Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business.

Mr. President, every Senator here has a serious responsibility to make sure that our veterans get the support and help they are promised after their service to our country, and that includes making sure that those who have been harmed by toxic exposures during their service get the service and care they deserve. It seems pretty simple, but I hope we can hold up our end of the bargain today.

My dad was a World War II veteran--he was a Purple Heart recipient-- and when he got really sick with multiple sclerosis, help from the VA made a huge difference for my family. So I want to really thank Senators Tester and Moran for their persistent work on this bill. I am glad we have come to a bipartisan agreement on the PACT Act because it does matter, it will help people, and it will save lives.

Right now, the reality is that too many veterans are living with chronic illness and respiratory diseases as a result of toxic exposures from their time serving our country in uniform. I have heard countless stories about the challenges they have faced struggling to get access to VA care and benefits they have earned, and that is unacceptable.

I believe very strongly that no one who put their life or health on the line for our Nation should face hurdles getting the care or medical treatment they need as a result of that sacrifice. When they signed up to serve, we told them we would have their backs long after their service, so if we are going to live up to our promise, then we need to pass comprehensive legislation to ensure all veterans have access to the VA services they deserve. Simply put, we need to pass this PACT Act.

With this bill, generations of toxic-exposed veterans would finally be able to get the high-quality care they need, and the VA will get the resources needed to process claims efficiently and better serve our veterans.

I remember, back when I was 22 years old, I interned at the Seattle veterans hospital. I have visited with and met with VA staff in every part of Washington State. The doctors, the nurses, and everyone else working at our VA medical centers really care about this work, they care about this Nation, and they care about their mission, but they need us here in Congress to care just as much and fight just as hard for their patients, our veterans. That is really what this bill is about.

When VA was considering closing or reducing services in Walla Walla, I fought back to make sure that our veterans in rural Washington were able to see a doctor without having to drive 2 hours or longer, sometimes through a lot of rain and snow.

About 1 in every 10 residents in Washington State is a veteran, and I am privileged enough to serve on the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee. It is my job to be a voice for Washington State veterans who are in Seattle or Spokane or Walla Walla or anywhere, and that is a job I take seriously. That is why I have been continually pressing the VA Secretary to cut redtape and make sure the VA caregivers program works for everyone who needs it, the way we wrote it. It is why I introduced the Helping Heroes Act to get families and kids of disabled veterans the assistance they need. It is why I will keep doing everything in my power to hold the VA accountable for its really unacceptable rollout of the electronic health record system in Washington State.

There is a lot we need to do to really make sure the VA works for veterans, but passing the PACT Act, getting this done, is an important and meaningful process.

Washington State veterans deserve the very best the VA has to offer, and there should be absolutely nothing controversial about making sure all veterans across all generations who are suffering from chronic illness get the care they have earned.

I am glad to see we have bipartisan support for this bill. Let's get it done and to the President's desk.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the following Senators be permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each prior to the scheduled votes: Murray, Wyden, and Brown.

Madam President, I come to the floor today to support the nomination of Lisa Gomez as the Assistant Secretary for the Department

of Labor's Employee Benefit Security Administration, or EBSA.

EBSA has the massive task of helping retirees recover the benefits they are entitled to and forcing protections for people who get their healthcare coverage through their job, and overseeing millions of retirement plans, health plans, and other welfare benefit plans.

We need a strong leader at EBSA who will protect families' savings and futures and make sure people get the benefits they deserve under Federal law.

We need someone like Lisa Gomez. Ms. Gomez is a highly respected professional in the field of employee benefits law, who has represented a wide range of health plans, retirement plans, and more. And I am confident as Assistant Secretary she will fight to hold employers accountable to the law, ensure workers get the benefits they are owed, and protect families' financial security, and I strongly urge all of my colleagues to join me in voting to confirm her.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print the following letter in the Record.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, this is a dark, enraging moment for our Nation. I have made that clear already, and so have so many of our Democratic colleagues. But I am speaking on the floor today because we cannot back down for a minute. We cannot lose sight of the terrifying reality that Republicans want to end the right to abortion, and they are within weeks of accomplishing that goal.

Very soon, the Supreme Court is set to overturn Roe v. Wade and fulfill Republicans' decades-long goal of controlling women's bodies and rolling back everyone's fundamental right to decide whether or not to start a family.

Let me say that again because it is shocking, and it is true. In a matter of weeks, women across the country will lose a constitutional right they have had for half a century. The steady march forward to secure women's rights that generations before us fought for will be reversed, and my daughter and granddaughters will have fewer rights than I did.

Women will be forced to carry pregnancies to term when it is not right for them, and Republicans will be responsible. This is the future that they have been fighting for. This is the America that they want, and they are not done yet.

Republicans are hell-bent on rolling back the clock. Last week, they blocked our bill to protect Roe and the right to abortion, but they are not going to stop at overturning Roe and shredding patients' rights to make decisions about their own bodies. In States across the country, Republican lawmakers are banning abortion without exceptions. They are targeting people who help a women get an abortion, doctors who are providing essential healthcare, friends and family members who are just supporting a loved one, and even the drivers just doing their job and helping patients get to medical appointments.

Republicans are working around-the-clock to make it harder for women and families to control their own futures. They are coming after the birth control and IUDs that tens of millions rely on to plan a family on their own terms. They are coming after Plan B. They are even putting patients' ability to get the IVF care they need to help start a family at risk.

My Republican colleagues right here in the Senate have made clear that they have their sights set on something really extreme: They want a nationwide ban on abortion. Republicans aren't content with some States banning abortion and creating health crises that spill across State lines; they want to eliminate the right of every woman in America to get an abortion in Washington State and everywhere else. It is not hypothetical, and it is not some far-off worry. It is appalling, and it is completely backward.

Republicans want to force us all with them into their time machine, but we are not going to let them. Democrats are fighting Republicans' increasingly extreme policies at every step of the way.

In the coming weeks, we are going to remind each and every American of the rights that Republicans want to rip away. We won't allow Republicans to run and hide from the reality of their extreme agenda. We are going to be on the floor each week highlighting how Republicans are doing everything they can to hit rewind on our rights, highlighting every protection and freedom that Republicans are ripping away from people across the country, and we are going to show the country how Republican policies hurt everyone. We are going to expose the Republicans' radical and unpopular views on everything from abortion to family planning to sex ed. We are going to make clear who is hurt most by their extremism.

This fight did not end when the Republicans blocked the Women's Health Protection Act last week--far from it. People across the country are fed up with Republicans' attacks on their rights. They are fired up, and they are fighting back, and so am I, and so are my Democratic colleagues.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now vote on confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 718, the nomination of Susan Grundmann, as provided under the previous order, and that following disposition of that nomination, the Senate proceed to the consideration of the Powell nomination and at 1:45 p.m., vote on confirmation of the nomination.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

Mr. President, what we are about to vote on is just another distraction while Republicans are taking away abortion rights.

I want to be clear: This coming vote is about more than just masks. The Congressional Review Act resolution could have hugely consequential and potentially damaging effects not just for the current pandemic but for the future as well.

Young children getting an early education through our Head Start Program are the only age group that cannot yet be vaccinated against COVID-19. That means parents of children under 5 are in a really difficult position right now. They don't have the choice to vaccinate their children. So they are dependent on the adults who care for them to do everything they can to continue protecting them.

But Senator Thune's resolution fails to take into consideration the concerns of parents with young children, and I don't just mean masks. This resolution would also take away a tool for Head Start programs to ensure that adults are vaccinated when caring for kids who cannot get vaccinated themselves.

Now, once our youngest children can get fully vaccinated, it probably makes sense to revisit some of these requirements, but we are not there yet--something I know so many parents are worried about and frustrated by. Right now, we need to do everything we can to protect our children and give parents some peace of mind.

We also need to think about the dangerous repercussions this CRA could have in the future. This resolution would prevent HHS from implementing critical public health practices that keep our kids safe in the future. Enacting a CRA permanently constrains an Agency's ability to regulate again in that space, and I cannot overstate how serious such a step would be. What if there is a new threat but we can't implement the necessary public health measures which we know can keep kids safe because they have been blocked by the CRA?

We need to make sure that HHS and the Head Start Program can protect our most vulnerable children in case there is a new, more dangerous variant or even a new pandemic threat. Mr. President, when you get in from the rain, you may put your umbrella away, but you don't throw it out. And when it comes to this pandemic, some of us are safely inside; but for the young kids who cannot yet get vaccinated, they are still out in the storm, and their parents are still counting on having that umbrella. And when it comes to the future, there could be other rainy days. So let's not throw away this important tool to keep our kids safe.

I urge my colleagues to vote no.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Aracely Heredia and Lauren Battle, fellows who are assigned to my office, be granted floor privileges through July 1, 2022.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session for a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I want to be really clear about what this vote is actually about. This vote is about birth control. This is about lifesaving pelvic and breast exams to detect cancer early, and it is about STI testing and treatments. That is the basic reproductive healthcare that title X providers deliver to communities--especially to women with the tightest budgets.

Republicans are here tonight fighting to undermine healthcare. It is really that simple. And we are here fighting to protect it.

I fought long and hard against President Trump's disastrous gag rule. It was a rule that cut title X provider networks in half. It forced entire States, including my home State of Washington, out of the Title X Program. It forced doctors and nurses to withhold information from their patients on all the options they have, including abortion, and ultimately resulted in patients traveling farther, paying more, or going without care. In short, it made it harder for women to

get birth control and other critical reproductive healthcare, and that, to me, is unacceptable.

That is why I was really relieved when, after years of fighting back against Republicans' extreme agenda, President Biden acted quickly to reverse that dangerous gag rule, and we could finally start rebuilding the title X network and providing patients with critical reproductive healthcare.

And I know that patients and providers in my State were relieved too. I heard from them firsthand earlier this month about what this means for our communities. It means that patients in Washington State and across the country can get the birth control they need to plan a family on their own terms, breast and pelvic exams to detect cancer early, STI testing and treatment, and more.

But as has been so often the case, most Republicans were not listening because, tonight, they are leading a resolution to bring back the gag rule and deny women across the country access to services made possible by title X. We are talking about basic lifesaving healthcare like cancer screenings. We are talking about STI screenings, which, by the way, are especially important as cases, which are already underreported due to decreased screenings, have been spiking now.

We are talking about birth control that so many patients depend on to stay healthy, to treat health conditions, to plan their families, and control their own reproductive health.

Talking about these issues, it is just unthinkable to me that anyone would not support this program. What are Republicans here talking about? They are talking about once again taking this healthcare away from millions of patients, and tonight they are forcing a vote on it. And some extreme Republicans, by the way, are even talking about how they think Griswold v. Connecticut--that is the U.S. Supreme Court case that first struck down a ban on birth control--might have been wrongly decided. This is chilling.

The message Republicans are sending tonight with this vote--loud and clear--is that they won't just stop at banning abortion with cruel laws like the ones we have seen in Texas and Oklahoma and across the border from Washington State in Idaho; they are determined to restrict access to all kinds of reproductive healthcare, from abortion to birth control, to STI testing and treatment.

Well, we should not stand for this. We can't just let Republicans rip away healthcare again from women and families. Patients, providers, and families across my State and across the country have spoken out loud and clear on this, and I am going to make sure that they are heard here in Washington, DC.

I will work hard to make sure we protect title X from these attacks, and I am going to make sure everyone who supports this resolution owns what this vote means and whom they are voting against: women who want birth control--and that is, by the way, two-thirds of women in this country; patients who are seeking STI screenings; patients who need a cancer screening; people who are just looking for affordable healthcare and information from providers that they trust because--you know what-- women are not going to forget this, which party is fighting to protect birth control and which party is doing everything they can to rip your birth control away.

I urge every single one of my colleagues to join with me in voting against this resolution.