[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 198 (Monday, December 17, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7650-S7652]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  SAVE OUR SEAS ACT OF 2017--Continued


                             Cloture Motion

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before 
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to 
     concur in the House amendment to S. 756, a bill to 
     reauthorize and amend the Marine Debris Act to promote 
     international action to reduce marine debris, and for other 
     purposes, with a further amendment numbered SA 4108.
         Mitch McConnell, Mike Lee, John Cornyn, Chuck Grassley, 
           Orrin G. Hatch, Tim Scott, Steve Daines, Jerry Moran, 
           Todd Young, Susan M. Collins, Pat Roberts, Bill 
           Cassidy, Lamar Alexander, Lindsey Graham, Jeff Flake, 
           Rob Portman, Joni Ernst.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
motion to concur in the House amendment to S. 756, to reauthorize and 
amend the Marine Debris Act to promote international action to reduce 
marine debris, and for other purposes, with a further amendment 
numbered 4108, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. 
Cassidy), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator 
from Nevada (Mr. Heller), the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Johnson), and 
the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis).
  Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. 
Alexander) would have voted ``yea''.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Daines). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 82, nays 12, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 267 Leg.]

                                YEAS--82

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Booker
     Boozman
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Collins
     Coons
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Cortez Masto
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Donnelly
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Ernst
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Flake
     Gardner
     Gillibrand
     Grassley
     Harris
     Hassan
     Hatch
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Jones
     Kaine
     King
     Klobuchar
     Lankford
     Leahy
     Lee
     Manchin
     Markey
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Moran
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Paul
     Perdue
     Peters
     Portman
     Reed
     Roberts
     Rubio
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Scott
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Thune
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden
     Young

                                NAYS--12

     Barrasso
     Burr
     Cotton
     Enzi
     Kennedy
     Kyl
     Murkowski
     Risch
     Rounds
     Sasse
     Sullivan
     Toomey

                             NOT VOTING--6

     Alexander
     Cassidy
     Graham
     Heller
     Johnson
     Tillis
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 82, the nays are 
12.
  Three-fifths of Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in the 
affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
recognized for a few moments; that at the conclusion of my remarks, my 
colleague from Arkansas, Senator Cotton, be recognized; and that at the 
conclusion of his remarks, I be recognized again for a unanimous 
consent request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 379

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, one of the things that marks service 
as a U.S. Senator is the chance to meet really remarkable individuals, 
and among the remarkable individuals I have had the chance to meet in 
my time in the Senate, there are few, if any, who are more impressive 
or memorable than those who have been diagnosed with ALS, commonly 
known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
  Competing with them for being impressive and noteworthy are the 
friends and family and advocates who become their support system and 
their caregivers. It is not just those with the diagnosis, but it is 
also the family, friends, and caregivers who face incredible bravery. I 
remember someone once saying that a special kind of courage is 
maintaining good morale in the face of terrible circumstances, and few 
circumstances are more terrible than a diagnosis of ALS amyotrophic 
lateral sclerosis.
  We know how it ends. We know it is always fatal. There is no 
treatment. There is no cure. There is nothing to halt or reverse the 
effects of ALS. Those of us who have ALS patients visit us watch the 
decline as they move from people who can walk to people who need a 
wheelchair, to people who need an increasingly complex wheelchair.
  For all this suffering and for all the certainty of how it ends, we 
still make ALS patients and their family members wait 5 months before 
they can begin to receive the Social Security Disability Insurance 
benefits they earned by contributing into Social Security.
  The logic, I am told, of this 5-month waiting period is that it 
allows temporary conditions to abate, but ALS is not a temporary 
condition. It does not abate. It does not reverse. Sadly, some ALS 
patients lose their fight with the disease before even receiving 
benefits.
  I have been working with Senator Cotton to pursue bipartisan 
legislation to eliminate this 5-month waiting period for ALS. Chairman 
Hatch, in one of his final acts as chairman of the Finance Committee, 
expressed his approval of this and his desire to help me bring it 
forward, and Ranking Member Wyden on the Finance Committee has helped 
get it to the floor so we can have this opportunity to pass it by 
unanimous consent.
  I hope very much that as a simple act of humanity, we can step aside 
from bureaucratic considerations and allow this small population of 
Americans who face the extraordinary blow of this diagnosis to move 
immediately to the benefits they signed up for by contributing to 
Social Security.
  With that, I would yield the floor to Senator Cotton of Arkansas.
  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for 
his work on this important issue. I have had numerous ALS sufferers and 
family members of those who suffer from ALS approach me about this bill 
early in my time in the Senate, and I have been grateful for the 
opportunity to work with the Senator from Rhode Island to try to 
address this very sad problem.
  ALS is a progressive and disabling disease for which there is no 
cure. It is

[[Page S7651]]

fatal in all cases. Unfortunately, like almost every other condition, 
ALS sufferers are required to wait for 5 months before they receive the 
Social Security Disability Insurance benefits they have earned; that 
they earned through a lifetime of paying taxes into Social Security.
  I understand the purpose of this 5-month waiting period is to weed 
out temporary conditions, but ALS is not a temporary condition--or to 
prevent fraudulent claims, but it is hard to imagine anyone making a 
fraudulent claim on disability based on an ALS diagnosis. The average 
disability beneficiaries expect to receive benefits for about 20 years, 
but, unfortunately, those who have been diagnosed with ALS only have a 
life expectancy of approximately 3 years. Therefore, the disability 
waiting period of 5 months means that those on ALS will lose, on 
average, nearly one-seventh of the benefits they have paid a lifetime 
for. Of course, some will lose a lot more because of ALS's particularly 
degenerative nature. They will lose their fight to the disease before 
they ever become eligible for their disability benefits.
  This legislation will simply ensure that those patients and their 
families can access the benefits they paid into as soon as possible by 
waiving that 5-month waiting period for disability benefits in this one 
exceptional case.
  I understand there is objection about singling out the particular 
disease or condition. I would, however, say ALS is itself a singularly 
exceptional condition, and any sufferer of ALS deserves our sympathy, 
our prayers but also our action on the Senate floor.
  I also understand there is objection to the cost of the legislation, 
which would be $270 million over 10 years--no doubt a lot of money to 
all Americans--but frankly a small rounding error in the Federal 
budget. For that matter, it is less than the amount of money for the 
piece of legislation that is pending on the floor today--a criminal 
leniency bill that would cost $352 million over 10 years.
  If we are prepared to allow legislation to go forward that slashes 
sentences for serious drug traffickers and let sex offenders out of 
prison early, even though it costs $350 million, I would suggest it is 
a misplaced priority to object to legislation because it costs $270 
million. So I hope, along with the Senator from Rhode Island, that we 
can pass this legislation in this week before Christmas and give some 
small measure of solace to those who are suffering from ALS and their 
families.
  I yield back to the Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
Finance Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 379, a 
bill to eliminate the 5-month waiting period for disability insurance 
benefits under such title for individuals with amyotrophic lateral 
sclerosis; that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that 
the bill be considered read a third time and passed; and that the 
motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no 
intervening action or debate, as we come into this Christmas season.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I first became 
aware of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis when I was in the fifth grade, 
and I read a story, a book, and later a series of books about my 
childhood hero Lou Gehrig, whose name is often used synonymously with 
this terrible ailment. It is a tragedy that his life was ended and 
helped bring about the end of his 2,138 consecutive game playing streak 
in Major League Baseball.
  This is a horrible disease, a progressive neurodegenerative condition 
that rapidly attacks the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord and 
eventually it affects the control of the muscles that are needed to 
move, to speak, and even to eat and to breathe. Sadly, it is always 
fatal.
  The bill now under consideration will grant a waiver from the Social 
Security Disability Insurance waiting period to victims of this 
terrible disease, no doubt with good, noble intentions, but what we 
have to remember is that this is not the only tragic disease Americans 
are dying from. Unfortunately, there are many others out there that are 
equally debilitating and equally fatal, and the Federal Government 
should not pick favorites to legislate from among them.
  Indeed, this kind of policy and approach to policymaking poses 
several problems. First, it sets the precedent that some diseases or 
disabilities deserve preferential treatment and not necessarily with a 
distinction that sets them apart from that disparate treatment. It 
would undoubtedly open the door for exemption requests for a myriad of 
other groups who advocate for worthy causes, including any of the 233 
compassionate allowance conditions that are already given expedited 
review for SSDI.
  I have gone through that list and looked at that list and it contains 
a lot of other horrible, debilitating deadly diseases, among them non-
Hodgkin's lymphoma that claimed the life of my father 22 years ago, 
along with a whole lot of other diseases that are deadly, that are 
painful, that are debilitating, that result in the incapacitation of 
their victims.
  On top of all that, this approach will set the stage for only those 
diseases that have the most recognition and the most political backing 
to find bill sponsors, while others sit at a relative disadvantage with 
conditions that are more rare and underfunded.
  Furthermore, while I am happy to consider working on the waiting 
period issue, we cannot do so without taking a larger look at SSDI as a 
whole and its sustainability. We cannot ignore the fact that Social 
Security is facing long-term insolvency with the DI Trust Fund set to 
run out in 2032, even sooner than the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance 
Trust Fund is set to expire and from which it has to borrow funds.
  It is undoubtedly a noble intention to help those with ALS, but we 
will never have parity if we legislate disease by disease, especially 
among and between diseases that are comparably debilitating. I said it 
is incoherent and unjust to pick one favorite group where there are 
others that are every bit as deserving.
  On that basis, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, let me go on the record to say how 
much I disagree with my colleague's view of this; the notion that we 
can't help anyone until we can help everyone is simply not the way the 
world works. The notion that we can't help anyone until we have solved 
whatever financial problems he sees in Social Security, again, means we 
will help no one.
  I do believe Lou Gehrig's disease is a sufficiently distinct illness, 
with an inevitable fatality, and the slow loss of function for the 
individuals involved as the disease takes away, one by one, their 
various abilities to stand, to speak, and eat. I think it does set it 
apart.
  If the Senator has other illnesses he thinks are equally cruel and 
equally lethal that he would like to add to the list, then I think we 
should consider that. The notion that we can't help fellow Americans 
with this disease because we haven't solved other problems is one I 
categorically reject.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I respectfully, most vehemently disagree with 
the characterization made by my distinguished colleague, the Senator 
from Rhode Island.
  This is not, with all due respect, an instance of ``we can't help 
anyone until we help everyone.'' That is a blatant mischaracterization 
of the facts. We have already 233 conditions that qualify for the 
compassionate allowance category.
  If you look through those, they are full of debilitating, life-
threatening conditions. Those categories already do receive expedited 
treatment. They already are in a category where they have to be 
reviewed and a decision has to be made within a set period of time--I 
believe, within the range of 5 months.
  That is a good thing, but it is simply not accurate. In fact, it is 
blatantly misleading to suggest that my argument here boils down to the 
notion that we cannot help anyone until we help everyone. That is not 
true. It is the point here that unless or until we can make a 
distinction between this condition and the other 233 conditions that 
are on that list, I see no valid

[[Page S7652]]

basis--other than the fact that this one has more political support 
and, perhaps, more financial backing--to draw that distinction here. I 
think it is unfair to those who benefit from and will need to invoke 
the need for Social Security disability insurance to put it in an even 
less sustainable posture moving forward.
  Yes, in an ideal world we would like to say no waiting period for 
anyone. In an ideal world we would like to not have anyone have to wait 
for these sorts of things, but we do have, in our government, a 
susceptibility to claims that are not substantiated, and we also have 
people who have to review them. In the absence of a perfect system, it 
may not be possible. It certainly isn't going to be possible for us to 
make this program sustainable if we can't put meaningful limits on it.
  Again, I am all for finding ways to shorten that waiting period as 
much as we possibly can. I have yet to hear an argument that sets this 
condition apart from the others in this category of 233 compassionate 
allowance conditions.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I simply note that the Senator seems 
to be making precisely the argument that he is denying that he has 
made.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. LEE. In no way, shape, or form am I making the argument that we 
cannot help anyone until we help everyone. That is a 
mischaracterization of the argument I am making.
  I am arguing that if, among and between these 233 categories, we can 
make no principle distinction between this condition and the others, we 
are mistreating those other people.
  Who is going to stand here for them? Today, I am going to.
  On that basis, I object.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, at the Senator's desire, he may add 
any of those whom he wishes, and we will consider that going forward. 
Unless and until he does that, we are in a position that unless we are 
helping all of them, we will help none of them.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________