| Kathy Castor is Tampa Bay's voice in the U.S. Congress. She was elected in 2006 and represents Florida's 14th Congressional district, which includes Tampa and St. Petersburg with parts of Hillsborough County and Pinellas County. She is the first woman to represent Hillsborough and Pinellas counties in the U.S. Congress.
Castor focuses on issues vital to Tampa Bay area families and businesses, and is committed to building a stronger economy that works for everyone as a Ranking Member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's powerful Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. Castor has been a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee since 2009. She is also the Chair of the former Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. She worked on initiatives to create jobs, protect the environment and consumers, improve schools, ensure veterans receive the benefits and care they have earned, provide access to affordable health care and defend protections for people with preexisting health conditions.
Providing better-paying jobs for Tampa Bay is Castor's number 1 priority. She has successfully fought to bring new, good-paying job opportunities to Tampa Bay's small businesses and large economic engines alike, including Port Tampa Bay, University of South Florida, Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, Tampa International Airport, MacDill Air Force Base and federally qualified community health centers.
Castor has a long established track record of fighting for all that makes Florida special. She started her professional legal career with the Florida Department of Community Affairs working to enforce environmental and growth management laws that protect wetlands, Florida's coastline, endangered species and sensitive lands. In private practice, Castor continued her commitment to Florida's environment as a land use/environmental attorney representing local governments. As a Hillsborough County Commissioner, Castor served as chair of the Hillsborough County Environmental Protection Commission that is charged with protecting the air, water, wetlands, and land of our large and diverse county, and the delegated elements of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.
In addition, Castor has championed energy efficiency, distributed energy and environmental justice to ensure ALL communities, families and individuals enjoy the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards. A benchmarking bill for the disclosure of energy information for commercial buildings in the 114th Congress was signed into law as part of The Energy Efficiency Improvement Act of 2015. Castor's Clean Distributed Energy Grid Integration Act was incorporated into the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, signed into law November 15, 2021 by President Biden.
As a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee's Health Subcommittee, Castor was instrumental in ensuring that health care reform worked for Florida families, businesses, and university medical and nursing colleges. She helped to draft the landmark Affordable Care Act that passed in 2010, and she has worked tirelessly against weakening new patient protections, especially for neighbors with pre-existing conditions, and educating neighbors about health insurance enrollment in the new marketplace exchange.
Castor has authored legislation to improve children's health care of the nation's sickest kids through a "health home" model that launched in her hometown of Tampa, Fla., as well as a bipartisan bill to address the opioid epidemic. Castor remains focused on lowering the cost of prescription drugs; protecting Medicare for seniors; supports expanding Medicaid in the State of Florida; and has authored provisions to remedy the doctor shortage and bring new medical residencies to the state and expand scholarships for medical professions at Florida colleges and universities. Castor works hard to bolster and support our health care institutions -- University of South Florida, Haley VA Hospital, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, Tampa General Hospital and BayCare.
Castor co-chairs the Academic Medicine Caucus and Children's Health Care Caucus.
MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla. is home to two combatant commands, Special Operations Command and Central Command; the 6th Air Mobility Wing; the 927th Air Refueling Wing; and dozens of mission partners. Castor fights for investment, expansion and support our base's military missions and personnel need to keep our country safe.
She is the co-chair of the Air Force Caucus and the Special Operations Forces Caucus
Before her election to Congress, Castor served as a Hillsborough County Commissioner and chair of the Hillsborough County Environmental Protection Commission. As County Commissioner in 2005, she was the sole vote against a gay pride ban; this ban was finally repealed unanimously by the Hillsborough County Commission in 2013. In 2005, Castor was named as the Tampa Bay Business Journal's Woman of the Year in government.
Castor is a graduate of Tampa's Chamberlain High School, Emory University and Florida State University College of Law. Castor and her husband have two daughters. She is the daughter of former Hillsborough County Judge Don Castor and former University of South Florida President and statewide-elected Education Commissioner Betty Castor. She is the former President of the Florida Association of Women Lawyers and partner in a statewide law firm. |