Floor Statements

Madam President, it is with great pride that I recognize a constituent of mine, Sophia L. Thomas, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC,

Mr. President, I want to talk for a few minutes about nuclear energy. President Biden, of course, as we both are aware, has called climate change the ``existential threat.'' He says it is the ``number one issue facing humanity today.'' Secretary Kerry, who, as we know, is President Biden's climate envoy, has said that climate change is a ``life and death'' issue. President Biden's National Climate Advisor, the Honorable Gina McCarthy, believes that saving the environment is the ``fight of our lifetimes.''

If you ask many Members of Congress, not all of them--I don't want to paint with too broad a brush--but if you ask many Members of Congress what they think the solution to our environmental issues is, they will probably respond: renewable energy. But if we are really worried about the climate--and I know we all are; we all want clean air, and we all want bright water--I suggest that we also embrace nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is not only safe, but it is clean and, frankly, it can produce more power than renewables.

Nuclear energy, as you know, creates little or no carbon emissions. Let me say that again. A lot of people don't realize it. Nuclear energy creates little or no carbon emissions. It also creates very little waste--an extraordinarily small amount of waste. All the nuclear waste that America's commercial nuclear industry has ever produced--ever,

in the history of ever--can fit into a single football field to a depth of fewer than 10 yards Now, you compare that with solar panels, for example--solar panels create 300 times more toxic waste than nuclear plants in order to yield the same exact amount of energy--or compare the waste from nuclear power production with wind turbine blades. Wind turbine blades are very hard to recycle, and they usually end up in landfills.

These facts are underreported, but the fact is that solar and wind power do have their own harmful impacts on our environment. There is no free lunch, as you know, and you don't get one now. There are pros and cons of everything.

Solar and wind can't hold a candle to nuclear power when it comes to efficiency. That is just a fact. It takes more than 3 million solar panels or more than 430 wind turbines to produce the same amount of energy as the average nuclear plant. Let me say that again--3 million solar panels, 430 wind turbines to produce the same amount of energy as the average nuclear powerplant. And these numbers do not take into account that solar panels, as we know, are useless when the Sun doesn't shine, and wind turbines are nothing more than expensive paper waste when the wind doesn't blow.

Also underreported, in my judgment, is how safe nuclear energy is. Despite what some people may think, Homer Simpson does not run America's nuclear powerplants. The industry is constantly evolving to make nuclear powerplants safer, to make them more efficient. In fact, we have all read a lot about small modular reactors. I will just use that as an example. These small modular reactors are part of a very promising new generation of advanced reactors that can automatically-- automatically--prevent overheating. And, frankly, they produce even less nuclear waste.

Now, I want to be clear. I still believe in fossil fuels. I am an ``all of the above'' energy advocate, but leading that pack is fossil fuels.

America's economy is the largest in all of human history, and it can't run without oil and gas. Louisianans know this, and most Americans know this. The people of Louisiana serve our country pretty well by contributing to our energy independence, and I am very proud of that.

Last year, Louisiana supplied 9 percent--9 percent--of America's marketed gas. And Louisianans understand, as do, I think, most Americans, that giving up on fossil fuels would not only destroy jobs; it would ruin the economy.

But I want America to use every advantage that it has. I want America to use every energy tool at its disposal. Now, that is why nuclear energy--I see nuclear energy as supporting oil and gas, not replacing it. I want to be clear about that, as supporting oil and gas, not replacing it.

Since nuclear energy holds such promise--and it does--I am hoping that my Democratic friends in Congress and my Republican friends in Congress--because I see this as a bipartisan issue--will lend their full-throated support to nuclear energy.

I am not saying that renewables don't have their proper place in America's energy policy--they certainly do--and I am not saying we should get rid of them--I am certainly not--but we need to acknowledge that renewables have limitations. They have limitations, and nuclear energy does not. There are disadvantages to renewables. As I said, there is no free lunch, and you don't get one now.

Now, for some people, that is a lesson that needs to be repeated. I take note. I say this gently, but the Democratic Party platform, for example, calls for installing 500 million solar panels--500 million solar panels--and 60,000 wind turbines over the next 5 years. This will occupy a lot more land and actually create less energy than building new nuclear reactors. And that is a fact.

Some small modular nuclear reactors are roughly twice the length of the average schoolbus--twice the length of an average schoolbus. Wind farms, on the other hand, can eat up more than 19 square miles. That is about half the size of Disney World--half the size of Disney World, compared to twice the length of the average schoolbus. If we succeed in blanketing our land with solar panels and wind farms, it is going to create more waste, occupy more green space, and ultimately weaken our economy.

Again, I am not saying no to solar and wind. I am not at all. I am saying yes to explore the possibilities of nuclear energy.

President Biden, as we know, has a $2 trillion infrastructure plan. And I think, if nothing else, his infrastructure plan establishes the Biden administration's priorities. His plan does call for $61 billion in initiatives that include investments in advanced nuclear technology. I am not sure I agree on the amount, but I like the concept, and I find that to be prudent. But it also asks for three times that amount--$174 billion--to support electric vehicles, electric cars. I suggest that nuclear energy has more place in energy's future, and it is something that we ought to talk about.

Other spending bonanzas in President Biden's plan include a $213 billion investment to give 2 million buildings a Green New Deal makeover and $100 billion to make our schools greener. These are not going to have a more meaningful impact on our environment than exploring nuclear energy. They are just not.

I know that nuclear energy sounds too good to be true, and I don't want to oversimplify the circumstances. Nuclear energy has its drawbacks, but nuclear energy is powerful. Nuclear energy is safe. Nuclear energy is clean. And by building up our nuclear power capabilities, the United States can create more jobs; the United States can strengthen its economy; and the United States can ensure its place as a world leader on energy. And we can do all that while reducing carbon emissions.

I hope my colleagues will come to embrace nuclear energy as the efficient green energy source that it is and that the U.S. Congress can work with the White House to improve America's standing as an energy juggernaut.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, with me today is one of my colleagues, Mr. Elad Vaida, and I also ask unanimous consent that Mr. Boatner Calhoun, who is an intern in my office, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the Congress.

Mr. President, I rise today to say thank you. I rise today to say thank you to President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken. They have both announced today, though it had been rumored for several days, that the United States of America is about to make available 500 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine to our friends and neighbors across the world. And I hope the President and the Secretary are willing to offer even more, if necessary.

We have learned a lot about the virus and the disease that it causes. I will mention three things. No. 1, we have learned that the virus came from China; No. 2, we have learned that the best vaccines for the virus came from the United States of America; and No. 3, we have learned that the pandemic is not over.

Yes, things are better in the United States. And we are so blessed in that regard, and I am so thankful. That is a combination of Americans receiving the vaccine; it is a combination of Americans being careful in their behavior. Our coronavirus rates are a combination of people who contracted the disease and therefore have the antibodies, and that is why our numbers are going down, and we are also thankful for that.

But that is not the situation in other parts of the world. If you go to South America, if you go to Central America, if you ask anyone--if you ask Sub-Saharan Africa about how things are going in terms of the pandemic, it is alive and well and raging. And our friends and neighbors need the help, and I am grateful today that President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken are going to make that help available.

For a couple of reasons, it makes sense to show the world what U.S. leadership really means. No. 1, it is the right thing to do. It is the moral thing to do. We developed a vaccine. We need to share it. That doesn't mean that we have to require pharmaceutical companies to share their patented and protected information. I think that is a real mistake. We can accomplish everything through licensing agreements. But we do need to share.

No. 2, this makes sense in terms of our national security. It is not the most important reason to do this but in terms of national security and the rest of our neighbors throughout the world understanding that the American people are generous and that we help other folks when they are down.

No. 3, it makes sense for the President and the Secretary to do this in terms of geopolitical terms. China is trying to do the same thing that we are going to do in terms of making vaccines available throughout the world. And I thank China for that, and I thank the Chinese people. The Chinese people are wonderful people. Their leadership, not so much.

The Chinese people--let me say it again--the people of China are wonderful. The leadership of the Communist Party of China is a bunch of pirates. But I am thankful they are willing to make vaccines available. The problem is, they are making their own vaccine available, which is inferior to the American vaccine, and, No. 2, in many cases, their vaccine diplomacy--``their'' meaning, of course, the Chinese Communist Party's vaccine diplomacy--is tied to conditions.

Yes, says the Chinese Communist Party, we will share our vaccine with you if you will help us take over Taiwan. Yes, we will share our vaccine with you, say members of the Communist Party of China, if you will join with us in saying that the Communist Party of China is doing nothing wrong in hiding the origin of the coronavirus.

That is not what we are doing.

Our gift, as Americans, to the rest of the world is unconditional. It is firm. It is categorical. It is the moral thing to do. It is the smart thing to do, in terms of our own national security. We can't completely recover until the world recovers. And No. 3, it makes perfect sense, in my judgment, in explaining to the rest of the world the difference between communism and the free enterprise system and the hearts that lie behind both of those systems.

It is also, and I will close on this point--it is necessary. There are very few countries in the world--we are blessed to be one of them-- that have the ability to manufacture, to store, and to distribute the vaccine. Yes, it is wonderful to talk about, well, we are going to help other countries with their--let's say, their manufacturing needs. We should do that, but we don't

have enough time. We just don't have enough time because in the developing world, when time is of the essence, they just don't have the ability that we have to manufacture a vaccine, which is only part of it; to store that vaccine, and these vaccines require very careful protocol in terms of storage; and No. 3, to distribute it. We can do all three, and President Biden, over the last several days, along with Secretary of State Blinken, said we are about to show the world what American leadership looks like. We are going to share our innovation and our vaccines with our world's neighbors, and there are no strings attached. And we are doing it because it is the right thing to do.

I think all Members of this Congress should join with the President and should join with the Secretary of State in this effort. If they need the resources, I think we should provide them, and let's all get back on our feet together as a world.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President.

Mr. President, I want to make two points.

First, I want to associate myself with the remarks of some of my colleagues earlier about the fact that we don't know what is in this bill. That is not a criticism of anyone or any party. You can only absorb so much. If you define our job, at least in part, as representing our people and knowing what we are voting on when we vote, I would respectfully suggest we would be better off having our staff vote. Now, I doubt there is more than one or two or, maybe, three staff members who really know or who have a global, macro, picture of what is in the bill, but at least our staffs know more about it than we do. That is not a criticism of anybody or any party. That is just a fact.

I think, if you were to just pick 10 Senators at random and ask them off the record, ``Do you know what is in this bill? Not every word, but do you have a general idea of everything in this bill?'' 9 out of 10 would tell you that they don't, and the 10th is probably lying.

Now, I have said before--and I really think that it is a shame. I have said before--and I meant it--that I know some of my colleagues better than others, but I think I know all of my colleagues in the Senate. These are the most interesting, complex people--that is, in part, why they are interesting--whom I have ever been around. There are some enormously talented people in this body. Let me just pick one at random.

When Senator Scott doesn't have time to understand or Senator Durbin doesn't have time to figure out everything that is in the bill because things are moving so fast, that shortchanges all of us. They are talented people. They may be able to say something: What about this provision? This doesn't make sense. What do you think, Senator Kennedy? What do you think, Senator Murphy?

So that really bothers me. That is not a criticism of my Democratic friends, and that is not a criticism of the majority leader, Senator Schumer. It wasn't any better when the Republicans were in control. I just think that it is so sad, so unfortunate, and it is so avoidable.

I understand that floor time is limited. So we want to do things quickly around here. But there is no law that says we can't start earlier and work later. There is no law that says we can't cooperate in terms of allowing the majority to have more floor time so that all of us have a greater opportunity to understand what we are voting on.

I mean, excuse me, Senator Scott, look at that. I think that is only a portion of the bill. Honestly.

Now, the second point I wanted to make--I learned really quickly when I got here that Senators are like cats: They do what they want. Why is that? Because we have minority rights. Our rules pretty much are written to protect the minority.

So a fair question is, Well, how do we ever get anything done? Well, we do it by consent. We couldn't run this place without consent, and we give our consent automatically to a lot of relatively trivial matters, the day-to-day functioning of the Senate. Yet we don't readily give our consent--or at least not as readily as we should--when we are dealing with more important matters, like the Endless Frontier Act.

Now, I voted to get on this bill because I was told that we were going to have an open amendment process. In my judgment, we didn't have an open amendment process. That is, again, not a criticism of the Democratic majority, and it is not a criticism of Senator Schumer. It wasn't a damn bit better when the Republicans had the majority. It just wasn't.

An open amendment process, to me, means that any Senator should be able to come to this floor, respecting each other so that we allot ourselves time, and offer an amendment for all of us to hear. Now, obviously you can't spend 20 hours on one amendment, but if one wants to present an amendment, I think 5 minutes would be sufficient. We do that all the time in a vote-arama.

When people--some people say, when I raised this issue, they say: Oh, vote-aramas are terrible because we are here all night.

We don't have to be here all night. You can start a vote-arama at 8 in the morning and stop at 5:30 or 6. That is an open amendment process.

An open amendment--I was told we would have an open amendment process. I wouldn't have gotten on this bill otherwise. Now, I don't know how it works on the Democratic side. I suspect it works very similar to the way it works on our side. You have an amendment, but you have to get the permission of other Senators to even offer your amendment. You have to go see the bill manager. You have to see the majority leader. You have to see the committee chairman. You have to see the ranking member. And anybody can say: No, I just don't like your amendment. And I think it works the same way on the Democratic side. That is not an open amendment process--not even close.

You say: Well, why does it matter?

You know, we have seniority, and we elect our leaders, and I get all of that, but nobody is infallible. I will give you a specific example. We are giving, in this bill, I am told--it could have changed overnight--but about $56 billion to the semiconductor industry. We are told we need to do that because the semiconductor industry--private semiconductor industry--is essential to our ability to compete with China.

So far, so good. There are a lot of companies that are essential to competing in the global economy--the finance industry, the energy industry, the banking industry. We have to eat. Farmers--you could marshal a pretty persuasive argument that they are essential too. But this bill singles out the semiconductor industry for $56 billion, and I believe--I am not sure because it could have changed--that we are giving President Biden the authority to give up to $3 billion to each private company. So we are picking winners and losers. Some people like that; some people don't. I get it. That is why God made votes. We will have a vote on it, but the fact is that we are doing it.

Senator Sanders had a very interesting idea. In fact, it is an idea that I had on my side as well. He said: Look, if we are taking taxpayer money and we are giving it to private companies, why don't we let the taxpayers participate in the upside? Why don't we give taxpayers--you can't give individual taxpayers, but you can certainly give, say, the Department of Treasury on behalf of taxpayers warrants or stock options.

So if President Biden--if this bill passes and President Biden exercises his authority to give $3 billion to XYZ Semiconductor Company, and the semiconductor company uses that capital wisely and triples its profits, and its stock goes up 233 percent, the American taxpayer has warrants or stock options.

Now, I am not speaking for Senator Sanders. I haven't really had a chance to talk to Bernie about his idea; I am just intrigued by it.

I had a similar idea. I wanted to use stock options on my side. By ``my side,'' I mean the Republican side. I offered it up, and it is still floating around. It is probably in a black hole somewhere. None of the powers that be on my side that--they said: We are not going to let you do that.

That is not an open amendment process. It is honestly not.

And I hear this business about regular order, and I am not arguing that we are not following regular order. It is just that regular order is irregular.

I mean, this is an incredibly talented group of people, and we ought to be able to design a parliamentary procedure that looks like somebody designed it on purpose so that every single Member in this body has a chance to offer input and to have his or her ideas seriously considered. And it won't be an unwieldy process. We do it all the time with the vote-arama.

Now, vote-aramas--I am going to come back to a point I made earlier, but I want to emphasize it. Vote-aramas can be painful. Nobody likes to stay up all night. But we don't have to stay up all night. We can start at a reasonable hour and end at a reasonable hour.

And I dare say that if you took all the time that we have spent collectively over the last week or so in the back rooms making deals, making side deals, saying ``You can't have your amendment''; ``Yeah, I like your amendment''; ``No, that is a dumb idea,'' none of which is transparent, until we come up, finally, with some kind of package that makes probably 75 percent of the folks mad and mostly 100 percent don't know what is in it--if we took all the time that we spent on that and instead spent it by saying ``OK. Here is the bill. You have a reasonable amount of time to understand what is in it, and now we are going to start the amendment process. There is going to be 5 minutes to present your amendment, and there will be 5 minutes to argue it by an opponent. We are going to really have 20-minute votes. We are going to start at a reasonable hour, and we are going to end at a reasonable hour, and then we will come back and do it the next day,'' yes, we will burn maybe 5, 6 days of floor time, but the minority party is going to cooperate with the majority party in terms of helping it preserve floor time that it has to have to do other things that the majority party needs to do.

Again, I am not criticizing Senator Schumer. The Republicans did the same thing when we had the majority. But I just think we are wasting an enormous amount of talent in this body by, A, not giving them a voice-- witness Senator Sanders' warrant idea. I don't know what happened on his side of the aisle. On my side of the aisle, when I brought it up, they killed it deader than a doornail, and that is not an open amendment process.

We are also wasting an enormous amount of talent because we are not-- in offering these ideas to each other, we are not getting the benefit of the wisdom of our colleagues.

So I wanted to get that off my chest, and that is about all I have to say, and I appreciate your attention.

Madam President, I love Senator Durbin. I hate his amendment. Here is why. These SDRs are not free money. They are not free money. They are like a cryptocoin. The IMF issues the cryptocoin to all the countries that are members of the IMF, and these countries take that cryptocoin, and guess what they do. They come to the United States of America and say: We want to exchange our cryptocoin for dollars. And guess what. We don't have the dollars because we are dead broke. So we have to borrow the dollars to give to the Chinas and the Venezuelas and all the countries that hate us in exchange for their cryptocoins.

Now, that is just a natural fact, and if you check the record, you will find that as to the countries that really need the money to vaccinate their people, about 10 percent of this money is

going to them. The rest is going to all the larger countries, like China, like Venezuela, like the countries in Europe. Virtually no money gets sent to the people who need it. This is an incredibly inefficient way to do it.

Madam President, the International Monetary Fund issues special drawing rights. A special drawing right is like a cryptocoin-- it is not worth anything. It is only worth something if you exchange it for real money. The Biden administration decided to encourage the IMF to issue all of these cryptocoins, and guess what they are all doing? They are bringing the cryptocoins to the United States of America and are saying: We want dollars. Give me dollars for the cryptocoin.

Yet we don't have any dollars in our checking account, so we have to borrow the money. There is no free lunch, and you don't get one now.

All my bill would do would be to say that we are not going to issue special drawing rights to perpetrators of genocide or state sponsors of terrorism--in other words, no free money to China, no free money to Syria, and no free money to Iran. It is ludicrous for us to be borrowing money to give dollars to exchange for cryptocoins to China or Syria or Iran.

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, I want to just spend a few minutes today saying goodbye to a friend. Louisiana weeps right now. Gov. Charles E. Roemer III passed away last week. He went by ``Buddy.'' He served our State from 1988 to 1992. Before that, he served a number of terms in Congress.

I guess I am biased because Buddy brought me to the dance, if you will. I was sitting in my office in New Orleans practicing law, earning a good living, you know, thinking about happy hour on a Friday afternoon, and Governor Roemer had just been elected and he asked me to come up to Baton Rouge and work as his legal counsel. And I did, and I stayed for 4 years. And I liked government service, and I have been in it, off and on, since then.

Buddy was one of the--Buddy was an extremely--I say ``was.'' I am going to say ``is'' because he lives with us. But he was one of the most and is one of the most complex, interesting people I have ever met. He was immeasurably talented. He was raised on a cotton farm, but it wasn't really a farm because his parents and his family, they were all so accomplished.

They put together a cotton farm with their own sweat and blood and some free enterprise capital of about 10,000 acres in North Louisiana. It is a big farm in Louisiana. But the kids all worked, including Buddy.

They didn't have a television. Mr. Budgie, his dad, and Ms. Adeline, his

mom, would require the kids, in their free time, to read books. And, boy, it stuck with Buddy. I never saw him without a book. I would ride with him to go to a speech. He would have a book in the car, and he would read it driving over there.

He went to Harvard when he was 16. He would have gone sooner. Harvard offered him a position, but his mom and dad said: You are too young. You have got to stick around.

And he stayed at Harvard for graduate school.

Buddy was--how can I put this?--one of the first real intellectual Governors that we ever had in Louisiana. I am not putting down our other Governors, now--I am not--because all of our Governors have been intelligent, just like in the Presiding Officer's State. You don't rise to that position without being intelligent. But Buddy truly believed in the power of ideas, and he truly believed in the worth of education.

I have used his words often. He used to say: Kennedy, the future in Louisiana is education. It is not the price of oil. It is not the unemployment rate. It is not who the Governor is. It is education.

And he would say that time and again.

During his 4 years--when he became Governor, we had a $7 billion budget. We had a $1 billion deficit. That is what he was left with. Roemer balanced the budget. It wasn't easy, but he did. And then he implemented fiscal reforms that dramatically and totally changed our way of budgeting in Louisiana for generations to come, because of Buddy's efforts.

He announced in Louisiana--and this was heresy at the time: I am going to find out which of our teachers can teach, and, by God, I am going to pay them.

And he said: But I am also going to find out which of our teachers can't teach, and I am going to either teach them how or tell them to find a new line of work.

Boy, was that ever revolutionary. And he did it.

He totally rewrote our campaign finance laws. When Buddy became Governor, there was no reporting of campaign money. If you were running for office, somebody could bring you a suitcase full of cash-- $200,000--and it was perfectly legal. You didn't have to report it. And if you got the money on a Thursday, if you decided on a Friday you weren't going to run and you withdrew from the race, you could keep it. You could keep it.

Buddy completely rewrote all of that. Now you have to report every penny in, every penny out. There is a cap on contributions. No cash. And we enforce it. It changed our politics dramatically.

I will tell you one quick story that epitomizes the Buddy I knew.

There was a central piece of his education program. I won't bore you with the details. It had to do with higher education. It was key to our future, and we really needed to pass it.

I was handling it, lobbying it for the Governor, and we needed one more vote in the senate--one more vote to pass this landmark bill. And this one Senator said: Kennedy, I will vote for it if you will have the Governor give me this project.

So I was all excited. I went back to see the Governor. I said: Governor, I think I got it put together.

It was a road project.

He said: Call him over to our department of transportation and see what they think.

And the folks at the department of transportation said: Yes, we can do it, but if we do it, we will all go to jail.

So I said: Oh, man.

So I go back, and I tell Governor Roemer. I was young, but I was passionate, and I said: Governor, we can't do it.

He said: I agree. We are not going to do that.

I said: But listen. This is so important. This particular Senator lies to us all the time. Let me just lie to him. Let me just go to him and tell him we will do it. We will get his vote, and then I will go back to him later and say we changed our mind.

The end does justify the means. I will never forget it.

Buddy says: No, we are not doing that.

And I argued with him, but he finally just said: Look, Kennedy, I made my decision. We are not doing it that way.

I am going to really miss Buddy. He wasn't a perfect guy. I told him one time--I said: Governor, if I were back in law practice in the private sector and you came to me as a private client, I would represent you, but I would quadruple my hourly rate.

He was so smart, but he could be very opinionated. Tip O'Neill gave Buddy sort of his slogan phrase. Tip O'Neill described then-Congressman Roemer one time. He said: Congressman Roemer--often wrong, never in doubt.

But I am going to really miss Buddy. All he ever wanted to do was change Louisiana, and he did. He wasn't reelected, but he did.

But Buddy always understood. This was his barometer of success. He used to tell me and say: Kennedy, here is how you know when you are doing a good job: if you are making the right people mad.

He used to say: If nobody is mad at you and if the wrong people like what you are doing, you are not doing your job.

So he did make people mad, and it cost him his reelection. But he changed Louisiana, and Louisiana weeps. And when I count my blessings, I count Buddy Roemer twice.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I think I am like you in one respect. You know, I don't hate anybody, and I try to look for grace everywhere I can find it. I have always believed there is always something to be thankful for.

I came today to thank the Biden administration but also to ask for its help.

First, I want to thank the President for encouraging everybody to take the vaccine. I don't think anybody should be required to take the vaccine, and I am not saying President Biden does, but he and his team have been very aggressive in encouraging Americans to take the vaccine, and I think that is the proper approach.

Do you have polio, Mr. President? I know you don't. I don't either. Thank you, science. The vaccine, I think, works. And once again, we are not telling anybody they have to take it, but I wish people would stop and reflect on it and weigh the pros and the cons, and I think they will see the pros outweigh the cons. I want to thank President Biden for his efforts in that regard.

Here is my criticism: President Biden, at the worst possible time, is about to raise the insurance premiums for every flood insurance policyholder in America or almost all of them. So much for not hurting the middle class. So much for not taxing the working people.

As you know, the National Flood Insurance Program, which is administered by FEMA, began in 1968. Many people don't know this, but if we own a home and we have homeowners insurance, our homeowners insurance doesn't cover flooding. If we do want flood coverage and we call our agent and ask them to place our flood coverage with a private company, they are very difficult to find.

Almost no private companies offer flood insurance. So in 1968, the U.S. Congress decided to form the National Flood Insurance Program and have FEMA administer it. We insure, through our National Flood Insurance Program--which, once again, is the almost exclusive source of flood insurance for the American people--we insure about 5 million people. About 500,000 of those people are in my State, Louisiana, but we are not alone. I am sure we have people in Colorado. I know we have people in New Jersey and New York, in most of the coastal States and in many of the inland States, who have flood insurance.

Now, FEMA has decided to implement a new program called Risk Rating 2.0. They always come up with a fancy name when they are going to screw you. Risk Rating 2.0. If you ask FEMA about it--you say: Well, what does this do, FEMA? Well, they try not to answer your question first, and they dodge and they bob and weave, but if you pin them down and read their literature, they will say: Well, with Risk Rating 2.0, we no longer are going to assess premiums on the basis of area; we are going to look at every specific home and assess its risk and assign a premium. We are also going to consider the future of climate change, what things are going to be like 15, 20, 30 years from now.

I didn't come to debate climate change. I will save that for another day. There is a lot not to debate about. There is a lot we agree about. But this is coming from so-called experts. They are going to be able to predict things 30, 40, 50, 100 years from now, when they can't tell us if it is going to rain on Friday.

This is all a very clever way to raise everybody's premiums. As best I can tell, about 80 percent of the people in my State who have to have flood insurance are going to see their rates go up. FEMA is probably going to start by doing a little bit the first year. They are going to say: See, we told you that wasn't going to hurt. But then they are going to do it the second year and third year and fourth year and fifth year and sixth year.

Some of FEMA's minions who are advocating this say: Well, Kennedy, it is not right for the American people to be subsidizing wealthy people who have two or three homes and one of which is on the beach.

I agree with that. Those are not my people. Those are not my people. My people who have flood insurance get up every day, go to work, obey the law, pay their taxes, try to do the right thing by their kids, try to save a little money for retirement, and their biggest financial asset is their home. Through Risk Rating 2.0 or whatever clever name they call it, when they start raising premiums, a lot of my people can't afford it, and it is going to impact the value of their home. They are going to lose equity in their most valuable asset, and they are not going to be able to sell it. And you don't have to be Einstein's cousin to figure this out. FEMA knows what it is doing.

This is the most dramatic transformation and change to the National Flood Insurance Program since 1968. You would think that Congress would have something to do with it. Wrong. FEMA is doing this on their own. The first increases for new policyholders are going to take effect in October; for everybody else, in April 2022.

You go to FEMA and say: Can we talk about this?

No. Read our pamphlet.

They haven't had any public hearings. They haven't allowed the public to comment. They hired a very expensive consultant. They love expensive consultants at FEMA--the more expensive, the better; the more expensive the lawyers are, the better. They have hired a consultant to try to cover their tracks on what they are doing here. This is just a flat-out rate increase.

Insurance companies help FEMA administer the program. FEMA has told, we found out, the insurance companies: We can't tell you about the new program unless you sign a nondisclosure agreement because we don't want you to tell anybody.

I mean, President Biden's FEMA is just going to drop this on us. And it is not just Louisiana. Look, this does involve Louisiana. I mean, last year, my people, we got hit by two major storms. We got hit, like a lot of States, by an ice storm. Right now, South Louisiana, or a big portion of it, is underwater. We just got hit with between 8 and 20 inches of rain, and we have people who are flooding who are not even near a body of water.

I promise you, if you get 8 to 20 inches of rain in a short period of time, you are going to flood--I don't care if you are in the desert. I don't care if you are on Pikes Peak--you are going to flood. The water has to go somewhere.

So, yes, this impacts Louisiana, but do you know who else it impacts? New York. New Jersey. They are going to get devastated.

Chairman Brown, the chairman of our Banking Committee, very generously held a hearing the other day on Risk Rating 2.0. We had some really smart people come and testify about it. Of course FEMA wasn't there. You can't find FEMA with a search party. You can't find FEMA with Google. They are nowhere to be found. They don't want to answer questions.

But we had a very intelligent, impressive lady from New York--I am sorry, I have forgotten her name--who testified very eloquently about how this rating increase across the board, willy-nilly, arbitrary, capricious--we don't have any input--is going to devastate New York.

I am just very disappointed, and I am asking President Biden today to pick up the telephone and call his new FEMA Director and say: Slow down. At a minimum, don't treat the American people like morons. Sit down and talk to them and explain what you are proposing to do and why you are doing it, and let them have input

The second thing I wish the President would do is pick up the phone and call his FEMA Director and say: Would you please consult Congress and talk to Congress about it and let Congress have a little input? Because last time I checked, there are three branches of government, and this is unilateral action by one Federal Agency.

This is serious stuff. This is going to impact a lot of people. I said this before, and I don't mean to overuse it. I try to save it for really serious situations. But this is as serious as four heart attacks and a stroke, and it is going to happen out of the blue come October.

I would just like to ask President Biden to consider asking his FEMA Director to please slow down and let us think this through.

With that, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I am going to talk for a few minutes about mental health for our kids. I think many Americans have known and, unfortunately, some Americans have loved some of our fellow citizens who suffer with depression and anxiety and thoughts of suicide. It is a particular problem for our young people. CDC reports that one in four young Americans have actually considered suicide, and, in fact, the second leading cause of death for young people is suicide.

I am sure there are a lot of reasons for this. I think it is harder to be a young person today. Many of our kids see things that those of us who are older didn't have to deal with until we were adults--drugs, of course; alcohol; also, social media. You can still find kindness in America, but unfortunately you have to go offline to do it.

Some of our young people--many of our young people--just need someone to talk to. Some of them, when their anxiety and their depression is acute, need medical treatment, and this bill will simply provide a mechanism for our young people to receive it.

The bill, as I said, is called the Improving Mental Health Access for Students Act. It would provide that schools--our universities--be required to print phone numbers for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, the Crisis Text Line, and a campus mental health center or program on the student ID cards.

This bill would not require our schools to tear up current ID cards. It would be phased in. And if a school doesn't use an ID card, they don't have to start using an ID card. My bill

would simply require that the schools put the information on their website.

This bill passed unanimously by UC in our last Congress, but, unfortunately, the House ran out of time to take it up.

Toward that end, Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I am going to ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 1585, introduced earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time.

Mr. President, I know of no further debate on the bill.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to talk briefly about boil water advisories. They are more than just frustrating. They are more than just inconvenient. They can be dangerous.

I don't know about the Presiding Officer's community or my colleagues' communities, but they have been happening more and more frequently in Louisiana. Since 2005, we have had 9,661 boil water advisories. We had 1,600 of them last year alone.

I thank the EPW Committee for working with me and all of my colleagues. My amendment would require the EPA to provide us an annual study on the prevalence of these boil water advisories and the reasons therefor so we can decide whether to take action, if any.

I would appreciate my colleagues' support.

Mr. President, this body does not have to automatically raise taxes to pay for infrastructure. Now, I know some of my colleagues would disagree with me. Some want to raise the gasoline tax. The President--well, I think he wants to raise every tax known to man and beast to spend on infrastructure and other things. And that is--he is the President. He is an American. He is entitled to his own opinion.

But I don't think we spent nearly enough time looking at our current spending and asking ourselves if we could reprioritize some of the ways that we are spending taxpayer money.

Let me put it another way. No person with even a casual relationship with the Federal budget and/or an IQ above a root vegetable believes that every single penny being spent today in the U.S. Government's budget is being spent efficiently. I mean, it is just not, Mr. President. You know that. You have run a State before. You have put together a budget before. It is not. For example, we waste $144 billion a year, every year, on improper payments. We send checks to people who are not entitled to receive them--for the earned income tax credit, for example. We spend money on people who don't exist or aren't qualified to receive Medicaid. We even send money to dead people, and they cash the checks--or at least their relatives do.

Now, I am not naive. I know that we will never ever--an organization as large as the Federal Government will never be able to avoid a percentage of improper payments. I understand that. But we ought to at least try, particularly on sending the checks to dead people. Even if we could reduce that $144 billion by 10 percent or 20 percent or 25 percent, we are talking about a very large amount of recurring revenue.

A very simple solution--I suggested this to the White House, which hasn't responded--we have passed legislation in this body, as you know, to try to stop sending checks to dead people. There is just one problem: It was made effective 3 years from now. I had to agree to it in conference to get the bill passed. There is no good reason for it other than some lobbyists insisted on it.

President Biden right now, I think, could pick up at least $10 billion, maybe more--we are not sure how much--by just saying: Effective immediately, my administration is no longer going to send checks to dead people. I mean, who is going to get mad? Who supports sending money to dead people? The American people don't.

No. 2, we could repurpose the money--a lot of the money that we have already appropriated. I have lost count on how much money we have appropriated for coronavirus--not just on public health but also for our economy. Look, I voted for many of the bills. I didn't vote for the last one because I felt the last one was unnecessary, it was too expensive, and it really wasn't about the coronavirus.

But I think all fairminded people can agree right now on two things: No. 1, a lot of the money we appropriated in the last coronavirus bill has not been spent, and No. 2, we are no longer in an economic crisis. The main crisis we have right now is that our small business women and small business men can't find workers.

So we are currently not in an economic crisis, and I think we can go back and take some of that money--and my State, Louisiana is going to take--some aspects of my State government--it will take them 10 years to spend all the money we sent to them in the last bill. I can tell you, given the option in my State, they are going to choose to spend that money on infrastructure and not on what Congress sent them the money to spend it on.

No. 3, there is a very interesting study by the CBO taking the years--I think it was 2013 to 2017. The CBO took the entire Federal nonmilitary workforce, on which we spend $220 billion a year because we have to have workers, and they took every job in the Federal Government and compared it to every equivalent job in the private sector. It was a massive study. So it is apples to apples. The CBO found that the Federal Government, on average, pays a Federal worker 17 percent more annually than we pay the same worker in the private sector.

Now, I won't begrudge anybody a living, but what if we could reduce that to 15 percent or 12 percent? What if we could just not automatically fill every vacancy? What if we actually stopped and asked ourselves, if this position has been vacant for 8 months, maybe we don't need it. I think there are enormous savings to be had.

The final thing I will point out: Doing is better than having. Doing is better than having. You are happier when you have earned something than when somebody has just given it to you.

We are the most generous Nation in all of human history. The American people spend about $1 trillion a year helping our neighbors and some folks who are not our neighbors but are less fortunate than we are. But we spend about $76 billion a year on Medicaid and on food stamps for adults who are able-bodied, who are 55 years of age and younger, and who don't have children. Many of them could work. Now, I know there are obstacles to them being able to work. Maybe they need help looking for a job. Maybe they need employment counseling. Maybe they need help with transportation. But we could save enormous amounts of money, and our citizens, our people, and our neighbors, who are receiving this money, would be better off if they had a job.

We don't have to reinvent the wheel. All we have to do is look to Denmark. Denmark does an extraordinary job. They are very generous in Denmark with their payments for unemployment, but they also have an infrastructure set up in government, which we could do, which works with people to get them a job and to get them off welfare. And Denmark has saved an enormous amount of money. Let me say it again. Doing is better than having.

Am I saying we could save 100 percent of that $75 billion? No. I don't know how much we could save. Nobody else does either because we have never tried.

Now, in about--I don't know--7 minutes, I have just given you four or five ideas. I am not suggesting that this is anything. I am not pretending that I just discovered gravity or something. This isn't Earth-shaking. I mean, you can find this with just a cursory amount of research. Just call the folks over at the Congressional Budget Office and ask them: What are some ways we can save money in our Federal budget?

I just think we would all feel so much better. I know the American taxpayer would feel a lot better, if just for a little while, as we talk about the importance of infrastructure, true infrastructure-- roads, bridges, broadband--if we just spent a little while, as we talk about infrastructure, on how to pay for it without putting our hand even further, deeper, and more frequently in the taxpayers' pockets, because it can be done. I watched the Presiding Officer do it in Colorado. I have seen too many public officials do it. I think we need to at least try.

With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, in 2021, the year of our Lord 2021, we have major universities in this country that are discriminating in admissions against Asian Americans. Now, I know they think they know how to discriminate in the right way, but discrimination is discrimination.

At one of these universities in 2013, Harvard admitted that if it admitted Asian Americans purely on the basis of academic achievement, it would have doubled the number of Asian Americans. Now, this is wrong; it is contemptible; it is odious. This amendment doesn't go nearly far enough. It is a baby step, but at least it is a step.

Mr. President, I want to join my colleague Senator Cantwell in congratulating Senator Hirono and all of us for almost unanimously passing this bill that would try to stop discrimination against Asian Americans. I am happy that passed. There was only one vote against it.

I just don't think it goes far enough. I think it is ludicrous, it is odious to me, that in the year 2021, we have major universities in the United States of America that are setting quotas on their admissions for Asian Americans--not quotas to have enough Asian Americans, quotas to keep Asian Americans out. They are, and everybody in this body knows they are doing that.

Harvard is in litigation over it. Harvard officials have already stated that but for their quotas, there would be twice as many Asian Americans at Harvard as there are now if they base the decision solely on academic achievement. And that is wrong.

There is no way to discriminate in the right way. Discrimination is discrimination. Judge people on the basis of their academic achievements.

President Biden has talked an awful lot about the error of discriminating against Asian Americans, and he is absolutely right. What is the first thing he did? He pulled his Justice Department off of filing litigation to try to stop these quotas on Asian Americans and universities. I mean, if there weren't double standards around here, there would be no standards at all.

So I strongly encourage--Senator Cruz and I offered an amendment to Senator Hirono's bill to try to fix this. Unfortunately, we couldn't get 60 votes. In fact, I don't think a single--maybe I am wrong in saying this, but not very many of my Democratic friends voted for it.

But I would say to President Biden, now, if you are serious about ending discrimination against Asian Americans, tell your Justice Department to get off its ice cold, lazy rear end and do something about it. Stop the quotas in higher education.

Anyway, that is not, really, what I came up to talk about.

Mr. President, you are aware, as we all are, of the scourge of opioid abuse in this country. It is horrible. It is terrible. We sometimes lose as many as 50,000 of our people a year.

And as you also know, many people who become addicted to opioids don't necessarily buy the opioids on the street. They get the opioids from family and friends. So one of the best things you can do to try to stop the scourge of opioid abuse is to clear out your medicine cabinet so that people aren't tempted to use the drugs. Turn them in, if they have been prescribed to you, and you don't need them any longer.

To make this easier, our DEA, as you know, Mr. President, holds pretty regularly what we call Take Back Days. On a Take Back Day, any person can go into his or her medicine cabinet, find drugs, including opioids, that they are not using anymore, that could be dangerous if abused, and they can take those unused medications and drop them off at a previously announced DEA drop site.

Take Back Day is this Saturday, April 24. I want to encourage all Americans and Louisianans to do this. Go through your medicine cabinet. If you have opioids that have been prescribed to you--legally, of course--and you don't need them any longer, don't just leave them hanging around. Turn them in, please.

But not every day is Take Back Day, and last year Congress, in its wisdom, passed a law, a very good law, instructing the Department of Veterans Affairs to ask--well, actually to require--VA medical centers to have these drop boxes permanently so that American veterans can throw away medications, including but not limited to opioids, that they don't need. And it has worked out really well.

The question that occurred to me after we passed the bill was why limit that kind of access only to our veterans. So I have a bill to basically open up the Veterans Administration drop

boxes for unused drugs, including but not limited to opioids, at VA medical centers to anybody who wants to go get rid of these unused drugs at any time. You don't have to wait until Take Back Day. This would be a permanent program.

The name of the bill is the Dispose Unused Medications and Prescription Opioids Act. And before I offer this bill up, let me just give one more plug. I would remind everyone that this Saturday, April 24, is Take Back Day. If you have unused medications, including opioids, that you want to get rid of, it will have been publicized in your community by the DEA. You can go drop them off, and I hope people will do that.

Mr. President, toward that end, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be discharged from further consideration of my bill, S. 957, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I further ask that the Kennedy substitute amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to, that the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

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 want to talk a little bit today about a subject that I have struggled with in terms of how to address, and I am going to finish my remarks by offering a bill up for the Senate's consideration.

Mr. President, I know you are aware of all of this, but we can't live without glucose. Glucose fuels our cells, and, of course, our cells make up our muscles and our tissues and our organs, and we can't live without insulin. Insulin is a hormone that regulates the amount of glucose in our blood. Thankfully, for most people, their pancreas produces insulin naturally. It is just an undeniable fact that without insulin, without glucose, you are dead.

Unfortunately, as you know, sometimes our pancreas does not create insulin or doesn't create enough insulin or creates it erratically, and that condition, of course, is called diabetes. Thankfully, 100 years ago, in 1920, there was a Canadian physician and scientist whose name was Dr. Frederick Banting. He invented a synthetic form of insulin to help people whose pancreas could not produce the hormone. He won a Nobel Prize for it. It was extraordinary.

He was so committed to helping humanity that he and his other colleagues who had patents on this synthetic insulin sold their insulin patents for $1, 1 buck. They wanted to make sure that insulin was affordable. God bless them.

Today, 34.2 million Americans have diabetes. Not all people who have diabetes need insulin, but of that 34.2 million people, 7.4 million people need synthetic insulin; otherwise, they are dead men; they are dead women. Eighty-eight million Americans have what we call prediabetes. That means they are just a hair away from having full- blown diabetes. It is a problem in Louisiana, Mr. President, as I am sure it might be in Colorado. Louisiana has about 500,000 people with diabetes, most of whom need insulin. That is 12 percent of my population.

Now, here is where the story becomes dark. Three pharmaceutical companies have a monopoly on synthetic insulin. These three companies control about 90 percent of the global supply of insulin. Diabetes is certainly not unique to Americans, and these three pharmaceutical companies control almost, well, virtually, 100 percent of the U.S. market. Their cost, as best I can tell, you might be surprised to learn that a lot of the cost of these pharmaceutical drugs--and that is what synthetic insulin is; some call it a biologic--but the cost, as best I can tell, to produce a vial of insulin is about 10 bucks in today's dollars. There is no viable generic. You have to buy a brand name from one of the three companies.

Now, the cost of synthetic insulin has increased fairly recently very dramatically. The average list price for insulin tripled from 2002 to 2013, and then from 2013 to 2016 it doubled again. In the last 10 years, the out-of-pocket costs because many people have insurance--not everyone, but many people have insurance--in the last 10 years, the out-of-pocket cost of insulin for the average patient has doubled. Most diabetes patients, to give you some context, require two, quite often, three vials a month.

Let me try to get out of the conceptual and be specific. One type of insulin, and I don't mean just to single them out, but it is called Humalog. It was released in 1996. Its price since 1996, which costs about 10 bucks to make it per vial, has increased 1,700 percent. It has gone from $21 a vial to $375 a vial. Now, that same vial in Canada that costs $375 here costs about 50 bucks in Canada. Remember, you need three vials, sometimes two, hopefully, a month to live, to survive. So if you use three vials a month at 375 bucks a crack, the cost has gone from $750 a year in 1996 to $13,500 a year. Nothing has changed about the insulin. This insulin is 100 years old--100 years old.

Now, that, of course, is the list price. As we know, many people have insurance, and there are all sorts of insurance plans with differing amounts of deductions and differing amounts of copays, but I think a recent report by the Health Care Cost Institute is instructive. It found that the average American with type 1 diabetes, who needs insulin, has out-of-pocket insulin costs every year of about $6,000. That is every year. You will not be surprised to learn that, as a result of that, about one in four Americans has to ration the insulin-- they don't take their full doses--to make them last longer.

Now, I have a bill. It is called the Ending Pricey Insulin Act. I don't know where my staff comes up with these names. I can hardly say that. Anyway, it is to try to lower the cost of insulin. It is going to cap out-of-pocket costs for insulin if this bill, in its wisdom, passes the Senate. It is going to cap the cost at 50 bucks for a 30-day supply. It is going to cap the cost for people who have insurance. It is going to cap the cost for people who have Medicare. It is going to cap the cost for people who have Medicaid, and it is going to cap the cost for the people who don't have anything--no insurance whatsoever. It is going to cover high-deductible health plans. It is going to cover the CHIP program. It is going to cover veterans' health plans. It is going to cover TRICARE. It is going to cover everybody and have a maximum out-of-pocket cost per month of $50.

This bill would take effect for plan year 2022. Health plans, as the Presiding Officer knows, set their rates 6 to 9 months in advance, so I want to give them fair warning here. My bill provides a workable runway for the insurance plans to comply, but the bill does include a retroactive clause that insures any out-of-pocket costs above 50 bucks that people pay. After that, they will be reimbursed. The bill is only five pages long. I don't think it is complicated to fix this problem.

Now, I really struggled with whether to offer this bill. Let me say first that I am not trying to pick on our pharmaceutical drug companies. What they have done in the last year is nothing short of miraculous. To me, it is just evidence that American and human ingenuity can never be underestimated, and it is extraordinary what the private sector can accomplish when the government gets out of the way. I am talking, of course, about the coronavirus vaccines. I happen to have two brothers who are physicians, and I called both of them right after the coronavirus was determined to be the coronavirus.

I said: How long for a vaccine?

They both said: A minimum of 2 years, probably 3 or 4.

The pharmaceutical drug industry did it in less than a year. God bless them.

So I don't mean to criticize them. I understand they have research costs, and I understand they have marketing costs, and I certainly understand that the health insurance delivery system and the market itself is opaque. God, how did we design such a system? I yearn for the day--we all do--when we have a healthcare delivery system for pharmaceutical drugs that looks like somebody designed it on purpose.

I have spent a lot of time--I certainly don't pretend to be an expert--researching the problem surrounding the cost of insulin, and everybody blames everybody else. The pharmaceutical drug companies blame the PBMs. The PBMs blame the insurance companies. They all blame each other. Some of them blame the doctors. Some of them blame patients for whining. You know, at some point, you say: Gosh. You know, it is almost as if you are intentionally making it opaque, and that is a big part of our health insurance market problem.

I was reading an article the other day, and this is on a slightly different subject. As you know, the Trump administration issued an Executive order saying hospitals have to post their prices. The hospitals sued, and the government won. So now the hospitals have to post their prices.

The Wall Street Journal did a very interesting investigative piece. It really was a fine piece of work in this post-journalism, pay-to-play world that we live in. It looked at the websites of all of the major hospitals throughout the United States, and it found, I think--I don't remember the number--over 100 that had implemented or put it on their websites' software so that the posted prices for their services that they offered, which the Executive order required, were there on the websites, but you just couldn't see it, and consumers couldn't find it. Those who could find it had to go through about 10 different layers to get to it. When the Wall Street Journal contacted the hospitals, they said: Oh, whoops. It is just a software mistake. We will get it fixed.

So the market is opaque.

Look, some of my colleagues are going to oppose this bill, and I understand their point of view in their saying: Kennedy, this is price- fixing. We thought you were a free market guy. I am. I am. I don't want to have to do this, but we have been talking about this problem for years, and it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse.

I think the Members of the U.S. Senate--the most interesting group of people I have ever been around--are intelligent enough to understand nuance. They understand that this is price-fixing, but they also understand this argument of, well, you are going down a slippery slope. No, we are not. There is nothing in this bill that says we have to go down a slippery slope. I think most fair-minded people understand that insulin, as a biologic, pharmaceutical drug, is unique. We are not talking about a drug that the pharmaceutical industry has spent hundreds of billions of dollars developing and has taken on extraordinary risk. This is a product that has been around since 1920. It is virtually unchanged. It costs 10 bucks a vial to produce. There is virtually no risk, none whatsoever. It hasn't changed much in 100 years, and people have to have it. The costs were recouped long ago.

I am not accusing anybody of anything, but I think a big part of the problem is the fact that three companies have a monopoly, and there is no generic because some people engage in what is called evergreening, which is a very clever way devised by the patent lawyers to keep patents from ever running out. I am just tired of holding hearings and issuing press releases and talking to the press about it and then doing nothing.

I will just say--and I am going to end because I know Senator Crapo has something he wants to say, and I want to hear him--that I really struggled with this. I guess I am being inconsistent, because I do believe in the free market. I don't believe in having the government set prices, but I don't know what else to do.

I don't think we are going down a slippery slope. Insulin is unique. We have all got good pairs of L.L. Bean and other boots to keep us from going down that slippery slope. There is no law that says the U.S. Senate can't consider issues on an ad hoc basis. Senators understand nuance, and in any event, I would rather be right than consistent

For that reason, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 1132, introduced earlier today. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, my colleague, the Senator from Idaho, knows how much I respect him, and I certainly appreciate the invitation to work with him and his committee, and I intend to do that.

And I know that the Senator didn't say this, but I don't believe in government-run healthcare. But we have a discrete problem here and a very unique situation that can be addressed. This is not a biologic, as I said earlier, that costs hundreds of millions of dollars to develop. This is insulin, and a lot of Americans need it or they will die.

There is a monopoly, and there are efforts that have been made to maintain that monopoly, and my people in Louisiana--I know the people in Idaho--many of them feel the same way, and that is why they applaud Senator Crapo's efforts, but they are hurting.

You can die without insulin. You can die. And it costs 10 bucks a vial to make, and it has been around 100 years, and now it costs 375 bucks. And all you have to do is walk across the border into Canada, and you can buy it for 50 bucks.

The market is being manipulated. I know it is complicated, and I understand politics. I have been around it a good portion of my life, but this is an issue where we need to stop--we need to stop--talking about it, strutting around, issuing press releases, holding hearings, and doing nothing.

I don't want to price fix. I don't. It makes me real uncomfortable to be proposing this, but I don't know what else to do. There comes a point where patience--where patience--ceases to be a virtue.

And here is what I know. I mean, the bill has been objected to, and I appreciate it. You pass a bill like this or a similar bill like this; you are going to see a solution pretty fast. You are going to see a solution real fast. You are going to see some--this opaque market react with new energy. They are going to be running around like hounds from hell, trying to keep this from becoming the law, and that is why we need to hit this head-on.

But with that, I thank the President for his attention, and I thank my colleague for his eloquent remarks.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.