[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 84 (Thursday, May 26, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3232-S3234]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        ISSUES BEFORE THE SENATE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, it is not necessary to go into great detail 
about the past, but it is important to talk about the past so we 
understand what is going on now and what the future holds.
  The biggest change coming from the Republican majority is what the 
Democratic minority has done. We have cooperated. We are not in the 
business of

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filibustering everything. During the first 6 years of the Obama 
administration, the Republicans initiated more than 600 filibusters. 
They filibustered everything. As an example, we tried to do the Energy 
bill for 5 years. Each time we tried, it was brought to a standstill by 
the Republicans.

  We have a Republican bill that we worked on. It is the same bill we 
did with Senator Shaheen in the past with some additions to it. What 
happened to that bill is that it has gone to the dark hole in the 
House. They have stripped everything out of it that we had done. It is 
gone. We have done our utmost to cooperate.
  For my friend to talk about this Republican Senate that has done so 
much, he would have tremendous difficulty finding any one thing that we 
didn't try to do--any one thing. I talked about energy. It doesn't 
matter what it was, it was filibustered--I repeat--more than 600 times. 
The record will never be broken, I hope, as it has been a real 
detriment to our country and the U.S. Senate. For my friend to come and 
talk about how great the Senate is, is really absurd.
  I don't know if he is taking the pages from Donald Trump--if you say 
enough that is wrong, people will say: Well, maybe it is not that bad. 
This Republican Senate is a do-nothing Senate. He talked about opioid 
legislation. There isn't anyone--not anyone from the Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention, any of the public health agencies 
around the country--who thinks what happened in the Senate helped them. 
Why? Because there is no money. They shuffled things around. There is 
no money. Opioid legislation needs money. They have refused to fund it.
  I don't know how long it has been, but it has been at least 4 months 
since the people of Flint, MI, came to the realization that they had 
been poisoned--their children had been poisoned with lead. We tried so 
many different ways to get the Republicans to help that beleaguered 
city, but, no, not a chance. The people of Flint, MI, are still 
drinking and bathing with bottled water. The children are still 
suffering the awfulness of lead. It is so detrimental to little brains.
  He talks about the Zika virus. How sad that he would think that 
giving no money to this program is a good deal. I will talk about that 
in a little more detail. The Zika virus is extremely serious. It could 
affect as many as 39 of our United States. There is no money. The 
President has said, and I will say right now, we should not go on 
recess while there is no money for Zika. The way things are set up 
under his great plan, the Zika virus will be funded sometime this fall. 
The mosquitoes will be dead or gone home--wherever that home is--by 
that time, and the American people will be infected.
  There was a mistake made by his staff dealing with renewable tax 
credits, which is so important to the Presiding Officer's State and 
other States, and there have been efforts made to correct that mistake. 
That hasn't been done yet.
  The House of Representatives, led by the Republicans, can't pass a 
simple budget. This great Senate that he talks about couldn't pass a 
budget. We don't have a budget. We have no district court nominations. 
We have emergencies all over the country because there are too many 
people in trouble who want to litigate, and there are no judges to do 
that. No, we are not going to move on judges because Barack Obama, in 
their mind, is an illegitimate President, and they have created Donald 
Trump--what has happened the last 7\1/2\ years, the Republicans 
opposing anything that President Obama tried to do. They have created 
Donald Trump. They are not only failing us on district court 
nominations, circuit court nominations, we have a Supreme Court that 
has been bare. We don't have a full complement of Supreme Court 
Justices. For my friend to stand here and say we are doing our job is 
absurd.
  If he wants to talk about the Defense authorization bill, we will be 
happy to do that. Here is a quote from Mitch McConnell, which is 
basically what today's vote on the Defense authorization bill is all 
about: ``The Defense authorization bill requires 4 to 5 weeks to 
debate.'' That is what he said. Now he is changing his tune. I am not 
saying it is 4 to 5 weeks, but this bill is almost 2,000 pages, which 
we received the night before last at 5 o'clock. Shouldn't Members and 
their staff be able to read these 2,000 pages before we dive into 
litigating and offering amendments?
  I will say, again, the chairman of the committee, the senior Senator 
from Arizona, has said: I am going to violate the budget agreement we 
have by bringing in $18 billion more for defense. The budget agreement 
says he can't do that unless you equally fund nondefense. Shouldn't we 
take a look at that? Shouldn't we take a look at a 2,000-page bill--
actually, 1,660 pages, not counting the annex that came on board 
Wednesday night as part of the bill? Shouldn't we take a look at that? 
There are all kinds of earmarks, little goodies in that bill. We need 
to take a look at it. Is there anything wrong with that? I don't think 
so.
  We look forward to considering this legislation. We did much better 
than the Republicans. If you want to go back, another little insight 
into history--they not only fought going onto the bill, once we went on 
it, they wouldn't let us get off the bill. That is not where we are 
coming from.
  We have a lot of things to do. We have to do TSCA. I hope he would 
find time in his busy schedule, his great accomplishments, to work on a 
bill we have been trying to complete. I worked on this bill for the 
first time 28 years ago in the Senate. I was chairman of the 
subcommittee in the Senate. I did my best to take on the chemical 
industry, and I am sorry to report they won and America lost, but now 
we have an opportunity to have the American people winning for a 
change. What is the holdup in doing that bill? It is a conference 
report.
  Four weeks ago, I stood on the floor and said we shouldn't go on 
break without having giving President Obama the $1.9 billion he needs 
to fight the Zika virus. Four weeks later--we are still off next week--
we are not going to worry about those pesky mosquitoes. The Senate is 
going to recess for another week. We are going to come back for 4 weeks 
and then we are out for 7 weeks. This great plan of my friend, the 
Republican leader, is somewhat misleading. Anything he has been able to 
get done and tried to boast about are things they held us up from doing 
for 6 years.
  Last Friday President Obama said we should not leave today without 
having given public health officials the resources they need to combat 
the spread of Zika in the United States. Researchers, doctors, and 
health officials--not only in the United States, all over the world--
need this money. This money will be spent in America, but there will be 
a lot of effects around the world. There will be a lot of problems in 
Central and South America that we will be able to help. If we do it the 
right way, they can develop a vaccine at NIH, the Centers for Disease 
Control. They can't do it without money. Again, there is no money. They 
shift things around. They say they have a plan. Don't worry about 
Ebola, which was 18 months ago--a ravaging fear in the American people. 
It is still there, once that disease pops up again, that condition pops 
up again in Africa, because it infects Americans who are there. But 
they have taken most of the money from Ebola, and the House is going to 
take all of it in this great plan he has. They need this money. They 
need it to prepare for this public health threat, which is here.
  To leave now without putting an emergency spending bill on the 
President's desk is the height of irresponsibility. No matter how you 
boast about that, that is a fact.
  As was reported by the Washington Post this morning, the New England 
Journal of Medicine released findings from the study of the Zika virus. 
Here is what they found: Women infected with Zika early in their 
pregnancies may have as high as a 13-percent chance of having a baby 
with microcephaly. What is that? The brain doesn't grow. The skull 
caves in. It is a devastating birth defect, involving very small heads 
and incomplete development of the brain.
  Mosquitoes have caused problems in the world for generations--many 
generations--but we have never had a report that the mosquito would 
transmit a virus that would cause 13 percent of pregnant women to have 
these deformed babies.
  The Republican leader only needs to keep the Senate in session next 
week

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so we can pass a stand-alone Zika funding bill that gives our country 
what it needs now, not this fall. We need to act before local 
transmission starts occurring in the continental United States. That is 
going to be soon. Late this fall will not do the trick. This fall is 
too late. It is time to act, not take a break. The Republican leader 
should not send the Senate out of session until we have done all we can 
to protect the American people from the threat of this horrible virus.
  It doesn't take into consideration the other things we are just 
leaving: Flint, MI, opioids. There are so many things we are walking 
away from in this institution.

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