Floor Statements

Madam President, I would ask consent to speak as in morning business.

Madam President, I rise as so many of us are talking about today and reflecting upon the massacre in Newtown, CT, Sandy Hook Elementary School, 10 years ago today.

I rise for two purposes: One is to commemorate those who lost their lives that day--especially the children, 20 children, as well as 6 adults--to remember each of them today but also to commend and salute the work done by families and so many others across this country to make some measure of progress, limited though it has been, to reduce the likelihood of more gun violence across the country.

I wanted to start, though, Madam President, by reading the names and the ages of those who perished on that day at Sandy Hook Elementary School. For each individual, I will read their name and then the age they were on that day.

First, Charlotte Bacon, 6 years old; Olivia Engel, 6; Dylan Hockley, 6 years old; Madeleine Hsu, 6; Catherine Hubbard, 6; Jesse Lewis, 6; Ana Marquez-Greene, 6; James Mattioli, 6; Emilie Parker, 6; Jack Pinto, 6 years old; Noah Pozner, 6; Caroline Previdi, 6; Jessica Rekos, 6; Avielle Richman, 6 years old; Benjamin Wheeler, 6; Allison Wyatt, 6; Daniel Barden, 7 years old; Josephine Gay, 7; Chase Kowalski, 7; Grace McDonnell, 7, just age 7.

They are the children, and here are the adults who were killed on that day:

Victoria Soto, 27 years old; Rachel D'Avino, 29; Lauren Rousseau, 30; Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, 47 years old; Anne Marie Murphy, 52; and Mary Sherlach, 56 years old.

When we remember those children and adults who were killed on that day, unfortunately for the Nation, it didn't stop there. And just as I have read those names, we could continue reading names from other cities and other years under different circumstances but all leading to the same place: death and darkness because of the scourge of gun violence all across America.

The children of Newtown, CT, came before the most recent massacre of children in a school in Uvalde, TX. There were many front-page newspaper stories in 2012 on this day--or I guess tomorrow; it would be tomorrow's newspapers--across the country. We had little, small pictures of each child and each adult.

I saved one from the Wall Street Journal. It was on my desk for a long time, and then I ultimately had it matted. But I still have one just from May of this year that is still in its newspaper form from Uvalde, TX--the same newspaper, the Wall Street Journal. But you could pick any paper in the country in 2012 or this past year. That tells us all we need to know.

So, as we remember and reflect upon that loss, I believe today it is also important to remember and commend what the parents did, what the families did, what their friends and relatives and supporters did, what volunteers did, all these years, who didn't know these families.

But let me start with the parents. These parents, of course, were consumed by grief, as anyone would be. But somehow--somehow--although they were consumed by their grief, somehow, by way of their own courage and the grace of God, they figured out a way to come together in common purpose, remembering and trying in their own way to pay tribute to their children, to form organizations which have been highly successful in making the case as to why we have to take action here on the Senate floor and not far away on the House floor, to take action on gun violence.

For example, groups like Sandy Hook Promise and Newtown Action Alliance and so many others and related groups that have sprung up got involved in the debate and made the case to legislators personally. Parents burdened by their own grief made the case to legislators. The progress has been all too slow, but because of the courage of the parents of those Sandy Hook children and because of so many other families and parents who have loved and lost, we made some progress just this past year.

But, unfortunately, in the last 10 years, it took thousands more mass shootings and hundreds of thousands of gun deaths for Congress to finally act. Let me say that again--hundreds of thousands of gun violence deaths for Congress to finally act.

This past summer, we even had Republican Senators join us--not enough but enough to pass a bill in the Senate--to pass a bill that had commonsense gun safety measures in the bill. This bill that passed this summer not only will save lives, but there is some evidence it is already doing that, by some of the data and analysis done by law enforcement.

But this bill, if anyone is being honest about it--this bill, this effort, this ongoing effort to reduce gun violence deaths, has to be just the very beginning of our work. People are still being killed and injured by gun violence every day in cities and communities all across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and across the Nation. We owe it to the families of those 20 children and those 6 adults who died in Newtown, CT, at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and so many other places that we can name and catalog here today. Because of the length of that list, we don't have time to go through all of them today.

We have work to do to make sure that we not only pay tribute to those families who have loved and lost and done so much to help other families, but we owe so much to them in the form of passing legislation.

We have to continue to make sure that those who lost their lives on that awful day--a day that most Americans will never forget--we have to make sure that all the efforts that their parents undertook and that their family members undertook will not be in vain.

We have more work to do to pass commonsense gun safety measures. My God, a background check supported by 90 percent of the American people has not yet been passed into law, but it will be. We are going to get there here in the Senate and across the country.

So we have more work to do, but on this day, as we commemorate and reflect on those young souls we lost, we also have to be positive about what their families have done since that day, showing uncommon courage and dedication to not just the memory of their children but to the betterment of the country as a whole.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which is a bill I first introduced in 2012 with Senator Shaheen of New Hampshire.

Senator Cassidy from Louisiana has worked hard for years with me and with others to get this bill passed. I want to thank Senator Cassidy, as well as the chair of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Committee, Senator Murray; Ranking Member Burr of that same committee; and Majority Leader Schumer and others for all the work they have done to help us pass this bill.

This is a commonsense bill that has broad bipartisan, bicameral support. Everyone from the ACLU to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce supports this legislation. These organizations didn't merely endorse the bill after reviewing it; they were actively involved in shaping the legislative text and finding agreement on the text that we are attempting to vote on, and they remain supportive today.

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act simply closes a loophole in the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act to allow pregnant workers to request reasonable accommodations--``reasonable accommodations''; you are going to hear that phrase a lot today--so that that worker can continue working safely during their pregnancy and upon returning to work after childbirth.

I am going to be coming back to that phrase in a moment, ``reasonable accommodations,'' but I want to cite just two examples among many. Just one from Pennsylvania--Janasia, a teaching assistant working at a childcare facility. She is from Bucks County, PA, in suburban Philadelphia. She suffered a miscarriage due to an infection during a previous pregnancy. When she got pregnant again, she asked for extra bathroom breaks, which were necessary to prevent contracting another infection. She was made to wait over an hour just to use the bathroom. Later that day, Janasia was fired.

This is just one example of a pregnant worker asking for a simple-- simple--commonsense accommodation and being denied that accommodation.

What are other types of reasonable accommodations that pregnant workers might request? Light duty is a common example. Pregnant people are routinely advised by their doctors to limit how much they lift, whether it is 20 pounds or 25 pounds or 30 pounds.

Peggy Young was a UPS driver who requested light duty when she was pregnant. Other workers had received light duty, but she was denied because there was no requirement under the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act to provide reasonable accommodations. That is the loophole we are trying to fix. Peggy Young was forced onto unpaid leave and eventually took her case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Other common accommodations a pregnant worker might request are stools or water bottles. Cashiers and other retail workers are often denied these reasonable accommodations that can help them maintain a healthy pregnancy.

There have also been multiple cases where pregnant workers have been demoted or forced into lower paying jobs because their employer refused to provide uniforms that can accommodate

the worker's pregnancy even though the pregnancy did not affect the worker's ability to perform essential job functions.

These are all examples of simple changes employers can provide to a pregnant worker's job duties or requirements that would not substantially inconvenience the employer, while allowing pregnant workers to continue working through their pregnancies. Yet, all too often, pregnant workers are being denied these reasonable accommodations, leading to impossible choices for these workers.

Keep working in an unsafe environment. Is that a good choice? Taking leave early and running out before the baby is born? Or, No. 3, be let go or forced to quit and face the stress and financial strain that comes with losing their job.

There is no need for this to happen. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act sets up a simple framework that is easily understood and utilized by both employers and employees.

Under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, a pregnant employee may request reasonable accommodations from their employer. The worker and the employer will then engage in an interactive process to determine how the employer can provide these reasonable accommodations to the worker. This protects both parties. The worker may not be forced to accept accommodations that are not needed and that do not address the original concern. The employer cannot be asked to provide an accommodation that would cause an undue burden on that employer.

If this process sounds familiar, that is because we have carefully crafted it to closely resemble the process under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA is 30 years old--lots of case law in those years, testing and probing and examining this reasonable accommodations standard. So we have 30 years of evidence that reasonable accommodations is a way to protect workers who have a disability in the workplace, and it is also a great way to protect a pregnant worker. Reasonable accommodations.

Mr. President, at this time I will yield to my colleague, the Chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Pensions, and Labor.

Mr. President, I just want to add parenthetically before I offer the unanimous consent request--Senator Murray made reference to the overwhelming support. This bill, when it comes to a final vote, will have at least 60 votes in the Senate, if not more. I think it will be more than that.

But we should also note the passage in the House that Senator Murray made reference to, better than 3-to-1, 315 to 101, more than 75 percent of House Members support it--obviously bipartisan.

Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that at a time to be determined by the majority leader in consultation with the Republican leader, that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 425, S. 4431; further, that there be up to 2 hours of debate equally divided between the two leaders or their designees, and that the only amendments in order be No. 1, Lee, and No. 2, Braun; further, that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate vote on the amendments in the order listed with a 60 affirmative vote threshold required for adoption; and that following the disposition of the amendments, the bill be read a third time and the Senate vote on passage of the bill, as amended, if amended, with a 60 vote affirmative threshold required for passage without further intervening action or debate. Finally, that there be 2 minutes of debate, equally divided, prior to each vote.

I yield to my colleague from Louisiana.

Just by way of conclusion, I hope we can continue to work with our colleagues to get this bill passed.

I want to say for the record, however, that under the act, under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, the EEOC, could not--could not--issue any regulation that requires abortion leave, nor does the act permit the EEOC to require employers to provide abortions in violation of State law.

The EEOC understands that what is reasonable is specific to each workplace. For example, if the accommodation conflicts with a generally accepted work rule, like a seniority system, that is generally not reasonable.

So for these and other reasons, we want to get this bill passed and not have to start all over again to delay the passage of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would ask consent to speak for up to 5 minutes before the vote.

Mr. President, I rise today in support of the pending nominee, Arianna J. Freeman, who has been nominated to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. For those who may not know all the geography, that includes, under the jurisdiction of that court, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and the Virgin Islands.

Arianna Freeman has dedicated her legal career to service, especially in the Philadelphia community. After graduating from Swarthmore College and Yale Law School, Ms. Freeman returned to Philadelphia to start her legal career. After clerking for three Federal judges in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, she joined the Federal Community Defender Office in Philadelphia. Through her experience in the defender's office, she has briefed over 15 appeals in the Third Circuit and presented oral argument on seven occasions, including before the Third Circuit en banc, meaning the entire court. She has submitted four briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court as well.

Her legal reputation, her intellect, her ability, and her integrity are unquestioned. I will just give you three or

four examples of what others have said about her work.

Former U.S. District Court Judge Giles wrote:

Ms. Freeman has the character and intellectual attributes

that will lead her to be a wonderful appeals court judge. She

is discerning, open-minded, logical and is both a listener

and contributor to debate and conversation.

A group of appellate practitioners from the Third Circuit wrote as follows:

Arianna Freeman has the strong intellect, tenacious work

ethic, and even temperament necessary to become an

outstanding federal judge. Her integrity and experience will

ensure that she will be ready to serve from the first day.

Third example: Given Arianna's background as a Federal public defender, perhaps most important is the praise that she has received from over 20 former Federal prosecutors. One group wrote:

We are impressed by Arianna's diligence, intelligence,

dedication, and integrity. It is because of her ethics and

compassion, grounded in sensibility, that we are confident

she will provide sound and measured opinions, while

approaching each case without bias and with respect for the

rule of law.

So said 20 former Federal prosecutors.

Arianna is so well respected that her nomination has garnered strong support even beyond the State of Pennsylvania, as evidenced by a letter submitted by over 30 law school professors from across the Nation who described Arianna Freeman as a ``brilliant, careful, and talented lawyer with impressive professional credentials and a strong commitment to fairness, equal justice, and the rule of law.''

There is no doubt that Arianna Freeman's extensive legal experience, keen intellect, and dedication to the principles of fairness and equal justice will serve the Third Circuit well. Furthermore, if confirmed, she will not only provide a critically important professional perspective to the Third Circuit as a career public defender; she will also become the first woman of color to serve on the Third Circuit and just the third active woman on that bench.

This is an important and historic nomination not only for Pennsylvania but, of course, for the entire Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

I would like to share a final passage from a letter written to the Senate Judiciary Committee by a group of law school deans from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, led by Professor Danielle Conway from the Penn State Dickinson School of Law. They wrote:

The nomination of Arianna J. Freeman to serve as a judge on

the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is

inspired and her ultimate confirmation will be inspiring. As

legislative leaders in this great society, the Committee and

the full Senate will be favorably rewarded with history's

account of how you worked to elevate this brilliant lawyer to

the bench.

It couldn't be said any better than that. I urge her confirmation and urge my colleagues to vote yes.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise tonight to talk about the Inflation Reduction Act. I am limited on time. I will try to keep within my 5 minutes.

I wanted to start by just kind of providing a brief summary. This is legislation that will do a number of things, all of which are helpful to American families and the American economy.

First of all, it will lower the cost of prescription drugs for seniors. It will, in fact, lower the cost of energy, the prices people pay for energy.

On the prescription drug front, we talk about lowering costs and empowering Medicare, for the first time, to begin to negotiate for lower prices. It also caps the out-of-pocket costs that Medicare beneficiaries pay at $2,000. In Pennsylvania, the estimate is that there are more than 73,000 Pennsylvanians that pay more than $2,000 a year for prescription drugs. Every one of those 73,000-plus Pennsylvanians and more will benefit from capping out-of-pocket costs.

It lowers costs for families, but it also reduces the threat of climate change and reduces the deficit at the same time--all of that while reducing emissions between now and 2030 by some 40 percent. And this may be the very last time--the very last time--that we have an opportunity to take action in a substantial way against the threat of climate change. The Presiding Officer has worked on this issue for years. He knows of what I speak better than anyone. This may be the last chance to take action on climate change.

Thirdly, and not by way of a complete summary, it extends the Affordable Care Act subsidies--the subsidies that were provided in the American Rescue Plan, the enhanced subsidies and premium tax credits. Those subsidies will be extended to 2025.

Again, I will personalize it to Pennsylvania. This directly affects at least 100,000 people. Sixty thousand people in our State will lose all of their insurance coverage if we don't pass this bill; another 40,000 will have their subsidies taken away; and several hundred thousand will have their premiums go up. It affects 100,000 people directly and several hundred thousand people directly or indirectly.

Then, of course, this bill creates millions and millions of jobs over the 10 years that the bill has been measured.

After we pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which will reduce inflation--that is what we are told by some 126 economists. Larry Summers and others have said the same thing. It will fight inflation in the ways that have already been spoken about. But after we pass this bill, this strong bill for the American economy and for American families, we have more work to do. We have to continue our work to pass legislation to invest in home- and community-based services for seniors and people with disabilities. We have to invest in childcare and institute again what we did in the American Rescue Plan when we put dollars in the pockets of American families raising children by taking the Child Tax Credit and enhancing that Child Tax Credit.

We have to invest in prekindergarten education and paid family leave. We have to invest and protect the Medicaid program and extend it.

We have so much more to do.

I will just spend my remaining minutes talking about one issue, the issue I started with on that list, the home- and community-based services issue. This is an issue that people across the country have come to talk to us about--about a senior or loved one that they want to have home care and can't get it because they are on the waiting list as it is approaching a million people or a person with a disability who wants that same kind of care in the home or in the community.

I met a lot of people and listened to them and listened to their stories. Two come to mind in particular: Someone who needs that care-- his name is Brandon Kingsmore--and his caregiver Lynn Weidner.

I visited Brandon's home with Lynn there and learned firsthand what they are up against every single day in that home. Some months later, Brandon had the chance to meet with the President in my hometown of Scranton. One thing that he said about Lynn as a caregiver and caregivers overall--he said the following. He said:

I would not be able to have the life that I have without

Lynn's help.

[Caregivers] give us a substantial life.

That is what one Pennsylvanian said about the care he receives. Every family should have that opportunity to have care in the home or in the community, and they can't get that under current law. The only option for most families is care in a nursing home or other institutional care. If someone wants that care, that is great. A lot of those nursing homes do really good work.

But here is the problem. So many Americans should have the right to have care in their home, and they don't have that opportunity today. We have to pass legislation to do that. The Better Care Better Jobs bill does that. Jobs for home care workers--we have to get that pay up. We can't be a Nation that claims to be the greatest country in the world and pay home care workers just $12 an hour. That is not going to provide the care that our families need. This bill is about jobs for home care workers; care, obviously, for seniors and people with disabilities; and support for family caregivers. More than 50 million Americans--more than 50 million Americans--are providing care to a loved one. They are saving us money by doing that--saving the Nation money--but they are caring for a family member out of an act of love. We have to help them a lot more than we do.

The last two more points I will make are: We can decide to go forward and just say your only option as a senior or a person with disability is to go to a nursing home or an institutional setting. If we continue to do that, the cost of that is $90,000 per person; or we can invest in home- and community-based services and not pay $90,000 per person, but we can pay just $26,000 per American for that kind of care. So it has a huge cost benefit as well as the compelling moral argument that we should provide these opportunities.

This bill we are going to pass tonight or tomorrow morning or whenever we pass it is a good bill for families--lowering costs, helping seniors with prescription drugs, and really moving forward on action against climate change. After it has passed, we are going to continue to work on these other issues.

I want to end with this. I want to thank members of my staff who have particularly worked so hard the last 18 months on a range of issues but, in particular, the ones who work on home- and community-based services and will continue that fight with us: Stacy Sanders, Michael Gamel-McCormick, Narda Ipakchi, Josh Kramer, and so many others who have done good work, just like so many members of staffs of so many Senators here tonight.

But let's get the Inflation Reduction Act passed tonight, and let's move forward on these other issues in the months ahead.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business for debate only, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the nomination of Robert Gordon. Earlier this year, Mr. Gordon had strong bipartisan support in the Finance Committee when his nomination came to a vote. Mr. Gordon is President Biden's nominee to serve as the Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources, and he has a long history of dedication to public service.

More recently, he served as director of the Department of Health and Human Services for the State of Michigan. He played a central role in the State's pandemic response and managed an agency of 14,000 employees and a multibillion-dollar budget.

Before that, he held senior roles in the U.S. Department of Education and the Office of Management and Budget, where he championed evidence- based policymaking to use taxpayer dollars wisely.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Gordon served as a senior official at the New York City Department of Education. He was a senior aide on Capitol Hill, a law clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and a White House aide.

In his time at the White House, he supported the development of the AmeriCorps program.

In his long career in public service, he has worked to ensure that government programs work for those they serve and that they do so through responsible use of taxpayer dollars. Such experience is essential to the work of the Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources at the Department of Health and Human Services.

HHS has responsibility for critical programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children's Health Insurance Program, just to name a few. The Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources must ensure that these programs and many others under the umbrella of the Department remain strong for future generations.

I ask unanimous consent that, as if in executive session, the Senate consider the following nomination: Calendar No. 762, Robert Michael Gordon, to be Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services; that the Senate vote on the nomination, without intervening action or debate; that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. President, I want to respond, at least preliminarily, to my friend from Tennessee. I appreciate his advocacy for hospitals in his home State of Tennessee. So given that he is seeking this assurance about these disproportionate share hospital payments, my understanding is that the reconciliation bill we are about to consider this week does not contain any provisions that are directly relevant and any provision that would impact these disproportionate share hospitals or uncompensated care pool funding.

So given that and given that he is seeking this specific assurance about the pending reconciliation bill--and I think it is evident or will become evident that the bill does not contain these DSH provisions or uncompensated care payment cuts--I would ask him just this question, if he would entertain this question: If the Senate does pass a reconciliation bill, which I hope will be by the end of this week, and that bill is then subsequently enacted into law, will he lift his objection and allow this and other relevant HHS nominations to be confirmed by unanimous consent?

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I am pleased that Democrats have come together to address the costs of prescription drugs and to lower Affordable Care Act health care premiums for Americans. I strongly support a negotiation process for prescription drugs that will enable the voices of affected stakeholders, especially older adults, patients and people with disabilities, communities of color, and other marginalized groups, to play an integral role and inform the development and oversight of Medicare drug negotiations.

The Department of Health and Human Services has the authority to ensure affected stakeholders provide input about the potential for drugs to achieve outcomes that improve their quality of life. I view the Inflation Reduction Act as an opportunity to put older adults, people with disabilities and patients in front of the process so those affected, especially those historically excluded from the data used to make decisions, are at the table as the Department of Health and Human Services negotiates prices and advances the health equity goals we all share.

Madam President, I rise to object to the Senator from Utah's request.

I understand his concern and the concern of the people in both parties, both sides of the aisle here in the Senate, to take action on this infant formula challenge that so many families are suffering through right now. The unfortunate part about this proposal is that this will put babies at risk in ways that we don't even fully understand right now.

There is bipartisan concern, and the evidence for that is the action of committees--bipartisan work in several committees, including the Agriculture Committee as well as the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee--bipartisan work to meet this crisis. And the focus of that work has been to get formula on shelves as soon as possible.

It is important to remember how our Nation's formula crisis began. Abbott's recall--the manufacturer--the recall and the closure came after as many as nine infants died from contaminated formula. That is how this started, contaminated formula.

Now, we can and we should get to the bottom of the abject failures that led to contaminated formula hitting the shelves. I have been working on this for months--many months before this crisis came to a head--but we can't forget our top priority here when it comes to protecting infants. We have got to keep our Nation's most vulnerable, these infants, safe.

And it is pretty clear that the Food and Drug Administration bears responsibility for dropping the ball in so many ways in terms of inspections, but still, even despite that failure, the FDA standards are the best in the world.

As I mentioned, the Agriculture and HELP Committees have already done bipartisan work. And I think when you saw the hearings that took place, especially in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, there was bipartisan condemnation of the Food and Drug Administration and bipartisan calls for accountability at the Food and Drug Administration. And they should be hit very hard in terms of the accountability that should be imposed and must be imposed on the FDA. Unfortunately, this bill will completely disregard the FDA standards for safety which would put our children at risk.

I would also mention the HELP Committee's work marking up a bill last week, an FDA bill, with amendments allowing importation during the shortage with appropriate guardrails to ensure formula is safe for our Nation's infants. These bipartisan amendments represent a more appropriate path forward than this approach today to limit the FDA's ability to protect our infants.

Now is not the time to completely abandon safety standards. We need to do everything we can to get formula back on shelves, but we can't compromise safety at any cost.

Here are just some examples. Go to the FDA's website under the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. Here are a few examples from their database.

In July 2016, a 4-week-old baby in the United States was fed a stage 1 infant milk product approved in nearly all the countries described in the Senator's bill but not in the United States. After consuming the formula, the baby experienced diarrhea, fever, vomiting, and lethargy. The baby ended up in the emergency room where he was diagnosed with a salmonella infection.

Second example, January 2017: A 1-month-old baby was similarly poisoned by a product approved by the countries in this bill but not legally marketed in the United States, and that baby began vomiting.

In January 2019, a 5-month-old began experiencing upper abdominal pain and diarrhea after consuming another such product. That is just a small example.

These concerns are why the American Academy of Pediatrics for years has warned against importing formula from Europe. The Academy has published articles highlighting the dangers of buying imported baby formulas and advising against doing so. So despite all this, the Senator and others want to go forward with this bill.

Here is the good news--the only good news in the short run. Here is the good news. We don't have to compromise safety standards to increase the supply.

We already know that the administration's Operation Fly Formula is bringing formula into the United States at a pretty rapid clip--32 flights, 19 million 8-ounce bottle equivalents of formula. That is not the end of it. The FDA right now is using enforcement discretion to allow the importation of additional select formula through normal distribution channels, bolstering the domestic supply of safe and nutritious formula by over 220 million 8-ounce bottle equivalents. Add the two of them together, and you have almost 240 million bottles, many of which have already been imported safely.

The administration is also taking other steps to increase formula production domestically by invoking the Defense Production Act to prioritize critical ingredients and manufacturing supplies for infant formula production.

So steps are being taken, but we cannot--when we are invoking these powers of the executive branch or enacting legislation, we cannot compromise on safety. We have to have the highest safety standards in the world, which we do, and we have got to make sure that we adhere to those safety standards.

So I object.

Mr. President, I object.

Let me walk through why. My friend from Utah, in the spirit to try to work something out here, is offering a counterproposal.

The problem that I have with this is the amendment--now we are talking about the Department of Agriculture, which plays a role here. I will get to that in a moment.

But in this case, the amendment would direct this Agency, the Department of Agriculture, to allow formula to be included in the Women, Infants, and Children's nutrition program that does not meet USDA standards. So now, we have a concern that I initially raised about FDA standards. Now, we have USDA standards for safety and nutritional adequacy.

I would also add that this amendment is unnecessary because of action that was taken by the leaders of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. That committee passed a bipartisan bill, the Access to Baby Formula Act, that the President just signed into law. This already provides the Agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, with the discretion it needs to expand the products available to WIC parents and babies--right now that is the law--while also continuing to meet those high nutritional needs of the babies.

So, again, the concerns here are standards--safety standards--for those infants.

Mr. President, I object, in this case, on much more limited grounds. Here is the reason: The Senator from Utah is trying to work something out here, and we appreciate that.

The Democratic side has not had the opportunity yet to review this amendment so we would seek, in the interest of comity, more time to review it. And on that basis, I object.

Mr. President, I object for the same narrow reason, which is that the Democratic side has not had the opportunity to review this amendment. We will do that on both this amendment and the prior amendment and see where we are. On that basis, I object.

I will also add for the record, on the debate overall, I think my friend is expressing a real concern that both sides have. It is not as if we just arrived here today to start talking about this issue. As I have said for months now, the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, in a bipartisan way, and the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, in a bipartisan way, have been working on these issues. So to suggest that somehow the debate just started today and that neither side is doing enough, I think is not accurate. Both sides are concerned about this. Both Houses and both parties are very concerned about it. It is a real crisis. The FDA should be held accountable. As I said earlier, it should be hit hard for this, but we can't compromise safety standards, and that is the reason for my objection.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule XXII, the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations en bloc: Calendar Nos. 732 and 735; that the Senate vote on the nominations en bloc without intervening action or debate; that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table; that any statements related to the nominations 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 have some remarks on the nominations.

As the Senator from Indiana noted, the two individuals talked about are Timothy ``T.J.'' Baker and Mary Lu Jordan to serve on the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission. Mr. Baker and Ms. Jordan are highly qualified nominees who were nominated last year.

Mr. Baker currently serves as the associate general counsel of the United Mine Workers of America and previously worked for the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission, first as an attorney-advisor in the Office of Administrative Law Judges in Pittsburgh and then as attorney-advisor in the Office of the Commissioners in Washington, DC. Mr. Baker is also the son of a coal miner.

Ms. Jordan was appointed as a Commissioner on the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission in 1994 and has served in that capacity almost continuously since then. Her most recent term as Commissioner ended in 2020, and she has since served as senior attorney-advisor at the Commission.

Given their expertise and commitment to public service, both Mr. Baker and Ms. Jordan would be assets to the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission. It is past due that the Senate confirm their nominations. Confirming both would give Democrats a majority on the Commission.

Mr. Baker and Ms. Jordan are among the excellent nominees who have been put forward by the Biden-Harris administration. Nominees like Mr. Baker and Ms. Jordan will help us represent our Nation's coal miners, and I hope we can advance their nominations today.

With that, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I have seven 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:

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 5 minutes.

Madam President, I rise to speak about yesterday's horrific tragedy in Texas, and I won't be long; I know we have votes coming up.

But I wanted to start by expressing, I think, both the grief and the outrage that we see all across the country that,

yet again--and not just another tragedy. In this case, the death of the 19 children and 2 adults, at least that is the latest reporting, but also indicating that the deaths took place because an armed gunman came into a school with body armor protecting him from the response from any law enforcement.

So we have another example, in barely less than a week, where a gunman goes into a setting in a grocery store in Buffalo, NY, and now into a school where second graders, third graders, and fourth graders are killed because he has a high-powered weapon, and he is fully protected from any law enforcement or any other response. And we are supposed to just get used to this, I guess. That seems to be the response here in Washington.

Now, this isn't a problem of Congress, more broadly, or the executive branch of our government. This is a problem--the failure to address this problem, even to pass something as simple as background check legislation--this is a problem in the Senate of one side. You have got 50 U.S. Senators who are Republicans who have refused now for years to pass anything remotely resembling commonsense gun measures.

I would support a whole series of bills that we could talk about. We don't have time today. But at least the U.S. Senate should be able to pass a background check bill supported by 90 percent of the American people.

And you have to ask, why is that? And it is not simply that you have so many Republicans who are beholden to the gun lobby. That is obvious. That is right in front of us.

The other problem is--and I think it is related to the question of the power of the gun lobby in one party--you have got a whole party that seems to want to surrender to this problem, to throw up their hands and say: ``There is nothing the most powerful Nation in the world can do, nothing at all the most powerful nation in the world can do to stop the killing, over and over again, of Americans,'' and especially in the context of the horror--the unspeakable horror--yesterday of second, third, and fourth graders being gunned down in a manner that is so horrific that some of them can't be identified because of the power of the weapon and the number of bullets that can be discharged in a matter of seconds. So even if law enforcement gets there and isn't confronting body armor, no law enforcement is fast enough to get to a scene in seconds to prevent a horrific mass shooting.

So we are supposed to accept the fact, as Americans--I guess this is what the Republican position is--that we should surrender to this problem. The most powerful Nation in the world can't stop second, third, and fourth graders from being murdered in schools. The most powerful country in the world, I guess, can't prevent the shooting we saw in Buffalo. And you can go down the list of other tragedies.

This is a uniquely American problem. No other country that is similarly situated--has an economy like ours as a country even close to what we have--no other country has this problem and has any kind of change or reform or action being blocked by one side. And I know there is work that has to be done at the State legislative level and all that.

But right here, we could vote this week on a background check bill, and it would be supported overwhelmingly.

But think about this, and I will end with this. Think about if we had the same attitude about 9/11. What if someone said right after 9/11: ``You know what, there is really nothing we can do as Americans to stop a foreign terrorist from taking an airplane into a building or crashing an airplane into the Pentagon or the plane that went down in Pennsylvania. There is nothing we can do about that so we just have to get used to that reality of terrorists doing that to our country''? No one would say that--then or now. We created an entire new Agency, the Department of Homeland Security. And guess what, a lot of those reforms that we made to protect Americans against terrorism worked. Just like no one said years ago, when we had these viruses and the potential of pandemics, that we shouldn't do anything about it even though we have the knowledge and the skill to create a vaccine.

We invested. We did what Americans do--confronted a big problem and did something about it.

What if during World War II, what if everyone stood up and said: ``You know, the Axis nations are pretty powerful. Those nations are pretty powerful. They have the most well-funded, sophisticated armies in the world, and there is nothing we can do in 1941 to take on the Axis powers''? We didn't say that.

It is un-American to surrender--to surrender to a problem. Now you have an entire political party in this Chamber that has not just surrendered to the lobby--that is objectionable and insulting enough-- but they surrendered to the problem; that there is nothing we can do about it. That, I would submit, is un-American. And it is about time that the Republicans in the Senate begin to be part of the solution to do something that Americans do all the time--confronting evil, like we did after 9/11; confronting terrorism or disease or whatever it is; and in this case to confront gun violence and do something about it, not sit around and pretend that there is nothing we can do. That is un- American.

We don't surrender. We are Americans. We take on tough problems like our entire history has shown. But we haven't taken on this problem.

What we should be saying to these families, in addition to offering our sympathy, is: Your government has failed you. Your government at the Federal level and your government at the State level, it has failed you. And in this case and in this Chamber it has failed because one side will not even entertain the idea of passing any gun measures. They have surrendered.

I yield the floor.

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

The ACTING PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.