[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 10544-10545]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       FIXING AMERICA'S PROBLEMS

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we will learn a lot this week about who 
wants to fix problems and who wants to make excuses. This week will be 
the seventh week the emergency unemployment insurance bill has been on 
the Senate floor. It is another week the good families in Nevada and 
across the country have to struggle to make ends meet after their 
benefits have expired--to simply cover the basics while they look for 
full-time work.
  If my friends on the other side of the aisle have their way, this 
week will be yet another week with no lifeline for the most needy--
those willing to work and who are waiting to work. The other side has 
slowed and stalled almost every piece of legislation this year, just as 
they did last year and the year before. And that is not a secret. The 
numbers don't lie and the Republicans make no efforts to hide their 
strategy of delay. That is why today they are known as the party of no.
  But that strategy has consequences. The first is unemployment 
insurance. Years of disastrous Republican policies led to the worst 
economic disaster in generations. That, in turn, led to layoffs in 
nearly every industry in every State. When millions of Americans lost 
their jobs, they lost their incomes, their homes, their savings, their 
gas money, their tuition payments, all through no fault of their own. 
Democrats aren't about to turn their backs on out-of-work Americans, 
which is why we are trying to help them keep their heads above water in 
this emergency.
  The second casualty is Medicaid funding, known as FMAP, so the 
poorest of the poor in our communities can see a doctor when they get 
sick. Many States, including the State of Nevada, have budgeted for 
this money and count on us to deliver it. Nevada is counting on more 
than $100 million. Others are waiting on billions of dollars. If we 
don't deliver, we will leave huge holes in State budgets that will be 
filled with other deep and drastic cuts affecting the basic goodness of 
our country and directly the lives of millions. Critical services from 
coast to coast will bear the burden. We have to pass this bill on the 
FMAP legislation. We have to do it to protect those services and the 
jobs they create.
  Third, this bill will fix an injustice to doctors who treat America's 
senior citizens--those on Medicare. More than a decade ago, a 
Republican-dominated Congress passed a flawed policy regarding how 
doctors are reimbursed for seeing patients on Medicare. Tomorrow, these 
doctors will see those payments drop 21 percent--that is more than one-
fifth--and it will drop overnight. That is grossly unfair to doctors 
and it is dangerous for seniors, veterans, and others they may soon no 
longer be able to treat.
  But that is not all. Many HMOs and other providers base their 
reimbursements on Medicare rates. So you don't have to be a senior 
citizen or a veteran to be affected by the sharp cut scheduled to take 
effect tomorrow.
  Some on the other side are still trying again to stand in the way. As 
I said, the doctors payment problem came out of a Congress that was 
dominated by Republicans. The Democratic Congress is determined to fix 
this.
  Let's say a word about the BP disaster. Next week will mark 2 months 
since millions of gallons of oil started gushing into the Gulf of 
Mexico. But this week will tell us a lot about who is fighting for the 
taxpayers and who is fighting for corporate America.
  The cost of the BP disaster isn't limited to the devastated waters 
and wildlife along our gulf coast. The damage extends to the lives and 
livelihoods of so many in that region--such as small businesses that 
can't operate at full speed, and the workers whose jobs are threatened 
when these businesses slow. Whether it is fishermen, shrimpers, or 
tourism businesses whose workplace--the Gulf of Mexico--has been 
polluted on such a large scale, the damages would stretch clear across 
the State of Nevada, from our California border to

[[Page 10545]]

our Utah border. Understand how big that is. Nevada is the seventh 
largest State in the Union, areawise.
  Another cost, of course, is the families forever changed when 11 men 
died in the explosion that caused the spill. Some estimate the pricetag 
for this disaster will climb to the tens of billions of dollars. But 
let's be honest: Someone is going to end up paying that bill 
eventually, but we are making sure it is not going to be the taxpayers. 
We are going to send the tab to BP.
  That is why I sent a letter yesterday to Tony Hayward, BP's chief 
executive officer. I am pleased and encouraged that the vast majority 
of Democrats we could get hold of signed their names alongside mine. We 
told Hayward we are committed to ensuring BP is held fully responsible, 
and that we refuse to ask taxpayers to bail out one of the richest 
companies in the whole world. We asked our Republican colleagues to 
join us.
  We are calling on BP to create a special accountability account--
overseen by an independent trustee--to pay for the damages from their 
historic disaster and the cost of cleaning up their catastrophe. We are 
making these demands because we don't have a lot of reason to give BP 
the benefit of the doubt. Shortly after the explosion, we learned of 
the shortcuts that led to it. We saw it all over--including a very nice 
piece they did on ``60 Minutes.'' We also recently learned BP vastly 
understated the extent and rate of the spill. And in past disasters, we 
have seen other oil companies spend millions on lawsuits and public 
relations campaigns, all designed not to compensate the businesses and 
families they hurt but to improve their profits.
  Our message to BP is as simple as this: If you drill and you spill, 
we are going to make sure you pay the bill.

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