Unanimous Consent Request--S.R. 420
Floor Speech
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Mr. BROWN. Madam President, earlier this week, we celebrated Veterans Day, a day we honor the sacrifice and the service of those who fought in Normandy and Pearl Harbor and Inchon, at Khe Sanh, Somalia, Bosnia- Herzegovina, Kandahar, Mosul, and everywhere else where veterans work to protect our country. We owe them and their families a debt that we often fall short in repaying. That is what this is about today.
For years, the VA has been presented with scientific information from the National Academy of Sciences making it clear that the list of the conditions stemming from Agent Orange exposure is extensive. It includes hyperthyroidism, bladder cancer, Parkinson's-like symptoms, and hypertension. In the late iteration of the Veterans and Agent Orange Exposure Update 11, published a year ago, the National Academies recognized that those illnesses--hypothyroidism, bladder cancer, Parkinson's-like symptoms, and hypertension--all have suggestive or sufficient evidence associated with Agent Orange.
Historically, the VA added illnesses in those two categories to the list of presumptive medical conditions associated with Agent Orange exposure. On a bipartisan basis, this Congress has done the right thing time after time. We are all on the same side when it comes to helping veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam.
We recently found out that former VA Secretary Shulkin decided to add three of these conditions to the list of presumptive medical conditions associated with that exposure only to have OMB--the Trump administration--block his decision. In an email to Director Mulvaney, Secretary Shulkin said adding these conditions was ``imperative.'' Yet no action took place. There are 83,000 veterans living with at least 1 of the presumptive medical conditions--83,000. They are in Tennessee. They are in Georgia. They are in South Dakota. They are in Ohio. In a discussion with blue water Navy veterans last week, I learned that since the Department put a stay on adjudicating their Agent Orange claims earlier this year, 12 veterans have died. Time is running out. Some might accuse this body of waiting until they all die. As hard as it is to say that and hear that, we are waiting until they all die before we move.
For whatever political reason the administration seems to place on this, we need to ensure that veterans receive the healthcare and the compensation they earned. They shouldn't have to fight these one at a time when there are sick men and women veterans of Vietnam. We did this to them. The American Government decided to spray Agent Orange. We knew it was harmful. We know it is harmful. We knew it then, and we know it now. The chemical companies knew and the government knew. Why does the administration now think it is OK to abandon our commitment to these veterans? If you are exposed to poison while serving our country, there should be no question that you deserve the benefits you earned. Period. No exception.
Res. 420, encouraging the President to expand the list of the Department of Veterans Affairs of presumptive medical conditions associated with exposure to Agent Orange to include parkinsonism, bladder cancer, hypertension, hypothyroidism, which was submitted earlier today; I further ask that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
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Mr. BROWN. Senator Isakson knows this is no sort of false kind of flattery. He knows how much I think of him. He runs the most bipartisan committee in the Senate. I have been honored to be on it my entire 13 years in this body. No Ohioan ever served on this committee as long as I have. I consider that a privilege, No. 1, and an opportunity to pay people back.
I didn't serve in the military. I know Senator Isakson did. President Trump had deferments from Vietnam. He didn't serve in the military. I think that maybe perhaps, because I didn't serve in the military, I should work a little bit harder to make sure those people, most of whom are older than I by a little bit, during the Vietnam war--that they be treated better than they were by the country and by the public upon their return from Vietnam; that they, in this case, get the benefit of the doubt and the history of what happened with Agent Orange.
You may remember years and years ago, veterans--people who had fought in Vietnam and had been exposed to Agent Orange--had to prove, initially, case by case, why they got sick, which was darn near impossible, especially when you are sick, trying to do that and go through that pain.
Congress, on a bipartisan basis, did the right thing back then. They put a list of these illnesses together that exposure to Agent Orange was likely responsible for. If you had one of these illnesses and you were boots on the ground in Vietnam, you automatically qualified. You didn't have to fight in court. You didn't have to get lawyers or do any of that. That was then.
Now, even though Secretary Shulkin--and I don't know how many Secretaries have come and gone. The President can't seem to keep Secretaries of the VA or staff of the VA because of the erratic policy he follows with veterans. The President of the United States goes to New York and makes a great speech about veterans, and we all applaud that, but then he is not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. These are four illnesses Secretary Shulkin thought--you heard the term I used earlier, which is the term he used--he used the term about these conditions that it was ``imperative'' that we do something.
I understand as well as anybody how important it is to protect taxpayers. I also remember less than 2 years ago that Congress gave a tax cut--hundreds of billions of dollars, and 70 percent of it went to the richest 1 percent of people in this country--and we can't come up with a few billion dollars to help veterans who are dying from these four illnesses? We can't expand this list and give them healthcare as we try to comfort them at the VA in Cleveland and Dayton and Cincinnati and Columbus and in Atlanta--all over? This is no end run around process. These aren't four illnesses I heard somebody talk about in Steubenville or Cleveland that ought to be covered. These are four illnesses the VA has looked at, the scientific community has looked at, the medical community has looked at, and Secretary Shulkin--who served as Secretary of the VA, appointed by President Trump, initially was acting under President Obama--we can't give them the benefit of the doubt? This is no end run. We can't give them the benefit of the doubt and say, yes, we should cover this. I hope the chairman of the Veterans' Committee--that at some point we can sit down and talk and he can reconsider.
Why do we think we need to protect President Trump, who, like me, didn't serve in the military? For me, it--I will not get into that. But why can't we help these veterans and give them the benefit of the doubt, cover these illnesses, and move forward with the VA taking care of people the way we should?
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Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I appreciate Senator Thune's comments about the USMCA. Some might call it NAFTA 1.6. It just doesn't do very much. I was not in this body when NAFTA passed. I was down the hall in the House of Representatives. I voted against it.
I saw what NAFTA did to my State and what it did to our country in the number of lost manufacturing jobs. States in the industrial Midwest still have not recovered from that legislation, from that trade agreement--the North American Free Trade Agreement. During the Clinton administration, I opposed the President of my own party on this. In the Bush administration, the other party pushed the one for Central America. There was one after another after another of these trade agreements, and we see the lost jobs. President Trump made a huge campaign promise that he was going to do something about it, and this agreement simply doesn't do it.
We have talked to the U.S. Trade Representative repeatedly about enforcing labor standards. The whole point of fixing this agreement is so that companies will not shut down in Mansfield, in Zanesville, and in Lima, OH, and move to Mexico to build plants there and sell the products back to the United States. Yet do you know what is happening? Even the USMCA has no language in it that is going to stop the outsourcing of jobs. So, if this Congress moves on the USMCA, you can bet that month after month after month, we are going to lose manufacturing jobs, that the business plan of shutting down production in Ohio, in Rhode Island, in North or South Dakota, or in Montana will continue, and that the USMCA will not do anything about it.
This is the same President who went to Youngstown, OH, as Lordstown was about to shut down, and said: Don't sell your homes. We are going to bring those jobs back.
No, we aren't. GM moved more and more jobs to Mexico at the same time it shut down the GM plant in Lordstown, OH. There were 4,500 jobs lost. This USMCA is simply a wallpapering over of an agreement. It doesn't do what you have to do to stop the outsourcing of jobs.
I look at trade agreements in one way. Does it mean more jobs in our country or does it mean fewer jobs? The USMCA will do nothing to stem the tide of jobs that are moving to Mexico. That is why we should go back to the table and include the Brown-Wyden amendment on labor enforcement--language that will, in fact, mean there will be more prosperity in both countries.
I thank Senator Whitehouse for yielding the floor.
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