[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15688-15689]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              COMMENDING THE SENIOR SENATOR FROM TENNESSEE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, before I give my remarks, as I planned, I 
wish to say a brief word about Senator Alexander, the senior Senator 
from Tennessee.

[[Page 15689]]

  During my time in Congress, he has always been one of the most 
pleasant people I have dealt with. He is always very thorough in 
whatever he wants to talk to you about, and I have found him to be a 
remarkably good Senator. He has a background that is stunningly 
important--a longtime Governor of the State of Tennessee and someone 
who has served in one of the Republican administrations as Secretary of 
Education.
  This Cures bill is not everything I would wish it to be. I think it 
is too weak in some parts. I think we could have done better. But I 
have been around for a long time, and I understand what legislation is 
all about.
  We have gotten money. We have been trying for a couple years to get 
money for opioids. There should be far more, and it should be given in 
a different way than we have it here, but it is money. We have people--
as we are sitting here for a few minutes today--dying as a result of 
this scourge that is sweeping America. It is in Oklahoma, it is in 
Tennessee, and it is in places such as New Hampshire. It is all over. 
So that part of it is excellent.
  As to the resources we give the National Institutes of Health, or 
NIH, there is not enough we can do. I would hope there would be much 
more. I am pleased to report that this is the beginning of the Moonshot 
that Senator Biden will lead in research to defeat cancer. It can be 
done. We have made tremendous progress, and we are making it on a 
monthly basis now.
  There are a lot of good things in this legislation. One of the things 
that the senior Senator from Tennessee and I have spoken about is 
clinical trials. Sometimes you don't understand the importance of those 
until they could personally affect you.
  With the injury that I suffered almost 2 years ago, I am hopeful that 
in my lifetime there will be something done to be able to take care of 
retinas that are damaged. We have a lot of those that are damaged--a 
lot of retinas that are damaged as a result of diabetes and other 
maladies--but not a lot has been done on injuries to retinas. But there 
is work being done on that now.
  I had a very good meeting on Saturday with one of the foremost people 
in the world dealing with retinas, Dr. Bressler of Johns Hopkins, and 
they are doing some stuff. They are doing stem cell work. They are 
doing some transplants. They are doing some good things.
  On a very personal basis, Senator Alexander came and talked to me one 
evening. He asked if I had time. Of course, I always have time for any 
Senator who wants to see me.
  He came with tears in his eyes to talk to me about some things he had 
learned about people who had damaged their eyes and how some work is 
being done with these people who once could not see and, as in the 
Biblical passages, can now see.
  It was a very wonderful meeting, and I had the opportunity to meet 
one individual he introduced me to--a man named Doug Oliver, who was 
basically blind. Because of work done with stem cells, he can now see. 
He is off disability, he can drive a car, and he can read. He could not 
do that before.
  I appreciate it. It perhaps could have passed without him, but I 
doubt it, and I admire his legislative skills. I hope, with the new 
Congress coming, he will pull even those skills he doesn't have now out 
of his back pocket so perhaps we can do even more. There is going to be 
a lot more that needs to be done in the new Republican Congress.
  So I express my public admiration to the senior Senator from 
Tennessee for the good work he has done for his State and for the 
country for many decades.

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