Nomination Of Chiquita Brooks-LaSure

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr President, it is generally my policy to defer to a President and to allow them to choose their Cabinet, provided the nominees are qualified and will follow the law. Even though I may have disagreed with President Biden's nominees ideologically, I have voted for many of his nominees. This includes Ms. Andrea Palm for Deputy Secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services. Unlike many Senators who voted against virtually all of President Trump's nominees, it is my philosophy that a President should be able to select those whom he wants to serve in his administration, provided that they are qualified and meet the most basic of tests.

President Biden has nominated Ms. Chiquita Brooks-LaSure to be Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS. I have met with the nominee and appreciate her commitment to our shared priorities, including lowering prescription drug costs in a bipartisan manner and maintaining essential medical services for rural Americans. I also remain committed to oversight of the executive branch, including CMS, to uphold our system of checks and balances. If Ms. Brooks-LaSure is confirmed, I look forward to working with her on these shared priorities and others as a senior member of the Committee on Finance. Ms. Brooks-LaSure has decades of health care experience, including at the Office of Management and Budget, on the House of Representative's Ways and Means Committee, at the Department of Health and Human Services, and in the private sector. Ms. Brooks-LaSure is qualified to serve as Administrator of CMS, and I personally do not have concerns about her nomination despite ideological differences.

However, I opposed Ms. Brooks-LaSure's confirmation out of the Committee on Finance at the request of Senator John Cornyn of Texas. On April 22, 2021, the Finance Committee voted 14 to 14 on Ms. Brooks- LaSure's nomination, with all Republican committee members opposing moving the nomination forward. This effort was to give Senator Cornyn time to work with the Biden administration to address concerns about the CMS recent revoking of their section 1115 Medicaid waiver. I have opposed advancing other nominees of both parties in the past as part of my oversight responsibilities since it is one of the few tools we have in the Senate to extract answers from the executive branch. The Biden administration took an unprecedented action to revoke without consultation the State's Medicaid waiver. By supporting Senator Cornyn's effort, I was hopeful the Biden administration could adequately address Texas's concerns. To date, there has not been progress made; therefore, I again opposed advancing this nomination, not with an intent to permanently block her confirmation, but as an exercise of Congress's check on the executive branch in hopes that it will engage with Senator Cornyn in good faith to resolve this matter that is so important to his home State.

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