Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I join my colleagues today to remind all of us of those who have been lost due to gun violence from Washington State.

Gloria Leonidas, Anna Bui, Jordan Ebner, Jake Long, Zoe Galasso, Shaylee Chuckulnaskit, Gia Soriano, Andrew Fryberg, Pam Waechter, Frank Cohens, Jr., Thomas Ianniciello, Erick Valdez-Herrera, James Smith, Michael Clayton, Demonte Young, Karen Perez-Placencia, Carl Phelps, Junior, Justin Love, Brandon Perry, Trina Bolar, Eddie Holmes, Jenna Carlile, Ava Field.

Ashen Field, Tiana Montgomery, LeRoy Lange, Wayne Anderson, Judy Anderson, Scott Anderson, Erica Anderson, Olivia Anderson, Nathan Anderson, Paul Lee, Maxine Harrison, Samantha Harrison, Jayme Harrison, Heather Harrison, James Jr. Harrison, George Brown, Davary Hicks, Jeffrey McLaren, Alex Kelley, Wesley Gennings, Tabitha Apling, Adam Gutierrez, Dennis Sloboda.

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, time and again, President Trump and Vice President Pence have made clear they will put extreme ideology ahead of women's health and constitutional freedoms. We have seen it in their efforts to undermine women's ability to get reproductive healthcare from providers they trust. We have seen it in their efforts to let employers deny women birth control coverage based on what they believe and regardless of what the women who work for them believe. We have seen it in the administration's close coordination with a hate group on tailoring policies to undermine Planned Parenthood. We heard it loud and clear when Vice President Pence laid out his far-right vision that women's freedom to have safe and legal abortions could end in our time. We have also seen it implemented to an appalling extreme in Scott Lloyd's inexcusably harmful and ideologically driven actions as Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement is a little-known but very important office inside the Department of Health and Human Services. They are supposed to be helping resettle refugees who are fleeing violence, to resettle and integrate Iraqis and Afghans whose lives are actually in danger because they work for the U.S. Government. They provide rehabilitative, social, and legal services to survivors of torture, and they are charged with overseeing a network of providers across the United States who care for unaccompanied children who arrive at our Nation's borders--children and youth--seeking safety in our country.

However, under Director Lloyd, it has become a testing ground for the radical Trump-Pence agenda to interfere with women's health choices. Repeatedly, under the supervision of Director Lloyd's office, when young women--some of whom are survivors of sexual abuse--have sought safe and legal abortions, his response has been to personally step in and put up barriers to their care. He worked to prevent young women in his custody from speaking with lawyers about their rights. He personally interfered to try to pressure women out of their decisions to have abortions. Director Lloyd even had his office explore the possibility of reversing an abortion once the medical procedure was underway--a practice that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has noted is ``unproven and unethical.''

A deposition from ongoing litigation shows just how reckless and irresponsible Scott Lloyd has been. In emails, he admitted he was making these decisions on an ad hoc basis. In other words, Director Lloyd wasn't concerned with fulfilling his duty as the head of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. He wasn't concerned with the well-being of women. He wasn't concerned with their personal decisions or their freedoms. He was only concerned with furthering an extreme, ideological agenda.

Women and men across the country are not having it. They are standing up and standing against Scott Lloyd's extreme policies. Many have signed a petition calling for his removal, and they are just the latest addition to a growing outcry against Director Lloyd's willful disregard for women's rights.

Many Senate and House Democrats have called for him to step down. I am again calling on Secretary Azar to fire Scott Lloyd as Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement because Scott Lloyd's actions and his personal beliefs about what women can and can't do with their bodies show a fundamental disrespect for the rights and equality of women, as does setting policy that has huge implications for women's health and lives through an ``ad hoc'' process.

Scott Lloyd's actions to undermine women's health and to deny women's rights are utterly unacceptable, and they cannot go unchecked. We cannot permit bullies to try to intimidate vulnerable young women who are making the healthcare decisions that are right for them--not President Trump, not Vice President Pence, and not Scott Lloyd.

I am going to keep standing up and fighting for the rights of these women and immigrants across the country and for the rule of law that ensures those rights. I am going to keep fighting against those who think they are above the law and who want to roll back the clock on these freedoms. I urge my colleagues to join me today in standing with women, standing for the rule of law, and calling for Scott Lloyd's immediate removal from office.

Thank you, Mr. President.

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