[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 120 (Wednesday, July 17, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S4874]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Senate Legislative Agenda

  Mr. President, on a different subject, it is certainly abhorrent that 
Leader McConnell has said we should move on from the President's 
comments this weekend without him even pausing to condemn them, but 
that is not the only subject Leader McConnell is stifling debate on in 
this Chamber.
  The size of Leader McConnell's legislation graveyard grows with each 
session. Leader McConnell has stood in the way of progress on a 
multitude of issues: healthcare, in his legislative graveyard; climate 
change, in his legislative graveyard; voting rights, in his legislative 
graveyard; gun safety, in his legislation graveyard; and paycheck 
fairness, in his legislative graveyard.
  When Leader McConnell refuses to even debate these issues and allows 
them to be amended, he hurts average Americans. He hurts Americans of 
all color and all creeds. He hurts Americans, whether their families 
have been in this country for 12 generations or they are new 
immigrants, new Americans, in this country.
  There are so many issues: healthcare costs going through the roof, 
drug costs going through the roof, and McConnell doesn't let us vote on 
them--preexisting conditions and the right to be protected if you have 
one. So if your son or daughter has cancer, the insurance company can't 
say: ``I am cutting you off'' and you watch that child suffer and you 
can't give him or her the healthcare they need. McConnell says: ``No 
debate, no change.''
  In fact, so many Republicans are silent on the lawsuit that President 
Trump and 19 Republican attorneys general filed that would get rid of 
preexisting conditions.
  Climate change. We know what is happening to our planet. Ask Senators 
from anywhere on the coasts, anywhere where we have had disasters, and 
talk to our farmers in terms of temperatures and predators, natural 
pests. The world is changing, and we are doing nothing about it. He 
will not let a single bill on that. There is also voting rights or 
people are being deprived of gun safety, where thousands lose their 
lives, and we could close loopholes that 90 percent of Americans 
support.