21st Century Cures Bill
Floor Speech
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Madam President, as we send troops into harm's way--and as you personally well know--it is our job to ensure that they have the tools and the resources they need to carry out the mission they are asked to carry out. We never want Americans to be involved in a fair fight. We always want them be involved in an unfair fight where they have every possible advantage. It doesn't always work out that way, but it should always be our goal. That is what the Defense authorization bill is designed to do.
This will be the 55th consecutive year that the Congress has passed and the Senate has passed the National Defense Authorization Act. The leadership of Chairman McCain and Ranking Member Jack Reed makes it possible for us to be here one more time, emphasizing that the No. 1 priority of the Federal Government is to defend the country. It is hard to find a bill that we pass every year for more than half a century, but this critical piece of legislation provides the vision and the authorization necessary for the military to move forward and to do that No. 1 job of defending America.
There has been--and I think today we will see that again in the vote on this bill--the strong, bipartisan support that this bill always receives. Although there is sometimes a discussion about when it should be passed, we have not failed to pass it in a long time. It includes a lot of provisions that I think will make a big difference. One is a pay raise for our troops, which they deserve. It is the largest pay increase in the last 6 years, and it begins to fulfill our commitment to those who currently serve. As well, we need to fulfill our commitment to those who have served.
I am also glad that there is a vital project for the Nation that happens to be located in my State, in St. Louis, MO. The final version of this bill includes authorization for the land acquisition for the National Geospatial movement from the south part of St. Louis, where it has been for seven decades, to a new location that allows them to build a facility, as it is right now, that is fully backing up the only other facility in the world that does the level of geospatial work that this one does. When something happens in Springfield, VA, where that location isn't monitoring the world as it usually does, all of that work goes to St. Louis, where on every other day they share the responsibility for geospatial.
There is a provision in here, at a fundamental level of safety, to build a fire station at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. Everything from building a fire station to creating a $1.7 billion facility that allows us to further keep an eye on the world as we do now is a good thing. It also addresses the issue that was raised earlier this year concerning members of the National Guard--men and women who were given a bonus and then wrongfully asked to return that bonus. It was not their error.
That money in most families long ago has been spent. It was thought to be appropriately handed over to them, and they shouldn't be penalized because other people made a mistake when that distribution was made.
With this bill, they will not be penalized.
I think there is an increase here in end strength. It is in the conference report. I certainly supported Senator Moran's efforts on this issue and commend him for the hard work he put forward to be sure that we don't lose any more ground on the strength we have and the ability we have to be ready. Making down payments on our readiness issues, stabilizing our force at a time when we really face more challenges around the world--not less--was a minimum thing for us to do, but the bill does that. Senator Moran's leadership was important in accomplishing that as well.
Once again, this bill puts Congress on record against the President's plan to move terrorist detainees held at Guantanamo Bay to any location on U.S. soil. I, along with a majority of Americans, oppose the idea that we bring these terrorists here. The President made a campaign pledge a decade ago now, and 10 years later, not only has that campaign pledge not been able to be fulfilled but the Congress once again today asserts our view that it should not be fulfilled.
The administration admitted earlier this year that Americans have been killed by terrorists released from Guantanamo, and they made that admission, by the way, days before they approved another dozen inmates to transfer somewhere else in the world, where I don't think they can be kept count of and track of like they need to be. We don't need to close this facility. We don't need to abandon the facility, and I am glad that there are strict prohibitions here that don't allow that to happen.
This bill also makes important steps toward enhancing the quality of life for our servicemembers and their families. GEN Ray Odierno, recently retired, Chief of Staff of the Army, said that the strength of the military is in military families, and we need to do a better job recognizing that. I hope we are able to advance an effort that was in the Senate bill that didn't get into the final bill--the Military Family Stability Act--next year. This is an action that will allow military families to stay longer at a location or to move earlier than the individual in the military does if there is a professional reason or an educational reason for that to happen.
The investment that military families have made in the country and the investment they have made in what the person serving has learned in a very complicated defense world don't need to be unnecessarily complicated by whether someone gets to finish a year in elementary school or gets to stay another 3 months so they can graduate from high school, particularly if the person in the military is willing to go on ahead and bear their own expense until the family, with the family assistance that families get or the living assistance, moves later.
This was determined by everybody that looked at it, except the Pentagon, to have no cost. I asked every senior officer who came before the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee about this concept of making it a little easier for people to stay, for a spouse who needed to go ahead and move a little early to start that teaching year at a new school, to get a job that was available at a hospital, or to do whatever that spouse could do to continue to have their professional career. I asked officer after officer: What do you think about this?
One after another, they all said: This is exactly the kind of investment we need to make. We didn't quite get there in this bill, and I am grateful that Senator McCain has pledged to work further to study why the Pentagon itself--or at least the Department of Defense at the highest levels--is the only place that thinks this would cost anything or would be too much trouble. It wouldn't be too much trouble. I hope to see it in the bill next year.
Someone who has really helped in my ability to look at this bill, with the work that I do as a member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and with the work that we do with great military facilities in our State, is here on the floor today, MAJ Andy Anderson.
He has been a great resource to our office, and we have benefited for some time now of having military fellows come in and spend a year with us. I continue to hear from them that it is also a great benefit to them to see how this part of the process of preparing to do what is necessary to help them defend the country works.
The knowledge and experience that Major Anderson has gained as an Army officer helped in discussions we had both in the State and in the Nation. I have been particularly appreciative of his willingness to go beyond what might be considered the typical duties of a military fellow in a Senate office. For instance, he has taken personal interest and has been instrumental in assisting a Missouri family in getting their father's remains returned home from Laos after having been shot down over Laos during the Vietnam war. He has devoted a lot of time to gathering and analyzing data on legislative history and actions that will continue to be critical to the office moving forward. I want to also thank his family and wish him the best as he and his wife Audra and their sons Reid and Joel go to what military assignment they have next.
This bill renews the Iran Sanctions Act, and the Iran Sanctions Act would have expired at the end of the year. I am hopeful that the administration understands that this act is really a foundational element of the regime that they entered into. It was an agreement that I didn't support. I still don't support it, but extending the Iran Sanctions Act is perfectly consistent with what the Iran nuclear agreement purports to do. If the Iran Sanctions Act is a problem, the Iran nuclear agreement is just as bad as I thought it was.
When that agreement was completed, the administration repeatedly promised that U.S. sanctions on Iran for its support of terrorism would remain in place under the agreement. For example, the day the agreement was announced, President Obama himself said that we will maintain our own sanctions related to Iran's support of terrorism.
The administration continues to recognize the Iranian state as the leading state sponsor of terrorism. This Iran Sanctions Act extension sends another message to Iran that the Congress and the country of the United States are paying attention. It gives the next administration a powerful tool to hold Iran responsible, and I certainly urge the President to sign this bill. I urge my colleagues to vote for it.
In conclusion, once again, for 55 years in a row, the Congress of the United States is going to make the point that the No. 1 obligation of the Federal Government is to defend the country, and this bill helps to allow that to happen.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
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Madam President, reserving the right to object, one way to be sure of not getting the work done we are doing today is to add another topic. I think the work we are doing today is important.
My friend from Vermont mentioned some statistics that were right a couple of years ago about the decline in health care research money. We are not where we should be, but we are not where we were 2 years ago, either. When my side took control of the majority, I got a chance to chair the appropriating committee for Health and Human Services, and for the first time in 12 years, we had an almost 7-percent increase.
The Senator is absolutely right--at that moment, we were 22 percent behind in research buying dollars from where we were 12 years earlier.
But if everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. So we did what the government should do and what people want the government to do: We went through the process of prioritizing. We eliminated 18 programs last year--zeroed them out for either being duplicative or not doing what they were designed to do--so we could prioritize exactly the important health care research this bill talks about and my friend from Vermont mentioned, a 7-percent increase last year and another 6.5-percent increase this year. Another $2 billion came out of our committee, came out of the full appropriating committee, and has been on the desk ready for the minority to let us take up for months now. That would be an almost 14-percent increase in 2 years. Fourteen percent of the 22 percent would have been eliminated if we could have taken up the bill that I still wish we were voting on today. The bill we are voting on today does some of what that baseline increase would do.
Why do we want to increase health care research? Obviously for individuals and their families who might be able to better deal with or totally avoid a health care crisis they would otherwise have.
From the point of view of taxpayers, on Alzheimer's, which was mentioned here today, we are spending $250 billion a year right now.
The NIH projection for 2050 is that we will be spending $1.1 trillion that year in today's dollars, which is twice the defense budget. Now, $1.1 trillion sounds like a lot and $250 billion sounds like a lot to me. In fact, pretty small numbers sound like a lot to me. But when I think about spending twice the defense budget on Alzheimer's alone--and that is just tax dollars, that is not what families would be spending if we don't invest in research now. It makes a big difference.
So from Alzheimer's--there is an inducement here that I would like to see be even more specific, and when we get back to the regular appropriating process, I will work to do that again. There is a prize inducement, the Beau Biden cancer research fund. There is money that could go to autism. Everything from Alzheimer's to autism benefits when we focus on health care research.
There is also money in this bill to further enhance the ability to get drugs to the marketplace quicker so that people have an opportunity that they don't currently have to work with their doctor and decide they want to try that new advancement.
This bill matters. I think in some ways it is better to let NIH--the real researchers--prioritize spending and let us prioritize research as a topic.
I think this bill should pass. I think it should pass today. I was on the House floor last week when they overwhelmingly voted for it to pass. The sure way for this bill not to pass in this Congress is to do something now that changes the subject.
I am particularly glad that my longtime friend from both the House and Senate is really interested in President Trump fulfilling his campaign pledges, and I am particularly pleased to see him agree with at least that one pledge, but that won't happen until next year.
Today's work is to pass the 21st Century Cures bill. I look forward to the vote that will do that before we leave this week.
Mr. President, I object.
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I thank my friend for yielding.
In terms of the money available for research, we have taken that 22 percent of buying power and changed it to about 15 percent. If we doubled our bill this year, we would change it from 15 to about 7 or 8 percent. We need to get back to where we were 12 years ago and then not stop in real buying power. I want to do that.
I think what I said about the overall discussion of reimportation and other things was that I was delighted to hear my friend from Vermont so supportive of the next President's program.
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If my friend would yield, I would say we have passed this bill in the Congress--that bill--several times over the last few years.
On each occasion, often with Democratic administrations, the only obstacle has been for the administration to certify that reimportation could be safely done.
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I thank my friend for yielding. I would just say that if the Secretary of HHS can certify that, that is a good thing, and I voted for that in the past. But I know what a tomato looks like. I don't know what is inside a capsule, and that has always been the obstacle for the people we have asked to look at this and certify the safety.
If people can figure out how to do that so we know what is inside of that pill--the worst thing you can do health-wise is believe you are taking a pill that isn't the pill you believe you are taking.
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I would say that the one thing we will accomplish before the week is out is passing this bill, but I hope this bill doesn't become something that we continue to refer back to and say we have already done that. This bill is a step in the right direction, but in health care research, it does not get us to where I would like to be or where we were 12 years ago. We need the kind of research dollars that encourage young researchers to stay in the research business, the kind of research dollars that encourage them to find solutions, the kind of research dollars that ensure that every family who can avoid a crisis or be ready to deal with it in a better way is able to do that. So I look forward to the bill being passed as we finish the week.
I yield back.
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