[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 133 (Saturday, August 6, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4053-S4054]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     MOTION TO DISCHARGE--Continued

  Mr. SCHUMER. I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant 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order for the quorum call be rescinded.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 ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                   Recognition of the Minority Leader

  The Republican leader is recognized.


                          Flooding in Kentucky

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, Eastern Kentucky is again facing the 
threat of stormy weather and flash floods this weekend. Emergency 
responders have been on the ground since the flooding began and will 
continue their critical role in the coming days. We are making sure the 
Federal Government is stepping up as well.
  In addition to the Governor and State lawmakers, I have been in 
personal contact with the President, Secretaries Mayorkas and Becerra, 
and FEMA Administrator Criswell going back to the beginning of this 
emergency.
  FEMA has been on the ground since day one, providing enormous help 
with search and rescue operations. Once rebuilding begins, their role 
will only be more important.
  With the President's major disaster declaration, FEMA is now 
authorized to send financial assistance directly to the flood victims. 
These funds will be critical to those who lost their homes in the 
flooding, especially since many lack flood insurance. To reach remote 
residents, FEMA representatives are going door-to-door and speaking 
directly to survivors in shelters to make sure everyone who qualifies 
for help actually receives it. The Agency has already approved hundreds 
of thousands of dollars for affected Kentuckians.
  FEMA is also helping pull together a wide swath of Federal Agencies 
to supplement the Kentucky National Guard and State agencies. The 
Forest Service is already on the ground, clearing debris from roadways. 
The Small Business Administration is issuing loans to help employers 
rebuild. The Army Corps of Engineers is ensuring all dams in the region 
remain operational.
  The Federal response so far has been extraordinary.
  I have been proud to stand with the Governor and Kentucky's entire 
congressional delegation to help expand the number of counties 
receiving assistance and streamline the aid. Kentuckians can visit my 
official website to see the full list of services offered by our 
Federal disaster response Agencies.
  The Federal Government has done an excellent job so far. The crisis 
is far from over.
  Soon, I will visit the region myself to meet with flood victims and 
listen to their concerns, and then I will take what I hear from my 
constituents back to Washington and ensure we stand by their side as we 
rebuild bigger and better than before.


                               Inflation

  Madam President, now on an entirely different matter, a year and a 
half ago, Democrats misread a 50-50 Senate as a mandate for $1.9 
trillion in party-line reckless spending. The result has been the worst 
inflation in 40 years.
  With Democrats in charge, working families are having to spend 
thousands of extra dollars each year just to tread water. Grocery costs 
are through the roof. Energy bills are skyrocketing. Gas prices are 
more than $1 higher than on Inauguration Day. American families are 
trapped in an inflation spiral, where many workers have earned pay 
raises on paper, but even those bigger paychecks buy them less and less 
every time they go to the store.
  Because of Democrats' historic failure on the economy, the American 
people have lost their patience. Ninety percent say they are feeling 
anxious about inflation. Only 28 percent like what President Biden is 
doing about it, and just 22 percent think we will be in any better 
shape after another year of Democratic leadership. But, amazingly, 
Senate Democrats are misreading the American people's outrage as a 
mandate for yet another--yet another--reckless taxing-and-spending 
spree. Democrats have already robbed American families once through 
inflation, and now their solution is to rob American families yet a 
second time.
  Democrats want to ram through hundreds of billions of dollars in tax 
hikes and hundreds of billions of dollars in reckless spending--and for 
what? For a so-called inflation bill that will not meaningfully reduce 
inflation at all and will actually make inflation even worse in the 
short term; for a so-called economic bill that will kill American jobs 
and hammer our manufacturing sector; for a so-called climate bill that 
will have no meaningful impact on global temperatures whatsoever; for a 
so-called prescription drug bill that will result in fewer lifesaving 
medicines and higher prices for the new cures that are invented. Every 
fact I have just laid out has come from nonpartisan experts and 
academics.
  Democrats' bill will do nothing to meaningfully cut inflation. 
Hundreds of billions of dollars in tax hikes on a struggling economy 
will help kill American jobs everywhere, except the IRS, that is, where 
the bill would fund the hiring of--listen to this--86,000 new tax 
collectors plus new cars and new computers.
  Jacking up Americans' electricity bills and gas prices in order to 
subsidize rich people buying luxury cars and new appliances will not 
make one dent in the future trajectory of global temperatures.
  Democrats will choke off the development of new lifesaving medicines 
if they pretend that making things cheaper is as simple as passing a 
law saying they ought to be cheaper.
  Survey after survey, poll after poll has proven that none of this 
nonsense is what American people want Democrats to focus on. The 
American people don't want hundreds of millions of dollars in Green New 
Deal waste. They want less inflation, not more. American families don't 
want tens of thousands more IRS agents. What they would like are more 
Border Patrol and ICE agents. American families don't want Democrats 
policing what kinds of stoves and clothes dryers they can put in their 
homes. What they want is for Democrats to actually start policing our 
city streets.
  Democrats have decided their first economic disaster justifies a 
second economic disaster. The working people of this country feel very, 
very differently.
  Now, on a related matter. I want to drill down on Democrats' plan to 
take a buzz saw to the research and development behind new lifesaving 
medical treatment and cures. The American people have enough common 
sense to know that the government can't actually make something cost 
less by making it illegal to raise the price. Let me say that again. 
The government can't actually make something cost less by making it 
illegal to raise its price. This was the logic of college sophomore 
socialism. It is not fair that a certain thing costs more than we like. 
Why doesn't the government simply pass a law making it cheaper?
  Well, the world would be a lot easier for everybody if things 
actually worked that way. It would certainly be easier to be a member 
of Congress. We could just vote to set the price of everything in 
America, snap our fingers and everybody in the country would enjoy $5 
smartphones, $10 TVs, and $100 pickup trucks. What a concept. Why 
hasn't anybody thought of this genius idea before?
  Well, of course, people have thought of it before. Plenty of 
governments have tried crude price-fixing--Cuba, Venezuela, the old 
Soviet Union, not exactly thriving paradises, not pinnacles of 
prosperity, well-being, or innovation; not the examples we would want 
to follow.
  Everybody wants prescription drugs and complex medicines to be more 
affordable. Everybody wants to help struggling families. That is the 
goal we all share. But you know what would not achieve that goal? 
Empowering some Biden administration bureaucrat to sit down at a desk 
and arbitrarily name the price that manufacturers can charge.
  Democrats' policy would not bring about some paradise where we all 
get

[[Page S4054]]

amazing new innovations we would have gotten anyway, but at a lower 
cost. Their policy would bring about a world where many fewer new drugs 
and treatments get invented in the first place as companies cut back on 
R&D.
  By one analysis, if Democrats' price-fixing scheme had already been 
in place, 104 of 110 major new medicines released in the past decade 
may never have made it to the market. We would literally have fewer 
lifesaving cures and treatments. More Americans would die and die young 
under Democrats' policy. And the new drugs that did still get invented 
would be more expensive when they hit the market. That is according to 
the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
  During the Obama administration, I worked with then-Vice President 
Biden on a project he was especially passionate about. I was proud to 
help launch his Cancer Moonshot within the 21st Century Cures bill. But 
according to one expert's calculation, the bill President Biden wants 
Senate Democrats to ram through this weekend would reduce cancer 
research spending by more than nine times as much as our Cancer 
Moonshot expanded it. I will say that one more time. According to one 
expert, this far-left takeover of America's medicine cabinets would 
destroy nine times as much cancer funding as we provided with the 
Cancer Moonshot.
  We are talking about a tidal wave of Washington meddling, wiping out 
future treatments and cures for Americans suffering with rare diseases. 
What a terrible, terrible and tragic part of their reckless plans.


                             Vote on Motion

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
question is on agreeing to the motion to discharge.
  Mr. DURBIN. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Indiana (Mr. Braun), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), 
the Senator from Montana (Mr. Daines), the Senator from Missouri (Mr. 
Hawley), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Marshall), the Senator from Idaho 
(Mr. Risch), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), the Senator from 
Nebraska (Mr. Sasse), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Scott), and 
the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis).
  Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Missouri (Mr. 
Hawley) would have voted ``nay'' and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. 
Marshall) would have voted ``nay.''
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore.
  Are there any other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 51, nays 39, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 285 Ex.]



 =========================== NOTE =========================== 

  
  On page S4054, August 6, 2022, second column, the following 
appears: [Rollcall Vote No. 285 Leg.]
  
  The online Record has been corrected to read: [Rollcall Vote No. 
285 Ex.]


 ========================= END NOTE ========================= 


                                YEAS--51

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Collins
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Gillibrand
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hickenlooper
     Hirono
     Kaine
     Kelly
     King
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Lujan
     Manchin
     Markey
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murphy
     Murray
     Ossoff
     Padilla
     Peters
     Reed
     Rosen
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Sinema
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warnock
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--39

     Barrasso
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hagerty
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Lee
     Lummis
     McConnell
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Portman
     Romney
     Rounds
     Scott (FL)
     Shelby
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Toomey
     Tuberville
     Wicker
     Young

                             NOT VOTING--10

     Braun
     Burr
     Daines
     Hawley
     Marshall
     Risch
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Scott (SC)
     Tillis
       
  The motion was agreed to.

                          ____________________