Tsunami Warning, Education, and Research Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, it is my honor to come to the floor with the senior Senator from Vermont, my friend Mr. Leahy, to talk about bipartisan legislation that will soon help victims of crime restore their lives. The Justice for All Reauthorization Act passed the House last week, and the Senate followed suit with unanimous support. Now it is on its way to the President's desk so it can become the law of the land.

When I served as the attorney general of Texas a few years ago, I felt that one of my most important jobs was to protect crime victims. I know that all Members of the Senate feel the same way. The Justice for All Reauthorization Act is first and foremost a bill that will help victims. It includes a number of provisions to help them get the justice they deserve. It will improve victims' rights by increasing access to restitution, reauthorize programs that support them in court, and increase resources for forensic labs to reduce the rape kit backlog.
I have spoken about the rape kit backlog before, and it is a big problem. At one point, it was estimated that there were as many as 400,000 untested rape kits in America, and this was due primarily to a lack of resources and lack of focus in making this a priority. This is evidence which has proven to be enormously powerful to help convict the guilty and exonerate the innocent.

This legislation will also give law enforcement more resources to keep violent offenders off the street and fairly prosecute crimes.

I know sometimes people must think Senator Leahy and I are the odd couple of the Senate. We worked together not only on this legislation but also on reforms of the Freedom of Information Act. We share a passion for that topic as well. I am enormously grateful to him for his partnership on this important legislation. I also wish to thank Senator Grassley for his leadership in helping to shepherd this bipartisan bill through the Judiciary Committee.

I am looking forward to the Justice for All Reauthorization Act becoming law soon so we can help more victims restore their lives.

I yield to the senior Senator from Vermont.

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Mr. President, I again wish to express my gratitude to the senior Senator from Vermont, Senator Leahy, for his critical role in making sure this legislation becomes law, and I look forward to continuing to work with him on similar topics in the future.

Legislation Before the Senate

Mr. President, we are about a week into the lameduck session, and we have already tackled some pretty significant legislation.

Last week, I was proud to see two bills that I introduced pass the Chamber. The first was the Cross-Border Trade Enhancement Act, a bill that will help staffing, safety, and efficiency at our ports of entry, and it passed the Senate unanimously.

In Texas, as the Presiding Officer knows in Arizona, this is not a new concern. Some of our border communities have seen the infrastructure and the staffing prove to be inadequate at our legitimate ports of entry, with a negative impact not only on the environment, as cars stack up to cross the border, but it also provides an unnecessary drag on legitimate trade and commerce.

Through the use of innovative public-private partnerships, we have seen that we can increase staffing, improve the infrastructure, and basically end up filling the gap left by the Federal Government not doing its job by dealing--as it, of necessity, must--with our international borders and making sure they work as they should. This is a good step in the right direction, and I am hopeful we can get the legislation to the President's desk in the coming days so that more ports of entry throughout the country can take advantage of its benefits.

Senator Leahy and I just spoke about the Justice for All Reauthorization Act, and then last night this Chamber voted to move the 21st Century Cures bill forward with--incredibly--85 Senators voting in favor of it. It passed the House overwhelmingly last week, and I look forward to getting it through the Chamber and to the President's desk as soon as possible. This legislation will play an important role in supporting our scientists and researchers working to find cures for diseases like cancer, and that includes resources that will support the Cancer Moonshot Program, which will help those studying and researching to actually find a way to end cancer. That means cancer centers like the MD Anderson hospital will have more support to carry out their mission to make cancer history.

The Cures legislation will support research for Alzheimer's and help fight the opioid addiction that is running rampant through many parts of our country. In other words, this legislation is critically important to the health of our country now and for generations to come.

Significantly, the 21st Century Cures bill includes reforms to our mental health delivery system, in part, based on legislation I introduced in the Senate called the Mental Health and Safe Communities Act. As a result of the deinstitutionalization and treatment of people with mental illness in the 1990s, the safety net that was supposed to be there to catch people so they didn't fall through the cracks never came into being. So many people suffering from mental illness simply live on our streets as homeless individuals or they are frequently fliers, so to speak, in our criminal justice system and in many instances never had their mental illness diagnosed, much less treated, so they can actually have a chance at a better life. The mental health provisions included in the Cures bill is one way to correct that course. It would also help families with a mentally ill loved one find a path to treatment and a way forward, including assisted outpatient treatment programs.

One of the biggest challenges families have when they have a mentally ill family member--particularly when they are an adult--is getting them to comply with their doctor's orders and take their medication. Due to the miracle of modern pharmacology, many people with mental illnesses, if they are compliant with their medication, can lead very productive lives. Often there are additional tools that need to be available to family members when they find their loved one is getting sicker and sicker and not being compliant with their medication, potentially becoming a danger to themselves or to the community at large.

This legislation will equip State and local governments with better tools to assess individual health care needs so those suffering from mental illness in the criminal justice system can begin to recover and get the help they need, instead of getting sicker.

This bill also encourages the creation of crisis intervention teams so our law enforcement officers and first responders can know how to deescalate a dangerous confrontation. If a police officer comes to the scene of a call only to confront a mentally ill person, if they are untrained and don't know how to deescalate the situation, they may find themselves in danger, both the first responder as well as the individual person with mental illness. This is about finding ways to help the mentally ill individual get help while keeping the community safe at the same time.

Mr. President, the last bit of business we have is to fund the government. I said many times the best way to do that is to take the appropriations bills up one at a time so we can properly vet them, discuss them, and pass them. Our friends across the aisle had a different view this year and blocked the passage of individual appropriations bills. While it is not my preference, it is where we are. Right now, we are looking forward to passing a continuing resolution soon as we fulfill our important responsibilities to the American people.
I am glad to see we are making some progress on other pieces of legislation, including the Water Resources Development Act, a bill that will help us strengthen our waterways to account for growing trade and provide help for drought and flood protection.

Finally, we are working to finish the national defense authorization bill that will make sure Congress provides the resources for our military men and women so they can accomplish their missions and keep America safe.

We have quite a bit of work left to do and not much time left to do it in before the holidays, but with a little cooperation, I am sure we will get it all done.

With that, I yield the floor.

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