HEAT Act

Mr. President, over the last few months, we have been spending a lot of time talking about the surge of migrants at our southern border and, as the Presiding Officer knows, we are having bipartisan meetings here to try to figure out how to address that and other challenges of our broken immigration system.

We know the spike in migration is not a new phenomenon, and sadly, neither is the increase in the number of unaccompanied children. But the current surge is unlike anything we have experienced in the past. We are breaking all the wrong kinds of records, including the numbers of unaccompanied children, total monthly border crossings, and capacity levels at care facilities. And, of course, all of this is happening during a pandemic which creates serious risks for our law enforcement and for those caring for these migrants and for the migrants themselves.

Unfortunately, the administration has not yet figured out how to stop this flow of illegal immigration. The President and his team are telling migrants: Don't come. But when it comes to his policies, all of his policies say: Come while you can.

They haven't figured out how to replace Trump-era policies, and so what they have done is left a void that is being exploited by everybody from the coyotes, the human smugglers, the people who smuggle in drugs into the United States, as well as the people who understandably want a better life. Maybe they are fleeing poverty or violence. We all understand why people want to come to the United States, but we also believe the safest and fairest sort of immigration policy is legal immigration into our country.

We are the most generous country in the world. We have naturalized about a million people a year. It is one of our comparative advantages compared to the rest of the world that restricts migration. Over the last few months, like many of us, I have spent a lot of time listening and learning from the folks on the ground in Texas who know the ins and outs of this topic better than anybody else.

I have visited border communities and heard from Border Patrol officers, mayors, county judges, and nongovernmental organizations that try to help these migrants once they make their way to the United States, and whose experience precedes this current surge.

I visited five of the facilities in Texas that are helping take care of the record number of migrant children in Carrizo Springs, Donna, Houston, Midland, and Dallas. I have heard about the heartbreaking circumstances under which many of these children have arrived on our doorsteps. I have seen the incredible ways that our nongovernmental organizations, like Catholic Charities, are trying to ease the burden of this crisis, even after a year of supporting their communities through a global pandemic.

The reality of this situation is that we are quickly nearing a breaking point. We lack the facilities, the personnel, the resources, and the policies needed to manage this crisis. Law enforcement in border communities are being overwhelmed by the sharp increase in migration, and unless something changes, the entire system could collapse.

The light is flashing red, and the time for action is now. That is why today I am proud to introduce the bipartisan Border Solutions Act, along with Senator Sinema, to address this crisis.

It is no accident that both of us represent border States and that both of us have heard from our communities and stakeholders on the ground about how important it is for Congress to step up and provide some way to mitigate the current crisis.

On the House side, we have two of my friends in the Texas delegation--Congressmen Henry Cuellar, from Laredo, and Tony Gonzales, who represents one of the largest border districts in the country. So we truly have a bipartisan, bicameral piece of legislation.

Our knowledge of this crisis doesn't just come from the news or political talking points but, as I suggested, from real conversations with the real people who are dealing with this and have dealt with previous surges. We have heard from State and local leaders, law enforcement, NGOs, as I said, and a range of property owners whose property is being overrun by the coyotes and those who are involved in this illegal immigration process. So their input has been the driving force behind the bill, which includes, I believe, commonsense measures to address this crisis.

It is not, admittedly, a comprehensive immigration bill, but we need to put the fire out first and then build on our success, once we have passed that legislation, to do the other things that I think we can probably agree on, on a consensus basis, such as we discussed with the majority leader and others last evening

The Bipartisan Border Solutions Act is not about scoring political points. It is about solving a problem, and that problem is getting bigger every day. The most immediate problem is our inability to properly process the sheer number of people crossing our border.

Our Border Patrol and Health and Human Services, and the Office of Refugee Resettlement are simply overwhelmed. In March, we saw the highest number of border crossings on record: 172,000 individuals. That was a dramatic increase from the eye-popping numbers in February, which totaled 100,000.

As I said, we have seen these surges before but never a surge like this magnitude. Now, the busiest months for people to cross the border typically are April, May, and June but not February and not March. So we know that this is only going to get worse based on our historical experience.

If our facilities and people are already overwhelmed, imagine how the strain will intensify if we do nothing. We already know that, in processing these migrants, important steps are being skipped in an effort to expedite the process.

Normally, if someone comes across the border seeking asylum, for example, they will be processed and released with a notice to appear for a future court hearing. That document includes important information like when and where their first court date is set. In many cases, right now, it just isn't happening.

Many migrants are being released in the interior of the United States with incomplete paperwork, and they are not given any notice to appear for a future immigration court date. And, you know, if they don't show up in court, a

default order of deportation will be entered even if they have a meritorious claim for asylum. So it has real consequences.

But what else can our government officials and our local communities do? Unfortunately, they do not want us to continue releasing people to the interior without a court date or information on what is needed in order to assert your claim. And as I said, without appearing in court, a migrant with a valid asylum claim won't be able to receive the relief that U.S. law provides for them.

At one point, the situation was so bad, the Biden administration considered flying migrants to less busy locations on the northern border to be processed. So there is really no question we need to improve our capacity and our process to handle these migrants more thoroughly and efficiently.

Our bipartisan bill here in the Senate and in the House will establish four regional processing centers in high-traffic areas along the border to streamline the intake of migrants. One reason that is so important, just beyond capacity issues, is that the smugglers who smuggle people into the United States for a price--part of transnational criminal organizations--they make a lot of money doing this, and they are smart. They know if they flood the zone with unaccompanied children, that the Border Patrol will go offline in order to take care of those children, which we want those children taken care of. But what the smugglers know and what the transnational criminal organizations know is once those Border Patrol come off the frontline, they are going to exploit that loophole by running drugs into the United States or more migrants.

Last year alone--or the last 12 months alone, 88,000 Americans have died from drug overdoses. And 92 percent of the heroin that comes into the United States comes from Mexico, together with a lot of methamphetamine, fentanyl, cocaine, and you name it. So we are dealing with incredibly shrewd and crafty people who understand the border perhaps better than most of us do.

One of the worst parts of the current crisis is the tens of thousands of unaccompanied children who are making the dangerous trip from Central America or Mexico without their parents. Many of us have seen the heartbreaking video of a young boy, abandoned by smugglers in the Rio Grande Valley, and he was asking for directions because he was lost. Smugglers left him behind. I don't know why. Maybe he was injured or ill or slowing them down, but these smugglers don't care about this young boy or any other human being. All they care about is the money.

And we have also read the story about a young girl who drowned trying to cross the river. And who can forget the young girls, ages 3 and 5, who literally were dropped over the border wall by human smugglers?

The truth is, migrant children endure unimaginable abuse and trauma in the hands of these criminal organizations. We need to try better, and we need to do better to provide protections to these children and ensure that they will not continue to be traumatized or abused once they cross our borders.

For example, our bill also provides that children cannot be released into the custody of a relative or sponsor who could potentially inflict even more harm upon them. No sex offender, no child abuser, and no other dangerous criminal should be given the responsibility to care for one of these children.

We also need to remove some of the pull factors that encourage migrants to make this dangerous journey to our border in the first place. Many smugglers, known colloquially as coyotes, know our immigration laws better than most Americans, and they know how to exploit them, as I said.

There is no doubt our backlogged legal system is one of the pull factors for these migrants. One of the biggest selling points for the smugglers is the immigration court backlog, which is currently 1.3 million cases. On average, it takes 2\1/2\ years to get from the border to an immigration judge.

A person or family can come here illegally and present weak or virtually nonexistent asylum claims with an almost certain guarantee that they will be able to stay in the United States for years while their claims are being adjudicated. That needs to change. Our legislation takes a number of steps to reduce the wait times and eliminate the backlog as a draw for even more illegal immigration and ensure that meritorious claims are recognized in a timely manner.

The first part of this is, we need to hire more people. We need more immigration judges. We need more asylum officials. We need litigation teams and other staff who play a role in these legal proceedings. The only way to eliminate this backlog is to work through it, and this bill allows us to hire hundreds of people to do just that.

Our legislation includes another important change to remove this backlog as a pull factor. During surge events like we are experiencing now, the cases of those arriving will be prioritized. In other words, we will put them at the front of line, not the back of the line where we will never get to them. For those with legitimate asylum claims, that should be good news. About 10 or 12 percent of the people who show up on our front doormat have legitimate asylum claims that are upheld by immigration judges, and we should provide them a timely hearing in front of a judge so they can receive the benefit of U.S. law.

But this will also serve as a deterrent for those who know their asylum claims are weak. Why pay smugglers thousands of dollars to reach the United States if your case will quickly be heard and dismissed for lack of merit resulting in your return? That is one of the pull factors that we can establish and we can improve to deter people from wasting their hard-earned money with nonexistent or weak asylum claims.

And, finally, the bill will ensure that migrants are treated fairly and humanely so we can be confident that our asylum system is working as we intended. This legislation includes a large number of other commonsense measures to alleviate staffing shortages, improve coordination between Federal, State, and local officials, expand language translation and legal orientation services for migrants, and the list goes on.

Former Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost once described this surge in migration as like holding a bucket under the faucet. It doesn't matter how many buckets you have if you can't turn off the water. In the short term, we do need a bigger bucket. That includes facilities to process these migrants and personnel to adjudicate their asylum claims. But it won't matter how big that bucket is if we don't stop the flow or at least reduce it.

We need to eliminate the pull factors that encourage migrants who do not qualify under our law for asylum from even attempting the dangerous journey to our border in the first place. That is exactly why the Bipartisan Border Solutions Act is the answer or an answer to the crisis at hand.

This bill will deter illegal immigration without interfering with legitimate claims. It will ensure that migrants' claims are processed efficiently, without skipping important steps, and it will provide critical protections for children who come here alone.

The fact that we have a bill that is bipartisan and bicameral is a testament to the commonsense reforms included in this legislation, and I have been proud to work with Senator Sinema, Congressman Cuellar, and Congressman Gonzales on this bill, and we would invite our colleagues to look at the bill and join us in cosponsoring it on a bipartisan basis.

Now, one thing I can guarantee is this is not the end-all, be-all. This is not some silver bullet that is going to solve all of our problems, but what I think it will do is help restore public confidence that we are serious about enforcing our laws, while remaining generous in providing legal claims the benefit of a hearing and validation.

We are, in fact, the most generous Nation in the world when it comes to legal immigration--naturalizing, roughly, a million people a year. But the truth is, my State and all our States, those of us on this bill currently, have borne the brunt of this crisis because of the failures of the Federal Government to deal with them.

So we have developed a list of bipartisan cosponsors, and I hope the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and

the minority leader will commit to working with us to solve this crisis in a fair and humane way.

And the last thing I will say is, we are all ears if somebody has a better idea, but so far we haven't seen anybody step up and say: I have got an answer or at least a partial answer or response that has bipartisan and bicameral support.

So I hope our colleagues will take a look at this, will work with us, and if they have got a better idea, as I said, we are all ears

Mr. President, I rise today, along with my colleagues Senator Cardin, Senator Marshall, and Senator Shaheen, to introduce the Home Health Emergency Access to Telehealth (HEAT) Act. This bipartisan bill would help ensure that seniors who rely on home health care have the choice to receive these critical services through telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic and future public health emergencies.

COVID-19 is the greatest public health challenge since the flu pandemic of 1918 and has claimed the lives of more than 565,000 Americans. This public health emergency has underscored the need for older adults and other at-risk populations to have access to health care in the home setting. Home-based care is crucial to ensuring that this pandemic does not create devastating long-term health consequences due to delayed care. The highly skilled and compassionate care that home health agencies provide is an important component of this in-home care.

I have been a strong supporter of home care since my very first home visit, which took place in my hometown in Aroostook County early in my Senate service. This experience gave me the opportunity to meet and visit with home health patients, where I saw first-hand what a difference highly skilled and caring visiting nurses and other health care professionals make to the lives of patients and their families. I have been a passionate advocate for home care ever since.

Last year, my bipartisan home health legislation, the Home Health Care Planning Improvement Act, became law as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. This law, which I championed for 13 years, will improve the access Medicare beneficiaries have to home health care by allowing physician assistants, nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists, and certified nurse midwives to order home health services. Far too often seniors experience unnecessary delays in accessing home health care. To avoid these needless delays, it is common sense that other medical professionals who are familiar with a patient's case should be able to order these services.

Home health professionals have continued to provide face-to-face services during the COVID-19 public health emergency, but this crisis has created additional challenges, including the need to maintain an adequate supply of personal protective equipment to protect themselves, their patients, and their patients' families. The use of telehealth and virtual visits can help address these challenges. Unlike other Medicare providers, however, home health agencies are not eligible to receive Medicare reimbursement for telehealth services during the COVID-19 emergency.

Last May, I chaired Congress' first hearing examining COVID-19's devastating impact on seniors. During the hearing, Dr. Steven Landers, President and CEO of the Visiting Nurse Association Health Group, testified that, despite this lack of Medicare reimbursement, his organization has found telehealth to be an essential part of providing high quality home health care during the COVID-19 public health emergency. He urged action to ensure that home health providers can continue offering these critical services remotely.

Maine home health care providers have also shared their stories about how telehealth is helping them to continue caring for their patients during COVID-19. Through a combination of video visits and care calls, one provider has been able to care for a woman with severe heart and lung disease and keep this patient out of the hospital. The nurse would speak with the woman by phone a couple of times per week to assess any symptoms that needed follow up. If the nurse identified an issue during the call, she would schedule a video visit and also work with the patient's physician to modify medications as needed.

The bill we are introducing today would authorize Medicare reimbursement for home health services provided through telehealth during an emergency period. The services would not be reimbursed unless the beneficiary consents to receiving the services via telehealth. To ensure that the Medicare home health benefit does not become a telehealth-only benefit, Medicare reimbursement would only be provided if the telehealth services constitute no more than half of the billable visits made during the 30-day payment period. The Secretary of Health and Human Services would be required to issue guidance on the authorization of and payment for home health services provided via telehealth.

Home health serves a vital role in helping our Nation's seniors avoid more costly hospital visits and nursing home stays. The COVID-19 emergencyhas further underscored the critical importance of home health services and highlighted how these agencies are able to use telehealth to provide skilled care to their patients. The Home Health Emergency Access to Telehealth (HEAT) Act would ensure that seniors in Maine and across the country retain access to remote home health services during the COVID-19 emergency and future public health emergencies.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, today is Earth Day, and there are many issues, environmental challenges, that each of us could be discussing here on the Senate floor.

I have chosen to speak on a bill that I am introducing today that is called the Comprehensive National Mercury Monitoring Act. I am pleased to be partnering, once again, with my colleague from Delaware, Senator Carper, who serves as the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Our bipartisan bill would help ensure that we have accurate information about the extent of mercury pollution in our country.

Mercury is a potent neurotoxin. It poses significant ecological and public health concerns, especially for children and pregnant women. Mercury exposure has gone down as U.S. mercury emissions have declined. However, the levels remain unacceptably high.

It is estimated that nearly 200,000 children born in the United States have been exposed to levels of mercury in the womb that are high enough to impair their neurological development. This exposure can impose a lifelong disability.

In addition, the societal costs of neurocognitive deficits associated with mercury exposure are estimated to be approximately $4.8 billion per year.

In Maine, some of our lands and bodies of water face higher mercury pollution compared to the national average. Maine has been called the tailpipe of the Nation, as the winds carrying pollution, including mercury, from the West drift into the State of Maine

A system for collecting information, such as we have for acid rain and other forms of pollution, does not currently exist for mercury, which, ironically, is a more toxic pollutant. A comprehensive mercury monitoring network is needed to protect human health, safeguard our fisheries, and track the effect of emission reductions. This monitoring network would also help policymakers, scientists, and the public better understand the sources, consequences, and trends of mercury pollution in our country.

Specifically, our legislation would do the following:

First, it would direct the EPA, in conjunction with the Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Park Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other Federal Agencies, to

establish a national mercury monitoring program to measure and monitor mercury levels in the air and watersheds, water and soil chemistry, and in marine, freshwater, and terrestrial organisms at multiple sites across the Nation.

I am joined by Senator Van Hollen in reintroducing the Consumer Credit Control Act, which gives consumers greater control over when and how their consumer reports are shared by consumer reporting agencies.

Our current consumer reporting system is backwards. Consumer reporting agencies collect massive amounts of personal information on consumers, often without their knowledge, in order to compile consumer reports. These reports are then shared with financial institutions and others, often without consent.

Following Equifax's failure in 2017 to secure troves of valuable personally identifiable information it collected on approximately 147 million Americans, it remains clear that this system needs to change. Indeed, the National Consumer Law Center's Chi Chi Wu stated in her October 2017 testimony before the House Financial Services Committee that the Equifax breach ``means half of the US population and nearly three-quarters of the consumers with active credit reports are now at risk of identity theft due to one of the worst--if not the worst-- breaches of consumer data in American history. These Americans are at risk of having false new credit accounts, phony tax returns, and even spurious medical bills incurred in their good names.'' To make matters worse, the risks of identity fraud may only increase with time. As Ed Mierzwinski, U.S. PIRG's federal Consumer Program Director, explains ``unlike credit card numbers, your Social Security Number and Date of Birth don't change and may even grow more

valuable over time, like gold in a bank vault. Much worse, they are the keys to `new account identity theft.' ''

The Consumer Credit Control Act aims to address these concerns and fix the current upside down system. Our legislation, at no cost to the consumer, seeks to give Americans greater control over when and how their consumer reports are released when applying for new credit, a loan, or insurance. It also requires consumer reporting agencies to verify a consumer's identity and secure the consumer's permission before releasing consumer reports in instances that are particularly susceptible to identity theft and fraud. Additionally, our legislation requires every consumer reporting agency to take appropriate steps to prevent unauthorized access to the consumer reports and personal information they maintain. These changes are intended to make it tougher for criminals to open new fraudulent credit or insurance accounts in other people's names.

I urge our colleagues to cosponsor the Consumer Credit Control Act, and I thank Senator Van Hollen, the National Consumer Law Center (on behalf of its low-income clients), U.S. PIRG, Americans for Financial Reform, the Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Action, the Consumer Federation of America, Consumer Reports, Demos, the NAACP, the National Association of Consumer Advocates, the National Fair Housing Alliance, Public Citizen, Tennessee Citizen Action, and the Woodstock Institute for their support.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.