Floor Statements

Madam President, I come to the floor tonight to urge my colleagues to vote here in a minute to confirm Dr. Robert Califf to serve as Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. He was confirmed to this role previously with strong bipartisan support. I hope to see that again this evening.

At this critical moment, we need a trusted hand to lead the FDA, and Dr. Califf's previous service in this role, his career as one of the Nation's leading research scientists, give him the experience to take on this challenge.

Families across the country count on the Food and Drug Administration every day to follow the science and the data to keep them safe, and COVID-19 has put its work in the spotlight like never before.

This pandemic has been incredibly hard on our Nation. It has killed over 900,000 Americans. And throughout this crisis, as people have sought to keep their families safe, they have looked to the FDA and depended on the tireless work of FDA scientists to confirm the safety and effectiveness of treatments and vaccines, ensure we have high- quality masks, and review tests to make sure they give us accurate results and more.

Parents across the country are continuing to wait anxiously for the FDA to greenlight safe, effective vaccines for kids under 5--something I know we all want to see as quickly as the science allows.

But while the COVID-19 pandemic remains one of the most urgent challenges we face, there are countless other ways the FDA works that matters to families.

Every day, people put the well-being of themselves, their families, and even their pets in the FDA's hands. When we sit down for a meal, we count on the FDA's efforts to ensure the safety of our food supply and provide us with the information we need to make healthy choices. When we get our prescriptions filled or rely on medical devices to stay healthy, we count on the FDA's work to uphold the gold standard of safety and effectiveness.

The FDA needs strong leadership to continue that work and to address other pressing challenges: challenges like the opioid crisis, which recently claimed over 100,000 lives in a year--that is a new record; challenges like youth tobacco use--according to the CDC, 2 million of our youth use e-cigarettes; challenges like antimicrobial

resistance, which could make common procedures more dangerous by making current infection treatments ineffective; challenges like skyrocketing drug costs and pharmaceutical companies who game the FDA approval system to keep more affordable drugs off the market; and challenges like improving health equity.

I have repeatedly raised the need for the FDA to improve diversity in clinical trials because, when women or people of color or others are left out of the clinical trials, this undermines people's health by delaying information they and their healthcare providers need to understand how a treatment will affect them specifically--for example, whether it is safe during pregnancy--and by making it hard to identify differences in the safety and effectiveness of treatments for those populations.

As the hard-working staff at the FDA continues to tackle these challenges, they deserve a Senate-confirmed leader with experience on these issues to lead those efforts. Dr. Califf worked on these challenges before, when he was previously confirmed to lead FDA in an overwhelming bipartisan vote, and he demonstrated in his hearing with the HELP Committee that he is ready to take them on again and return as Commissioner.

So I urge all of my colleagues to join me in voting to confirm Dr. Califf and working with him to ensure that the FDA continues to protect our families, uphold the gold standard of safety and effectiveness, and put science and data first.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I have said before that we all want to make sure our schools can stay safely open for in-person learning. But based on this legislation, it is not clear that is true for all of my Republican colleagues.

Look, this is straightforward. If you want education decisions to happen at the local level, you do not tie the hands of State and local officials when they are trying to keep their students and educators safe. And if you want schools to be able to stay safely open and bring some stability and certainty back to our classrooms, you don't cut schools off from the resources they need just because you think you know better than the parents and local officials about how this pandemic is progressing in their community or how they should use tools like masks.

I am a former preschool teacher, parent advocate, and school board member. But let's be honest, you don't need classroom experience to see that right now the very last thing we should be doing is denying schools the tools and resources to help kids learn safely. The data is clear. We have real work to do to help our students make up for an incredibly tough 2 years.

Now, Democrats actually passed legislation--the American Rescue Plan--which invests specifically in helping our students recover academically and mentally. The proposal from the Senator from Arkansas would put our students' recovery and safe in-person learning in jeopardy. It would take those important public health decisions, which should be based on local conditions, away from those communities and slash funding for students and schools right when they need us the most.

Now is not the time to pull the rug out from under students in schools. Parents, educators, and, most of all, kids have been through enough. I object.

Madam President, reserving the right to object.

Just weeks ago, we celebrated the anniversary of Roe v. Wade--the landmark decision that affirmed the right to abortion and changed so many lives for the better.

Across the country, patients spoke out about their experiences before Roe--about how Roe meant they could get an abortion they needed or even how, after Roe, they still struggled to get access to abortion. But what was present in all of those stories was real fear about what the future holds--the fear of what a country without Roe would look like-- because that is what Republicans are pushing for all across the country.

Republicans in Texas passed SB 8, which bans abortions after 6 weeks and allows people to sue anyone who helps someone get an abortion.

In Idaho, bordering my home State of Washington, extreme Republican legislators are trying to pass a law modeled after the Texas abortion ban.

Republicans in Mississippi brought a direct challenge of Roe to the Supreme Court and have told the Court, in no uncertain terms, they believe Roe should be overturned.

Now, those are just a few examples, and we have got one more here in the Senate today.

The resolution from the Senator from Indiana sends a message that the Republican Party knows best when it comes to some of the most personal decisions people make about their health and their futures, about when and whether to have children, and about what is best for themselves and their families.

Well, they don't.

In fact, the majority of Americans support Roe and do not want to see it overturned. They want a country where everyone can control their own bodies and their own futures, and that is exactly what I am fighting for so I object.

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, as chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, I would like to recognize an exceptional public servant deeply committed to protecting and improving the health of the American people, Mr. Lester Cash. Mr. Cash retired recently after a distinguished 37-year career in the civil service, most of it spent at the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Health and Human Services. It is at HHS, where he was the Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary for Budget since 2007, that I and my staff came to depend upon Mr. Cash's expertise, wisdom, and judgement.

Mr. Cash is one of those unsung public servants whose analysis and insights are relied upon equally by Democrats and Republicans in both Chambers. He epitomizes the best of the professional civil service: dedicated, credible and trusted by all who work with him. His unique skills, starting with advanced degrees in public policy, philosophy, and theology, have given Mr. Cash a perspective that is both broad and sufficiently deep. His judgement on appropriations legal matters and insight on legislative language was always sound, and his ready responsiveness at any hour made him the vital go-to person for the committees when time was tight. Whenever there was a complex question that needs solving, he was the person to call, whether it was for funding to respond to a natural disaster, meeting our obligations to our September 11 first responders, or ensuring that unaccompanied migrant children are treated humanely. Most recently, during the pandemic, Mr. Cash was instrumental to removing obstacles to secure COVID-19 tests, vaccines, and therapeutics for communities across the country. It is not an exaggeration to say that millions of Americans have been directly affected by his efforts and that his commitment saved lives.

We are all better off because of Lester. His unyielding dedication and institutional knowledge made him truly indispensable, and his absence will be a loss for all of us who depend upon him. I am glad that he will have more time to spend with his wife and son, Ada and Brian, friends and family. He certainly deserves it, and I wish him the best of luck in the future.

Mr. President, this weekend is the anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. It is a decision that, without a doubt, changed lives for the better. It prevented a lot of harm and helped keep many patients healthy. It opened doors for women to pursue their career and education goals and affirmed the right to control our own bodies and our own futures.

Roe was a giant leap forward, and a majority of Americans want to protect it. But since Roe was decided, extreme Republicans have peddled blatant misinformation, filled our judicial system with anti-abortion judges, and passed State laws designed solely to make it harder to get abortions--laws that are now hurting people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, immigrants, young people, people with low incomes, and people with disabilities the most. And they are not stopping at abortion. They are pushing to make it harder to get birth control and defund family planning clinics--including Planned Parenthood--which provide critical healthcare for so many communities.

In Texas, Republicans have passed, and the Supreme Court green-lit, a law that essentially bans abortions and is enforced by pitting neighbor against neighbor. And even though medication abortion pills are safe to take at home, extreme Republicans are now pushing to pass laws that not only dictate what happens in a doctor's office but also make it harder for patients to take a pill in their very own living room.

You know, Republicans do like to talk about Big Government, but overriding people's individual decisions and science to dictate what people can do in their own homes sounds like a lot of overreach.

The Senator from Oklahoma is here with a bill today that has one goal: to make it harder to get abortion care by allowing someone else's personal beliefs, rather than a patient's best interest, to determine a patient's care. And that is just one example of the extreme agenda Republicans are pushing, today and every day.

I have heard from so many people about the problems and the harm this has caused in their lives. I have heard from many patients who had to jump through unnecessary or even harmful hoops to get the abortion care they needed: patients who had to endure invasive ultrasounds that were medically unnecessary before they could get an abortion; patients who were harassed going in and out of a clinic; patients who had to drive hours or even days to get to the nearest abortion provider or who zeroed out their bank account to afford a plane ticket or childcare; patients, including many in Texas, who didn't have the means to get the abortion care they needed and were forced to stay pregnant when they did not want to be.

And then the Supreme Court took on a direct challenge to Roe that threatens the constitutional right to abortion. I have heard nonstop from people who are very anxious about their future, people who are scared and frustrated, people who, like the majority of Americans, want to protect Roe, who want to live in a country where everyone can make their own decisions about pregnancy and parenting--free from political interference.

That is exactly why I am fighting so hard to protect the right to abortion at the Federal level by passing the Women's Health Protection Act. That bill will safeguard Roe and help make its promises a reality for everyone, no matter their ZIP Code, by ensuring their constitutional right to abortion is not undermined by State abortion bans and restrictions.

But Republican attacks from every angle, like the one we will witness now, means there is no one easy fix.

We have got to do everything we can to undo the damage the extreme Republicans have caused in our laws and in our lives. And that is why I am fighting so hard for the over-the-counter birth control and to make health insurance companies follow the law rather than forcing patients to pay out of pocket for contraception.

It is why I am fighting to make a historic investment in title X family planning centers, which help make healthcare like birth control, STI screenings, and more available to everyone, regardless of their income.

And it is why I am asking for everyone to join me in this fight. It is going to take all of us working together to protect reproductive rights, and there is no action too small.

Share your story. Speak up about what reproductive rights mean to you. Support a local organization helping to get patients the reproductive healthcare they need. Work to combat Republicans' misinformation. Fight to pass local and State laws protecting abortion rights.

And here is something to remember while you do it: It is true that extreme Republicans have worked nonstop to roll back progress on reproductive rights and that abortion access is at risk like never before.

But this is also true: Since Roe, millions and millions of American women and men grew up knowing access to abortion is a constitutional right. Millions and millions more saw how much Roe opened doors for women and empowered people to make their own personal decisions about their body and their future.

The vast majority of Americans believe people should be trusted to make their own decisions about whether or not to get an abortion and that whether and when to get pregnant is a personal decision, not a decision that should be made by any politician or taken away from them because of how much money they have or where they live.

We can make this a reality, but we have got to fight for it. That is what I am doing; that is what I am going to keep doing; and I am very glad to have so many people alongside.

I yield the floor.

I object.

Mr. President, we are here today to talk about our democracy, and here is what I know about how a democracy actually works. I come out here to the Senate floor every day, just like every Member of this Chamber, and I fight for what I believe in. And I use my voice to do that, and I use my vote to do that.

The same is true for every citizen of this country. They use their vote to say what they want the future of our democracy to look like. But, right now, States across the country are taking away that right. They are taking away their voice.

We have to make sure that every vote is never taken away, that no voice is taken away, or we are going to lose the democracy in the future.

And here is what is happening right now. Republican legislatures are making it hard to vote for certain groups of people--primarily Black Americans, Native Americans, young people, and people with disabilities, just because they might vote for a Democrat.

This is a national coordinated effort to keep Republicans in power at every level of government by keeping Americans away from the ballot box, by keeping Americans from being able to use their voice and their vote. Specifically, Republican legislatures are passing legislation to make it harder for people to vote by mail; drastically eliminating the availability of secure drop boxes so people can safely drop off their ballot; and reducing early voting hours or days.

And it is all done to demoralize and discourage people--working people--from making their voices heard and to make the democratic process so much more cumbersome. That is a mom who is juggling childcare and schooling during the pandemic, who is going to look for options to get that ballot in, to get her voice in, to get her vote in, and she won't able to find a way to do that with all of her responsibilities.

Maybe there is not a drop box near her, or maybe early voting hours have been cut short, or maybe the new rules about voting by mail are just too complicated.

Because of those barriers that are being erected in Republican legislatures, that mom will not get to advocate for her kids or her community with her vote. And too many Republicans want it to work exactly like that.

And those far-right politicians also want to pick their own voters-- literally drawing lines between communities to reinforce partisan divides.

Congressional Democrats are working to do the opposite. Instead of letting politicians draw maps to rig the outcomes in favor of one party or another, we just want to end partisan gerrymandering.

Because--let's be clear--people should pick their representatives in the United States of America, not the other way around. And what we are seeing happening across the country is undemocratic, and in no uncertain terms, it is a threat to this democracy.

And if you don't believe me, look at what the former President said just

this past weekend. Donald Trump, the leader of the Republican Party, continues as we know to spread the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him. He is working hard, out in the open, to convince every American that he can that our free, fair election in 2020 was illegitimate.

But even more concerning is the former President's explicit stated determination to rig the outcome of future elections. In a recent recorded message Donald Trump said:

We have to be a lot sharper the next time when it comes to

counting the vote. . . . Sometimes the vote counter is more

important than the candidate.

More important than the candidate? And what Donald Trump means in this case was clear. He wants his loyalists to oversee our elections to make sure the outcome is always in his favor. I mean, just sit with that. We are not talking about hypotheticals here. The leader of the Republican Party wants to toss democracy out the window and change the outcome of any election results he doesn't like.

History is sitting on our shoulders right now. The American people are looking to us for a way to move forward and protect the right to vote, and this is it. And all that is standing in our way is Senate procedure--Senate procedure that a majority of us voted last month to change.

Now, I understand the reluctance around reforming the filibuster. I do. I understand we want this institution to work, to be bipartisan when it comes to tackling big challenges. But here is the deal: I don't think that carving out a path to pass voting rights on a simple majority precludes that.

In fact, I think it is past time that we reform the filibuster to make sure the world's greatest deliberative body actually deliberates the issues and challenges that are facing the American people.

But today's Senate procedure keeps us from that kind of deliberation. Senate rules not unlike the partisan gerrymandering we are seeing in States across the country push Democrats and Republicans further into their corners, rather than toward collaboration, making it unbelievably easy to block legislative action and nearly impossible to start it.

And that means Americans do not get to see where elected officials stand on issues as consequential as protecting the right to vote. To even have the debate we are having right now, we had to dig through Senate rules and quite literally repurpose a bill that allows NASA to lease its property. Otherwise, we wouldn't even be standing here on the floor today to have this discussion about voting rights. That does not make sense.

It should not be so difficult to make it so the public can see where each of us stands. And let's remember that these voter suppression laws are all being passed mainly on a partisan basis with simple majorities.

Now, some have suggested that if we believe these laws are unconstitutional we should fight them in the courts, take our arguments all the way to the Supreme Court. But remember, there are three Supreme Court Justices all appointed by a simple majority of this Senate without the filibuster.

So let's recap. Republicans want to appoint judges without a filibuster standing in their way. They want Republican State lawmakers to be able to pass voter suppression laws without a filibuster. But Democrats can't protect the basic right to vote on a simple majority.

That is what we are talking about here today: making election day a Federal holiday, making sure everyone can vote by mail, ending gerrymandering so voters can pick their politicians and not the other way around. These are simple, straightforward reforms, with tremendous significance for our country's future as a democracy.

And the path to getting them done is simple and straight forward too. What each of us has to do is decide that our democracy comes before Senate procedure and then cast our votes.

I have made my decision, and here is what I believe: We cannot let the filibuster stop us from protecting every American's right to vote. If it is the filibuster or democracy, I will choose democracy. If it is the Senate rules or a Senate that works for the American people, I will choose a Senate that works.

And I urge my colleagues with all of my heart, for the sake of this democracy, to do the same.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise today to honor and congratulate Mr. Stephen J. Norman on his retirement following 45 years of work in the community development and affordable housing industry. Stephen retires from Washington's King County Housing Authority, where he has served as executive director and been an extraordinary asset to our State and the greater Seattle-King County region for the last 25 years.

Under Stephen's leadership, KCHA has doubled the number of households served during his tenure and charted a path forward with an expansive vision of what a public housing authority can be in the 21st century. The authority's housing stock and tenant-based programming now house more than 55,000 individuals, including over 20,000 children. Stephen oversaw KCHA's designation as one of the first Moving to Work Housing Authorities in the country, a recognition that enabled KCHA to pioneer efforts to partner with the education, health, and workforce development sectors to support residents throughout King County.

As the former assistant commissioner for Homeless Housing Development in New York City, Stephen has always understood the importance of service-enriched supportive housing. I am particularly proud of the work that Stephen has undertaken to expand the HUD-VASH program in King County, connecting housing and service systems to support our veterans who are suffering the indignity of living outside.

Stephen has also been a staunch champion of broadening the geographic availability of affordable housing. KCHA has invested heavily in workforce housing, reflecting an ambitious Nation-leading effort to preserve existing housing in gentrifying and high-opportunity areas, and has pioneered mobility initiatives for families with children participating in the Housing Choice Voucher Program. The Creating Moves to Opportunity Program research has served as the foundation for current efforts by the Federal Government to increase geographic choice and mobility for households with low incomes. Time and time again, under Stephen's leadership, KCHA's programs have paved the way for broader policy change at the State and Federal level.

The host of expansive housing and services programming at KCHA reflects Stephen's extraordinary skills in developing cross-sector partnerships, even in the most difficult of circumstances. With his wit, inquisitiveness, and relentless drive, Stephen has earned the collaboration and respect of leaders across the State and Nation. He has served as the president of the board of directors for the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities and was the

founding vice president and current chair of the board for the Corporation for Supportive Housing. He has done all of this while keeping a pulse on the national housing landscape as a tireless advocate for expanded Federal support for affordable housing. I know for certain that because of his effective advocacy and vision, today more people in King County and across the Nation have a place to call home.

It has been a great privilege to learn from and collaborate with Stephen over the last two decades. And it is my honor to thank him for his lifetime of dedicated service to people with low incomes in King County, the State of Washington, and across the entire country. I wish him the very best during his well-earned retirement.

Madam President, I urge my colleagues to confirm Judge Kit Dimke for a district court vacancy in the Eastern District of Washington.

To begin, I want to thank President Biden for nominating Judge Dimke for this position at my strong recommendation. At the start of this Congress, there were six Federal district court vacancies in Washington State--six. More than half the Federal bench in Washington State was empty. Those vacancies put a huge strain on our Federal courts, but thanks to the quick work of this Senate with Judge Dimke's confirmation, there will be just two, with another nominee voted out of committee just yesterday.

We have confirmed more than 30 circuit and district judges to lifetime appointments and I could not be prouder that, once we confirm Judge Dimke, four of them will serve Washington State. In this Congress, we have sent a clear message that the judicial system belongs to the American people, and it should work for all of the American people, not just the powerful and well-connected.

We are delivering on that commitment by appointing Federal judges who reflect the diversity of our communities and who bring important professional diversity that has been missing from our courts for too long. Just this Congress, we have confirmed to the Federal bench in my State Lauren King, a respected Tribal law expert and Washington State's first Native American Federal judge; Tana Lin, a civil rights lawyer, the first former public defender, and the first Asian-American Federal judge in my home State; David Estudillo, the son of immigrants, a respected State court judge, and a former immigration attorney. And soon, I hope this Senate will vote to confirm Judge Kit Dimke.

Judge Dimke is currently a Federal magistrate judge for the Eastern District of Washington. She knows the current judges and the lay of the land well, having served in that role since 2016, and is a highly respected judicial colleague. Given her current role, she has meaningful experience in both criminal and civil Federal litigation.

Judge Dimke's entire career has been in public service; she previously worked as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in both the Eastern and Western Districts of Washington. A native of Washington State, she grew up in rural Asotin County as the child of a cattle ranger and lumber mill owner; she knows Eastern Washington. Judge Dimke attended the Running Start program at Walla Walla Community College in high school and went on to obtain her undergraduate degree from Pepperdine University and law degree from Vanderbilt. She is someone with a proven track record who is committed to improving access to the court and will look for ways for the court to work equitably for all participants and for each voice to be heard.

Judge Dimke has already demonstrated that commitment as a magistrate judge, having worked to expand the court's mediation services, improved and diversified the court's indigent defense services, and more quickly resolved one of the top areas of litigation that the Eastern District sees--Social Security disability appeals. She participates in the court's Judicial Institute, volunteering to judge the court's civics competitions for students. And she is actively engaged in the court's external outreach regarding the crisis missing and murdered Native American and Indigenous women, a significant and serious problem facing Tribal communities in Washington State.

Bottom line, Judge Dimke is qualified to become a Federal district court judge and will make an excellent addition to the Federal bench from the Spokane Courthouse. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting to confirm her today.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, unfortunately, even though the Senate has had multiple exposures to nonsense ideas like this bill, they keep coming back.

Agencies like the CDC and NIH are already looking closely at the data on COVID-19 infection and natural immunity; they have been since the earliest days of this pandemic.

In an August ``Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report,'' CDC actually assessed data from Kentucky and found that out of a group of people who had been infected with COVID before, those who were unvaccinated were twice as likely to get COVID again than people who were vaccinated.

And a CDC report from October looked at multiple studies and concluded that vaccinating people who were previously infected significantly strengthened their immune response and reduced their risk from COVID.

In other words, being unvaccinated puts you at higher risk of being reinfected, period. Getting vaccinated is a necessary step to protect you and to protect those around you.

And now our Agencies are focused on a new variant, as we know, that appears to be spreading quickly throughout the world--Omicron.

We are in the middle of the deadliest pandemic in American history. It has killed 785,000 people and counting. If we are going to end this, if we are going to reopen our economy, if we are going to save lives, we need to get everyone vaccinated when they are eligible.

We certainly don't need politicians suggesting they know more than the experts and ignoring the data. We don't need bills meant to weaken one of our strongest tools to get this thing behind us, like the one that the Republicans have repeatedly been pressing for.

Workplace safety standards are nothing new in this country. Immunization requirements are nothing new in this country.

And let's be clear. The emergency temporary standard OSHA has put forward specifically provides employers the flexibility to offer testing as an alternative to vaccination.

People are dying every day. Families are scared and they are tired and they are angry that, even as they try so hard to do the right thing so we can end this crisis, even after all the progress we have made to rebuild our economy and get students safely back in our classes, get people safely back to work, and get unemployment back to the lowest level since before this pandemic started--all that progress, all of our hard work is at risk of being undermined by bills like this.

Can Republicans please stop wasting our time trying to take us backward and pretending they know more than the experts about this disease? Is that too much to ask? I think not.

I object.

Mr. President, I rise this afternoon to request unanimous consent to move qualified, uncontroversial nominees from the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule XXII, the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations: Executive Calendar Nos. 300, 348, 349, 415, 416, 417, 418, 419, 420, 421, 422, 423, 424, 425, 426, 427, 484, 485, 569, 570, 571, 589, 590, 591, 592, 593, 594; that the nominations be confirmed and 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 the nominations; that any related statements be printed in the Record; and that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate resume legislative session.

Mr. President, I am sorry that we had an objection because right now, the HELP Committee has more than 30 nominees who are waiting on us to confirm them. These are qualified nominees, and they should be on the job and working, overseeing critical parts of the Department of Labor and the Department of Education, leading independent Agencies, and serving in very important roles. We need to confirm them so they can get to work on behalf of the American people, especially as we continue our economic recovery. If we are going to rebuild from this pandemic, we need all hands on deck.

Many of the nominees whom I just tried to move by unanimous consent were voted out of the HELP Committee unanimously, and they have bipartisan support. But now my Republican colleagues are holding up all these nominations for manufactured reasons and in some cases, for absolutely no reason at all.

That was, by the way, not our practice during President Trump's administration or any other administration, and it should not be the practice now.

Obstructionism is not helping anyone. All this does is make it harder for Departments and Agencies to do their work and harder for our families and our communities to get the help they need.

It should not be this difficult for the Senate to perform its constitutional duty and confirm nominees who are qualified and supported by both Democrats and Republicans. Republicans are blocking or have delayed nominees who received support from every Republican on the HELP Committee, nominees who received support from bipartisan groups and who will serve in nonpartisan roles, and privileged nominees who are supposed to be fast-tracked through the Senate as part of a longstanding bipartisan practice, and that, by the way, includes a former colleague of ours, Dennis DeConcini. Every one of these nominees has gone through the full process and cleared the HELP Committee.

I am extremely frustrated that Republicans have blocked nominations despite their clear qualifications, the history of fast-tracking nominations like this in a bipartisan way, and most importantly, the critical challenge we are facing and the work that families are counting on all of us to get done. They have been blocking several other critical, noncontroversial nominees my colleagues have been pushing to confirm as well.

We have heard plenty of excuses from across the aisle, but all we know is that there is no good reason for this. We know these are qualified nominees. We know the work they are being blocked from doing is important if we are going to rebuild our Nation stronger and better. I want my colleagues across the aisle to know that we are not going to give up on this side. We are going to keep pushing to get these nominees confirmed so they can do their jobs and get to work for the people and the communities of this Nation.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I have 4 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Mr. President, I rise today, as I have done too many times before and as my colleague Senator Murphy did just last week, to reiterate what people across my home State and the entire country have been calling for for years now, calling for us to take action here in the Senate to end the crisis of gun violence that we are seeing in our schools, in our neighborhoods, and across our country.

Last week, we mourned the deaths of four high school students following the tragic shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan. My heart goes out to those four students' families and friends, and my heart goes out to every student at Oxford High who is now carrying the trauma of that experience.

My heart breaks for every student in this country who grows up thinking something like this will eventually happen to them at their school, and my heart hurts for every parent who worries every time they send their kid off to school because--let's face it--school shootings are a very real threat in this country.

As a parent and a grandparent and a former preschool teacher, I know school is supposed to be a place where our children feel safe, where they can go to learn and grow and see friends, where they can be kids, but after weeks like last week, that feeling disappears, following school shootings like the one we saw in Michigan or threats to schools like we saw last week in my home State of Washington.

Just last week, my hometown high school, Bothell High School, was shut down over concerns about a threat of violence. Ferndale High School was in lockdown Wednesday because of a threat of a gun on campus. That same Wednesday, the day after the shooting in Michigan, threats were made targeting three schools in Mukilteo School District, forcing local law enforcement to mobilize resources and personnel--all of that in just 1 week.

While, luckily, none of those threats we saw in my home State escalated any further thanks in large part to the quick work of local officials, in the same week, Seattle saw six shootings in just over 24 hours. From January through October of this year, Seattle has already seen more than 500 shooting incidents. It is already the most shootings the city has seen in the last decade.

I am not the only one who thinks this cannot continue. I know because for years I have heard from students and teachers and parents from my State who want major Federal action to finally end the gun violence epidemic in this country. People want an end to these school shootings, an end to shootings at our churches and places of worship, an end to the shootings at our malls and stores, and an end to the gun violence that doesn't always make the news but happens on our streets and in our neighborhoods.

As Senator Murphy said last week, we are the only high-income nation in the world where this happens. But it happens because we let it happen because, despite how many times my Democratic colleagues and I have come to the floor with commonsense, popular legislation to help prevent gun violence, our Republican colleagues block us from even debating those bills, let alone voting on them. Think about that. They won't even allow a debate on this legislation that could save lives.

So I ask them: How many times are we going to go through this cycle? What will you tell parents in this country when they ask you what you did to stop the next school shooting? How many times will you refuse to even debate commonsense steps to keep our communities safe?

It is past time Republicans either get on board with taking action to stop these shootings or at least get out of the way. Like so many parents or grandparents, I want to stop worrying if our kids are safe in school. And like so many Americans, I am done with my Republican colleagues blocking commonsense gun laws at every turn.

At this point, you are either in favor of taking action to help put an end to these shootings or you are against them.

Washington can and should continue to build on its gun safety laws. The administration can and should continue to invest in community violence intervention programs. But here is the deal: We can't address the full scope of the gun violence epidemic in this country without taking major Federal action. Universal background checks, an assault weapons ban, and a patchwork of gun safety laws are simply not adequate. We need Federal laws in place in order to protect our families.

The fact that one party has listened to the voices of parents across the country and taken to the floor once again to call for an end to gun violence while the other listens to the gun lobby and stays silent in the face of repeated tragedy speaks volumes. Simply put, our kids and grandkids deserve to be safe from gun violence in their schools and on our streets.

I refuse to let Republican obstruction continue to get in the way of commonsense measures that will save lives. All options need to be on the table. It is time we restore the Senate to make sure this institution can actually serve the interests of the vast majority of the American public.

So I promise all parents, all the grandparents, everyone in Washington State that, despite the obstruction and silence from my Republican colleagues, I will not stay quiet, and I will keep pushing for change. And I hope the American people will do the same.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Lankford be recognized for up to 6 minutes, Senator Murphy for up to 5 minutes, and that I be recognized last for up to 12 minutes prior to the scheduled vote.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Connecticut, and I rise today as well to urge my colleagues to vote against this dangerous resolution, which would pull the rug out from under our COVID response efforts at a really critical moment.

We are fighting an unprecedented pandemic, and we all know just how painful this fight has been. Everyone remembers the way it upended our economy as small businesses shuttered, workers got sent home; the way it upended our healthcare system as emergency rooms filled and supplies dwindled and healthcare professionals started working really long hours in dangerous conditions; the way it upended our lives when schools and childcare providers were forced to close to keep people safe.

We all know people who have been infected by this deadly virus. We all know people who are still fighting the effects of long COVID, which we are still trying to work to understand. And we all know people who have been killed by this virus.

We have lost family members, mothers, daughters, fathers, sons, grandparents. We have all lost dear friends. We have lost beloved community members and frontline workers who keep our communities functioning. We have lost teachers and principals, doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters. We have lost time with each other that we cannot get back.

This virus left no American and no part of America alone. COVID has now killed over 785,000 people in this country, more Americans than any war we have ever fought. And despite what Republicans seem to believe, given the fact we are voting on a resolution to undermine a cornerstone policy of our pandemic response and despite the hard-fought and very real progress we have made, this crisis is not over.

We are still averaging over 100,000 new cases a day. We still have over 50,000 people hospitalized with COVID. We are still, right now, seeing, on average, well over 1,000 deaths a day, overwhelmingly among people who are not vaccinated.

And we are still on high alert for new variants. We saw with Delta how a new, more dangerous, more contagious variant of COVID-19 could set back all the progress we fought so hard to make, and we are at this very moment learning more about the Omicron variant and what sort of threat it might pose.

So how on Earth does it make sense right now to undercut one of the strongest tools that we have to get people vaccinated and stop this virus? In what world is that a good idea?

We all know the damage this virus does to our communities. We should be doing everything we can to stop it. We should be using every tool to protect our country, our economy, and our families.

And we know vaccines are one of the best tools we have to do that. It has been almost a year now since the first vaccine was authorized. After months of hoping--remember that?--that news meant we finally had a safe, effective vaccine to protect people from this virus, and we have made a lot of progress since then when it comes to making the most of vaccines and getting them to people across the country.

Vaccines are now authorized, as we know, for everyone ages 5 and up. Booster shots are now available to make sure people continue to stay protected amid concerns over these new variants. And around 60 percent of all eligible people in our Nation are fully vaccinated.

But we still have a ways to go to vaccinate our country and to vaccinate the world if we are going to end this pandemic. That should be our No. 1 priority.

But this resolution that our friends across the aisle are offering tonight would move us in the opposite direction. It will take away one of the strongest means we have to encourage people to get vaccinated, save lives, end this pandemic, and keep our economic recovery on track.

Immunization requirements in this country are not new. They go back as far in our history as General George Washington, who required his troops to get vaccinated against smallpox. They have been critical in the fight of diseases like polio and measles and mumps and rubella, just to name a few.

And the reason we no longer have to worry about diseases like smallpox and polio in this country is because vaccines work.

Nor are workplace safety standards a new thing. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has a long track record of setting and enforcing safety standards that simply prevent workers from getting sick or injured on the job.

OSHA not only has the authority to protect workers with safety standards; it has been doing this for 50 years. The law that established OSHA even gave it authority to respond to emergencies by issuing an emergency temporary standard, or ETS, when there is a grave danger to workers.

And it makes all the sense in the world for them to use that power to protect workers from COVID because the painful reality is that COVID-19 has killed a lot of workers. We have lost hundreds of meatpacking workers and grocery store workers to this virus. We lost over 3,600 healthcare workers to COVID in 1 year. And over 10,000 agricultural workers have been killed by COVID.

This is exactly the kind of threat OSHA should be protecting people against. It is exactly the kind of grave danger Congress gave OSHA the authority to issue an ETS to respond to. And OSHA has rightfully used that authority to put forward an emergency temporary standard on COVID- 19 that is simple, it is flexible, and it is lifesaving.

Republicans seem to not be hearing this part, so I want to be especially clear about it. This requires employers with 100 or more employees to make sure workers either--either--get vaccinated or get a COVID test once a week before they go in to the workplace--either vaccinated or tested once a week.

It also provides, by the way, paid time for workers to get vaccinated, removing a key barrier to vaccinations. It is a strong tool for getting our Nation vaccinated. And despite how my Republican colleagues talk about it, letting employers have the flexibility to offer a testing option means they don't have to ask workers to leave their job if they choose not to get vaccinated.

This step for getting people vaccinated or requiring testing is overwhelmingly popular with American people. A poll actually taken shortly after President Biden announced this step found that 6 in 10 Americans supported requiring businesses of 100 or more to have employees vaccinated or tested regularly; and 7 in 10 supported making sure people have paid time off to get vaccinated.

Of course, that should be no surprise. After all, no one wants to go to work worried that they might come home to their family with a deadly virus, worried that they might get their own kids sick, which is why getting more people vaccinated could help our country get back to work.

We all know people want to work where they feel safe. We all want to work where we feel safe. And economists predict that vaccination policies could lead to millions of Americans reentering the workforce.

Let's get something straight: the big threat to our workforce and to our

economy is the virus. It is the virus that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and shuttered businesses. It is not the safety standard that will keep workers safe and businesses open.

In fact, this type of safety standard is also supported by businesses across the country. Many businesses have already implemented policies like the standard Republicans are trying to overturn. And you know what has happened time after time?

United Airlines, 99 percent of its 67,000-person workforce has complied overwhelmingly by getting vaccinated. Tyson Foods went from having less than half of its 120,000 workers vaccinated to now over 96 percent. MGM Resorts has 98 percent of its workers vaccinated. Walmart says an overwhelming majority of employees have gotten vaccinated. A Connecticut manufacturer with 250 workers recently announced 100- percent vaccination rate. And that list goes on and on.

In one place after another, we are seeing over 90 percent of workers comply with this requirement--some through testing, and the overwhelming majority through vaccination.

The big picture here is that this rule, which Republicans keep attacking, is saving lives. OSHA estimates it will help protect 84 million workers and prevent thousands of deaths and over 250,000 hospitalizations from COVID-19, and yet here we are--Republicans pushing to scrap it entirely, undermining the progress, and putting America lives and livelihoods in danger.

This pandemic has done a lot of damage. It wrecked our economy. It shut down our schools and our businesses. It forced people to postpone weddings and graduations and funerals. It devastated our Nation's mental health. It killed over three-quarters of a million people.

It is not over. We have come a long way. This pandemic sent unemployment as high as 14.8 percent. Today, it is back down to 4.2 percent--the lowest it has been since the start of the pandemic.

Schools have reopened and brought students safely back to classrooms. Businesses are hiring. People are getting vaccinated, getting back to work, getting back to plans that have been put off by this pandemic, and getting back to seeing their friends and families. But they do not want to go backwards. The American people do not want to go backwards. And that is exactly where the Republicans' misinformation on commonsense policies like this will take us: backwards.

We know the path forward to finally end this involves getting everyone vaccinated. We should all be working towards that goal, not against it. Families are counting on us to lead our Nation through this crisis, not back into it.

After all we have lost and all the hard work we have done to rebuild, we must not throw our economy and our communities and Americans' lives into jeopardy by sabotaging our pandemic response. When you are fighting a fire, you don't stop in the middle of it and turn off the water. That is exactly what this resolution will do.

It takes away one of the most important tools we have given OSHA to protect workers, in the middle of a pandemic when we need it most, and jeopardize all of the hard work Americans have done to get us out of this.

So I am here tonight to urge my colleagues to vote no--no to more lost lives, no to a longer pandemic, and to join me in defending a commonsense tool that will help put this incredibly difficult chapter of American life behind us.

I yield floor.

I ask for the yeas and nays.