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ALEXANDRIA, Va. — U.S. Sen. Mark Warner is pushing legislation to give federal employees and contractors whose personal data was stolen in the 2015 Office of Personnel Management breach identity protection coverage for the rest of their lives, with the coverage they have now set to expire Sept. 30.
Warner, a Democrat and Alexandria resident, said during a remote availability with Virginia reporters Thursday that those affected are concentrated in the Washington region, where large numbers of current and retired federal workers live.
"None of those federal employees or contractors did anything wrong," he said. "That's why we should provide this kind of lifelong protection."
Two breaches disclosed in 2015 compromised the data of about 22.1 million federal employees, contractors and members of Congress. About 4.2 million employees had Social Security numbers, addresses, financial details and security clearance files exposed, and background investigation records for roughly 21.5 million people were taken. The intrusions are believed to have been state-sponsored by China.
Warner's 2015 RECOVER Act led Congress to provide victims 10 years of identity protection coverage in a 2017 appropriations bill. That coverage lapses at the end of September.
The new bill — the RECOVER PII Act, introduced with Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton of the District of Columbia — would extend the protection for life and reimburse affected workers for privacy software and other tools used to scrub their information from the web.
"Once that information is in the hands of a bad actor, you don't get it back," Warner said in a statement accompanying the bill.
Rep. Don Beyer, whose district includes Alexandria, is a co-sponsor in the House, along with Reps. James Walkinshaw of Virginia and Steny Hoyer of Maryland. Sens. Tim Kaine, Angela Alsobrooks and Chris Van Hollen are co-sponsors in the Senate.
A bill to ban paid early access to Trump's posts
Warner also introduced legislation Aug. 3 that would bar social media companies from selling prioritized access to government officials' accounts, and make it illegal to trade securities, commodities, swaps or prediction market contracts on information obtained that way. The bill, the NO PROFIT Act, followed the launch of Truth API, Truth Social's subscription service for advance access to President Trump's posts.
Warner said he initially took the offer for a joke.
"When it was first announced, I thought maybe it was a joke that Trump was going to give to those individuals or entities that would pay $100,000 a month an early glimpse at his Truth Social posts," he said.
The posts routinely move markets, he said, citing Sunday evening announcements about ceasefires with Iran that lift stocks the next morning. "That information, if it's gotten to somebody and they can trade on it, is a complete abuse of the system," he said.
Warner said he first wrote to banking, securities and high-frequency trading trade groups asking them to discourage members from subscribing, and that it did not work — some firms bought in anyway. He called the arrangement "jaw-droppingly corrupt" and said the lack of pushback from the financial industry "has been an embarrassment."
"We want to make sure that no individual investor is at a disadvantage because somebody could pay off the Trump family 100 grand and get access to information that moves the market," he said.
Election monitors in Fairfax and Prince William
Warner said he wants a full accounting of how Justice Department election monitors behaved during Virginia's Aug. 4 primaries. The department sent monitors to Fairfax and Prince William counties, which he called unusual.
Historically, he said, monitors were sent to communities with large Black populations to guard against discrimination at the polls. He said he has received secondhand reports — which he stressed he has not verified — that election officials were asked to complete lengthy forms while trying to keep polling places running, and that workers were harassed for speaking Spanish to voters.
"I continue to worry that this administration led by the president is going to try to interfere in our elections," he said.
Warner led a letter with nine Senate colleagues, including Kaine, to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, requesting a staff briefing and answers within two weeks on how jurisdictions are selected for monitoring, how monitors are vetted and trained, whether political appointees may serve, and what safeguards prevent voter intimidation. The senators wrote that they are concerned monitors are being deployed disproportionately to states led by Democrats.
Asked whether his assessment of risk to the November election had changed, Warner said he did not yet have enough information about the monitors' conduct, and that the period after Labor Day would require heightened attention. Virginia's early voting begins in mid-September.
Warner also said he will vote against Blanche's nomination as attorney general, saying Blanche "still views himself more as Trump's personal lawyer than the top law enforcement official for our country."
Dominion-NextEra merger
Asked about the proposed $67 billion merger between Dominion Energy and Florida-based NextEra, Warner said he shares Gov. Abigail Spanberger's concerns. Spanberger announced Thursday, in a Washington Post op-ed, that she will formally intervene in the case before the State Corporation Commission — the first Virginia governor to do so.
"We're taking a Virginia entity that we all know and have worked with for years, Dominion, and having this merger with the Florida enterprise that may not have quite the same kind of good record," Warner said.
He said he understands the business rationale — Dominion needs a larger balance sheet to move into small modular nuclear reactors and expand renewables — but has not taken a position on whether the commission's six-month review deadline should be extended.
Data centers on the campaign agenda
Warner, who has said this will be his final Senate campaign, said artificial intelligence will be central to it, including "federal guardrails around data centers in terms of power, water, setbacks" — the same issues Alexandria's City Council raised this week in asking Fairfax County to deny a substation that would serve a data center campus at the city's western border.
He also listed health care, tariffs, the war with Iran, access to capital for underserved communities and implementation of new housing legislation. He said the administration has cut 300,000 Virginians from Medicaid and 44,000 from Affordable Care Act tax credits, and said he supports moving toward universal coverage.
On a separate question about a White House AI framework, Warner said he wants mandatory pre-release safety review of frontier models rather than voluntary review, and objected that the guidance will not be shared with Congress or the public.
"You wouldn't let a new car go out. You wouldn't let a new plane fly without some safety testing," he said.
Black lung at a 50-year high
Warner said new data shows close to a third of miners who have worked underground more than 25 years have developed black lung, with rising rates among those with 10 years underground and diagnoses appearing in miners in their 40s.
He faulted the administration for scaling back testing and benefits and for pausing enforcement of a rule limiting silica dust exposure.
