[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 199 (Wednesday, December 21, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9714-S9718]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


     
     
                          EXECUTIVE CALENDAR--Continued
     
     
                             Tribute to Cheri Bustos
     
       Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, early in my political career, I learned an 
     important lesson: If you want to succeed, you don't go it alone. For 
     every major decision, you need a trusted friend to turn to, someone who 
     will be honest with you and steer you in the right direction.
       In my life, I have been lucky to have many friends who pass that 
     test, including my mentors: Paul Douglas, the United States Senator 
     from Illinois, who introduced me to this world when I was a college 
     senior; and my predecessor in the United States Senate, Paul Simon. 
     Another Illinois legend who joins that rank is Gene Callahan.
       Paul Simon and Gene Callahan were two of the hardest working and most 
     grounded people I have ever known. They were public servants in every 
     sense of the word. The two of them pioneered an approach to politics 
     that I have tried to live up to: return every phone call; respond to 
     every constituent; always, always, always remain true to your values.
       Sadly, both Paul Simon and Gene Callahan have been gone for many 
     years, but their legacy lives on in a public servant who has perfected 
     their model for leadership. That public servant's name is Congresswoman 
     Cheri Bustos. For the past 10 years, she has represented Northwest and 
     Central Illinois in the House, and she happens to be Gene Callahan's 
     daughter.
       Since Cheri was first elected in 2012, she has lived, breathed, and 
     fought for every family in the 17th district. From providing the best 
     constituent service in the House to securing more funding for her 
     district than any other Democrat in the House, Cheri quickly set 
     herself apart as one of the brightest leaders in our State's history.
       She will be retiring at the end of this Congress, but before she 
     heads home, I want to take a moment to share how proud I have been to 
     watch our MVP from East Moline emerge as the All-Star champion of the 
     United States Congress.
       Cheri grew up in a family that stressed the importance of public 
     service. Her grandfather, Joe Callahan, was a hog farmer and a New Deal 
     Democrat who represented one of Illinois's most rural counties in the 
     State general assembly. He instilled in Cheri a deep appreciation for 
     rural America and the family farms that feed our Nation.
       Whenever the State legislature was in session, Grandfather Joe would 
     stay with Cheri, Gene, and the rest of the family in Springfield. It 
     was during that same period that I first met Gene Callahan. The two of 
     us were working for then-Lieutenant Governor Paul Simon.
       Gene would invite me, Paul, and sometimes even Senator Alan Dixon 
     over to the House for a spirited conversation about the news of the 
     day. It was truly a ``kitchen cabinet.'' Oftentimes, when we sat at the 
     dinner table dishing about politics, we were joined by another 
     youngster, a participant. A young Cheri Callahan was around, listening 
     carefully. It is where she learned her first lessons in politics.
       Growing up, Cheri was passionate about a lot more than politics. In 
     high school, she was a force to be reckoned with on the basketball 
     court. Just as importantly, she understood the value of being a team 
     player--so much so that in college, she was picked as the MVP on both 
     the basketball and volleyball teams.
       That is a quality that really defines Cheri Bustos--from the 
     basketball court to the floor of the House, she is a team player who is 
     in it to win it--not just for herself but, more importantly, for the 
     people who were counting on her.
       Throughout her life, Cheri's passion for victory has been surpassed 
     only by a capacity for empathy. She always listens. It is another 
     lesson she learned from her dad, Gene, and her mom, Ann, and Paul 
     Simon. All of whom, like Cheri, had something to do with public 
     service, either by participating in journalism, public service, or 
     supporting those who do.
       In Cheri's case, she was a reporter with the Quad-City Times for 17 
     years. She started on the night shift as a police reporter. It was a 
     tough job and doesn't pay a lot, but Cheri struck gold. While working 
     for the Quad-City Times, she met a young sheriff named Gerry Bustos. 
     And all these years later, they are happily married with three children 
     and two grandkids.
       Cheri won her first election in 2007 for a seat on East Moline City 
     Council. I know that she won it because I knocked on doors for her. A 
     few years later, she called me and said: I am moving on up. I want to 
     run for Congress. I will admit, my wife and I were surprised. Making a 
     leap from city council to Congress is not for the faint of heart, but 
     Cheri was an obvious natural.
       That first campaign began in the kitchen with one staffer: her nephew 
     Brad. The two of them traveled all over northwest and central Illinois 
     in his car, which had no working air conditioning and was pretty much 
     held together with duct tape. But like Gene had taught her, Cheri 
     showed up to every event, every townhall, every fundraiser, every phone 
     bank. It was a heartfelt campaign that started off on a shoestring. 
     That November, Cheri won that tough district by eight points.
       A couple of months after her victory, Cheri and Gerry made their 
     nearly 15-hour drive to Washington with a U-Haul hitched to their Jeep 
     Wrangler. It was the beginning of an amazing congressional career.
       During the first term, Cheri launched ``Cheri-on-Shift,'' her 
     practice of working alongside constituents at their jobs. In Cheri's 
     words, the Cheri-on-Shift experiment gave her ``a feel for what people 
     do for a living, how they support their families, their struggles, why 
     they take pride in their jobs.''
       Over the past decade, Cheri has served drinks at the Golden Hen Cafe 
     in Galena, planted soybeans with a farmer in Galesburg, and taken care 
     of senior citizens at the Lifescape facility
     
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     in Rockford. She has done everything from cleaning an ice rink with a 
     Zamboni to trying her hand at beekeeping. And with every Cheri-on-
     Shift, she would ask her constituents: What do you need from me in 
     Washington?
       Just ask her staff. The answers to those questions made all the 
     difference in Cheri's office.
       Consider the case of a nurse in Galesburg who told Cheri she was so 
     concerned about the lead pipes in her home that she was planning on 
     dropping out of nursing school to cover the cost for replacing them. 
     Cheri told her: We are going to do this right. And soon, she learned it 
     wasn't just one nurse who was suffering from lead pipes, but the entire 
     community.
       So Cheri kept her promise to that nurse. She found the Federal and 
     State dollars to help make things right in Galesburg.
       If you want to see the difference that can be made, look at what 
     Cheri has done for the Rock Island Arsenal. When I entered the Senate, 
     the Rock Island Arsenal was on its last leg. I'm sorry to say, there 
     were people at the Pentagon determined to close it. I was not going to 
     let that happen, but I needed the right partner--and that partner was 
     Cheri. Today, the Rock Island Arsenal's future is bright. We worked 
     together with Tammy Duckworth to secure hundreds of millions of dollars 
     in funding and projects to upgrade that facility.
       In fact, the Rock Island Arsenal will soon be home to the largest 3-D 
     printer in the world, which will build lighter, cheaper, and safer 
     frames for military combat vehicles. It is one of the many ways that 
     Cheri has helped position Illinois to lead in the future of 
     manufacturing with union workers at the helm.
       Justice and opportunity for all--that has been Cheri's passion since 
     she was the little girl that I first saw at the Callahan dinner table. 
     It is the passion that has defined her years in public service and her 
     decade in Congress.
       One of her final acts in Congress is one that will have impact across 
     America for decades to come. She passed a law to end forced arbitration 
     for sexual assault survivors. After she steered that bill through the 
     House, I had the honor of working on it successfully as chair of the 
     Senate Judiciary Committee. This law will ensure that every survivor 
     can have their day in court. And it wouldn't have happened without 
     Cheri Bustos.
       So it is sad for me that Cheri is leaving at the end of this term. It 
     is worth noting that in returning home, she has remained true to those 
     who sent her here. You see, Cheri is a strong believer in stepping out 
     of your comfort zone. She says it is ``where the magic happens.'' And 
     it is a theme throughout her career. Every 10 years or so, Cheri 
     switches gears--from journalism to healthcare to city council to 
     Congress; and, now, I don't know what the next step will be.
       I think I speak for every resident in Illinois's 17th district in 
     saying: Cheri, we can't wait to see what you achieve next. My wife 
     Loretta and I are amazed, but not one bit surprised, to see how far you 
     have come. You see, we have trusted you for a long time--when you were 
     a babysitter for our kids, the graduate of Illinois Women's Institute 
     for Leadership, the IWIL Training Academy, to one of the most 
     accomplished legislators and constituent advocates in the House of 
     Representatives.
       Somewhere out there, both Gene and Ann Callahan are beaming with 
     pride with what their daughter has achieved.
       I want to wish a wonderful holiday season to Cheri, her husband 
     Gerry, her sister Lynn and her husband Al, her three kids, Tony, Nick, 
     and Joey, and their daughters-in-law, as well as the grandkids. Now 
     that you are retiring, I am sure you will have plenty of time for 
     dancing to Stevie Wonder around the Christmas tree.
     
     
                                       FDA
     
       Mr. President, in July, the FDA Commissioner Robert Califf requested 
     an external review of the Agency's food offices.
       It was months after the infant formula crisis began, when a bacterial 
     outbreak forced Abbott to shut down one of the largest formula 
     facilities in the country and sent parents into a panic. Remember, this 
     crisis could have been prevented by the FDA. FDA inspectors found 
     several compliance issues at Abbott's Sturgis plant in September 2021. 
     The Agency also received a complaint about that same exact facility in 
     October 2021. But, they didn't ask Abbott to initiate a recall or warn 
     the public until February 2022.
       This wasn't the first time FDA has failed to prevent an outbreak 
     though. This year alone, the FDA has opened more than 25 investigations 
     into foodborne illness outbreaks. So I was glad when Dr. Califf 
     recognized that the FDA has fallen short of its responsibility to 
     protect Americans, and turned to the Reagan-Udall Foundation to conduct 
     an external review. It was long overdue.
       This month, the foundation completed its review. Its report concluded 
     that the FDA's culture, structure, and lack of funding have undermined 
     its effectiveness. The foundation found that, ``there is no clear 
     leader or decisionmaker'' in FDA's food offices, which tips the scales 
     ``in favor of inaction, minimizing risk, and maintaining the status 
     quo.''
       Inaction, minimizing risk, and maintaining the status quo--Americans 
     deserve so much more. They deserve the fundamental assurance that what 
     they feed their families won't make them sick. That is exactly why the 
     foundation concluded its report by calling on FDA and Congress to 
     implement structural reforms. Specifically, one of the options the 
     foundation recommends is that FDA to be separated into two agencies: 
     the Federal Drug Administration and the Federal Food Administration. As 
     it happens, I introduced legislation earlier this year with 
     Congresswoman DeLauro that would do just that: the Food Safety 
     Administration Act.
       The Reagan-Udall Foundation also encouraged Congress to take a close 
     look at the FDA's funding and resources. Consider the fact that the FDA 
     had just nine employees working in the infant formula office when the 
     crisis hit. That is nine people overseeing a $3.5 billion industry--
     absolutely unacceptable. We need to do better than that.
       Commissioner Califf needs to act on the foundation's recommendations 
     as soon as possible. We, in Congress, need to address this issue with 
     the seriousness it deserves as well. All of us have family members, 
     friends, and constituents who have fallen ill after a meal--or even 
     died. Let's reform the FDA before the next crisis.
       I yield the floor.
       The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican whip.
     
     
                                    Broadband
     
       Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, as a resident of a rural State, expanding 
     rural broadband access has long been a priority of mine, and I am not 
     the only one.
       Over the years, Congress has dedicated significant resources to 
     closing the digital divide, and that has been especially true over the 
     past 3 years. Congress has appropriated a lot of money for broadband 
     lately--``a lot'' being $79 billion, to be precise--dedicated solely to 
     broadband-related projects--$79 billion on top of the billions of 
     dollars the Federal Communications Commission disburses annually under 
     its Universal Service Fund. That is an unprecedented amount of money. 
     In fact, with that much money, we ought to be able to deliver gold- and 
     diamond-laced broadband to every household in the United States.
       Appropriating money is not enough. We could throw trillions of 
     dollars at the rural broadband problem and still not close the digital 
     divide. All of the money in the world is useless if it is not being 
     spent the right way. As I said, we have enough money now that we ought 
     to be able to deploy gold- and diamond-laced broadband across the 
     country, but I have serious questions about whether this money is 
     actually going to meaningfully move us toward closing the digital 
     divide. The money we currently have, as much as it is, is spread out 
     over 15 separate Agencies and 133 programs--133 programs. To say that 
     that is not conducive to a coherent rural broadband strategy would be 
     an understatement.
       Now, the lion's share of the funding does go through one Agency--the 
     National Telecommunications and Information Administration, or NTIA--
     but it is an Agency with a very poor record of efficiently disbursing 
     broadband funding. The last time Congress provided NTIA with a big 
     infusion of
     
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     broadband funding--by the way, a fraction of the funding it is now 
     responsible for--the Agency struggled with its implementation and ended 
     up overbuilding existing broadband networks, resulting in billions of 
     taxpayer dollars being spent with little to show. I have seen very 
     little to convince me that NTIA is likely to do much better this time 
     around.
       In July of last year, the NTIA called for volunteers--volunteers--to 
     help determine how to allocate the $1.5 billion that Congress had 
     provided to NTIA to improve broadband access--volunteers. Yet Congress 
     has now put the Agency in charge of distributing the $42.5 billion in 
     the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program.
       I am deeply concerned that, without serious oversight, the NTIA will 
     make and is already making similar mistakes in managing its current 
     broadband programs, which is why, earlier this month, I began an 
     oversight effort to review the numerous Federal broadband programs. The 
     oversight of how Federal broadband dollars is being spent is necessary 
     to make sure that Agencies aren't misusing billions of taxpayer dollars 
     and, most importantly, to make sure the funding is going to the areas 
     that are actually unserved.
       I have already requested input from a diverse group of stakeholders 
     to identify ways that we can improve broadband programs--and broadband 
     policy more generally--as we head into the 118th Congress, and I have 
     requested that Federal Agencies provide information on their efforts to 
     improve broadband infrastructure siting, which is a key component of 
     deploying broadband networks.
       In the new year, I will work on compiling these responses and 
     presenting stakeholders' concerns to the NTIA, to the Federal 
     Communications Commission, to the Department of Agriculture, and to the 
     Treasury Department. If changes need to be made to the programs 
     Congress has established, I will do everything that I can to hold 
     Congress and Federal Agencies accountable for making those changes so 
     that all of these programs work as effectively as possible and as 
     Congress intended.
       To expand rural broadband access and actually close the digital 
     divide, it is not enough to just appropriate money. We also need to 
     make sure that money is being spent in the right way. I am committed to 
     doing everything I can to ensure that the money that has been 
     appropriated for rural broadband actually goes to expanding access to 
     those who are currently unserved.
       I yield the floor.
       The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Washington State.
     
     
                 Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee
     
       Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I have had the honor over the past 
     several years to lead the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions 
     Committee. It is a committee that I truly feel represents the heart and 
     soul of our country's values. As I prepare to hand over the gavel now 
     to my colleague Senator Sanders in the new Congress, I want to take a 
     moment to reflect on the incredible work we have done on our committee 
     and to recognize the many people who have made it all possible, 
     especially my colleagues on the committee over the last 8 years, who 
     worked time and time again across the aisle to solve tough problems 
     together, from healthcare to education, to supporting workers and 
     retirees, and working to ensure that everyone can live with dignity and 
     respect. The issues that we tackle are the issues families across our 
     country face in their everyday lives, and they are the issues I 
     constantly hear about when I am talking with people back home in 
     Washington State.
       During my time as the top Democrat on this committee, spanning three 
     Presidential administrations, we have had so much to talk about. After 
     all, a lot can happen in 8 years, especially when you push, every day, 
     to work with your colleagues to make progress for our families.
       We have made sweeping changes to help students and families, defended 
     and expanded healthcare coverage, and worked to bring down drug costs. 
     We have updated and expanded worker training. We have helped to 
     expedite and expand our national efforts to bring cutting-edge medicine 
     to millions. We have addressed the unfair practice of surprise medical 
     bills and more--all before we worked to face the COVID pandemic.
       During our COVID response efforts, we were able to bring about the 
     largest Federal investment in childcare ever. We provided significant 
     resources to get all kids safely back in the classroom and address 
     students' academic and mental health needs, which the pandemic 
     worsened. We made historic investments to ensure seniors and people 
     with disabilities can get the care they need to live independently, and 
     we saved the pensions of over a half a million workers and retirees and 
     counting.
     
       But if I had to pick one moment that set the tone for my time in 
     leading this committee, I would have to say it was right after the 2014 
     election, when I was preparing to take over as ranking member and 
     Senator Alexander was the incoming chair. As every colleague in this 
     Chamber knows, Senator Alexander was a true partner and was always 
     wanting to sit down and find solutions to problems. For 6 years, we 
     continued the longstanding HELP tradition of finding bipartisan 
     solutions to issues, large and small.
       Early on, we sat down and found that we both were hearing from 
     schools and educators and parents who all agreed that the No Child Left 
     Behind law was not working. We had to do better. It was time to replace 
     the No Child Left Behind Act. Now, Senator Alexander, my partner across 
     the dais for 6 years, had said before that he had initially been 
     thinking of just moving forward on a partisan bill. Thank goodness that 
     did not happen. He chose to work with me. Together, we followed his old 
     80-20 rule of finding the 80 percent where we could agree and working 
     on that to help American families. Instead of staking out partisan 
     positions, we staked out common ground with a bipartisan draft bill, 
     which ultimately became the Every Student Succeeds Act.
       That was one of the first of many bipartisan breakthroughs HELP has 
     made over the last 8 years. But in following that model, it was far 
     from the last. In fact, 1 year and 3 days after President Obama signed 
     ESSA into law, he was signing another massive bipartisan HELP bill--the 
     21st Century Cures Act--a package of policies focused on advancing 
     biomedical innovation for patients and families. Our bill also included 
     sweeping mental health reforms championed by Senators Murphy and 
     Cassidy. It focused on addressing the opioid crisis, and it created the 
     Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot. We built on that work even further with our 
     2017 FDA user fee package. Even now, Senator Burr and I are 
     strengthening that legacy in our end-of-the-year package.
       Senator Alexander and I also worked with Senator Casey, Senator Enzi, 
     and others to strengthen our workforce with a bipartisan 
     reauthorization of the Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, 
     which invests in students and workers by giving them the education, 
     skills, and training they need so they can get better jobs and higher 
     wages, and it includes accountability measures to help improve programs 
     and ensure that people aren't falling through the cracks.
       In working with Senator Hassan and Senator Cassidy, we passed the No 
     Surprises Act to finally end surprise medical bills and establish new 
     price transparency rules for hospitals. Our legislation has already 
     stopped millions of people from getting hit with exorbitant bills for 
     the care they thought was covered, including 2 million patients in 
     Washington State.
       Senator Alexander and I also passed the SUPPORT for Patients and 
     Communities Act in order to fight the opioid crisis and help those on 
     the frontlines of that effort. It is painfully clear, in light of the 
     sharp rise in the youth mental health crisis and the deadly new threat 
     of fentanyl, that there is more to do here, which is why Senator Burr 
     and I have been working around the clock this year on the bipartisan 
     package of mental health and substance use disorder policies that are 
     now included in the omnibus.
       Then, of course, there was COVID-19. On the HELP Committee, we worked 
     quickly to respond to the pandemic, in the spring of 2020, with 
     historic bipartisan relief bills and regular bipartisan briefings and 
     oversight hearings to press the administration about the issues with 
     our pandemic response. The
     
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     many packages we put together addressed so many facets of our 
     response--from getting shots into arms to getting kids safely back in 
     school for in-person learning, to getting our businesses open, and to 
     getting people back to their daily lives.
       Senator Burr and I have continued to work to provide oversight of our 
     COVID response and to craft bipartisan legislation to make sure we 
     fully learn the lessons of this pandemic. That has been a life passion 
     for him. Even before the pandemic, Senator Burr was a leader on these 
     issues. As a hearing witness once put it, he is the ``papa of PAHPA,'' 
     the bill which is the foundation of our public health and pandemic 
     preparedness system. I could not have asked for a better partner across 
     the aisle to work with me on strengthening that foundation these last 2 
     years.
       I will miss Senator Burr and his passion and desire to get things 
     done. I join all of my colleagues in wishing him the best as he gets 
     some well-earned grandparent time and being jealous of how much fishing 
     he is going to be fitting in over the next few years.
       Thanks to our joint focus, we were able to include most of our 
     bipartisan PREVENT Pandemics Act into this end-of-the-year omnibus, 
     along with an impressive suite of other bipartisan bills, like the FDA 
     package I alluded to earlier, which, among other steps, includes 
     policies to address the infant formula shortage, to reform accelerated 
     approvals, and to improve diversity in clinical trials. Our FDA package 
     includes a bipartisan cosmetics reform as well. This is something we 
     have been trying to get done since Senator Kennedy was chair of this 
     committee, and I am so glad we are finally getting it across the finish 
     line.
       The omnibus also includes bipartisan deals we negotiated to bolster 
     families' financial security through greater access to retirement 
     plans, better information about fees and lump sum pension buyouts, and 
     new emergency savings accounts, and to respond to our Nation's mental 
     health and substance use disorder crisis, which the rise of fentanyl 
     has made so much worse.
       Mr. President, this is so important. I have heard from so many 
     heartbroken parents who have lost a child to suicide or to drug use, 
     too many first responders who are feeling overwhelmed by the sharp rise 
     in overdoses, too many kids who are struggling with depression and 
     stress and anxiety. Getting them help has been a priority for me all 
     year.
       The package that Senator Burr and I negotiated includes valuable 
     steps to strengthen the new 9-8-8 suicide hotline, makes it easier for 
     people to get substance use disorder treatment, helps tackle the opioid 
     crisis head-on, has critical support for mental health care for our 
     kids, and more.
       Amid all this work on the HELP Committee, I have also been fortunate 
     to have Senator Blunt as my partner on the LHHS Appropriations 
     Subcommittee. We worked on a parallel track, in a bipartisan way, to 
     provide historic support for biomedical research, more than triple the 
     size of our childcare programs, fund new CDC programs to look at issues 
     like maternal mortality and gun violence, make progress toward my goal 
     of doubling Pell grants, and more.
       I am honored to have played a part in so much progress over the past 
     few years. Of course, I could not have done it without willing partners 
     down the dais and across the aisle. I didn't always agree with Senator 
     Alexander or Senator Burr or Senator Blunt, but I have always trusted 
     them to hear me out, to understand that families sent us here to fight 
     problems, not fight each other, and to make a sincere effort to find 
     common ground.
       Speaking of common ground, Senator Burr has several lessons that he 
     actually shared in his farewell speech last week, and I want to take a 
     moment to heed one of those lessons now.
     
            Thank your staff. They are actually the reason you are 
          here. It isn't you.
     
       I couldn't agree more. We couldn't hold a single hearing or confirm a 
     single nominee or pass a single bill without them. Simply put, we 
     couldn't do our jobs without the many staff members who are so 
     dedicated to doing theirs.
       So I want to thank the nonpartisan committee staff--led by the chief 
     clerk, Chung Shek--who have supported both sides over the past 8 years, 
     helped us put together so many hearings, and allowed us to make 
     unprecedented adaptations during the COVID pandemic.
       I want to thank the staffs of Senators Alexander and Burr for their 
     cooperation and collegiality--in particular, David Cleary, and Lindsey 
     Seidman.
       Most of all, I want to thank the many, many members of my team, past 
     and present, who have done so much. There are way too many to name. I 
     am just going to name a few. I will submit the full list for the 
     record. Nick Bath, health policy director for all 8 years; Kara 
     Marchione, my education policy director; Amanda Perez, my labor policy 
     director; Kendra Isaacson, my pensions lead; Amanda Lowe, my disability 
     lead; Carly Rush, my oversight lead and general counsel; Anali Alegria, 
     my HELP communications director; and so many others, current and past--
     I want to thank them all. They have been precious to me, and I 
     appreciate their friendship, their hard work, and all they do to help 
     the American people. Of course, I want to thank our ``fearless 
     leaders''--my staff director, Evan Schatz, and deputy staff director 
     John Ryder, who have done a fantastic job steering my team over the 
     past 8 years.
       Thank you all. I am so grateful for all that you have done for me and 
     for what you have done for all the American people. It is clear that 
     you understand we aren't just writing words on a page; we are writing 
     policies that shape the lives of families across our country and the 
     future of our Nation. That means so much to me because I know what it 
     is like to be one of those families who are hanging by a thread. I know 
     just how personal the HELP Committee's work can be, what it is like to 
     try and get by on a tight budget.
       You see, my dad got sick with multiple sclerosis when I was young, 
     and that meant he couldn't work. Thank goodness the VA helped cover his 
     medical bills. So with my dad sick, my mother had to work while raising 
     seven kids. To make ends meet, she was able to take advantage of a 
     Federal work program so she could get a decent job as a bookkeeper. And 
     my brothers and sisters and I were all able to afford college thanks to 
     Federal grants and student loans. So I am here because our government 
     had our back.
       I also remember in the days before Roe a friend who was not able to 
     safely get an abortion, and ultimately she lost her ability to have 
     kids because politicians put their ideology ahead of her health.
       As a mom in tennis shoes, I got into politics to advocate for a 
     preschool program that my kids were in that the State was threatening 
     to cut.
       So this work of the HELP Committee is deeply personal to me. As a 
     former preschool teacher, as a mother, and as a grandmother, it has 
     meant so much to me to have this opportunity to lead us forward on so 
     many issues that motivated me to get involved in politics in the first 
     place.
       Now I look forward to continuing that work in the new Congress, both 
     as a member of the HELP Committee under Chair Sanders and Ranking 
     Member Cassidy and as the chair of the Appropriations Committee, 
     working alongside my friend Senator Collins.
       I plan to tackle that new role with the same approach that has proven 
     so effective over the past 8 years leading the HELP Committee because 
     there is still much work to be done to ensure that healthcare is truly 
     a right, not a privilege; that every kid can get a high-quality public 
     education; that every parent can get childcare; that every worker has a 
     living wage and a safe workplace and paid leave and a secure future; 
     and that every woman can get abortion care and make their own 
     healthcare decisions; and to tackle the harsh realities of unequal or 
     downright unfair systems that have held too many families back.
       Our Nation is facing so many crises at this moment--the childcare 
     crisis, the mental health and substance use disorder crisis, the 
     economic challenge of recovering from this pandemic, global challenges 
     like supporting our allies and standing up for democracy--and we are 
     not going to solve them by fighting each other. Our best bet for 
     meaningful progress next Congress is to work together and to listen to 
     each other.
       So I am going to continue listening to the people of Washington 
     State,
     
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     bringing their voices and their concerns here to Washington, DC, and 
     urging my colleagues to work with me to focus on making their lives a 
     little easier.
       I am going to continue coming to work every day, asking, how do we 
     help the people we all represent? How do we solve problems for 
     everyone? And who is willing to work with me?
       I yield the floor.
     
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