Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise today, as I have risen so many times, basically for all of us to understand that we have the greatest country on Earth, a superpower of the world.

If you want to know the backbone of the United States of America, look up in the stands. These are the United Mine Workers of America, who made us the country we are today. They gave us the life we have and our freedom, and for people not to understand that makes no sense to me at all.

All I am asking is for my colleagues to understand that the miners protection simply is this: Keep your promise, the promise that we made basically to all the miners who have given their lives. They have given everything they have--their blood, sweat, and tears basically for us to have energy for this country of ours. Now all they are asking is: Can't we at least keep our healthcare? Can't we at least keep our pensions? We have worked for that. We have negotiated for that. Every contract they negotiated basically was a give-and-take proposition so that they would be able to continue to have this after they retire.

For a lot of our colleagues and comrades who have passed away, the widows and families they leave behind are still dependent on this healthcare.

We have been fighting for this. On April 28, we are going to lose it again--April 28. I know the way things work around here. Someone will come down and say: Well, we have negotiated a little extension.

I want to make sure everyone is on notice: We will use every vehicle we can, absolutely every pathway that we can to make sure we will not leave here until we have our miners protected. Our miners will be protected with their healthcare and their pensions.

All 48 Democrats are united. Many of our colleagues on the Republican side have joined us or are willing to join us. All we are asking for is that vote.

I want to make it very clear: We will do anything and everything that we must. We have been very patient, but I am not going to have another notice sent out to our retired miners, to their families, to their widows saying: Well, we have given you another 90-day or 120-day extension. That is not going to happen this time. That is my commitment to them and their families. That is my commitment, basically, to the people who have depended on them.

Really, each and every one of us in this great country of ours should say thank you to them for the job that they have done.

We will fight this and we will continue to fight this onslaught, and I can't figure out why.

In October, 16,300 of our Nation's coal miners and their families were told that they would lose their healthcare on December 31. Then we extended it.

Can you imagine an elderly person receiving a notice the first of February, the end of January that says: Guess what, in 90 days, you are going to lose it again because we gave an extension until April of this year.

I can't understand it at all. I don't know how anybody could be that inhumane.

The cosponsors are working with us. We have held firm. The White House knows that we are serious about this. The President himself has given me his verbal support. I need him now to either tweet or call Senator Mitch McConnell, our majority leader, and tell him it is time to act. It is time for Mr. McConnell, the Senator from Kentucky, our friend from my neighboring State, to act. That is all we are saying.

President Trump, if you are listening to me, if you are watching, please tweet out: Mitch, help us. We need you.

Recognition of the Minority Leader

Mr. President, we have come to a crisis in our country. My State of West Virginia has the highest drug overdose death rate in the Nation. West Virginia reported 818 overdose deaths last year--four times the number that occurred in 2001 and a nearly 13-percent increase over 2015. We lost more than 700 West Virginians who died from an opioid overdose last year. Some 42,000 people in West Virginia, including 4,000 youth, sought treatment for illegal drug use but failed to receive it because of a lack of treatment centers, which we have been trying to correct. In West Virginia, drug overdose deaths have soared by more than 700 percent since 1999.

West Virginia had the highest rate of prescription drug overdose deaths of any State last year--31 per 100,000 people. In West Virginia, providers wrote 138 painkiller prescriptions for every 100 people. Think about this. Doctors are prescribing and manufacturers are producing. They have written 138 painkiller prescriptions for every 100 people in my State--the highest rate in the country. I hope Arkansas is not facing the same dilemma we are.

Every day in our country, 91 Americans die from an opioid overdose. Opioids now kill more people than car accidents. In 2015, the number of heroin deaths nationwide surpassed the number of deaths from gun homicides. Since 1999, we have lost almost 200,000 Americans to prescription drug opioid abuse.

Mr. President, 2.1 million Americans abuse or are dependent on opioids. According to the CDC, three out of four new heroin users abused prescription opioids before moving to heroin. Heroin use has more than doubled among young adults ages 18 to 25 in the past decade. Forty-five percent of the people who used heroin were also addicted to prescription opioid painkillers. Between 2009 and 2013, only 22 percent of Americans suffering from opioid addiction participated in any form of addiction treatment.

Misuse and abuse of opioids cost the country an estimated $78.5 billion in 2013 in lost productivity, medical costs, and criminal justice costs.

Every week, I come to the Senate floor to read letters from West Virginians and those struggling all throughout our country with opioid abuse. The reason I do this is because it is a silent killer. We don't talk about it. There is not one of us in the Senate, not one of us in Congress, not one of us in any gathering who doesn't know someone in our immediate family, extended family, or a close friend who hasn't been affected, but we would never talk about it because it was so embarrassing--how did it ever break down in our family, whether you had a model family or you thought you did. This is a killer. Whether Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal, this is a killer. It has no discretion. It has no partisan base. It goes after one and the other. So this is what we are dealing with.

The letters I read have a common theme: They all mention how hard it is to get themselves or loved ones into treatment. Sometimes it takes months, and sometimes it never happens. This problem stems from our lack of a system to help those who are looking for help. We need permanent funding to create and expand substance abuse treatment facilities to help people get clean and stay clean.

I know the Presiding Officer has heard this before, but that is why I introduced the LifeBOAT Act. The LifeBOAT Act puts one penny per milligram of opiates--basically, one penny for every milligram of opiates produced in America, consumed in America--into a fund that pays for treatment centers. In the Presiding Officer's beautiful State of Alaska and my State of West Virginia, people need treatment. This is an illness. I used to look at it 20 years ago as basically a criminal act, and we put them in jail. Guess what. They came out of jail just as addicted as they went in. Nothing changed, so I am willing to change. I have always said that if you can't change your mind, you can't change anything. This is an illness that needs treatment, and we are responsible for that. This lifeboat would establish a steady, sustainable funding stream to provide and expand access to substance abuse treatment.

Today I am going to read a letter from parents from West Virginia who lost their son to drug abuse. This is Renee and Criss's letter, which they want me to read. This fine-looking young man was a father, and this is such a tragic ending to this story.

Dear Senator Manchin,

I am writing to you in the hope of bringing to light the

devastating effects of heroin addiction, overdose death and

the difficulty in finding treatment for those afflicted with

the disease and their families.

On November 12th, 2016, we lost our 23-year-old son, Nick,

who died from what we thought at the time was a heroin

overdose. When Nick's autopsy report came back, we discovered

that his body contained no trace of heroin in his system. He

had died from a fatal dose of straight fentanyl.

Nick was a quiet, kind and inquisitive child. He learned to

speak and read at an early age and spent most of his time

absorbed in books and riding his bike and scooter. He also

loved playing in the woods and dreaming up adventures with

his sisters and neighborhood friends. He was a protective big

brother, and he had a natural way of connecting with kids who

were ``different'' and making them feel accepted.

Nick was always tall for his age. He came into this world

on July 5th, 1993, weighing in at 10 pounds and topped off at

6'8". He loved sports and excelled in basketball and soccer.

He even met you when you were Governor Manchin, after his

basketball team traveled to Charleston, WV, to celebrate

their A State Basketball Tournament Championship in 2011.

After high school he went on to play basketball for the

Glenville State College Pioneers. Nick wasn't able to keep

his grades up and had to drop out of Glenville after the

first semester of school. Shortly after that, he met a girl.

They instantly connected, and he soon became a father to her

daughter. After several years together, they had a son of

their own.

After having difficulty holding down jobs and providing for

his family, Nick came to me in November of 2015 and told me

that he was addicted to opiate prescription drugs. We had

suspected drug use for quite some time but didn't realize the

extent of it. He said that he could no longer live the life

he was leading and needed help. Nick and his girlfriend had

started using opiate-based prescription drugs after she was

prescribed them for her recovery from the birth of her

daughter in 2013. At first, they would make trips to the

doctor or quick care with fake ailments in order to get their

prescriptions. If they couldn't get prescriptions, then they

bought from drug dealers. The pills were easy to get up until

the time he came to me for help.

I told my husband about Nick's drug problem, and not

knowing what to do, we turned to the Internet as a source of

information. We found a lot of information and many treatment

centers across the country. I began calling a few of the ones

that looked reputable, but in each case, they required three

to five thousand dollars up front for a 28 to 30 day

treatment. The question now was: Were these treatment centers

as good as they appeared to be on their websites or were they

simply out to make a profit and marketing their centers to

bring in more patients?

While we researched and tried to make a decision, Nick, not

wanting to be away from his family, went through detox at

home and had convinced him and us that he could do this on

his own. Nick made it through his first round of self-detox

but started using again for a short while at the end of

January. We confronted him, and he immediately started his

second round of self-detox. He again swore that he could do

this himself and was finished with the life he was leading.

We were still trying to figure out what to do with him and

what would happen to his family while he was gone. We didn't

know that his girlfriend was also using and detoxing along

with Nick.

After speaking to several people at a local treatment

center and trying to arrange for him to be admitted, we were

told that they wouldn't take him because [of] our insurance.

My next course of action was to call local counseling centers

that offered addiction counseling, hoping that they would be

able to offer advice. Each one I called politely told me that

they couldn't help.

Nick's addiction, and our focus on him, was taking away

from our being able to celebrate and focus on our other

children, Nick's two sisters. We decided to put Nick on the

backburner while we prepared for our daughter's graduation

party and the school events that preceded it, thinking that a

few weeks wouldn't hurt. Were we ever wrong!

It is a sad scenario when a family has to hope that their child gets arrested

and gets a conviction record so they can go to a drug court to get treatment, that that is the only help they have.

One of our daughters had learned that Nick could get

treatment if we pressed charges against him for theft. He

would be charged, then court-ordered to be sent to an

addiction treatment center. She felt that this was the best

course of action to get Nick the help he needed, but Criss

and I were hesitant because of the negative impact a felony

charge would have on Nick's life if the charges weren't

expunged after completing his treatment.

Which is our what we call fresh start or last-chance bill, which the Presiding Officer has been so graciously looking at and hopefully will be a part of this. It is a shame they fall into this.

Our decision to not go this route caused even more anger.

Since they knew that, hindsight being 20/20, this was the only way to get Nick help.

Little did we know that, by late-March or early April, Nick

and his girlfriend had decided to celebrate their being clean

by using heroin ``just this once'' as a reward for staying

clean.

They were rewarding themselves by using heroin to celebrate being clean. Now, understand, that is not proper thinking. That is not rational common sense.

In the past, the two had snorted heroin but had never

injected it. When they went to buy from their dealer, he told

them that since they didn't have much money and there were

two of them, they could get a better high with less heroin if

they injected it. And that was the beginning of a rapid

decline.

On June 2, 2016, Nick had his first overdose. Without our

knowledge, his girlfriend had taken Nick, along with the

children, to the emergency room, where he was treated and

released within a few hours. Unbeknownst to us, this

initiated a call to CPS that would result in her daughter's

father taking custody of her and CPS involvement for Nick and

his girlfriend and their son.

At the hospital, Nick and his girlfriend talked with a

doctor out of Pittsburgh about Suboxone. They agreed to try

the program. I traveled with Nick, his girlfriend and her

mother for the first visit to Pittsburgh. They had a high

success rate, and it was decided that once the treatment was

established, the two would go to Pittsburgh once a month for

drug testing, counseling and their Suboxone prescriptions.

The clinic would line up additional support services in

Parkersburg or close by. We were very impressed with the

clinic, their staff and their program, which only took on 100

patients at a time.

Criss came to the next meeting two weeks later to speak

with the counselors and was now more comfortable with the

treatment plan. Unfortunately, when the counselors tried to

set up local support services, they were shocked to find the

small number of places that treated addiction and the fact

that the ones that were here would not provide services for

patients who were not in their program. The decision was made

to increase their sessions to twice a month and eventually

once a week when it became apparent through consistent

``dirty'' screens that the two were struggling with the

program [and still using].

In August, his girlfriend suffered an overdose. The

Pittsburgh Clinic called shortly after that and said that

they were releasing the two from the program, letting us know

that they needed a more intense treatment plan than they

could provide. I called the CPS case worker and addiction

counselor that were assigned to watch over the children and

monitor the two after Nick's overdose in June. We all met at

the house to determine the next course of action. After

numerous phone calls, we were able to find an ``open'' bed in

Las Vegas, Nevada, for Nick, while his girlfriend would

decide the following week to go to a treatment center in

Fairmont, WV.

In less than a week, Nick was on a plane to Vegas, eager to

begin a new, clean life. He was upbeat and positive before he

left, excited by the prospect of finally leaving behind the

life of addiction that he'd been living for so long. During

his phone calls home, he had positive things to say about his

treatment. He was staying in nice homes that were part of the

treatment center. Along with their daily treatment schedule,

they were taken on hikes and went go-cart racing. He even had

a manicure at the facility's salon. The purpose of these

activities was to teach the patients natural ways of

experiencing highs.

Nick's release date was scheduled for October 3rd. There

were longer-term treatment plans offered at the facility, but

Nick missed his son and worried about his girlfriend and

wanted to come home. The treatment center had set up group

sessions for him three times a week for a period of about six

weeks.

Nick came home on a beautiful, sunny day. I waited at home

for him with his son, who had been staying with me, and his

other grandmother.

I wish we had this picture of his son, a beautiful little boy.

When I saw Nick for the first time, he looked beautiful. He

looked and acted like the Nick that we had known before

addiction. He told us about his stay in Vegas and was

literally shining with hope! He told me, ``Mom, I will

never go back to that life!'' And I believed it was

possible.

That hope began to fade pretty quickly. Nick had started

working about six weeks before he left for rehab. It had

taken him a long time to get that job and he enjoyed it and

felt that he could actually provide for his family if he

could work his way up. However, after rehab he was unable to

secure a job. Nick was going to his scheduled group sessions

and going to nightly NA meetings for support. Nick finished

up his six weeks of group therapy. He was so proud when he

received his ``sixty day's clean'' chip at the NA meeting.

Seven days later he and I spent part of the afternoon

together. He wanted to look for a job and I had some errands

to run. He dropped me off where I needed to be and applied

for jobs. When I finished, he picked me up and I took him to

Sam's Club to show him cute toys for his son for Christmas.

We picked out a racetrack together and I showed him a few

other things I had bought for my grandson. I had mentioned

that Criss might get his son a basketball hoop for Christmas

and he told me, ``No Mom, I want to buy that for him with my

own money.''

We had a good afternoon together. He had made plans for the

evening, to meet up with some of his high school friends who

were in for the weekend. He left my house around eight

o'clock and I heard him return around 12:35 am. All of his

friends later said that he'd had a good night. He was happy

and smiling and there was nothing to indicate that there was

anything wrong. Shortly after I heard Nick come in, my

grandson's crying woke me up and I woke to change him, give

him a bottle. I headed back to bed and noticed the light on

in the bathroom and knocked and opened the door. It was

around 1:45 am and Nick was lying on the bathroom floor with

no pulse and not breathing. I called 911 and began CPR.

Within minutes the ambulance arrived. They worked on him for

some time while I spoke to the police officer then they took

him out to the ambulance. I assumed they had stabilized him

enough to transport him and waited for my in-laws to arrive

to watch our grandson.

When Criss and I were called back into the emergency room

we did not expect to hear that Nick had passed. We didn't

expect that we would have to call our daughters to tell them

that their brother was dead or that we would sit in a room

with him feeling him go cold while we waited for our daughter

to arrive from Morgantown. We weren't able to get in touch

with our other daughter and had to send my sister over the

following morning to tell her the news. We didn't expect that

in less than two days we'd be picking out a coffin and

cemetery plot for our son.

We expected that we would be sending him back to treatment

in the hope that the next round would be successful. We

expected another chance. And what we have now is the

knowledge that we failed our son in the worst way possible.

Sincerely,

Renee and Criss Fisher.

There is a picture that would be hard to show because it was the most moving picture I have ever seen. They sent me the picture of Nick, this wonderful young man, lying in a casket and his little boy tiptoed up holding on. That should move all of us to do the right thing here, to start finding treatment centers, to start working with this illness, to find ways to understand, and to start intervening. You have to intervene from inception, from birth and all the way through, educating children. It is destroying economies. It is destroying families. It is destroying, basically, communities all over this country.

It is something that I hope we all can fight. To lose a young man-- this was a terrific young man, and to lose him to drugs is uncalled for.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, first of all, I agree with my friend wholeheartedly. We are asking for a repair. It doesn't make any sense at all to go down the path of repealing until we make an effort to make this better and protect the people who are depending on us. With that, let's see what happens. We are all willing to sit down and work on both sides of the aisle to help improve it.

Opioid Abuse Crisis

Mr. President, I rise today because of the crisis we have with the country's opiate addictions--prescription drugs--in the Presiding Officer's wonderful State of Alaska, the State of West Virginia, and every other State in the Union.

West Virginia has the highest drug overdose death rate in the Nation due to prescription drug abuse. Just in 2016, West Virginia reported 818 overdose deaths, which is 4 times the number that occurred in 2001 and is a nearly 13-percent increase just from 2015, when it was about 607. More than 700 West Virginians died from an opioid overdose last year, and 42,000 people in West Virginia, including 4,000 youth, sought treatment for illegal drug use, but they failed to receive it. There is no place for them to go.

The Presiding Officer and I have spoken about this, and I appreciate his willingness and openness to look at how we cure that. I have a bill called the LifeBOAT Act, which the Presiding Officer has been so graciously looking at. It is something that I believe would give us the funding mechanism, and it won't be a hardship. It also gives exemptions for people who have chronic pain from cancer and all the chronic illnesses that are out there. Basically, the opiate drugs that are sold on a day-to-day basis by the millions and millions--it is a one-penny revenue source, one penny per milligram. That would give us the funding mechanism we need in order to continue to have expanded services for addiction.

I have been involved in public service for quite some time, and 20 years ago, I would have thought anybody who has fooled with drugs, whether legal prescription or illicit drugs--it would be a criminal act and they should go to jail for it. Well, we have put people in jail for consumption for the last 20 years, and it hasn't cured one. So I have come to the conclusion, basically, in looking and talking to the experts, after we have had two decades of evaluating this, that it is an illness, and an illness needs treatment. We don't have the treatment centers, so we are letting people go untreated, and that is basically sinful in this country.

There are 2.1 million Americans who abuse or are dependent on opioids--2.1 million. I think to get the scope of how bad the situation is, and this epidemic, when you think about how over 200,000 people have died since 2000--200,000--any other catastrophic cause of death in this country would be of pandemic proportions, and we would do whatever it costs in order to get the National Institutes of Health to find a cure. We would. But with this, we kind of sit back idly.

According to the CDC, three out of four new heroin users abused prescription opiates before moving to heroin. It is a segue for people to move right into tougher, stronger, powerful drugs.

Heroin use has more than doubled among young adults ages 18 to 25 in the past decade, and 45 percent of the people who used heroin were also addicted to prescription opiate painkillers. Between 2009 and 2013, only 22 percent of Americans suffering from opioid addiction participated in any form of addiction treatment.

Think about the enormity of this epidemic. The United States of America, our great country, makes up only about 4.6 percent of the world's population; yet we consume 80 percent of all opiates produced and consumed in the world. How did it happen? The Presiding Officer and I grew up in a time when this wasn't prevalent, but how did it happen?

I will tell you one thing: We have to cure it. It is ravaging and destroying every part of this great country. We are taking so many productive people out of the workforce because they are addicted. If you talk to your police and law enforcement anywhere in this country, they will tell you that 80 to 90 percent of all of the calls they make in the form of justice are due to opiate or drug use. It is horrible what it is costing us in real time, in real dollars, in real people's lives.

There is another bill I have out there, too, and I call it last chance. It really deals with this. If we know we have a problem--we have people whom we don't have in the workforce because three things keep you out of the workforce: You are either addicted or convicted or lack of skills. You have an addiction; you have been convicted of a crime, so you have a record; or you have a lack of skills or a combination of the three.

I can tell you that the addiction and conviction usually go hand in hand. People who are addicted often have a larceny or maybe even a felony on their record, and it is so hard for them to get back into the workforce. If you get them in a treatment center, there is no carrot to say: Stick with this because you are going to be clean.

It takes a lot of fortitude for a person to stay with the program when they have such an addiction and a craving. But if they know that at the end of that 1 year in a treatment center, there is a chance for them to expunge their record if it wasn't a violent crime, if it wasn't a sexual crime--but it was probably grand larceny, because usually they will steal from their family, and then once the family gets tough with them, they will steal from any type of extended family, and then they will steal from the neighborhood or anywhere they can get the money to support their habit.

What my bill says is that after 1 year in a certified treatment program, they complete another year of mentoring, helping other people get off and stay off and maybe not start, then they are able to, with their sponsors--people who say: Yes, they have completed this program; yes, they have mentored for 1 year--they can go before the arresting officers and the sentencing judge to see if they can get that expunged to give

them a clean start. It is the Clean Start Act. I call it last chance, but officially it is called the Clean Start Act. It is one way to get this workforce in America producing again because if not, the only thing they have waiting for them is a minimum wage job, and the skill sets most of them have are going to go unused and unproductive. So these are things we are working on.

When you look at the misuse and abuse of opiates and what it costs our country, think about this. This was in 2013, the last figures I have--an estimated $78.5 billion in lost productivity, medical costs, and criminal justice cost. In 2013, it cost our country $78.5 billion. So we are paying for it. It is like ``Pay me now or pay me later.'' We are paying for it.

That one penny on every milligram of opiates that are produced and consumed in this country would raise about $1.5 to $2 billion a year. I would hope it would raise none, but it would raise that much because of the amount of consumption we have. We consume 80 percent of all of the world's opiates. With that, we can start creating treatment centers and curing people.

For the past year, I have been coming to the Senate floor to read letters from West Virginians and those struggling all throughout our country with opioid abuse. They all mention how hard it is to get themselves or their loved ones into treatment. Sometimes it takes months, and sometimes it never happens. Most of the time, it never happens. This problem stems from a lack of a system to help those who are looking for help. We need permanent funding. We talked about that. That is why I introduced the LifeBOAT Act.

Today I am going to read a letter from a mother from West Virginia-- she is no different from a mother from Alaska, I can assure you--who lost her daughter to drug abuse after she struggled to get her into treatment facilities she desperately needed. This is Leigh Ann Wilson's story.

On behalf of the families who have lost their children to

addiction, I ask that any health law reforms contain a

serious effort to ensure effective addiction treatment for

all who need it, whatever it takes.

Just yesterday, the Boston Globe published a special report

about my daughter, Taylor Leigh Wilson.

Leigh Ann's daughter is named Taylor Leigh Wilson.

My youngest child was one of West Virginia's promising

young people, a former Girl Scout, Cabell Midland High School

graduate and Marshall student who wanted to turn her love of

books into a career as a librarian. But drugs destroyed her

life despite her willingness, and months of effort, to get

treatment.

Taylor's overdose was the first--

You have to listen to this because you are just not going to believe what happened in Huntington, WV, on this day.

Taylor's overdose was the first of 28 that would be

reported in Huntington in the span of five hours on Aug. 15,

2016. The horror of that afternoon made national news. Then

the reporters left. Our nightmare, though, was just

beginning.

Taylor and I would spend the next 41 days trying to get

help. We drove door to door in search of inpatient treatment

beds to isolate her from the heroin world. All we found were

waiting lists; out-of-state centers that wouldn't take West

Virginia Medicaid; and doctors who discouraged Taylor from

inpatient treatment, saying she could do without it.

Then Taylor put her name on Prestera's waiting list for

Suboxone, a drug proven to reduce withdrawal symptoms. No one

told her how long she might have to wait. Though evidence

suggests that the combination of counseling and prescription

drugs to reduce cravings can be very effective, our lawmakers

have restricted the availability of this medication.

On September 28, 2016, Prestera Center called to inform me

that Taylor had been accepted into the Suboxone program.

That was September 28, and, as I told you, this overdose happened on August 15.

On September 28, Prestera Center called to inform me that

Taylor had been accepted in the suboxone program. I had to

tell her that she had overdosed and died 3 days before. The

next February I got a call from Prestera Pinecrest following

up on Taylor's application for recovery housing and to see if

she was still interested.

Before she passed away, Taylor herself told the Boston

Globe reporter that the real story that needs to be told is

why there are no treatment beds when our state has a crisis

epidemic.

Your State, my State--almost every State in America has this.

Why must it be so hard to get addiction treatment in a

state with the nation's highest drug death rate--818 deaths

last year, most of them from [legal prescription drugs]?

Think about how this epidemic has gotten to this proportion. We have a drug that is put on the market by the FDA. This is an organization, a Federal agency, that is supposed to make sure that we have for consumption a safety net built into it. So the FDA gives their stamp of approval: This is a product that can be used, and it should be of help. Then it goes to the DEA to find out who is allowed to dispense it without any type of education or any type of work to make sure that there is competency in our doctors who are prescribing it--or I might say overprescribing it. Then it goes to the doctor, who is the most trusted person outside of our family, who says: This is going to help you. This is good for you. This is what we are talking about--what is killing West Virginians and Americans every day.

If you need heart surgery, you have insurance providers around the State that would compete for your care. That is what she is saying. There is someone there; for any other treatment or any other need for treatment of any illness, we can find help, but not for this.

This has been such a silent killer that I know--and my family included. Everyone I talk to--anybody I talk to knows somebody in their immediate family or extended family or a close family friend. All of our young interns here know the same. They know people. But we keep it quiet; especially if it's in our family, we keep quiet because it is embarrassing. We don't want anybody to know that we have failed as a family structure. Something fell apart for this to happen. Why would someone have to turn to drugs when they have a loving, caring family? We just don't understand, so we keep quiet about it.

It isn't a Democrat or Republican or liberal or conservative cause. This is a killer that has no boundaries; it attacks everybody. That is what I am saying. When you see a mother who is doing everything she can to get her daughter somewhere just to save her life and can't get her in--we are talking about this one penny: What is a one-penny tax, Joe? I can't vote for any new taxes.

I am not asking you to vote for a tax. I am asking you to look any of your constituents in the eye and say: We have a program that is lifesaving for you or your family member. God forbid if you ever need it, but we have it.

We don't hesitate to put taxes on cigarettes. We didn't hesitate. Everybody voted for taxes on cigarettes. Everybody has voted for taxes on alcohol. I am asking for one penny--one penny to save thousands and thousands of lives in America. I guarantee that there will not be one person to vote against it--a Republican or Democrat who would not vote for something that is going to put permanent funding for treatment centers in the most needed areas in America and saves people's lives.

There aren't enough resources to accommodate the addiction

problem in the heroin capital of the United States, Taylor

[herself told] a reporter. If no one changes it this whole

city will go under.

Let me tell you what this city of Huntington is doing right now. I met with them last week when I was home. They are going to have a center of excellence starting with Marshall University, the city of Huntington, Calvert County, and the entire organization. All the policymakers are working together because this is something they are fighting every day. This center of excellence is built around this. We know we have a problem. We have people overdosing. We are trying to save lives. We are trying to get them clean, and we are trying to get them back into the workforce.

The center of excellence is going to start at conception for a mother who may be using and conceives a child. How do we get her clean? How does she have a healthy baby versus a drug-addicted baby?

We have Lily's Place down there, and what they are doing in neonatal care is unbelievable. They are trying to get this baby weaned off the addiction that the mother passed on in her pregnancy. Then we want to make sure that mother goes back home with the baby in a clean home because, if not, the cycle will continue. This is what the center of excellence is going to do.

The success we think we are going to have, starting at ground zero in Huntington, WV, will be able to be shared all over the country because they are going to take a holistic approach. You just can't say: I am going to treat the addict. I am going to treat the cause. It goes further than that. These children are being born to a drug-infested mother and a father or a person who is paternal or into a family that is still drug-infested. It does nothing but perpetuate the cycle. This is what we have to stop if we want to save the country.

Here is what I tell children, and I will tell all of our young interns. I go to schools and talk every day. I tell them that there is not another country that will take on the United States of America militarily. No one compares with the greatest military that the world has ever known, that history has ever recorded, the United States of America. It is not going to happen. Nobody can take on this great economy of ours--the greatest economy in the world, $19 trillion, almost $20 trillion GDP. The closest economy we have next to us is China, with an economy that is about half of ours, $10.5 to $11 trillion. Then it drops off the scale with Japan and then Russia. Russia is at $2.5 to $3 trillion. No one compares to the United States of America for the economy and military might we have as a superpower-- the only superpower left in the world, the United States of America. We are the hope of the world, the United States of America.

I tell them: They don't think they have to fight you. They don't have to take over our economy. They think we will give it to them. They think we will give it to them because we have a lack of skill sets. Our education attainment is not as high as what they are doing, and our addiction problem means we will not be clean enough to be able to perform. They will just sit back and wait because time is on their side. They can sit back and wait for us to turn it all over. And you might be the last generation that lives in our country as the only superpower, the United States of America. God, I hope that doesn't happen, but we have to fight this. We just can't continue to keep talking about it.

We have a good piece of legislation. Think about this: I introduced this bill a year ago--introduced it to honor Jessie Grubb and her mom and dad. Her dad served in the State legislature with me. We have been friends for a long time. Jessie was 30 years old. She was a promising young girl. She got sexually molested when she was in college. She came home, hid it from them, was depressed, got started on--they gave her some pain pills, some drug suppressants so she could cope with it. She got addicted. She overdosed a few times. She was trying to cure--she was 30 years old. She had gone to Michigan. She was in treatment. She had been clean for 6 months. She was a runner, an athlete. She was doing her first marathon.

She had a hip injury, and she went to the hospital. When she went to the hospital, her mom and dad went up there. So here was the mom, the dad, and the girl; they went to admissions. She said: I want you all to know, I am so proud that I am a recovering addict, and I am 6 months clean. I want to make sure you all know that. The parents reiterated it.

She goes into this, and there are no laws--nothing. They ask her all different types of questions: Are you allergic to penicillin--whatever it may be? They make sure that her chart is marked right, so that another attending physician or another attending nurse or the night shift or whatever looks and sees that they can't do that because it says she is allergic to that or they shouldn't give her this because of her condition.

She goes in and she gets treated and she has an infection. They want to treat the infection, so they put a port in to treat the infection because that is how she would be treated with that.

The discharging physician did not know she was a recovering addict. He saw a healthy young lady with an injury and knew that she was going to have pain, so he prescribed her some pain medication. He prescribed her 50 OxyContin on the afternoon she was discharged, and she overdosed and died by 1 in the morning.

Jessie's Law basically says that if the guardian or parent and if the patient both come in and identify their problem and they want you to mark their charts accordingly, that should be done. Pretty simple, right?

Let me tell you what has happened. For 1 year it has been stalled because of HIPAA privacy laws. All this was going on; 1 year was up, and I called David. They had written me a letter that said: Do you think anything will ever happen?

So we went back again and started working on it. Here's what we did to change it. I said: David, we are going to have to take the parents or guardians off of it. If the patient themself asks for that, freely and willingly asks for that, we think that will pass muster, and all the different interest groups out there that are so concerned will basically accept that.

So we have that piece of legislation called Jessie's Law. God forbid, if someone has a constituent or a loved one and it is not known, they can lose that child, just like that.

These are all things that we are dealing with after the effects of addiction. Huntington, WV, and Marshall University are going to take on an effort that I think is heroic: How do we start from the beginning, conception, and make sure that child doesn't grow up to be an addict, make sure that family can get clean enough, and make sure they can be given the responsibility to care for that child so that they can grow up not in an addicted environment? That is what we are trying to do. We are at ground zero.

I am hopeful for this great country and this new generation that we are counting on that they can keep themselves clean and still continue to be the hope of the world, and they truly are.

With that, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise again today to share the story of this beautiful young lady, Jessie Grubb. She is a West Virginian who passed away a year ago last week, and she was only 30 years old. She was a bright young lady with a great future ahead of her.

After years of struggling with heroin addiction, she had been doing very well. She had been sober since August of 2015. She had surgery for an infection related to a running injury and died a day after leaving the hospital.

Her story of addiction is known to many. We have told it many times here. Her father David, a former West Virginia State legislator who served with me, a friend of mine, shared their family struggle with addiction when President Obama traveled to West Virginia to bring attention to the growing opiate epidemic that we are all encountering in all of our States.

West Virginia has been hit the hardest by the opioid epidemic, where drug overdose deaths soared by more than 700 percent from 1999 to 2013. More than 600 lives were lost last year--just last year alone--to prescription drug overdose, legal prescription drugs.

Jessie's story and her family's pain are all too common in West Virginia and throughout this Nation. As I said, we lost 627 West Virginians to opiates last year alone.

When you think about it, this is a pill, this is a product that is manufactured by some of the most regarded institutions, pharmaceutical manufacturers in the country. It has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, which basically says what we can use and what we should consume should be safe for us.

It is then prescribed by the most trusted person who is not in our family--and next to our family is a doctor. You would think that this is something that should be helpful for us, that should be part of the healing process. Instead, it has been part of the killing process. It has no home. It is a silent killer. We kept our mouths shut; we didn't say anything for many years, and now we have an epidemic on our hands, which we are trying to control.

We had 61,000 West Virginians who used prescription pain medications for nonmedical purposes in 2014. This includes 6,000 teenagers. As I have said, our State is not unique. The Presiding Officer's wonderful State of North Carolina is facing the same challenges we are.

Every day in our country, 91 Americans die from a prescription opiate or heroin overdose. Since 1999, we have lost almost 200,000 Americans to prescription opioid abuse.

Jessie's story deeply impacted President Obama, and I spoke with him about her death and the pain her family is going through. He reached out to David and Kate and the entire Grubb family. It is horrific.

When President Obama came to Charleston, Jessie was in a rehab facility in Michigan for the fourth time. Before her life was taken over by addiction in 2009, Jessie's future was bright. She was the beloved daughter of David and Kate Grubb, a beloved sister to her four sisters, and a beloved friend to so many.

She was an excellent student, scoring in the 99th percentile on all of her tests since she had been in education. She was a cheerleader at Roosevelt Junior High School, and she was an avid runner, an athlete.

At the time of her death, she was looking forward to running in her first marathon. She had been training for that. The only trouble she had ever gotten into at school was when she protested the Iraq war, and she was on the right side of that one.

Needless to say, she was a natural-born leader. After graduating from Capital High School, she was thrilled and looking forward to her bright future at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.

She was sexually assaulted during her first semester, which caused her to withdraw from school and return to Charleston. The traumatic event that caused Jessie to turn to heroin to escape the pain was that horrific experience.

Over the next 7 years, Jessie would battle her addiction. She would overdose four times and go into rehab four

times. Until her death, she had been sober for 6 months and was focused on making a life for herself in Michigan. All of her hard work was ruined because of a careless mistake.

I introduced this piece of bipartisan legislation; everybody has been so kind on that. It makes so much common sense. I introduced it almost a year ago. At the time, I told David, Kate, and the family: This is something that should be a no-brainer. This is something we should easily pass. It was called Jessie's Law, after this beautiful young lady.

I will explain how the events unfolded, and then I will go into the bill. Her parents, David and Kate, traveled to Michigan for her surgery. They traveled to Michigan, and they told her doctors and the hospital personnel that she was a recovering addict. Jessie confirmed it. She said: Yes, I have struggled. I am clean. I am proud, and I want to get healthy. I want to get my leg injury fixed, and I want to run that marathon.

After Jessie's surgery, the discharging doctor, who said he didn't know she was a recovering addict--the parents were there when she was admitted. She told him. You would have thought they would have asked: Do you have any allergies, penicillin?

You would have thought they would have flagged it: I am a recovering addict.

They sent her home with a prescription for 50 oxycodone--50 oxycodone--because they did not know, because her records had not been properly identified, that she was very prone, being a recovering addict, to any type of opiate. There are other ways of treating pain. Not knowing, the doctor went ahead and released her with what a normal person would get for pain relief.

Needless to say, she should never have gotten that prescription--no way, shape, or form. We must ensure this never happens again. That is why today I am reintroducing Jessie's Law.

Let me tell you what I ran into. David and Kate accompanied her as the parents. They were with their beautiful daughter. They both confirmed that she had an addiction problem and she was recovering: Please, we want you to notify anybody who handles, anyone who dispenses, anyone who is working with Jessie. Please know what we are dealing with is very fragile.

I said: We will write the legislation. And we did; we wrote the legislation. If you have a consenting guardian, parent, and a consenting patient, it should be flagged. Because of privacy laws, we know we are very concerned about that. For some reason, I cannot get past the bureaucracy of getting this bill to the floor to be voted on because they are saying there is objection to the privacy laws with the parents' being involved. So guess what. I finally called David, and I called Kate, and I said: I know you would think it makes common sense that, basically, we should be able to pass legislation the way we would like to pass it--where the parents acknowledge it and the patient, who is their child, acknowledges it. They both are cooperating, and it should be done.

In order to try to get this piece of legislation passed as quickly as possible, we are taking off the parents. It is only the patient herself. Jessie comes in and says: I want you to know I am a recovering addict. Please make sure that everybody who handles my case knows that. That is all we are asking for. I am hopeful, Mr. President, that you and others will be able to join me because we don't want anybody in North Carolina going through what we have gone through in West Virginia or what the Grubb family has gone through, losing this beautiful, bright, talented young lady. It should never happen in this country.

Even the healthcare providers are saying: We need this legislation to go forward so we can identify that, so we can mark that, hotline that, redline that, and so that anybody who is handling Jessie from the beginning to the end, especially when they are discharged, is going to have knowledge. In no way, shape, or form will anybody prescribe an opiate or any type of addictive painkiller that they are going to be affected by, because their life has been changed by it already.

The bottom line is that we need to go at this problem from every angle with the help of everyone: family assistance, counseling programs, drug courts, consumer and medical education, law enforcement support, State and Federal legislation. We need everything. This is a fight we can't lose.

This is the first time in my lifetime that my State has fallen under 50 percent of adults of working age not working. We are down to 49.6 percent. We have always had the reputation of having some of the greatest workers--hard workers--giving you a good hard-working day for good hard-working pay. They have always been there. We just have too few of them. There are three things that keep you out of the workforce, basically: a lack of skill sets, if you are addicted or you have a criminal record, or a combination. Addiction has taken over and has basically changed the lives of Americans, changed the lives of West Virginia, and it is ruining families.

There is no way that her sisters and David and Kate, her parents, are ever going to get over losing Jessie. There is no reason they should have lost Jessie and no reason you should lose another North Carolinian--none of us. As to the situation where they are go in and they are identified by all the professionals with the help they need in the systems they are asking for, we owe that to every person in America, and we owe it to Jessie.

So I am asking for the cooperation of all my colleagues--the continuous support, tireless work that everyone has done. Jessie's death is heartbreaking and reminds us all that this is one death that could have been prevented and one death that should never happen again because of a lack of legislation that prevents us, because of the privacy laws, to identify a person that is in need.

If you are looking at addiction and happen to be looking at addiction as an illness, an illness needs care. If they need care, then we are going to give them the care to protect them while they are getting that care. That is all this does. I hope it is something we can do as quickly as possible. We will be forever grateful. In Jessie's memory, her parents are going to be forever grateful. Basically, Jessie's life will not be in vain. That is exactly why I am here. I am not going to sit still and lose a beautiful person who could contribute to society the way this young lady was going to contribute to society and say there is nothing we can do. We can do it and do it in her honor.

Mr. President, I rise again today to share the story of this beautiful young lady, Jessie Grubb. She is a West Virginian who passed away a year ago last week, and she was only 30 years old. She was a bright young lady with a great future ahead of her.

After years of struggling with heroin addiction, she had been doing very well. She had been sober since August of 2015. She had surgery for an infection related to a running injury and died a day after leaving the hospital.

Her story of addiction is known to many. We have told it many times here. Her father David, a former West Virginia State legislator who served with me, a friend of mine, shared their family struggle with addiction when President Obama traveled to West Virginia to bring attention to the growing opiate epidemic that we are all encountering in all of our States.

West Virginia has been hit the hardest by the opioid epidemic, where drug overdose deaths soared by more than 700 percent from 1999 to 2013. More than 600 lives were lost last year--just last year alone--to prescription drug overdose, legal prescription drugs.

Jessie's story and her family's pain are all too common in West Virginia and throughout this Nation. As I said, we lost 627 West Virginians to opiates last year alone.

When you think about it, this is a pill, this is a product that is manufactured by some of the most regarded institutions, pharmaceutical manufacturers in the country. It has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, which basically says what we can use and what we should consume should be safe for us.

It is then prescribed by the most trusted person who is not in our family--and next to our family is a doctor. You would think that this is something that should be helpful for us, that should be part of the healing process. Instead, it has been part of the killing process. It has no home. It is a silent killer. We kept our mouths shut; we didn't say anything for many years, and now we have an epidemic on our hands, which we are trying to control.

We had 61,000 West Virginians who used prescription pain medications for nonmedical purposes in 2014. This includes 6,000 teenagers. As I have said, our State is not unique. The Presiding Officer's wonderful State of North Carolina is facing the same challenges we are.

Every day in our country, 91 Americans die from a prescription opiate or heroin overdose. Since 1999, we have lost almost 200,000 Americans to prescription opioid abuse.

Jessie's story deeply impacted President Obama, and I spoke with him about her death and the pain her family is going through. He reached out to David and Kate and the entire Grubb family. It is horrific.

When President Obama came to Charleston, Jessie was in a rehab facility in Michigan for the fourth time. Before her life was taken over by addiction in 2009, Jessie's future was bright. She was the beloved daughter of David and Kate Grubb, a beloved sister to her four sisters, and a beloved friend to so many.

She was an excellent student, scoring in the 99th percentile on all of her tests since she had been in education. She was a cheerleader at Roosevelt Junior High School, and she was an avid runner, an athlete.

At the time of her death, she was looking forward to running in her first marathon. She had been training for that. The only trouble she had ever gotten into at school was when she protested the Iraq war, and she was on the right side of that one.

Needless to say, she was a natural-born leader. After graduating from Capital High School, she was thrilled and looking forward to her bright future at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.

She was sexually assaulted during her first semester, which caused her to withdraw from school and return to Charleston. The traumatic event that caused Jessie to turn to heroin to escape the pain was that horrific experience.

Over the next 7 years, Jessie would battle her addiction. She would overdose four times and go into rehab four

times. Until her death, she had been sober for 6 months and was focused on making a life for herself in Michigan. All of her hard work was ruined because of a careless mistake.

I introduced this piece of bipartisan legislation; everybody has been so kind on that. It makes so much common sense. I introduced it almost a year ago. At the time, I told David, Kate, and the family: This is something that should be a no-brainer. This is something we should easily pass. It was called Jessie's Law, after this beautiful young lady.

I will explain how the events unfolded, and then I will go into the bill. Her parents, David and Kate, traveled to Michigan for her surgery. They traveled to Michigan, and they told her doctors and the hospital personnel that she was a recovering addict. Jessie confirmed it. She said: Yes, I have struggled. I am clean. I am proud, and I want to get healthy. I want to get my leg injury fixed, and I want to run that marathon.

After Jessie's surgery, the discharging doctor, who said he didn't know she was a recovering addict--the parents were there when she was admitted. She told him. You would have thought they would have asked: Do you have any allergies, penicillin?

You would have thought they would have flagged it: I am a recovering addict.

They sent her home with a prescription for 50 oxycodone--50 oxycodone--because they did not know, because her records had not been properly identified, that she was very prone, being a recovering addict, to any type of opiate. There are other ways of treating pain. Not knowing, the doctor went ahead and released her with what a normal person would get for pain relief.

Needless to say, she should never have gotten that prescription--no way, shape, or form. We must ensure this never happens again. That is why today I am reintroducing Jessie's Law.

Let me tell you what I ran into. David and Kate accompanied her as the parents. They were with their beautiful daughter. They both confirmed that she had an addiction problem and she was recovering: Please, we want you to notify anybody who handles, anyone who dispenses, anyone who is working with Jessie. Please know what we are dealing with is very fragile.

I said: We will write the legislation. And we did; we wrote the legislation. If you have a consenting guardian, parent, and a consenting patient, it should be flagged. Because of privacy laws, we know we are very concerned about that. For some reason, I cannot get past the bureaucracy of getting this bill to the floor to be voted on because they are saying there is objection to the privacy laws with the parents' being involved. So guess what. I finally called David, and I called Kate, and I said: I know you would think it makes common sense that, basically, we should be able to pass legislation the way we would like to pass it--where the parents acknowledge it and the patient, who is their child, acknowledges it. They both are cooperating, and it should be done.

In order to try to get this piece of legislation passed as quickly as possible, we are taking off the parents. It is only the patient herself. Jessie comes in and says: I want you to know I am a recovering addict. Please make sure that everybody who handles my case knows that. That is all we are asking for. I am hopeful, Mr. President, that you and others will be able to join me because we don't want anybody in North Carolina going through what we have gone through in West Virginia or what the Grubb family has gone through, losing this beautiful, bright, talented young lady. It should never happen in this country.

Even the healthcare providers are saying: We need this legislation to go forward so we can identify that, so we can mark that, hotline that, redline that, and so that anybody who is handling Jessie from the beginning to the end, especially when they are discharged, is going to have knowledge. In no way, shape, or form will anybody prescribe an opiate or any type of addictive painkiller that they are going to be affected by, because their life has been changed by it already.

The bottom line is that we need to go at this problem from every angle with the help of everyone: family assistance, counseling programs, drug courts, consumer and medical education, law enforcement support, State and Federal legislation. We need everything. This is a fight we can't lose.

This is the first time in my lifetime that my State has fallen under 50 percent of adults of working age not working. We are down to 49.6 percent. We have always had the reputation of having some of the greatest workers--hard workers--giving you a good hard-working day for good hard-working pay. They have always been there. We just have too few of them. There are three things that keep you out of the workforce, basically: a lack of skill sets, if you are addicted or you have a criminal record, or a combination. Addiction has taken over and has basically changed the lives of Americans, changed the lives of West Virginia, and it is ruining families.

There is no way that her sisters and David and Kate, her parents, are ever going to get over losing Jessie. There is no reason they should have lost Jessie and no reason you should lose another North Carolinian--none of us. As to the situation where they are go in and they are identified by all the professionals with the help they need in the systems they are asking for, we owe that to every person in America, and we owe it to Jessie.

So I am asking for the cooperation of all my colleagues--the continuous support, tireless work that everyone has done. Jessie's death is heartbreaking and reminds us all that this is one death that could have been prevented and one death that should never happen again because of a lack of legislation that prevents us, because of the privacy laws, to identify a person that is in need.

If you are looking at addiction and happen to be looking at addiction as an illness, an illness needs care. If they need care, then we are going to give them the care to protect them while they are getting that care. That is all this does. I hope it is something we can do as quickly as possible. We will be forever grateful. In Jessie's memory, her parents are going to be forever grateful. Basically, Jessie's life will not be in vain. That is exactly why I am here. I am not going to sit still and lose a beautiful person who could contribute to society the way this young lady was going to contribute to society and say there is nothing we can do. We can do it and do it in her honor.

Mr. President, I rise today to call for immediate action on the Miners Protection Act. Today, as we sit here, 22,600 miners have received letters. This is a copy of the letter, and I am going to read it to you. This is a letter they received today letting them know their healthcare benefits will be terminated at the end of April. This letter basically says:

The UMWA 1993 Benefit Plan notified you in December 2016--

This is one of multiple letters they received. Can you imagine getting a 4-month extension? Then by law you have to have 90 days before they can terminate you. Every time you get an extension, within 30 days you get another letter saying you are going to be terminated. That is the inhumane treatment our retired miners and mostly widows are receiving--

that the U.S. Congress had passed the Continuing Health

Benefits for Miners Act, which provided for the transfer of

federal funds to the Plan to cover the health care benefits

you receive through April 30, 2017. The Plan cautioned that

further Congressional action would be necessary in order for

the Plan to provide health care coverage to you after April

30. At this time, Congress has not taken the action needed to

continue your benefits. Unless Congress acts before the end

of April, the 1993 Benefit Plan will not be able to provide

you with the health benefits that you have been receiving

from the 1993 Plan, and those benefits will terminate

effective May 1, 2017. In addition, your Funds' Health

Service Card will no longer be valid.

Can you imagine a 75- or 80-year-old woman--a lady, a widow--who has lost her husband, probably because of black lung, and all the work he did for our country and for himself and his family, and she has received that three times or more now--not knowing what in the world or why they can't do something that we promised, something that was done in 1946, where the Krug amendment and the Krug act basically said that we would take care of our miners so that they would have permanent healthcare and a pension. It was not done by taxpayers' dollars. It was done by the coal they mined. For every ton of coal, there would be so much set aside. Then we had the bankruptcy laws happen in the 1980s, which basically destroyed a lot of companies for paying into it. Then we had the crash of 2008, which took it further down.

Now we stand here today, and we have a fix coming out of the AML, the

abandoned mine lands, coming, again, from coal that was mined to pay for the miners' pension and benefit plan, and we can't get it done.

I will tell you, if that piece of legislation was allowed to be voted on tonight, we would have well over 60 votes, bipartisan. My Republican colleagues and all of our Democrat colleagues here understand the importance of the working people.

President Trump is speaking about this every time. Last night he shouted out to miners. I was so pleased. I have not heard that since I have been here--anyone saying: Thank you for the job you have done. We are not leaving you behind. You have given to this country the country we have, the superpower of the world. You have produced the energy through the toughest of times, and we appreciate that.

I was very, very appreciative to see that type of recognition. I can't tell you how much more appreciative I would be right now to see us as a bipartisan group--Democrats and Republicans--standing up for the working people that we talk about every day and saying: Listen, as to the pension guarantee act, which basic to the Miners Protection Act, we are going to pass that. We are going to put this aside. We don't have to worry about this anymore. We have done it.

That is all we are asking for. Everybody who has joined me in this journey understands that we are all fighting for the working people, which is what we were sent here to do, from your wonderful State of South Carolina to my beautiful State of West Virginia. They depend on us. The retired miners are walking our halls. Maybe you have seen them. If not, I am sure they will come by and say hi to you. They are very appreciative of the consideration we are all giving them. They are hoping we finally get this done.

I am doing it for them and for their families and what they have done for our country. The 4-month extension is not even humane. I have said that. My reason for saying that is that these people can't comprehend it. I can assure you that, when I go back to my office after I leave the floor, I will get phone calls: Joe, they are going to take my healthcare again. What am I going to do?

I keep saying: Ma'am, please, trust us; hold tight.

We could have had this fixed before. We kicked the can down the road 4 months. Now I have been told--and we all seem to accept it--that they are going to do a permanent healthcare fix. I am appreciative of that. The bottom line is that we have pensions out there hanging, which is going to be a bigger albatross around us if we don't something, and we have a chance to fix it all and put that aside.

I spoke to President Trump, and I am hopeful that he will speak out on this, and he has spoken out. He has told me that he supports it.

I said: Please, Mr. President, speak to our friends on the other side--our leadership--and let them know how much you support this, and let us put this behind us because we can fix it once and for all.

We were told to get a legislative hearing, and we did that. We were told to go through regular order. We went to the Finance Committee, and it was passed out--bipartisan, overwhelmingly bipartisan.

I know we have the 60 votes. I was told we have to reintroduce it again. So here we are. I reintroduced it, and we have bipartisan support again. We are ready to go.

Why do we put these people through this type of agony? I don't know. We have so many other challenges, and we have to come together. This is one we have already agreed we are together on and can't move it.

I know you have always been a dear friend and supportive, and you know the hard work our people have done, and I appreciate that. However, it is time to act. It is time to get this done. If we wait until April, that is exactly when our continuing resolution is coming up, and, basically, we have no budget to work off of. So we have to do another extension until we can get something more permanent. They could get caught up in that CR again. We are going to say: We are sorry; we couldn't get it done, but we will give you another 2, 3, or 4 months.

I can't go home and continue to tell these wonderful people who have been so good and so patient that I am sorry, but we just have to wait another few months.

When is enough enough? When are those few months going to be up and we do the right thing? I am asking all of you; I am asking all of my colleagues: Please, this is one time when we can do something and feel good about it and go home over the weekend and go back to our constituents and tell them that this one is finished, that we fixed this.

I am asking for that vote. I would encourage all of my colleagues to do the same, to speak to the leaderships to make sure that we can move the miners protection and make sure the miners get the healthcare and the pension benefits they were guaranteed and they have been promised and which has been kept until now, and that we are not going to let them down.

With that, Mr. President, I thank you, and I thank all of my colleagues for the support we have been receiving. I am asking the majority leader to please let us have this vote and put it on the floor. Let's go from there and see what happens. I am willing to do that.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I rise to express my concern with the nomination of Betsy DeVos as the Secretary of Education.

The State of West Virginia is a State made up of a lot of small towns. We don't have any what you call large metropolitan areas. We are an urban rural State. For many communities in West Virginia, our schools are more than just classrooms, teachers, and textbooks. Our children in West Virginia learn more in their public school than reading, writing, and arithmetic. They are the heart of the community and a home away from home for most of them. They are a safe place to stay after school where no harm will come to them. They are a place where nutritional meals are served and health care services are provided by trusted school nurses.

After meeting with Mrs. DeVos and watching her answer questions at her confirmation hearing, I have a hard time believing she has the qualifications to be the Secretary of Education. I believe in local control of education and also that strong public schools are vital to our State's future.

Education is local. Each one of our 55 counties is responsible for the financing of the schools. If the counties do not have the sufficient funds, we have what we call a school aid formula that basically offsets that so that every child in West Virginia will get a quality education.

In my State, charter schools and school vouchers would pull already limited public funds and resources from the schools, students, and teachers who need them the most and could be harmed and would probably be harmed.

There are some towns in West Virginia with only one school--one school only--or where students have to travel for more than an hour on a bus to get to the school that has been consolidated. Voucher policies would be completely useless in these places. There is no place for them to attend.

In areas where there are a few private schools in my State, a voucher program would have devastating effects for public school children. The limited dollars that we do have, if you deviate that money whatsoever, then basically you are going to have the strain on the public system that will not be able to pick it up in the rural areas. There is no other way for us to have the funding we need.

Vouchers will siphon public funding away from our public schools, causing them to have to cut resources like teachers, advanced coursework, and preschool programs. They often do not pay the entire cost of attendance at a private school, making them unusable by low- income students and families.

Vouchers also can strip students with disabilities and their families of their rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The most troubling part of that hearing, if you watched it or saw any parts of it, was the lack of understanding that every child deserves the opportunity for a quality education no matter what his or her disabilities may be. That is a responsibility we have as Americans.

With that, if you have never been in a public school setting, you have never attended a public school yourself and have always been privately schooled, your children have never attended a public school and have always either been privately schooled or home schooled, you have probably never been in a setting where you have seen a disabled child trying to get the opportunities that other children have, with a special aide who is working with them. You can say that is a waste of resources. I guess you could say that if it wasn't your child. If it wasn't somebody you knew, it would be easy to say that, But just the empathy you would have--it would be hard for a person to understand that. I believe that is a compelling reason to make me take pause and say that I believe we need somebody who has had that diversity, who has had that real classroom experience.

Another thing--never to be in a PTA meeting where you have problems with schools. You might have problems with the bus and transportation. You might have problems with extracurricular activities or lunch programs or a routine study program, where you can sit down with other parents and work through these programs. That is something that is hard for most of us in West Virginia to ever conceive, that you could never be in that position and never have that experience in life. I believe communities in West Virginia know our students' needs better than someone who never attended or worked in the public school system.

Many West Virginians have called and written to me expressing their concern about Mrs. DeVos. I have a letter I want to read from Diane from Marion County, my home county. We have hundreds of letters that have come in. Diane writes:

I am asking you to vote against the confirmation of Mrs.

Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. As an educator with 44

years of experience in public schools, I recognize we have

many issues, but I also know we do much that is right for

children. Educators no longer simply teach core content. We

know that children can only thrive if their social, emotional

and physical needs are met. The whole child is now the focus

of every teacher, and teaching has become a very difficult

but a very rewarding job.

Educators need and DESERVE a Secretary of Education that

knows and understands the tremendous responsibility each of

us has accepted. We do not have the time to get the leader

``in step'' with us. We need and DESERVE someone who

understands how policies can impact what we are able to do

for our children. . . . We need and DESERVE someone who

understands the value of academic growth versus proficiency.

We need and DESERVE someone who understands how important it

is to send food home in backpacks because our children will

not eat during a weekend or holiday break.

I want to stop there and give you a personal experience. When I was Governor of the State of West Virginia, I would go around to the schools. The school would tell me what was going on in the community. I would always go to the cooks because they really had the pulse of the school. This was May, and school was getting ready to let out for the summer. One of the cooks was crying in the kitchen. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I went back and tried to console her and talk to her.

I said: Can you explain why you are so upset? You are just about out for the summer.

She said: I know these little kids aren't going to eat much this summer.

She wanted to stay and cook through the summer, have all year so the kids would have nutrition. That tells you what we are dealing with in an awful lot of rural settings.

We need and DESERVE a leader who knows that almost every

teacher utilizes his/her own personal funds to buy pencils,

paper, classroom supplies and instructional materials for our

students because the budget for what our children DESERVE is

not given to us. That is the strain we already have on the

system now. If you put any more strain on that by taking

funds away makes it almost impossible.

My request is not politically motivated--my request for you

to vote against Mrs. DeVos is about the teachers I work with

in Marion County and across WV. One of the pillars of a great

civilization is education. Although the American system of

education is not perfect, we are still envied by many

nations.

Education is a hope for children of poverty as well as

those who have economic security. Please encourage President

Trump to seek out a former or current state superintendent of

education or a chancellor of higher education or anyone with

the knowledge to walk in step with us as we make a brighter

future for our children.

During her hearing, Mrs. DeVos demonstrated a lack of knowledge about the basic issues in public education, including the debate about how best to measure student progress. She also did not appear to have a solid understanding about the amount of student loan debt in this country, which is now the second-largest source of consumer debt in the United States, surpassed only by home mortgages.

Not only does she lack the institutional knowledge, but she has no personal or family experience with the student loan system or any experience running a major loan program like the one she would be in charge of as Secretary of Education. This leads me to believe that she would be unable to run the program effectively and efficiently.

What I have said and spoke to other people about--I understand and I think most of us have been in Washington long enough to understand how the system works. Even though the person would have the greatest of intent, the most honorable of intent, wanting to do a balanced job, if they never had the experience and they are charged with setting up programs that are supposed to incentivize schools, school districts, States, those programs are not going to lean to where they have no knowledge; those programs will go to where they have the most knowledge and in a direction of the policies they believe in. With that being said, incentives would go in that direction. When the incentives go in that direction, it pulls further resources away from a rural public education system.

At her hearing, Mrs. DeVos failed to recognize that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is a Federal law protecting access for individuals with disabilities to a decent public education and that she would be in charge of ensuring that the school implemented the act. No child should ever be denied access to the same public education because they suffer from a disability. As both a Governor and a father, I can never look a parent in the eyes and tell them their child cannot get the same education as another child simply because they suffer from a disability and it would be too costly for us to do.

West Virginians need an Education Secretary who has an understanding of the needs of all children, including those with disabilities, and is committed to ensuring they receive a quality education. A strong education is the building block for success for every child and the foundation for our country's long-term economic strength. We need an Education Secretary that understands the challenges that students, teachers, and schools in rural areas face.

Betsy DeVos has spent her career working in the private school system, not investing in and improving the public school system. Much of the policies that Mrs. DeVos supports would divert public funds to private schools--whether it was intentional or not--strip accountability from these schools, and significantly harm the public school system in my little State of West Virginia, which is all we have.

It is difficult to speak--and I try not to make it personal because I don't believe in the toxic rhetoric that goes on sometimes in this room, and it shouldn't in this great Senate Chamber of ours and on the Hill. So I know this is probably a good lady who is well-intentioned. She just doesn't have that personal experience it takes to grab this entire country and understand that we are different. States are different. We depend on it. We can't always go in one direction, and that is the flexibility. They are saying: Well, we will give you flexibility. We need the support from Washington to have the flexibility to make sure the children of West Virginia have the same opportunities that a child in Pittsburgh, PA, might have in a larger school district, one in a metropolitan area that could afford--because you don't have all the travel and everything else that is involved--to have a charter school.

In my State, even the legislature couldn't. They looked at charter and voucher systems, and they couldn't find a pathway forward because of the limited funding and knowing that it would divert. If there is no more funding going into it, that means you have to cut the pie more. They were concerned about even going in this direction. My legislature, in the last 2 years, has flipped completely to a Republican majority in both the House and Senate. They are all good people, well-intended. They are looking at all these different avenues, but at the end of the day, you have to take care of those whom you are responsible for. In rural West Virginia, that is a child who might have to ride 1 hour just to go to school. I don't know where you would put a charter school. I don't know where, with the voucher system, you could send him.

If we have a problem in deficiencies, that is basically the responsibility of the county and the community. It is the responsibility of the parents and guardians to be involved. It is a responsibility for all of us to speak up. I guess what we are going to end up with is all the children with disabilities or children who basically do not have the means or a person in their family who

is able to drive them or take them to a special school; they are all going to be left, so-called, behind.

It is just not who we are in West Virginia. I ask for your consideration that maybe we can find a Secretary who has the experience and understanding and has the real-life experience--they might have attended a public school themselves. I am a product--I am sure you are a product of public schools. We are a product of the public school system, probably, more than likely, rural public school systems. We did pretty well with them. People cared. We had to give a little bit and make some sacrifices, and we did that. The bottom line was that there were no options. We made the best out of what we had. These kids aren't going to have options. The majority of kids in West Virginia or Oklahoma will not have those options. You better make sure that school system you have, a public school in a rural setting, is giving that child every opportunity that he and she can excel. Who knows, maybe one day they will be sitting in my seat or your seat. I hope so.

With that, I say I must oppose her achieving the Secretary position that President Trump has nominated her for, with all due respect. I think I stated my reasons for that. I would hope that people understand our rural public schools truly need a champion. We need that champion to really step forward and lift us all up.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise also to speak about the rule. I want everyone to know that the State of West Virginia has been a heavy- lifting State. We are a construction State. We mined the coal that made the steel that built the guns and factories that enabled our Nation to defend us and gave us the great country we have.

We have done everything. There is no one in West Virginia, Oklahoma, or any extraction State who wants dirty water or dirty air. Pitting people against each other is just wrong. The way this comes down is that this is a duplicative rule, this stream protection rule that was put in place.

My colleagues know that last year the Department of Interior Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation Enforcement basically decided to send the final stream protection rule to the White House without fulfilling their obligations or even a request by myself to contact and work with the local authorities and to work with the States that are involved. They did nothing. They would not reach out to us whatsoever. This was one of many of President Obama's administration's regulations that absolutely crippled West Virginia families and businesses with no plan to replace or create new jobs or help these communities.

Not only is this rule very alarming in its scope and potential impacts, the rulemaking was executed in a very flawed way. The rules by the Department of Interior and Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation must be based on comprehensive data that is available to stakeholders, particularly when those rules threaten to eliminate thousands of jobs. All we have asked was to come to the DEP, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, and tell us what is not working, tell us what you want us to do differently, work with us and help us strengthen where there is a flaw.

Not once did we ever get that type of courtesy. States critical to the implementation of this rule were left out of the process in any meaningful way. The Office of Surface Mining failed to work with States throughout this process, despite the clear congressional intent. Furthermore, agencies should not be assuming duplicative rules that overlap regulations under other environmental laws such as the Clean Water Act.

This rule is excessive and duplicative. It has over 400 changes to the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act--which is what we refer to as SMCRA--that duplicate existing practices and protections that the EPA and the Army Corps already oversaw.

So, basically, we already have two agencies that have to do with any type of permitting that goes through the EPA, in conjunction and in alliance with the Army Corps. This overstepped and took all the powers away from them completely. Why would we want to duplicate? If we have an agency that is not doing its job, either change the personnel or get rid of the agency; don't just create another duplicative role and another agency to oversee it.

During my time in the Senate, I have been committed to policies that protect our coal-mining communities and economies, and that is why I introduced this resolution of disapproval to undo this harmful, duplicative regulation.

I am a firm believer in the balance between the economy and the environment. I believe that everything we do in life should have a balance, and we should try to find that balance. But when you are trying to basically use overreach, duplicative rules--a nuisance--which do nothing but create havoc and make it almost impossible to go forward, you can't hire enough lawyers and enough accountants to get through the paperwork the government can put on you.

But never once, from any of us--from West Virginia or any other State that does the heavy lifting--none of us think that we should discard the Clean Water Act or the Clean Air Act. Those are things that we will cherish and we will protect, and those came about by Republicans and Democrats working together--Republican administrations. We are all for that; we are just not for beating us over the head with a hammer when we can work to fix things if we think there is an error.

The consequences of this regulation will have far-reaching impacts on the future of coal mining and therefore all other things we can count on. I think, as the Senator from Oklahoma just said, in West Virginia, we have what we call ``all of the above'' energy. We want all of the above to be used, and use it in the cleanest fashion, and design and develop new technologies that we can use and depend on. We depend on coal, we depend on natural gas, and we depend on nuclear power for the majority of our energy.

The other thing I have said is that I believe we should be developing renewables also, and we are doing that. Wind, solar, biomass--we do everything. But if you believe that is going to run the country in the energy you use every day and take for granted, then tell me what 4 hours of the day you want your electricity to run. What 4 hours of the day do you want your refrigerator to stay cold? What 4 hours of the day do you want to heat your home? Tell me what 4 hours of the day you take for granted that anything and everything you want works 24 hours a day, because you will not have baseload. Those are the facts. If you don't like it, then let's continue to work to make it better, but don't just put your head in the sand and say: I am going to have whatever I have. This will work fine. And I have no fossil. I don't need fossil.

I am sorry, the world doesn't work that way. This country doesn't work that way. The grid system--your light switch--doesn't work that way.

So today once again I am standing on behalf of West Virginians and commonsense people all over this country, and we have a lot of them in West Virginia. I ask my colleagues to hear their voices and vote in support of this resolution that gets rid of these overreaching, duplicative rules that do nothing but create havoc on the economy and the well-being of the citizens of our great country.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I wish to honor Ken Hechler, a former Presidential adviser, veteran, public servant, author, Congressman, West Virginia's 26th Secretary of State, and educator who left a significant imprint on my home State of West Virginia.

Ken was born on September 20, 1914, in Roslyn, NY. Always a staunch advocate for engaging the public in politics, he helped organize support for President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal while attending Swarthmore College. He later earned a master's degree and Ph.D. in political science, both from Columbia University.

Shortly after the United States entered World War II, Ken was drafted into the Army where he trained as an infantryman and a tank commander. Eventually he was assigned as an Army combat historian and rose to the rank of colonel. He was one of five people assigned to interview leaders of Nazi Germany after the war.

His experience as a war historian led to his joining the Truman administration as an adviser on local issues during his tours across the Nation. He remained on Truman's administration throughout the remainder of his tenure and briefly into the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

He was the author of ``The Bridge at Remagen,'' which detailed the Army's crossing of the Rhine River during World War II. This publication helped make him a household name.

Ken later joined the American Political Science Association, with one of his jobs requiring him to find political science professors for colleges. His legacy in West Virginia began in 1957 when he got a request to teach political science at Marshall College, now Marshall University. Following one term at Marshall, he ran for Congress and won. He served nine terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1957 to 1977.

He saw West Virginia for the welcoming place it is. Once you have visited our little State, it never really leaves you. Most importantly, Ken recognized quickly the issues that matter in West Virginia--mostly concerning the coal industry and protection of our miners. In the wake of the explosion at the Consol No. 9 mine in my hometown of Farmington, Ken played a key role in the promotion of the Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969. I personally lost many individuals who I knew well, including my dear Uncle John and several classmates, in that explosion. The implementation of the Coal Mine Health and Safety Act set the groundwork for everything we have accomplished for our miners since then. I will always be grateful for Ken's contributions.

Among his many history-making legacies, Ken joined the march to Selma with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1965. He was the only active Member of Congress to participate.

After a successful tenure in Congress, Ken served as West Virginia's Secretary of State. He moved his desk out front so he could interact with visitors passing through. He loved to visit with all West Virginians. He fought for transparency in our campaign finance system, was passionate about protecting our democratic process, and fought to ensure that West Virginians had access to cast their ballots.

Ken never gave up his commitment to public service and continued to be active on the issues that matter to the public. At the age of 85, he walked 530 miles with Granny D to show his unwavering commitment to campaign finance reform, shortly after the McCain-Feingold Act passed Congress. Put simply, Ken was never one to back down from a challenge. The man was fearless and fought tirelessly for causes he believed in.

What is most important is that he lived a full life, surrounded by dear friends and family. It is my hope that Ken's loved ones are able to find peace, strength, and support in one another. This is a time to celebrate his life and vast accomplishments, as well as the countless lives he touched, and to honor his memory in our thoughts and prayers.

Again, I extend my most sincere condolences to his loving wife, Carol, and the entire Hechler family and dear friends. I am honored to join the people of West Virginia and beyond in recognizing his memory, as well as the unwavering love he had for his loved ones and our great Nation. His legacy of service will live on forever.

Mr. President, I thank my most generous friend from Rhode Island, Senator Whitehouse, for allowing me to speak for a few minutes.

(The remarks of Mr. Manchin pertaining to the introduction of S. 175 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Again, I thank the Senator.

Mr. President, I am back again to introduce the Miners Protection Act.

It is bipartisan. We worked on it in a bipartisan manner, and we said: If it comes to the floor, we will pass it. So we are here again.

This is a promise that was made since 1946. These are men who have worked hard. They paid through the hard work they have accomplished through their own sweat, and we are trying to make sure they have their permanent fix to their health care and to their pensions. This is something that has a pay-for. It is back up again. It should have been done last year. We had an extension at the end until April. April is going to come and go again, and then we are going to start playing politics with this. If we get this done now and get it done quickly, it is something that we can move on, and we can take care of the other problems we have.

Again, this is the Miners Protection Act, which our miners have worked for, earned, and deserved. Their widows and families are expecting this. They need this in order to live any type of a quality life.

I thank you, again. I thank all of my colleagues--my Republican friends for signing onto this piece of legislation and all of my Democratic caucus, which unanimously signed onto it. It is something that should be done and done quickly.

Mr. President, I am back again to introduce the Miners Protection Act.

It is bipartisan. We worked on it in a bipartisan manner, and we said: If it comes to the floor, we will pass it. So we are here again.

This is a promise that was made since 1946. These are men who have worked hard. They paid through the hard work they have accomplished through their own sweat, and we are trying to make sure they have their permanent fix to their health care and to their pensions. This is something that has a pay-for. It is back up again. It should have been done last year. We had an extension at the end until April. April is going to come and go again, and then we are going to start playing politics with this. If we get this done now and get it done quickly, it is something that we can move on, and we can take care of the other problems we have.

Again, this is the Miners Protection Act, which our miners have worked for, earned, and deserved. Their widows and families are expecting this. They need this in order to live any type of a quality life.

I thank you, again. I thank all of my colleagues--my Republican friends for signing onto this piece of legislation and all of my Democratic caucus, which unanimously signed onto it. It is something that should be done and done quickly.

Mr. President, I am rising because I oppose this amendment because this is not the way this body should work. The politics of the people spoke loud and clear. Politics is not going to be accepted. I have an amendment with a point of order, and this amendment was pushed in in front of this vote so it would be a Republican vote and not a Democratic, and I can tell you, I am sick and tired of it, and the people of America are too.

Mr. President, I raise a point of order that the pending amendment is not germane to the underlying resolution and therefore violates section 305(b)(2) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Mr. President, basically, if you are concerned about your rural hospital or health care system centers, this is the amendment that will save them. This is the amendment that will protect them. You can go home and say, basically, that we have made sure that no matter what happens with the Affordable Care Act, we are going to make sure we protect our rural hospitals and rural clinics. That being said, all of us have rural areas in our States. I urge the adoption of this amendment and the support of this amendment. It has the teeth of the budget point of order.

So I urge everybody: If you care about your health care providers-- the economic engine, the protection of your people in your areas that have very poor health care coverage right now--make sure you vote in support of this amendment.

Mr. President, pursuant to section 904----

Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive section 305(b)(2) of that act for purposes of the pending amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, on behalf of the great people of West Virginia, I vote no.