[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 82 (Thursday, May 11, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Page S2898]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Medical Research

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, before the Senator from Missouri leaves 
the floor, I want to say a word about him and the topic he raised today 
about health and, in this particular case, children.
  Senator Blunt and I have adjoining States, Illinois and Missouri. We 
have joined up, as well, on the issue of medical research. I salute 
him. Even though he is my Republican colleague, I want to make clear 
that this is a bipartisan issue. He has made it a bipartisan issue. We 
had the good support of Senator Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, and 
Senator Murray, Democrat of Washington.
  The Senator from Missouri has done some amazing things. I want to say 
specifically for the Record that America owes him a debt of gratitude, 
as chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee that is responsible for 
the National Institutes of Health, the foremost leading medical 
research agency in the world.
  Let me tell you, with his leadership, what we accomplished. For two 
straight years, Senator Blunt has been able to raise the appropriations 
for medical research at the National Institutes of Health by $2 billion 
or more. The net result of that is that a $30 billion budget has grown 
to almost $34 billion. What does it mean? It means that researchers 
don't get discouraged. They stay on their projects. They keep working 
to find cures.
  Secondly, we are making dramatic advances in medicine because of it. 
His leadership has been absolutely essential. If there is ever a 
bipartisan issue, this is it. The Senator has been quite a leader in 
this regard.

  I want to salute you for that while you are on the floor on the topic 
of healthcare and children.
  Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I appreciate my good friend's comments on 
this but also his commitment to seeing that we make this happen. As he 
mentioned, this is a bipartisan effort, but it is an effort that had 
about a 10-year lag, and we are doing our best to dramatically catch up 
with what is really an important time in healthcare research.
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank my colleague from Missouri. I will tell you that 
he set a standard. I hope that both parties will agree that this is the 
starting point. For every year's budget, the starting point is at least 
a 5-percent real growth increase in medical research.
  Thank you, Senator Blunt, for your leadership.