Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the biennial report from the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights be printed in the Record

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 76, submitted earlier today.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to; that the preamble be agreed to; and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 77, submitted earlier today.

I know of no further debate on the resolution.

I ask unanimous consent that the preamble be agreed to and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 3 p.m., Monday, March 1; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; further, that following the administration of the oath to swear in Sonceria Ann Berry as Secretary of the Senate and any leader remarks, morning business be closed, and the Senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the Cardona nomination; that at 5:30 p.m. the postcloture time on the nomination be considered expired and the Senate vote on confirmation of the nomination; finally, that if the nomination is confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate and the President be notified of the Senate's action.

Senators should be prepared for two rollcall votes at 5:30 p.m. on Monday. Those votes will be on confirmation of Miguel Cardona to be Secretary of Education, followed by a cloture vote on Gina Raimondo to be Secretary of Commerce.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 853.

Mr. President, the coronavirus pandemic has devastated economies and industries at every single State across the country. In Nevada, our hospitality travel and tourism sectors have been especially hard-hit.

These businesses are economic engines for our communities, employing hundreds of thousands of workers and pumping billions of dollars into our economy each year, but they are facing incredible challenges right now due to COVID.

This amendment ensures that the Senate will prioritize support for the hospitality industry and its workers as it crafts legislation to provide coronavirus relief and recovery to communities across the United States.

Almost half of all job losses since the pandemic began have been in the travel, leisure, and hospitality industries, and the situation gets more dire every day we don't act.

Communities across this country have suffered as nearly $500 billion in travel spending and an estimated $64 billion in Federal, State, and local revenues have evaporated. Our communities cannot afford to see these industries decimated.

That is why I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan amendment to expand support for our struggling hospitality industry and provide relief for the workers in the industries hardest hit by this pandemic.

Madam President, I rise to join my good colleague, the chair of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, the Senator from Hawaii, and I couldn't agree more with him in my support of the budget resolution that is coming before the committee in the Senate this week.

In Nevada and across the country, our Tribes are hurting. They are trying to do too much with far, far too little. Some of them are still under lockdown,

desperate to protect elders--often the gatekeepers of rich Native languages and cultures--from the impact of the virus that they see is devastating their communities, and many are struggling to keep business doors open. All of them are stretched too thin. Sadly, this isn't new. Tribes were suffering from unstable funding streams and budget shortfalls even before the coronavirus pandemic affected their economies. Now on shoestring budgets--with staffing levels that were insufficient even before the pandemic hit--they are trying to address the myriad urgent needs of their communities.

That means administering COVID-19 testing and getting vaccines into arms, all while providing a whole range of other critical healthcare services like behavioral healthcare and primary care. It also means administering affordable housing programs, supporting Tribal businesses, and ensuring the safety of the students and teachers in Native communities. The needs are immense.

Coronavirus relief for Nevada and the Nation's Tribes has to address the disparities that have made Natives up to 3.5 times more likely to contract COVID-19, and it has to make sure Tribes can build back economically after the pandemic ends. To do this, we have to start by replenishing the Coronavirus Relief Fund, the Education Stabilization Fund, and the Homeowner Assistance Fund, all of which have been providing valuable lifelines to Native communities impacted by COVID- 19.

The Federal Government absolutely has to do more to support these efforts and uphold the Federal trust responsibility. It can help Tribes navigate the Federal bureaucracy and ensure that funds allocated to Tribal priorities actually get into the hands of those who need them.

Congress also needs to make sure that we are meeting our treaty obligations to provide healthcare for American Indians and Alaska Natives even when they live in urban areas rather than on Tribal lands. We can start by passing the Urban Indian Health Parity Act to shore up Medicaid funding for urban Indian healthcare facilities and put them on a level playing field with Indian Health Services run by the Federal Government or Tribes on reservations.

Looking forward, we also must do more to permanently and robustly fund the Indian Health Service. This pandemic has only shown the risks of underinvesting in public health in Native communities, and we have to make sure that the IHS is able to prepare for emergencies, like this one, far better in the future. Leaving American Indian and Alaska Native communities without sustainable funding streams for the health services that they were guaranteed by this government is a violation of our treaty obligations, plain and simple.

I support every resource we can get for Nevada's hard-hit Native communities and our communities across the country, and that is why I urge my colleagues to support this budget resolution that will help these hardest hit communities.

I yield the floor to my new colleague from the great State of New Mexico.

Mr. Vice President, I know that this room is full of leaders of both parties who love this country, and many believe that for America to succeed, our politics must find common ground. That has never been clearer than today, when armed rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, emboldened by President Trump's false and inflammatory rhetoric about the 2020 elections.

I believe that we, in this Chamber, have a special duty as leaders to work together to lower the temperature of our politics, and I hope that my colleagues, who have questioned the legitimacy of this election in Arizona and all of these other States, now see the dire and dangerous consequences of sowing doubt and uncertainty.

I also know that, as U.S. Senators, we all take solemnly the oath we swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. At this moment in history, I can think of nothing more patriotic than renewing our faith in the Charters of Freedom that our Founding Fathers crafted for our Republic, starting with the fundamental American principle in our Declaration of Independence that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

The people have spoken in this election, and our only job here today is to do what they ask. It is not to argue election security. That is not the place for what we are doing today.

Our Constitution specifically reserves to the people the right to meet in their respective States and vote for the President and Vice President. As a result, individual States oversee and implement the election process, not the Federal Government.

To guard against fraud or irregularities in the voting process, the States are required to have robust election security measures. Likewise, State legislatures have the opportunity to examine evidence of voter fraud before they certify their electoral college votes. And our courts--from district courts to the United States Supreme Court-- adjudicate legal challenges and election disputes. All of those things happened after the 2020 election.

Statehouses and courts across the country took allegations of voter fraud seriously and followed the constitutional process to hear challenges to this year's election. No State found evidence of any widespread voter fraud and neither did any court ask to review the State's findings.

In Arizona, Republican Governor Doug Ducey; the Democratic secretary of state, Katie Hobbs; the Republican attorney general, Mark Brnovich; and the State supreme court chief justice, Robert Brutinel all certified the results of the election on November 30.

And we know--we have heard--Arizonans have been voting by mail for almost 30 years, and Governor Ducey has expressed confidence in the State's process numerous times. In November, he said:

We do elections well here in Arizona. The system is strong,

and that is why I have bragged on it so much.

He further stated:

We have some of the strongest election laws in the country,

laws that prioritize accountability and clearly lay out our

procedures for conducting, canvassing and even contesting the

results.

And they are right. Arizona has one of the most transparent election processes in the country with built-in accountability, starting with the internal auditing.

We have heard unfounded allegations that voting machines in Arizona and elsewhere somehow changed vote tallies or somehow improperly rejected ballots while claiming to accept them. These allegations all ignore the fact that Arizona counties conducted ballot audits by hand to double-check the machine counts, and these audits found no widespread fraud or irregularities.

Maricopa County, the county where more than 60 percent of the State's population resides, conducted a postelection hand count audit in the week after the election, which showed perfect, 100 percent, accuracy in the machine tabulations. So why would we need, my colleagues, to call for a 10-day emergency audit to be conducted by a legislative commission when it has already been done by the State of Arizona? What happened to State's rights?

The audit involved checking ballots for the Presidential election but also ballots for Federal and State legislative elections. The audit report shows every precinct's machine and hand count totals for each of the races audited, and for every single race in every precinct, the difference between the hand count and the machine count was zero. Maricopa's audit report stated: No discrepancies were found by the hand count audit boards.

Seeking to find any reason to contest these results, some of the State Republicans then tried to claim that Maricopa County failed to follow State law in conducting this audit by selecting voting center locations to audit instead of voting precincts. This was

wrong. And this, too, went to a court. In rejecting this claim, the State court in Arizona found that the county followed the properly issued guidance on hand audit procedures from the Arizona Secretary of State. And the court found that Maricopa County officials, therefore, could not lawfully have performed the hand count audit the way the plaintiffs wanted it done. If they had done so, they would have exposed themselves to criminal punishment

Thank you, Mr. Vice President. I would close by just saying, please, my colleagues, do not disenfranchise the voters of Arizona and certify their votes tonight.

Thank you.

Madam President, today I honor the memory of a distinguished Nevadan: retired Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Captain Larry Burns. For decades, Captain Burns served his community with distinction, earning the respect of Nevadans from all walks of life.

Captain Burns was raised in Maine and went on to attend Brigham Young University in Utah. It was in college that he met his wife Elizabeth Annie Burns. After college, he served a 2-year mission in Ecuador for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This began his life's calling to serve others. In 1980, he moved to Las Vegas and worked in construction before becoming a police officer.

Captain Burns' remarkable career included 27 years as a police officer, where he put his life on the line for Las Vegas. He became the longest serving SWAT commander in metro history, a criminal intelligence section supervisor and a nationally recognized tactical instructor. He also served as captain of the Bolden Area Command. Captain Burns was revered by his colleagues for his extraordinary work ethic, intellect, and devotion to community.

Throughout his career, Captain Burns worked hard to build meaningful relationships with Las Vegans and develop positive ties between community members and law enforcement officers. In his spare time, he could often be found speaking to children at his church about life as a police officer and the proud work of serving our community. He was also committed to the idea that people can change and dedicated himself to helping those working to turn their lives around. He always offered everything he had to support the men and women of law enforcement in making our community a safer place to live and selflessly upheld his promise to protect Nevada's families like he protected his own. From his work to rehabilitate the communities he helped protect to his fierce commitment to the department, Captain Burns was a man with unwavering integrity.

Captain Burns lived a life of many accomplishments, but I have no doubt that he will be remembered most for his commitment to family and lasting contributions to others. He adored his wife Annie and was most proud of their life together and their seven wonderful children, two grandchildren, and their extended family and friends. I know his family will continue his rich legacy of service to others.

All who had the pleasure of knowing Captain Burns will remember him as a dedicated public servant who bravely and tirelessly worked to support our community. Nevada is a safer place because of his commitment. We are very grateful for all of Captain Burns' contributions, and he will be deeply missed.

Madam President, I want to talk today about Kyle Bailey from Sparks, NV. Kyle is 27 years old, and he is an amazing success story. He was born with cystic fibrosis, a genetic condition that affects the lungs and digestive system, making it hard to breathe normally or absorb nutrients.

Cystic fibrosis has no cure, so patients like Kyle spend hours every day on treatments to keep themselves as healthy as possible. With good medical care and lifesaving medications, he has been able to live a full life, creating music and artwork. He is engaged to be married.

Yet Kyle lives in fear. He is afraid he will lose his health insurance and coverage for treatments that keep him alive. That could happen if the Republican Party succeeds in its latest attempt to use the courts to attack the Affordable Care Act and to end its protections for preexisting conditions.

Just today, a Federal appeals court has heard more arguments about whether the ACA is constitutional. On one side are patients like Kyle; on the other side are the Trump administration and 18 Republican State attorneys general, who all want the court to strike down the Affordable Care Act.

We have seen it before. The Republicans have tried to defeat the ACA in Congress and in the courts over 100 times, and each time they have failed because the American people have raised their voices and said: Stop. We want our healthcare coverage.

But just because the ACA survived those attacks doesn't mean it is safe. It is especially scary for those who gained coverage and peace of mind thanks to the Affordable Care Act's strong safeguards for patients.

One of the most important parts of the ACA is its guaranteed protections for people with preexisting conditions. Insurers used to be able to discriminate against people because of their medical history. They would weed out people who were born with genetic conditions, like Kyle, or people who had gotten seriously ill, like Ivy Batmale from Incline Village. At 5 years old, Ivy was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, one of the most common childhood cancers. Ivy beat leukemia, but the years of harsh therapy triggered a reaction that affected her legs. Ivy was told that she would never walk again. She spent years in wheelchairs undergoing surgery and other treatments.

With costly therapies, Ivy got better. This spring, she and her family marched into breakfast with me right here on Capitol Hill to advocate for childhood cancer research. But Ivy, like other childhood cancer survivors, has had lingering health conditions over the course of her life and will need careful monitoring until she is 40 years old. That is why if Republicans give insurance companies the choice, insurers will either refuse to cover people like Ivy and Kyle or they will charge sky-high rates. The ACA keeps the insurance companies from doing that. If judges strike down the ACA, people like Ivy and Kyle will be endangered through absolutely no fault of their own.

Some people may hear stories about Kyle and Ivy and think, well, that is very sad, but it can't affect that many people. That is wrong. In Nevada alone, in 2015, 1.2 million people under 65 had preexisting conditions. That is half of the nonelderly residents of the State.

A preexisting condition could be as rare as childhood cancer or as common as pregnancy. That means every other Nevadan can face increased insurance rates if the ACA is struck down.

I have met families at roundtables across the Silver State whose kids are some of the 44,000 Nevada children with asthma. Just last week in Las Vegas, I talked to 12-year-old Joey Douglas. Joey's asthma often keeps him from school and sometimes lands him in the hospital for days. He told me that even when he is struggling to breathe, his biggest concern is whether his mom will be able to pay his medical bills. These kinds of worries are the reason that when Kyle wrote to me, he asked me to speak out for people who don't have a voice in healthcare policy in this country--people who are afraid that losing the ACA could mean losing protections that have allowed them to grow up, start a family, follow their passions, and live their lives to the fullest.

Today and every day I am here to fight for people like Kyle and Ivy and countless Nevadans like them. I have repeatedly urged the President and Department of Justice to come down on the side of patients in the Texas case. I have cosponsored legislation to get rid of junk healthcare plans that let insurance companies make an end run around ACA protections for people with preexisting conditions, and I am committed to protecting and strengthening the ACA for all Americans but especially for people like Kyle, Ivy, and Joey.

So I am calling on this President and Republicans in Congress to do what we can to make sure that the Affordable Care Act is not repealed and that we are fighting for healthcare insurance for everyone.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I come forward today to recognize the 100th anniversary of one of northern Nevada's most treasured traditions, the Reno Rodeo. A celebration of Western culture and daring, the rodeo has grown into a Nevada institution that draws visitors from across the country. Over the past 100 years, Northern Nevada has seen a constant state of change and evolution. Yet, throughout that time, the Reno Rodeo has been a reliable and steady source of entertainment and community.

In 1919, the Commercial Club of Reno devised the first iteration of the Reno Rodeo, then the Nevada Round-Up, in order to celebrate the end of World War I. Cowboys such as Hippy Burmister and Curly Howe won events in the 1919 rodeo. The most notable winner of the first Reno Rodeo was Jesse Stahl, one of the first African-American professional bronc riders. Stahl was known for his ability to ride bucking horses while sitting backwards and ``winning first but placing third'' due to the color of his skin. Stahl went on to win four events over the first 3 years of the Reno Rodeo.

Despite only 6 weeks of event planning, the inaugural rodeo was a wildly popular event, and there was immediate interest in establishing the rodeo as an annual celebration. Nearly 17,000 people attended the following year, and the rodeo proved it was not a fleeting success. In 1922, rodeo organizers plotted a publicity strategy around sending reigning rodeo queen, Mary Harrington, to invite President Warren G. Harding to the event. President Harding declined the invitation. To make matters worse, the campaign led to the organization's bankruptcy and a 10-year hiatus of the rodeo. In 1932, Charles Sadleir, now frequently referred to as the Father of the Reno Rodeo, led an effort to revive the event. To stabilize the rodeo's finances, Sadleir recruited local businesses to help underwrite the events' expenses, which is still a crucial mechanism today.

Fortunately, Sadleir's revitalization efforts were successful, and the Reno Rodeo has withstood economic downturns, event growing pains, and a fire to the venue. Today, the Reno Rodeo is a Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association-sanctioned competition, billed as the ``Wildest, Richest Rodeo in the West!'' Each year, the rodeo generates roughly $42 million for the region and draws over 14,000 fans. Through its charitable foundation, the rodeo has provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in academic scholarships to Nevada students and grants to non- profit organizations. In 2008, the foundation built a horseback riding facility for children with special, physical, or mental needs, and later built an activities center for abused, neglected, and at-risk children under the care of Washoe County.

One hundred years after the first event, Northern Nevada's support and appreciation for the Reno Rodeo has never been stronger. Nevadans are immensely proud of this homegrown tradition and excited to see its evolution over the next 100 years. Thank you to everyone who has been involved with the Reno Rodeo and allowed it to thrive today.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Virginia for his eloquence and passion on this issue.

I have never talked to him about this, but there is one thing we had in common across the country when I was the attorney general for the State of Nevada and when he was the Governor of Virginia. It was the Virginia Tech shooting.

As the attorney general, after that horrific, horrific shooting, I wanted to

make sure that we were passing commonsense laws so that nothing like that could ever happen again. So, in the State of Nevada, when I was the attorney general, I introduced legislation to ensure that when our courts would adjudicate an individual who was mentally ill, the information would get to our law enforcement by way of a background check. We passed that legislation. Yet I am here to tell you that more needs to be done.

I agree with my colleague in that I would have hoped that the Virginia Tech shooting would have been the last that we would have ever seen in this country, but it was not. Almost 2 years ago, hundreds of people were wounded, and 58 were killed in my hometown of Las Vegas at the Route 91 Harvest music festival. It remains the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. It is not something for which we would have ever imagined citing a statistic in the State of Nevada nor could anyone ever want that.

Two weeks after that shooting, I delivered my first official address on this Senate floor. My maiden speech, I called it. I called for action to prevent the next mass shooting. Among other things, I asked for universal background checks on firearms.

Americans support these virtually unanimously, and you have heard the statistics from my colleagues on the floor today--that 97 percent of them want sellers to look closely at who exactly is trying to buy a gun. Yet the Background Check Expansion Act, which is supposed to close loopholes on background checks, hasn't received a vote in this Chamber. Not only has it not received a vote, but we can't even debate it. We can't even come to the floor and debate the issues about which we know Americans across the country want us to do something. Not only have we not had a vote on the Background Check Expansion Act, but neither have we had a vote on dozens of other vital pieces of legislation that would make us safer.

I have sat here for the last 2 years and watched as the Republican leadership has been perfectly happy to have stopped the Senate from voting on these laws. In fact, I have heard, unfortunately, Senator Mitch McConnell jokingly call himself the Grim Reaper, whose job it is to bury legislation. That is why we have this legislative graveyard. I will tell you that the American people don't think that it is funny. The mothers and fathers of children who have died as a result of gun violence aren't laughing, and neither is my hometown of Las Vegas--a community that is still healing from the pain of that night. It does not have to be this way.

In the State of Nevada, we have closed the loophole that lets private sellers skip background checks before they hand over a gun. I am so proud of my State. Voters in Nevada approved this commonsense reform in 2016 for universal background checks. Thanks to our newly elected Governor Sisolak, Attorney General Aaron Ford, and other fierce leaders in the Nevada State Legislature, as well as the incredible people in the State of Nevada, we have finally made it law. This is just basic common sense. It is supported by Americans throughout the political spectrum and households with and without guns.

Listen, I support the Second Amendment. We own guns in my family. My husband is former Federal law enforcement. I come from a family of sportsmen. Throughout Nevada, we have friends who are sportsmen. But I will tell you, those Nevadans who are gun owners and almost every American agree we need to keep guns out of the hands of terrorists, violent criminals, domestic abusers, and others who may pose a threat to themselves or their communities. Nevada, with a strong western history of self-reliance and a culture of safe, responsible gun ownership, has done this.

It is long past time for the Senate to do what the House has done and what the American people demand and pass commonsense gun reform. The Senate majority leader must stop putting a roadblock in the way and let us act. At the very least, let us have a debate and move this issue forward--a debate the American people want us to address and an issue they want us to find a solution for.

Listen, we can't take back what happened that day in Las Vegas or Orlando or Sandy Hook or Charleston or so many cities and towns all across this Nation that are scarred by mass shootings and daily gun violence. We can't heal the pain of those whose friends and family members were killed. We can't erase the trauma so many survivors continue to endure. But we can save lives in the future, and isn't one life saved worth it? Isn't one life saved worth it?

So I ask all of my colleagues, let's stop the delays and denials and excuses, and let's pass this bill. Let's bring back to the floor of the Senate the time for debate on important policy issues that address the problems we see in this country. At the very least, let's save a life.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I would like to congratulate Bob Coffin on his distinguished career and commend his 37 years of dedicated service to Nevada.

Bob Coffin was first elected to the Nevada Assembly in 1982, where he served for two terms. He was then elected to the Nevada State Senate, where he served until 2010. After leaving the State Senate, Coffin continued his career as a public servant, and since 2011, he has worked to represent the city of Las Vegas Ward 3 as councilman, a position he will retire from this June.

Councilman Coffin has deep roots in downtown Las Vegas, having been a resident in and around Ward 3 for more than 60 years. He has raised his family less than a mile from his childhood home.

Growing up in Las Vegas, Councilman Coffin developed a passion for two things--his Mexican-American heritage and the sport of golf. His family emigrated to Southern California from Mexico, and he saw firsthand the discrimination his mother faced as a young woman. The councilman has spent much of his career fighting this type of injustice. He has traveled to Central America to help children and families and has been an active member in the Latin Chamber of Commerce.

As a young man, Councilman Coffin attended Bishop Gorman High School and the University of Nevada Las Vegas, where he earned an accounting degree. While concentrating on his studies, he also continued to focus on his favorite pastime, golf, and was named the Nevada Amateur Golf Champion at the age of 27. He went on to serve his country in the U.S. Army and today owns a successful insurance business.

Councilman Coffin has been repeatedly recognized for his community service, receiving dozens of awards during his career. Most recently, he was named Person of the Year by the Southern Nevada Chapter of the Professional Golfers Association and received the Charles Dick Medal of Honor Award from the U.S. National Guard. He has twice been honored by the Latin Chamber of Commerce, receiving the Hispanic Citizen Award and the Public Service Award.

As a councilman for the city of Las Vegas Ward 3, Bob Coffin prioritized keeping our communities safe revitalizing older neighborhoods by building new parks and fostering economic opportunity and development in our great city.

Today, Bob Coffin continues his commitment to the public by serving on a number of boards and commissions, including the Board of the Las Vegas Golf Hall of Fame, Chief Local Elected Officials Consortium, Commission for the Las Vegas Centennial, Debt Management Commission, Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition, and the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

Bob Coffin has left his mark on Nevada and his community and has impacted countless Nevadans through his public service and community engagement. I am grateful for all of the work he has done for our State and congratulate him on a well-deserved retirement.

Mr. President, let me just say, on behalf of the State of Nevada, that I am so appreciative that I get to work with my colleagues from Wisconsin and Oregon. I thank them for their commitment because this is the No. 1 issue in the State of Nevada.

I say to Senator Baldwin: What you are doing is really standing up for people and their right to have access to affordable healthcare in this country when they need it, access to medication when they need it, and the comfort in knowing that if they purchase a plan, if something, God forbid, should happen to them, then, they will have access to that medication and those doctors when they need it. Thank you for your hard work.

I stand today because I want to tell you about one of these people in the State of Nevada. Her name is Carol Elewski. She is from Reno, NV. Carol has chronic asthma. She manages it with medications that cost up to $400 a month--$400 a month.

In October of 2016, Carol had such a bad asthma attack that she was admitted to the hospital for 10 days as doctors struggled to get her breathing under control. Thankfully, today Carol's health is stable, but because of her preexisting condition and high prescription drug costs, she depends on the protections of the Affordable Care Act to keep her healthcare costs in check.

This administration, as we have heard today from my colleagues, keeps chipping away at those protections. Literally, we have heard from the President that he is proud of sabotaging the Affordable Care Act. He has weakened the ACA by expanding access to these junk plans. These short-term, limited-duration plans don't cover essential services, like prescription drugs, emergency rooms visits, and maternity care.

Today, I am joining my colleagues to, once again, urge that we do away with these scam insurance policies. These plans appeal to consumers because they are low cost, but they are also low benefit, as we have heard. Many people who purchase them don't realize just how limited the coverage is. All those details are in the fine print of the policies in dense legal jargon, and it is nearly impossible to understand. I am an attorney, and I will tell you that even attorneys have difficulty understanding that dense legal jargon in some of these policies. Consumers don't know that the plans they are signing up for-- because of the dense legal jargon and because they are not given specifics, and there is not enough transparency--don't even cover their preexisting conditions. Consumers may not realize that their coverage has annual or lifetime spending caps.

Take Carol, for instance. Let's say she had signed up for a junk plan instead of an ACA-compliant plan--an easy mistake to make, since companies hide the differences between the two. With the junk plan, Carol's insurance could have refused to cover her healthcare costs because of her asthma. They could have denied payment for the emergency treatment she needed when she literally could not breathe, and they could have declined coverage for the essential medications she needs to keep the asthma in check.

Under these junk plans, women who get pregnant don't get coverage for prenatal care or for delivering their babies. People with lifelong genetic conditions, like cystic fibrosis, can be denied coverage, as can those facing mental health issues.

What is more, even if you don't buy a junk healthcare plan, these plans' very existence drives up our healthcare costs in this country. That is because younger, healthier people are more likely to risk choosing a limited junk plan because those plans are cheaper. That leaves the rest of the population, including many women and children, in a much more expensive insurance pool.

Estimates say that junk plans could cost a family of four with an ACA plan over $3,000 in increased insurance premiums every year. The No Junk Plans Act that Senator Baldwin has introduced undoes the administration's order that allowed insurance companies to offer consumers up to 3 years of deceptive, skimpy coverage.

Under the No Junk Plans Act, customers can only use these short-term plans for 90 days. The plans would work the way they were intended--as a bridge between coverage at one job and the next.

I hear this all the time in Nevada. Americans have told us time and again what they want their healthcare to do: to cover preexisting conditions, keep down prescription drug costs, include women's health, cover mental health, and pay for emergency rooms visits.

I am going to continue to fight for what the American people want, and that is the comprehensive coverage of the Affordable Care Act.

We cannot let the administration succeed in doing an end-run around the ACA. The House has already passed legislation to do away with these flimsy and deceptive junk plans. Now it is time for the Senate to step up and do the same.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I rise to recognize a true Nevada public servant, State Senator Joyce Woodhouse. For over 50 years, Senator Woodhouse has been an education champion who has dedicated her life to ensuring that every child in Nevada has an opportunity to succeed. Senator Woodhouse will complete her final session of the Nevada Legislature on June 3, 2019, and her last term as senator at the end of next year.

Senator Joyce Woodhouse came to Las Vegas in 1966 for her first teaching position after graduating from Carroll College in her home State of Montana. She has dedicated her life and career to serving the children of Nevada since then. She was an elementary school teacher and principal at JM Ullom Elementary School before joining and eventually leading the Clark County School District's School Community Partnership Program. During her tenure, she sought to bring local businesses together in strategic partnerships to support Nevada's schools.

Senator Woodhouse was first elected to the Nevada Legislature in 2006. She has served the State in that capacity for nearly 12 years. She has led critical deliberations regarding the funding needs of the State as past chair of the Senate Education Committee and as current chair of the Senate Finance Committee. Her experience as a teacher and school administrator has given her a deep understanding of the needs of students, teachers, and parents, and that connection has inspired her throughout her career in public service.

Senator Woodhouse has been a fierce advocate for hard-working Nevadans in the State Senate. She helped broker compromises to secure as many resources as possible on behalf of students. She has fought for the health and well-being of our senior citizens, as well as the dignity and respect of our working families. Most recently, she was the lead advocate for ensuring all Nevadans have access to paid leave.

In addition to her commitment to our students, our schools, and all Nevadans as State senator, Senator Woodhouse has been a dedicated volunteer in our community. Before serving as a public servant, she was a vocal advocate for educators and the children

they teach as president of the Nevada State Education Association. She continued to lend her voice in many roles throughout the years, including treasurer and board member for Kids Voting Southern Nevada, and cochair of the Southern Nevada Science Education Consortium. While Senator Woodhouse closes this chapter of her career in public service, I have no doubt that she will continue to serve the people of Nevada for years to come.

I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing and thanking Senator Woodhouse's lifelong commitment to public education.

Thank you, Senator Woodhouse, for all that you have done for our children, our schools, and the future of the great State of Nevada.