Floor Statements

Mr. President, in a moment, I will ask for unanimous consent to pass H.R. 3433, the bipartisan Give Kids a Chance Act. I would like to highlight how important this legislation is for children with cancer all across this country.

The Give Kids a Chance Act finally authorizes the FDA to direct companies who are conducting research for adult cancer drugs to study those drugs in combination with others to see whether they also can work well for kids who have cancer.

The bill continues the work that Senator Rubio and I started in 2017, when we worked together to pass the RACE for Children Act, which required sponsors of certain adult cancer drugs to study the benefits or the effects and their use in children.

Since then, Senator Rubio and I have both learned that combination therapies can be effective treatments and reduce the risk of side effects significantly, both for adults and for kids. That is why this legislation is so important.

This bill can help save the lives of children all over our country who have the most aggressive forms of cancer. It would ensure that pharmaceutical companies are being held accountable to study how their drugs affect children who may have the same kind of cancer as adults but who need more tailored treatment in combination with other drugs.

I know Senator Rubio and I have both heard numerous stories from patients who have asked for themselves and parents who have asked on behalf of their children and who have advocated on behalf of children who have passed away.

This bill also authorizes the FDA to take enforcement action against companies that do not conduct the pediatric trials that are required under the Pediatric Research Equity Act and requires the FDA to report on enforcement of this act.

Additionally, the bill reauthorizes the FDA rare pediatric disease priority review voucher program through fiscal year 2029, which incentivizes drug development for rare pediatric diseases.

This bill has the support of dozens and dozens of organizations that represent kids and parents all across our country. I ask unanimous consent that their names be printed in the Record. In the interest of time this evening, I won't read them on the floor, although I want to say how deeply I appreciate their efforts.

I would also like to highlight the bipartisan nature of this work--Senator Rubio, as a cosponsor, with Senators Casey and Mullin, who cosponsored provisions of this House bill as well.

This bill has passed unanimously out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It has passed the House by voice vote.

Now is the time to pass this bill. If we pass it tonight, it will go to the President for his signature.

Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged from further consideration of and that the Senate proceed to H.R. 3433; further, 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, I just want to say how deeply I regret the objection of the Senator from Kentucky. That is, of course, his right. I gather that he is objecting because he objects to the lateness of the hour and the time with which this request was made. At least, that is what I was told earlier tonight.

I think after we have been held here in place for hours and hours and hours, the idea that we are not going to be able to pass this legislation is deeply, deeply disappointing to the people who have advocated for this for all of these years. It is a reflection, I think, of how broken this place is in the way that it puts its own interests ahead of the interests of the people who we represent. But we will be back to fight another day.

Mr. President, I wish you and the staff here in the Senate at this late hour, and my colleagues who are here as well, happy holidays and Merry Christmas. We will see you in the new year.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate consider the following nominations en bloc: Calendar Nos. 859, 860, 861, 862, 863, 864, 865, 866, 867, 868, 869, 871, 873, 874, 530, and all nominations on the Secretary's desk in the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Navy, and Space Force; that the nominations be confirmed en bloc; that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to any of the nominations; and that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. 5062 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

I ask unanimous consent that the Blackburn-Ossoff substitute amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. 4640 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

I ask unanimous consent that the Ossoff-Blackburn substitute amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

I congratulate the President on his prodigious legislative accomplishments this evening.

Mr. President, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 7365 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 714, H.R. 9592.

I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 9487, which was received from the House.

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, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 937, submitted earlier today.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it recess until 10 a.m. on Friday, December 20, and resume consideration of the Cheeks nomination; further, that upon disposition of the Murillo nomination, the Senate resume legislative session; further, that if any nominations are confirmed during Friday's session, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

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

Mr. President, I want to be brief, but I would like to briefly say something that might be an odd thing for the Senator from Colorado to say, which is how grateful I am to the people of Ohio for sending Sherrod Brown to the U.S. Senate for all of these years and how much I wish that you had sent him back one more time.

I say that in part because I once lived in Ohio and was a young person there, learning something about politics in the late eighties and early nineties. Sherrod Brown was my secretary of state. He was the same person then that he is today in all the important ways and a progressive voice for the people of Ohio.

It was an amazing thing for me to come to this place and meet Sherrod as a fellow Senator and to sit in that chair and preside, while Sherrod stood--I don't remember when that was, when it would have been; Barack Obama probably was in the early days of his Presidency--and listen to the names of cities and towns all across Ohio ricochet around the marble Chamber that we are in with such joy because I had been to those places myself.

I can remember hearing him fight against the characterization by outsiders of the place he lived and the place he grew up as the Rust Bowl of the United States instead of the industrial heartland of the United States, for him to remind people in this Chamber of the important--as he was describing today--the critical contribution that working people make to this Nation every day, all day, over many years, whether they are living in the industrial heartland or anywhere else in America, because for Sherrod, workers in every State in this country count and matter.

But I want to just say thank you on behalf of the children that I used to work for in the Denver public schools. I was the superintendent when my friend Cory Booker was the mayor of Newark. We worked together in those days, and we have had the chance to work together here.

There are many times that I have been on this floor, Senator Brown, when I worried about whether the children I used to work for in Denver, who are mostly kids of color, mostly kids living in poverty, whether anybody here had their interests at heart or whether anybody here could even see them or whether we had actually become really comfortable in the sense that we were treating our kids like they were someone else's kids, not even the country's kids. More than anybody else in this place, you have lifted their voices. You have seen the kids that I represented or worked for in the Denver public schools.

The chance for you and Bob and Cory and I to work together on the child tax credit, which went to 90 percent of America's kids and cut child poverty in half, is a symbol to all of us, I think, of what is possible if we dedicate ourselves to the idea that this country has to live up to its aspirations. That is something you never have let us forget. I know you have talked about it over and over again, how one of the happiest days of your time in the Senate was the day we passed that bill. Bob mentioned that.

I will say for a lot of us who are here today, this is one of the saddest days in the Senate because the contribution that you have made here is one that is so unique and so singular, and it is entirely unfinished.

I don't feel sorry for you, but I feel sorry for the rest of us. I know we are counting on you--counting on you--to make sure that you continue to fight the fight you have been fighting from the day you arrived here, the days you were secretary of state all those years ago in Ohio, for the rest of your life.

Thanks, Sherrod, for your leadership and your friendship and for everything you have done for the American people.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to commend Jeff Widen for his remarkable contributions to the preservation of public lands across Colorado and the American West. After nearly 18 years with the Wilderness Society (TWS) in Colorado and a distinguished history of public lands advocacy throughout the Four Corners and California desert, I congratulate Jeff on his well-deserved retirement.

Jeff has been a steadfast friend, dedicated mentor, and trusted colleague to numerous Members of Congress, their staff, county commissioners, mayors, council members, conservation groups, and community advocates. His extraordinary ability to forge meaningful relationships with individuals across the political spectrum has made him an effective advocate for public lands conservation.

Throughout his tenure at TWS, Colorado celebrated numerous protected areas due in no small part to Jeff's efforts, including the 20-year Thompson Divide Administrative Mineral Withdrawal, the designation of the Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument, the passage of the Hermosa Creek Watershed Protection Act, the designation of Browns Canyon National Monument, the establishment of chimney Rock National Monument, and the designation of wilderness in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Jeff's influence extends far beyond Colorado. He played a crucial role in the designation of Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, the protection of Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, and conservation efforts in the California desert. His advocacy also included reforms to the Federal oil and gas program and the permanent reauthorization and full funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

A leader in drafting and introducing the San Juan Mountains Wilderness Act--now part of the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy Act--Jeff also contributed to the Dolores River National Conservation Area and Special Management Area Act. His work with the Gunnison Public Lands Initiative led to the Gunnison Outdoor Resources Protection Act.

Before joining TWS, Jeff worked with the Sierra Club, the Colorado Environmental Coalition (now Conservation Colorado), and the Mineral Policy Center across the Four Corners. An avid climber, he also served on the board of the Access Fund for several years.

Jeff's conservation legacy will be cherished across the American West, particularly in Colorado, by both locals and visitors for generations to come. Few individuals have made such significant contributions to conservation in the Centennial State. We are fortunate to have more wild, protected lands to pass on to future generations because of Jeff's dedication. From traversing the headwaters of Hermosa Creek to paddling through Snaggletooth rapid on the Dolores River, I am grateful for the camaraderie we have shared over the years, and I wish him all the best in his retirement.

Mr. President, I am trying to decide whether I am heartbroken because Senator Romney didn't approach me and ask me to run for President or I am heartbroken because I know almost as much about failed Presidential campaigns as Senator Romney does, or something of that nature.

I appreciate so much the sentiments today that I wanted to get up. I have heard the word ``virtue'' used twice in the last week on this floor, once in the Rudyard Kipling poem that Senator Booker read and once in Senator Romney's incredible farewell speech. Coming out of both places, it made me feel like, on some level, how foreign that sort of trait is in our politics these days, but how well it fits the people that we are talking about, whether it is Senator Romney or Senator Tester.

I want to say a couple of words about Senator Tester before he kicks us out of here, which I know he will.

First of all, I came here a little bit to demand an apology. Jon knows about this but not everybody does. When I first came back here and I had been appointed to the job, I was coming over from the Hart Building to the Senate to get sworn in. My daughters were 9, 7, and 4. Susan was with us, and the three girls were with us.

Anne was the youngest, who was 4. She was sucking her thumb all the way from the Hart Office Building to the Capitol, and I was panicked because she was about to meet the Vice President. I was about to get sworn in. In fairness, I was probably more worried about my getting sworn in than her meeting the Vice President, but she was sucking her thumb. I said: Anne, stop sucking your thumb. You are in this beautiful dress. Anne, stop sucking your thumb. You are driving me crazy. Anne, please stop sucking your thumb. I will do anything.

I didn't know that Jon Tester was on the car--on the subway car with us--but we were. He watched all of this happen. But we really had not met before.

We got off the subway car, and Jon Tester, who is the size that he is, and Anne Bennet, who is this size at the time and who was looking up at Jon Tester--Jon Tester said: You know what happens if you keep sucking your thumb?

She said: No.

He whipped out his hand, and he showed it to her.

She is 20 years old, and she has not recovered from that moment ever. She cries herself to sleep every night because of what Jon Tester did on that very first day that we were together.

I will never forget it because it made me realize what an extraordinarily genuine person he is. Who else would take the risk, not ever having met somebody around this place, and do that to their 4- year-old daughter? Jon Tester would, and that is why he is a legend in our house--one of the many reasons.

One of the things I am going to miss most about Jon is, for years and years and years, we traveled back and forth from the West to be on this floor, to get together with a number of Senators from the Western United States who have had to stop in Denver on their way to wherever they go. I have been very fortunate because I get to Denver, and I am a half hour from my home. Jon, if he makes his flight--if he makes his connection--is hours away from landing in Montana, and then he is another hour and a half away from home, at least, depending on where he is going.

And then, as he said today, as all of us know, there are many nights when he has been working on the combine

and doing other things around his shop that have kept him up to 3 in the morning with Sharla, working on things, as he does his real job on the farm.

When the people in this Chamber barely can hold onto the one job they have here, Jon and Sharla would be working two jobs, maybe three jobs, in the time he has been in the U.S. Senate--and, more important, never a word of complaint.

Jon doesn't fit all that well into the plane seats going back and forth to Montana, and I never heard him complain about being on that flight ever. I never heard him complain about being on a second flight ever or the fact that he worked until 3 in the morning.

In fact, he knew it was a privilege that he had the chance to be able to do both. He had the chance to be able to serve here and the chance to be able to contribute to his community and to his family by working on his farm.

All of us should have that level of connection to the people that we represent, to the place that we represent. That is why, in my view, Jon's loss is not just a loss for Democrats. It is not a loss, particularly, for Democrats, and it is not his loss. In many ways, it is a loss for the U.S. Senate because we are the ones that are poorer for Jon not being here.

Jon's life, I think, will be enriched by not being here. Our lives will be poorer because he is not here.

And that is because I think, when you think about what the Founders had in mind when they set up this form of representative government, they knew a lot about the worst parts of human nature. They did. They worried about it. They wrote about it. They talked about what humans could do to one another, and they worried about what despots could do in a republican form of government. They worried about what self- interested legislators could do. They worried about what parties could do.

But one of the things they counted on--what they said we would be sunk if we didn't have--was public virtue. It was virtue that elected leaders would have and that the American people would have to be the glue that held together this set of rules that they were writing; that held together the aspirations they were making; that held together the assumptions they had about what it might be like to live in a place where there was no King or tyrant to tell you what to think, where you lived in a place where you actually had the freedom to think for yourself and the freedom to disagree with other people. And out of those disagreements, we wouldn't create shabby compromises, but we would create more imaginative solutions than any King or tyrant could come up with on their own. That was the whole idea.

But the whole thing relied on something you couldn't legislate across the ages, which was public virtue--the virtue of somebody who could bring his life experience to this place and inform his colleagues about that; the perspectives of his State, the perspectives of rural Montana, the perspectives of the West.

And he never proceeded on an idea that he had a monopoly on wisdom or that he couldn't learn something from somebody else. And that is what we are going to miss, because, I think, he has set the standard--a standard that the Founders of this country imagined we would be at our very best, not just as Senators but, much more important than that, as citizens of this country.

So I am going to miss him terribly for all of that because, I think, underneath his tough exterior, there was somebody who had a huge heart for the people of Montana; for the people of his hometown, Big Sandy; for the American West; but also for what this democracy can actually be. And that is an example we can never let go of.

Thank you, Jon, for setting that example while you have been here.

I yield the floor.

(Applause.)

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize Jim Ehrlich on his retirement as executive director of the Colorado Potato Administrative Committee, or CPAC. Jim served in this role for nearly two decades. During that time, he advocated for commonsense agriculture policy rooted in his experience in Colorado's San Luis Valley.

CPAC, founded in 1941, is a Federal and State Marketing Order that supports San Luis Valley potato growers and shippers. The organization has helped farmers adopt new potato varieties and, each year, ensured high-quality standards for more than 2 billion pounds of Colorado potatoes.

Jim was born in Brighton, CO, and was raised on his grandparent's dairy farm after losing his mom at an early age. After serving in the Air Force, he moved to Colorado's San Luis Valley in 1996 to serve as the regional manager of the Coors Barley farm and grain elevator. He started at CPAC in 2006.

Over the years, I have worked with Jim on many issues important to Colorado's potato growers. We ensured potatoes are classified as a vegetable, are available in school lunches, and can be sold throughout Mexico. Jim has taught me about water and drought policy as well, including the complicated groundwater management challenges of the San Luis Valley.

Jim has also been a leader in his community beyond agriculture: He serves on the Rio Grande Basin Roundtable and the San Luis Valley Health hospital board. He is always a wise, pragmatic voice on the challenging issues faced by his community. Jim is direct, honest, kind, and humble, and I am proud to consider him a friend. On behalf of his family, growers and community, it is an honor to recognize and celebrate his work on behalf of rural Colorado.