[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 160 (Tuesday, November 12, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7937-S7939]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DRUG QUALITY AND SECURITY ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 236, H.R.
3204, the drug compounding legislation.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Motion to proceed to the bill (H.R. 3204) to amend the
Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act with respect to human
drug compounding and drug supply chain security, and for
other purposes.
Schedule
Mr. REID. Mr. President, following leader remarks the Senate will be
in a period of morning business until 4:30 p.m. At 4:30 p.m. the Senate
will proceed to executive session to consider the nomination of
Cornelia Pillard to be U.S. circuit judge for the District of Columbia
Circuit. At 5:30 p.m. there will be a cloture vote on the Pillard
nomination. If cloture is not invoked, there will be a second cloture
vote on the motion to proceed to the drug compounding bill.
Measure Placed on the Calendar--S. 1661
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I am told S. 1661 is due for a second
reading.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will read the bill by title for
the second time.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 1661) to require the Secretary of State to offer
rewards of up to $5,000,000 for information regarding the
attacks on the United States diplomatic mission at Benghazi,
Libya that began on September 11, 2012.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I would object to any further proceedings
with respect to this legislation.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard. The bill will be
placed on the calendar.
Condolences to the Inhofe Family
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I extend my condolences to Jim Inhofe, the
senior Senator from Oklahoma, and his wife Kay on the loss of their son
Perry. The entire Senate family was saddened to hear of Dr. Inhofe's
death. He was a young man, 52 years of age, killed in a plane crash
early Sunday.
Flying airplanes is in the blood of Jim Inhofe and his family. I
truly care a lot about Jim Inhofe. He and I are unquestionably friends.
We may not agree on all political issues, but we agree we are friends.
I have had the good fortune of working to get to know this good man.
I have helped him when I could, and he has helped me when he could. We
are able to put all the disagreements to one side and look at each
other for what we are outside of our politics.
I have confidence that he is going to do well. He is a man of great
faith, and I feel comfortable that he will be able to work his way
through this loss.
(Ms. BALDWIN assumed the Chair.)
Filipino Typhoon
Madam President, my heart also goes out to the residents of the
Philippines who were drastically affected by this terrible storm that
hit one or two or three of their islands over the weekend. The
Philippines has 7,000 islands.
The heavily populated area of Manila was not hit--at least not very
badly. We know there are thousands of Filipinos dead and missing.
Relief and construction efforts will be long and difficult. My thoughts
are with the approximately 3\1/2\ million Filipino Americans who are
living with us--including in Nevada about 100,000 Filipino Americans.
They are involved in so many important endeavors, such as the health
care field, business field, and hotel business.
They may not have lost family members, but they are a community that
is concerned with what is going on in the Philippines. I was happy to
hear the administration has already moved in with support and aid for
this beleaguered nation.
DC Circuit Court
Madam President, later today we are going to again attempt to break a
filibuster on the highly qualified person who has been asked by the
President to serve on the DC Circuit. It is often said the DC Circuit
is the second highest court in the land after the Supreme Court, and
that is true. It is unfortunate the Republicans have chosen to
filibuster a nomination of yet another talented female jurist and
dedicated public servant to fill a vacant seat on this court.
The nominee, Georgetown law professor Nina Pillard, has argued nine
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cases before the Supreme Court and briefed more than a score of cases.
In one case she argued before the Supreme Court, it involved a male
employee of the State of Nevada who was fired after taking unpaid leave
to care for his wife who was sick. It was an important case, a landmark
case. The Court ruled 6 to 3 in favor of her client, upholding an
important protection under the Family and Medical Leave Act.
Support for Professor Pillard's nomination is bipartisan--at least
outside the Senate. Yet Senate Republicans seem poised to block
confirmation of this eminently qualified woman for a blatantly
political reason: deny President Obama his constitutional right to
appoint judges.
The DC Circuit is currently operating with a very bad ratio. We have
three vacancies on this very important court. For the Republicans to
now claim we don't need 11 judges is a little strange because that is
not what they said when President Bush was President. When he needed
these vacancies filled, they were filled. They happily filled the 9th,
10th, and 11th seats on the DC Circuit--the same three seats President
Obama seeks to fill--even though the court had a significantly smaller
caseload at the time. The Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts was
one of the judges confirmed to the DC Circuit during George Bush's
Presidency.
Since a Democrat was elected to the White House, Republicans have
blocked two exceedingly qualified female nominees to the DC Circuit,
Caitlin Halligan and Patricia Millett. In the last 19 years, five men
have been confirmed to the DC Circuit and one woman.
Today the Senate has an opportunity to help shape a court that better
reflects our country, so I hope they will not block another qualified
female nominee for nakedly partisan reasons. The least Senate
Republicans owe Professor Pillard is the same fair confirmation process
Chief Justice Roberts enjoyed when he was nominated to the DC Circuit.
Drug Compounding
Madam President, should Republicans block her confirmation, as I fear
they will, the Senate will then vote on cloture on the motion to
proceed to a bill to enhance safeguards at compounding pharmacies which
create custom-tailored medication for patients with unique health
needs.
This bipartisan legislation will ensure drugs manufactured in
factories and mixed in pharmacies across the country are safe for
consumers. The measure will also implement tracking of medicines from
the factory to the drug store itself.
Last year unsanitary conditions at a compounding pharmacy led to a
fungal meningitis outbreak that killed 64 people and very badly
sickened more than 750 others. Contaminated medicine mixed at that
pharmacy was sent to 75 medical facilities in 23 States and given to
14,000 patients. The facility in question was actually skirting
existing law and acting as a large-scale drug manufacturer rather than
creating custom medications for individuals using products manufactured
by other companies.
By avoiding stricter regulations on drug manufacturers, companies
such as this one boost their profits by putting patients at risk. This
legislation will end this dangerous practice and ensure that drugs
manufactured and mixed in America are completely safe from the assembly
line to the drug store.
This bill could pass the Senate right now, but it has been stalled by
Republicans for more than 1 month. This legislation truly is a matter
of life and death.
Defense Authorization
Madam President, we must finish this legislation quickly so we can
wrap up consideration of the crucial Defense authorization bill before
Thanksgiving.
I put Senators on notice last week and the week before that we are
going to do whatever it takes to accomplish exactly that in order to
finish this bill--even if it means working this coming weekend and
hopefully not the next weekend but possibly that too.
Further, we must ensure that debate on the Defense authorization bill
is about our Nation's defense and not extraneous issues. No Senators
should be allowed to jump the line and get a vote on his or her own
amendment by threatening delay action on the underlying bill, nor
should the Senate waste time debating amendments that are not relevant
to defense.
This measure ensures the safety of this Nation and is dedicated to
servicemembers, and it is more important than any one Senator's or
Senators' parochial or political pet issues.
I note the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Recognition of the Minority Leader
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority leader is recognized.
Heartfelt Sympathy to the Inhofes
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I will start with a word of sympathy
about the heartbreaking loss of Perry Inhofe, the son of our colleague,
Jim Inhofe, killed in a plane crash on Sunday. Of course, we are all
thinking of Jim and Kay, and the heartfelt prayers of the entire Senate
family are with them and the entire Inhofe family at this very, very
difficult time.
DC Circuit
Madam President, despite the repeated promises of President Obama,
millions of people are losing their health insurance--health insurance
they very much liked and were assured they could keep. It has been
reported that so far 3.5 million Americans have lost their health
insurance under ObamaCare. That includes over a quarter of a million in
my State of Kentucky, a third of a million in Florida, and almost a
million people in California.
This is a serious problem the President and congressional Democrats
need to do something about. The obvious answer is repeal, but in the
meantime the legislation offered by Senator Ron Johnson would help
Americans keep the plans they have and like. If the President and
Senate Democrats are serious about helping the millions of Americans
who have unexpectedly lost their insurance over the past several weeks,
then they should support it.
Unfortunately, they appear ready to ignore the problem. Rather than
focusing on keeping their commitment to the American people, they are
focusing on issues that appeal to their base. Rather than change the
law that is causing so many problems for so many, they want to change
the subject.
According to a recent press report, our Democratic friends want to
divert as much attention as possible away from the problem-plagued
ObamaCare rollout at this formative stage of the 2014 campaign, which
brings us to the vote we are going to have later today.
We will not be voting on legislation to allow Americans to keep their
health insurance if they like it, as they were promised again and
again; rather, we will be voting on a nominee to a court that doesn't
have enough work to do. A court that is so underworked, it regularly
cancels oral argument days. It is a court whose judges tell us that if
any more judges were put on the court, there wouldn't be enough work to
go around. It is a court that is less busy now than it was when Senate
Democrats pocket-filibustered President Bush's nominee to the court,
Peter Keisler, for 2 whole years--2 long years. And it is less busy
based upon the very standards Democrats themselves set forth when they
blocked Mr. Keisler's nomination for 2 years. By the way, it is also
less busy now than it was then, according to an analysis provided by
the chief judge of that court.
The Senate ought to be spending its time dealing with a real crisis,
not a manufactured one. We ought to be dealing with an ill-conceived
law that is causing millions of Americans to lose their health
insurance. Instead, we will spend our time today on a political
exercise designed to distract the American people from the mess that is
ObamaCare rather than trying to fix it.
If our Democratic colleagues are going to ignore the fact that
millions of people are losing their health insurance plans, they should
at least be working with us to fill judicial emergencies that actually
exist rather than complaining about fake ones. There are nominees on
the Executive Calendar who would fill actual judicial emergencies,
unlike the Pillard nomination.
[[Page S7939]]
Some of them, in fact, have been pending on the calendar longer than
the Pillard nomination. But rather than work with us to schedule votes
on those nominations in an orderly manner, as we have been doing all
year long, the majority prefers to concoct a crisis on the DC Circuit
so it can try to distract the American people from the failings of
ObamaCare.
Unfortunately, our friends appear to be more concerned with playing
politics than actually solving real problems. So I will be voting no on
this afternoon's political exercise. I hope the Senate in the future
will focus on what the American people care about rather than spend its
time trying to distract them.
Congratulating Archbishop Joseph Kurtz
Finally, I congratulate Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, the Catholic
archbishop of Louisville, on his election as president of the U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops. Archbishop Kurtz is not a native
Kentuckian--he is originally from Pennsylvania--but we have adopted him
as one of our own since he was appointed head of the Louisville
Archdiocese in June 2007. I wish him all the best as he seeks to
promote the church's mission in the United States.
Congratulations.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
Reservation of Leader Time
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the leadership time
is reserved.
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