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Floor Speech
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Ms. HIRONO. Madam President, I want to thank the chairman of the Judiciary Committee for his remarks just now. I, too, sit on the Judiciary Committee, and I listened to Garnell Whitfield talk about his 86-year-old mother, who was murdered, and his charge to us to do something, because basically he said: If you are not going to do something in the face of all this gun carnage in our country, what are you doing here?
I think that is a question that each of us should ask: What the heck are we doing here if not to protect America's citizens?
One of the questions that I asked of the panel, which consisted of two invitees from the Republican side and three panel members of Democratic invitees--I asked them: Is the easy access to guns in our country a major part of the gun violence and the massacres and the killings in our country? And they each said yes. They acknowledged that the easy access to guns, regardless of ideology, is what makes our country the outlier country among all developed nations. What that says to me is that we need to be very, very committed and very serious about the need to enact sensible gun safety legislation.
As I listened to one of my other colleagues a little bit earlier talking about inflation, yes, inflation is a problem, but certainly it is not the answer to just blame the Democrats. I would like my Republican colleagues to make a commitment to do what we need to do and at least get a start in ending the gun violence in our country. As I said at yesterday's hearing, Hawaii has among the strongest gun safety legislation in the country. We have the lowest gun violence in the country. There is a cause and effect here.
As Mr. Whitfield charged us with yesterday, do something. That is our responsibility. Honoring Our PACT Act of 2021
Madam President, turning to another subject, over decades of conflict, millions of American servicemembers have been exposed to burn pits and other toxic materials. These men and women risked their lives in service to our country, and we have a duty to ensure they get care for conditions caused by these toxic exposures.
For months, my colleagues and I on the Veterans' Affairs Committee have worked to craft a bill that meets our responsibility, our duty to our veterans, and now we have the responsibility to pass this legislation here in the Senate and deliver for our veterans.
This legislation is a bill named for SFC Heath Robinson from Ohio, who served tours of duty in Kosovo and Iraq, where he was exposed to toxic burn pits. A decade after returning home, Sergeant Robinson developed a rare form of lung cancer caused by his toxic exposure. Tragically, he passed away in 2020.
The Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our PACT Act is historic, comprehensive legislation that provides the care toxic- exposed veterans like Sergeant Robinson deserve. This bipartisan legislation extends VA healthcare eligibility to millions of post-9/11 veterans, including nearly 3.5 million who were toxic-exposed. It also adds nearly two dozen conditions to the VA's list of service presumptions and strengthens the VA's ability to provide the high- quality care and benefits these veterans need in a timely manner. Altogether, this bill delivers the historic investment in caring for our Nation's veterans.
The Honoring Our PACT Act is the latest step we are taking to support our veterans in Hawaii and across our country. Just yesterday, President Biden signed legislation to name the state-of-the-art VA clinic under construction on Oahu after the late Senator Daniel Akaka. He also signed our bill to expand access to breast cancer screening and treatment for veterans, helping ensure every VA patient can get the care they need. By passing the Honoring Our PACT Act, we can continue building on this progress and delivering for our veterans.
I would like to thank Chairman Tester, Ranking Member Moran, and Chair Mark Takano in the House for their leadership in this effort, and I would like to thank all the veterans and their loved ones who have shared their stories and advocated for so long to help us get to this moment.
This is an important and long-overdue step toward honoring our Nation's veterans, caring for them. I urge my colleagues to pass this bill without delay.
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