Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Madam President, I have several topics to talk about today, but I will start with a very important letter that was sent to President-Elect Trump by members and friends of the Senate Ukraine Caucus. We had 27 Senators, including me, come together to advocate and make clear that we wanted to continue the strong United States- Ukrainian relationship that our two countries have enjoyed for many years and to convey our support for Ukraine and ask the President-elect and the new administration to support our ally Ukraine and help it secure a peaceful and democratic future.

Almost 3 years after Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea and military aggression in eastern Ukraine, daily cease-fires along the line of contact make a mockery of the Minsk agreement and demonstrate that this conflict in the heart of Europe is far from over. Russia has yet to withdraw its heavy weapons. It continues to engage in sabotage.

It has not halted its disinformation war against Ukraine and the West nor stopped the economic and political pressure aimed at undermining the Ukrainian Government.

I was in Ukraine last year, and I saw firsthand the struggles that their government is having. They have their own internal issues with corruption and the like, but they are trying to make for a better country, and that is very difficult when you have an outside nation that is engaged in the kind of combat that we see from Russia and these kinds of interventions. According to conservative estimates from the United Nations, approximately 10,000 people have been killed, over 20,000 wounded, and more than 2 million internally displaced since the conflict began.

We said in our letter--27 Senators, Republicans and Democrats, led by Senators Durbin and Portman--that Russia has launched a military landgrab in Ukraine that is unprecedented in modern European history, and we asked the President-elect to work with us on this very important matter so that we may help the Ukrainian people secure their democracy.

My State has a very strong tradition of Ukrainians. I actually live only a few miles from the Ukrainian center in our State. We have a long tradition of opening our arms to people from every corner of the globe. The people in my own city and State are concerned about the situation in Ukraine. There are a lot of people worried about what is going on, especially with the new administration coming in, so I think a strong statement, followed, of course, by actions from the President-elect would be very helpful.

I have to mention one Ukrainian place that I adore, Kramarczuk, which is in my neighborhood. I actually held my first election celebration there when I was running for county attorney. Of course, it didn't end because we had to go into the next morning. The vote was a little close. We didn't know the result until maybe noon, but that evening we were at Kramarczuk.

They have a mural that is literally almost the size of the entire backdrop from door to door in the U.S. Senate, and it is a mural they have proudly hung of the Statue of Liberty. That mural is there because the Kramarczuk family has always believed in a country that brought them in as immigrants and refugees. I am proud to represent that community and join the other 26 Senators in asking the President-elect to continue to support Ukrainians here at home but, most importantly, the sovereignty of the country of Ukraine and their democratic values.

CURES Bill

Next, I will turn to another issue that is of key importance to this body, and that is the passage of the CURES Act, which I know the President is going to sign into law. We are very excited about that bill. There are several things in that bill that the Presiding Officer and I have both worked on. The bill includes opioid funding. Both of our States, West Virginia and Minnesota, have seen way too many deaths and lives lost early, way too many people experiencing an overdose without the help they need for treatment.

The bill authorizes $1 billion, $500 million a year, to help the many families struggling with prescription drug addiction. Senators Whitehouse, Portman, Ayotte, and I actually authored the original bill, the CARA bill, which set the national framework for dealing with opioid addiction. It didn't just include authorizing money for treatment; it also included some foundation steps for doing a better job of exchanging information among physicians in terms of who is getting opioids. I remember one guy I met--a rehab guy up in Moorhead, MN--who had a patient that had gotten opioid prescriptions from 85 different doctors and medical providers in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. As a State with many States on its borders, we see this going on all the time.

I have built on that with a bill I introduced for a national prescription drug monitoring program that I think is very important. Senator Cornyn and I did the original bill on a drug take-back program to make it easier to get drugs out of medicine cabinets. The CARA bill actually built on that, but what was missing from the CARA bill, because it was an authorization bill, was the funding. This effort at the end contained in the CURES Act is going to be very important in the form of grants to our States to get the money out there.

Second is the research money. Nearly $5 billion will go to NIH to help them look for a cure for horrific diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's. That money will be critical. We are doing groundbreaking work in Minnesota at the Mayo Clinic and also at the University of Minnesota, which will be key to finding a cure to these diseases.
The third thing in the bill that maybe hasn't gotten as much attention is the Anna Westin Act. The Presiding Officer and I worked on that bill together along with Senator Ayotte and Senator Baldwin--four women leading the bill, and we got it done. That bill has been kicking around for over a decade. It is a bill that actually came out of Anna Westin's untimely death. She was a young girl who struggled with an eating disorder and eventually died due to the circumstances related to her eating disorder. Her mother, Kitty Westin, has carried her torch.

She first gave it to Paul Wellstone, her Senator. Paul died way too young in that tragic plane crash, and then it was passed on to Senator Harkin of Iowa. I was on the bill with him, and when Senator Harkin left, I took the bill over and was able to reach across the aisle and get the support of the Presiding Officer, Senator Capito, as well as Senator Ayotte and then Senator Baldwin. This bill builds on the Wellstone-Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act to clarify that insurance companies must cover residential treatment for eating disorders the same way they cover treatment for other mental and physical illnesses.

Over 30 million Americans struggle with eating disorders, including over 200,000 people in my State. It is actually the leading cause of death from mental illness. People don't realize that, but obviously anorexia is a very dangerous disease, as are other eating disorders.

That one bill has a lot, but we know there is more work to do on prescription drugs. I see Senator Grassley here. He and I have worked very hard on what is called the pay-for-delay bill, which would tell the big pharmaceutical companies that they cannot pay the generic companies to keep their products off the market. That literally eliminates competition, and, from the estimates we have gotten, it would save billions of dollars over years. We think that is a really, really, really important bill and something we would like to get done.
I have worked with Senator McCain on legislation that focuses on bringing in less expensive drugs from Canada, as well as a bill I have to allow for negotiations of prices under Medicare Part D.

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Madam President, I stand here today with two incredibly strong women, Senator Heitkamp of North Dakota and Senator Shaheen of New Hampshire--and of course the Presiding Officer as well from the great State of West Virginia. I think we all approach our jobs with a certain pragmatism about what matters. It is not about what is left or what is right, it is about what is right for the people of this country. The two issues the Senator from North Dakota has raised are both incredibly important for these workers. When people have felt nickel-and-dimed and pushed down by the system, they can't always put a bill number on what that means. They can always put a number on how things have changed and why they feel like, hey, my cable bill is eating me up or, hey, I can't get a mortgage or I can't send my kid to college, but we know that is happening now. We in this Chamber know what is going on.

The two things the Senator from North Dakota mentioned are both things we could do for the people of America. The first is to stand with the coal miners of West Virginia, promises made should be promises kept. It was Barbara Jordan of Texas, who once said: What the American people want is something quite simple--they want a country as good as its promise. These coal miners were promised things. Over 70 years ago, President Harry Truman brokered an agreement that provided health and pension benefits for coal miners in the United Mine Workers of America Health and Retirement Funds. The Coal Act and its 2006 amendments showed the continuing commitment to the health and retirement security of our Nation's miners and their families. Yet, in October, approximately 12,500 retired coal miners and widows received notices telling them their health care benefits would be cut off at the end of this year--retired miners and widows. Then, in November, another 3,600 notices went out. That is over 16,000 people who will lose their health care coverage. I know negotiations are going on as we speak, but we urge our colleagues and the leadership in the Senate to do all they can for these miners, many of whom are in the State of the Presiding Officer.

As Senator Heitkamp mentioned, we have a similar situation with the Central States Pension Plan, 14,000 Minnesotans. I just met with 300 of them this weekend. The plan that was originally proposed was actually rejected by the Treasury Department because it was so unfair to these workers. They are continuing to look for a solution.

Lastly, I say about the coal miners, in Minnesota, we have iron ore miners. So while your miners might be covered in black soot, ours are covered in red iron ore. My grandpa worked most of his life underground in the mines in Ely, MN. He had to quit school when he was in sixth grade because his parents were sick and he was the oldest boy of nine kids. He went to work pulling a wagon. When he was old enough as a teenager, he went to work in those iron ore mines. In sixth grade he quit school. He had dreamed of a career in the Navy. Instead, every single day he went down in a cage 1,500 feet underground with a little black lunch pail that my grandma packed for him every single day. His youngest sister had to go to an orphanage, and he promised we would go and get her. In a year and a half after he got the job and married my grandma, he went back, got his little sister Hannah, brought her back and raised her. That is our family story. It is a mining story.

I always think about what he thought when he went down in that cage every day--that career in the Navy, or out in the woods where he loved to hunt. Instead, he did that job. He did that job for his family, his two kids, and then the rest of his brothers and sisters because he knew if he worked hard, he would be able to support them because there would be a pension, because there would be health care, because he wouldn't die--like his own father--leaving behind kids, with the oldest one being 21 years old. That didn't happen. My grandpa raised two boys. One became an engineer. And my dad, the other boy, went to a 2-year college that was paid for at the time, went on to get a journalism degree, and became a reporter who interviewed everyone from Mike Ditka to Ronald Reagan, to Ginger Rogers. That is America, and these coal miners deserve that same support.

Another part of our State which believes if you work hard every day you should be able to get where you want to go are those who work in manufacturing, those who work in the rural parts of our State. I don't think they would ever put together the Ex-Im Bank--that Senator Heitkamp has gathered us to talk about today--with their own livelihoods. That is a very complex matter about a guy getting confirmed on the Bank, but, in fact, it is true. Because while we have saved the Ex-Im Bank, which finances so many hundreds of small businesses in Minnesota that wouldn't be able to deal with going to a big major bank, we still haven't confirmed someone for
that Board.

Getting that person confirmed for that Board and through the Senate would mean the Ex-Im Bank could go back to its functional levels of financing major transactions. That is why we are here, to ask the Senate to support the nomination of J. Mark McWatters to serve as a member of the Board of Directors. I join my colleagues to do that.

On January 11, the Senate Banking Committee received the nomination of McWatters to fill the Republican vacancy on the Board. This is a Republican candidate we are asking the Senate to confirm, but it is 333 days and counting since he has been nominated.

In 2015, I remember bringing together a group of small businesses from all over the country to talk about the importance of the Ex-Im Bank, to hear their stories of how they are going to go under if they are not allowed to continue their financing. Mostly, at a time when we are dealing with the winds of global competition being blown at us every single day, to be at such a disadvantage to other developed nations that have Ex-Im-type banks, that have financing authority--and it is not just China that is going to eat our lunch unless we can help businesses get over $10 million in financing. They must be laughing at us over there. There are about 85 credit export agencies in over 60 other countries, including all major exporting countries. Why would we want to make it harder for our own companies to create jobs here at home and then allow these other countries to have financing agencies that compete with us. That is exactly what is going on right now. The Ex-Im Bank has supported $17 billion in exports. Those are American jobs, 17 billion. It has a cap of $135 billion. That sounds like a lot, but an article in the Financial Times showed that the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China combined had an estimated $684 billion in total development finance. These two banks combined provide five times as much financing as the Ex-Im Bank, with its cap of $135 billion.

As Senator Heitkamp explained, this is about jobs, and it is as simple as that. In FY2015, Ex-Im financing supported 109,000 U.S. jobs. Since we reauthorized the Ex-Im Bank, nearly 650 transactions have been approved. Now it is about time that we put the person on the Board--the Republican nominee--so the Bank can go back to fully functioning and be able to make transactions that are worth over $10 million. Without a quorum and Board approval, Ex-Im is not able to adopt any of the accountability measures or update the loan limits so American businesses have access to the financing they need to compete globally.

Here we are, three Democratic Senators on the floor simply asking the Senate to move ahead to confirm a Republican nominee. That may be irony, but it is irony that is on the backs of the American people and we need to get it done.

Madam President, I yield the floor to the Senator from New Hampshire.

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