keep it running. I asked about the impact of robotics on fulfillment operations and learned about European warehouses that are automating inventory management, which is leading to new jobs in maintenance & repair.

I also toured new construction of cold-chain storage, largely driven by the increased demand for GLP-1 injectables that is spurring Cencora to invest $1 billion over the next five years in specialized distribution. New medicines = new jobs.