Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act of 2016--Conference Report

Floor Speech

As I said yesterday, Republican Senators are eager to pass the conference report which is before us and send it to the President's desk for signature. We should do that today--this very day. That would accomplish several important things before we leave for the week. First, it would provide $1.1 billion in immediate funding to combat Zika. That is the exact amount of money in the Democrats' request. However, the Democrats' request includes only funding for Zika and leaves the rest of the important priorities behind.

The conference report that the House passed includes full funding for Zika, funding for military construction, funding for veterans programs, and temporary but meaningful reforms to ensure that we are able to combat mosquito-borne illnesses during the summer months, which are upon us.

We should pass the conference report today--this very day. 2577 and that the conference report be agreed to with no intervening action or debate.

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I believe I reserved the right to object and then offered an alternative unanimous consent request to which I think the Senator from Florida is about to respond.

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Mr. McCONNELL. So I guess who is playing political games is in the eye of the beholder.

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, before the Senator from New Hampshire leaves the floor, I just want to say again what I said previously. We wouldn't be where we are today on the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act without the Senator from New Hampshire, who made an extraordinary contribution to this early on and played an important leadership role. So on behalf of all Members of the Senate, Republicans and Democrats, I want to thank the Senator from New Hampshire for all she did to bring this forward.

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