[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 32 (Wednesday, February 29, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1106-S1142]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MOVING AHEAD FOR PROGRESS IN THE 21ST CENTURY ACT
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
Senate will resume consideration of S. 1813, which the clerk will
report by title.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 1813) to reauthorize Federal-aid highway and
highway safety construction programs, and for other purposes.
Pending:
Reid amendment No. 1730, of a perfecting nature.
Reid (for Blunt) amendment No. 1520 (to amendment No.
1730), to amend the Patient Protection and Affordable Care
Act to protect rights of conscience with regard to
requirements for coverage of specific items and services.
Mrs. BOXER. As the senior Senator from New York relinquishes the
chair to his colleague from New York, I want to thank both of them for
their amazing leadership in every issue we turn to today.
Senator Schumer's work to help us bring this transportation bill to
the floor is exemplary. And Senator Schumer knows, as Senator
Gillibrand
[[Page S1107]]
knows and every one of us knows, we cannot have a strong economy if we
cannot move goods, if we cannot move people, if commerce comes to a
halt. So we have to pass a transportation bill to make sure our
highways are adequate, our bridges are safe, our commerce can move, and
our transit systems can carry people from one place to another.
I want to say to my colleague who is now sitting in the chair,
Senator Gillibrand, that I listened to her remarks. I am very touched
by them. She talked about women's voices, and she is dedicated to
ensuring they are heard. Let me assure my friend that her voice has
been heard on this and so many other important issues. And it is an
effective voice. She was the one who came to me when the Republicans
started to say they did not think it was necessary for women to have
access to birth control with no copay through their insurance, and
said: Barbara, do you understand that a full 15 percent of women are
prescribed birth control pills because they want to avoid ovarian
cancer, they want to make sure that a cyst on an ovary does not get out
of control, they want to avoid debilitating monthly pain, and even it
is used for terrible skin conditions?
So when we hear our colleagues talk about birth control as if it is
some unnecessary prescription--although you never hear them say it when
it comes to Viagra, I would note--let me point out it is necessary. We
will be on our feet day after day, month after month, hour after hour,
and minute after minute, because we are not going to let them take away
medicine from women. Oh, no. They are not. They will not. And the women
of this country will not have it. They are engaged in this debate. They
understand it. My friend from New York has been an incredible voice.
So here we are. We are on the highway bill. You may wonder, why is it
that the Senator from New York came and talked about the issue of birth
control and women's health when we are on a highway bill? Well, here is
the news: My Republican colleagues are so intent on taking away women's
rights, rights to health care, that they insisted on having a vote to
take away these rights before they would allow the highway bill to move
forward. Can you imagine?
I think it appropriate that at this point I pay tribute to my
colleague, Senator Olympia Snowe, who has been an amazing colleague,
who has been a voice of reason, a voice of progress, over the many
years she has served. I have served with her in the House and the
Senate, I do not know, decades. I will miss Olympia Snowe. But let's
listen to what she said. She said: This place has become so polarized,
so partisan we cannot move forward.
I would submit to you that the situation we find ourselves in at this
moment is exhibit A on why someone such as Olympia Snowe is saying this
has been a privilege and a wonderful thing, but I think I am going to
move on. Because here we have a highway bill that is completely
bipartisan. And again, my colleague in the chair from New York, Senator
Gillibrand, is a very important member of the Environment and Public
Works Committee. We passed a bill out of our committee with a vote of
18 to 0. We had 100 percent support in a polarized time because
everybody understands we have to make sure we have a No. 1
transportation system, a class A transportation system in this great
country of ours, a vision that was first brought to us by Dwight
Eisenhower in the 1950s when he said, we have to be able to have a
network of national highways.
So here is a bill that comes out of the EPW Committee 100 percent
bipartisan. The section that dealt with banking comes out of the
Banking Committee 100 percent bipartisan. It comes out of the Finance
Committee very bipartisan, not 100 percent but very. And in Commerce it
had a problem, which we have rectified, and it is now bipartisan.
So four committees have done their work on the transportation highway
bill, and all of them have been bipartisan. So we come to the floor--I
think this is now the third week or the second week on the bill--the
second week on the bill--and we have gone nowhere, because in order for
us to move forward, the Republicans are insisting on a vote to take
away women's health care. So Senator Reid said to them: Fine. We will
vote on it Thursday morning. But let it be known throughout this land
what is going on.
Sometimes people tune in and they say: Oh, it is so complicated, I
cannot follow it. It is not complicated. Here is where we are: We have
a bipartisan bill, 2.8 million jobs are at stake. We have to do it. The
transportation bill is going to expire, the authorization, so we will
not have any program in place March 31. We have to do this work, and we
cannot move forward unless we have a vote on a polarizing amendment--a
polarizing amendment.
How did it come about, this polarizing amendment? It came about
because we passed the health care law that made some incredible
breakthroughs. Two of the biggest breakthroughs, I think, in that bill
is that we for the first time said to insurance companies and
employers: When you provide insurance for your people, it must include
a list of essential health care benefits and preventive health care
benefits.
Let me read you the list of essential health care benefits that
people of America are going to have unless the Blunt amendment passes
and takes this away. This is the list of essential benefits the Blunt
amendment would take away: Emergency services, hospitalization,
maternity and newborn care, mental health treatment, preventive and
wellness services, pediatric services, prescription drugs, ambulatory
patient services, rehabilitative services and devices, and laboratory
services.
These are categories of services that health insurance plans must
cover under health care reform. But if the Blunt amendment passes--and
we know it started because of birth control, but it has reached beyond
that to every single essential health benefit that any employer in this
Nation, if Blunt passes, could say: I do not want to do any of these. I
do not want to do some of these, because I have a moral objection.
So if you worked for an employer who believes that prayer is what we
need to cure illness--and by the way, that is their right. I would
fight for their right to believe that. They would be able, however, to
tell you that that is your alternative, and they do not have to provide
any of those essential health benefits in their insurance plan.
The other thing the Blunt amendment does is it says that no more
preventive health benefits will be required. Under the law, these are
the preventive health benefits that are required to be offered to you.
You do not have to take them if you are an employee who has an
objection to any of these things. You do not have to do it, but they
have to be offered to you: Breast cancer screenings, cervical cancer
screenings, hepatitis A and B vaccines, measles and mumps vaccine,
colorectal cancer screening, diabetes screening, cholesterol screening,
blood pressure screening, obesity screening, tobacco cessation, autism
screening, hearing screening for newborns, sickle cell screening,
fluoride supplements, tuberculosis testing for children, depression
screening, osteoporosis screening, flu vaccines for children and the
elderly, contraception.
Contraception is a preventive health benefit because we know it
prevents unintended pregnancies and prevents abortion and prevents
illness. Fifteen percent of people take it to prevent illness. Also,
well-woman visits, HPV testing, STD screening, HIV screening, breast
feeding support, domestic violence screening, and gestational diabetes
screening--all of these have to be provided. But if you don't want to
take contraception, you can say, no; I am not interested in that. If
you don't want to have your child to have a vaccine--personally, I
think that is terrible--but you don't have to. But that is what is
required.
Under the Blunt amendment, let's be clear. Any employer who simply
says they have a moral objection can say: Sorry, see this list. We are
not going to do 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 things here. For example, obesity
screening, we believe that is your problem, and we have a moral
objection to that. Colorectal cancer screening, I have an objection to
that because, again, my religion says it doesn't do any good.
This is why Blunt is so dangerous. It is about denying women the
absolute right to have contraception offered to them--it does that, but
it does a lot
[[Page S1108]]
more than that. Again, we are on a highway transportation bill. It is
2.8 million jobs. It came out of four committees, and it is bipartisan.
It will keep this country moving. It will keep this economy going.
Madam President, I want you to imagine one Super Bowl stadium filled
with people. Think about what that looks like in your mind's eye. Every
seat in that stadium is filled. Now imagine 15 of those stadiums
filled. That is how many unemployed construction workers there are in
this great country today.
Yes, we are making progress. Yes, President Obama took us out of the
worst recession since the Great Depression that he inherited. Yes, he
turned it around. But he and we say, we have to do more. We cannot just
say, because we are creating jobs now, it is enough. The President
knows it; we know it. We were bleeding 800,000 jobs when he took over,
and now we have stemmed it and we are creating a couple hundred jobs a
month--100,000, 200,000--thank goodness. We have created, in the last 6
months or so, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Here is the point: Why on Earth would we take a U-turn as we are on
the road to economic recovery, as we are on the road to a bill that is
absolutely necessary, and take up the issue of women's health? I am
telling you, I believe it is radical. I believe it is taking us
backward. I believe it is hurtful to women. I call on every woman,
regardless of political party, to make your voice heard against the
Blunt amendment. You are being attacked.
What the President did in dealing with the issue of contraception
showed the wisdom of Solomon. He basically said: If you are a religious
institution and you have an objection to offering contraception, you
don't have to do it. So 335,000 churches are exempt. I feel sorry for
the employees who may not agree with the church, but they work for the
church and therefore that is the rule.
Religiously affiliated hospitals and universities raised a question--
you know, they serve a broad array of people. They hire a broad array
of people, not just people of one faith but of many faiths and of many
points of view. They raised the question, saying: We don't feel
comfortable. The President came up with a compromise that has been
embraced by Catholic Charities, Catholics United, and the Catholic
Health Association. The only group that doesn't support him are the
bishops.
If I could respectfully say to them, they don't deliver the health
care services; Catholic Charities does, and the Catholic Health
Association does. They represent thousands of providers. So they have
embraced the President's compromise. But not my Republican friends.
They didn't. They want to cause trouble and take away the ability for
women to have access to contraception, without a copay--while they
support supplying Viagra to men. It is stunning.
I think this is rippling across the land. I don't know if we have the
photo--I don't think we have it on the floor--of the last panel that
was held in the House, and my friend from New York talked about it. We
do have it.
This is a picture. A picture is worth 1,000 words. This is a panel on
women's health focused on contraception. Where are the women? Where are
the women? One, two, three, four, five men; they are talking about
women's health care. Not one of them ever had a baby. Not one of them
ever had a monthly cramp. They are talking about women's health care
like they know all about it.
The chairman, Chairman Issa, didn't see immediately that there was a
problem. There was a woman sitting there, and she asked to be heard.
She said, ``I have a story to tell this panel.'' Oh, no, he didn't want
to hear from her. He said she wasn't qualified. Do you know what her
story was? It was about how a friend of hers who was denied the
contraceptive pill and instead developed a terrible tumor on her ovary.
He didn't think that was worthy of discussion.
This issue is rippling through the land. It says everything to me. We
women in the Senate are not going to allow this to go unnoticed. That
is a symbol of what is happening to women in this country. In the very
States that are passing legislation that some have dubbed ``State
rape,'' because it would require a woman to be subjected to an invasive
vaginal probe without her consent, now they are backing off. That was
the bill that almost passed in the Virginia Legislature. Now they have
said: OK, it is a sonogram. There is another way to do it. It took
women crying out and saying: Wait a minute. Are you kidding? And they
are backing off.
Well, they better back up overall because this is the 21st century.
Women should be trusted and respected and honored and believed. When
you tell a woman she needs to be lectured by some stranger on her own
personal decisions, right away you are questioning her worth. So the
issue goes so far beyond the ability to obtain birth control pills. The
issue goes so far beyond that. It really does. You can stand up here
and say it is not about women's health, it is really about religious
freedom, but as Patty Murray, my colleague from Washington, has said:
When they say it is not about contraception, it is about contraception.
Others have said: When they say it is not really about the money, it
is really about the money. When they say it is not really about
politics, it is about politics.
This is about contraception, making it difficult for women who don't
have the means to have some sense of control over their reproductive
lives and to be able to access a pill that could help them live a
healthier life and live longer and free of pain.
So they will come and say: Oh, Senator Boxer, this isn't about
contraception; it is about religious freedom. The President has taken
care of the religious objection. I described how he did it, and I will
say it again. He said if you are a religious institution, you don't
have to provide contraception. If you are a religiously affiliated
institution, there will be a way for a third party to deal with it. The
Catholic health organizations support it, Catholic Charities. He has
come up with a compromise. There is no reason to have this polarizing
debate. Everybody should have religious freedom, including the
employees, including the boss, including everybody. So no one under the
President's plan is forced to do something they don't want to do. We
just want to make sure when the Institute of Medicine tells us that
availability to contraception saves lives and protects health, women
get a chance to get it if they want. If they don't want it, they don't
have to get it. Of course not.
Again, I will end where I started, talking about my colleague Olympia
Snowe, who is retiring, not running again, because she said we are so
polarized. This is exhibit 1. We are on a transportation bill that is
bipartisan, but the other side can't let it rest, cannot move forward
on it, and cannot move to make sure our businesses and our workers have
a brighter future. Oh, no, they have to delay it.
By the way, it is not only with this birth control amendment and
women's health amendment but with other amendments that have nothing to
do with the subject. It is what makes the American people wonder what
we are doing here.
I want to show some charts that deal with transportation issues right
now. I will continue talking about Olympia Snowe for a minute. I went
through some of the issues that I worked on with her. I want to talk
about them. She and I wrote the Airline Passenger Bill of Rights Act.
We were very strong because we knew our constituents were getting stuck
on aircraft hour after hour, stuck on the tarmac, with no food, kids
screaming, nightmare scenarios, 9, 10 hours on the runway. We thought
passengers deserved a bill of rights.
We worked with outside groups, some wonderful people. Lo and behold,
it passed as part of the FAA bill that finally got enacted. We didn't
get 100 percent of what we wanted, but we got 90 percent. I was proud
to work with her.
In 2009, following a tragic Buffalo commuter plane crash, which I
know the occupant of the chair remembers, Senator Olympia Snowe wrote a
bill to implement the recommendations of the National Transportation
Safety Board to make sure these pilots get enough rest and that they
are well-trained. We were very pleased that moved forward. We worked
together--Olympia and I--on the Purple Heart for POWs to make
[[Page S1109]]
sure the Purple Heart included prisoners of war who died in captivity
and they could get that to bless their memory.
We worked together against the global gag rule.
We worked together and wrote a letter to the President--President
Obama--asking him to appoint a woman to replace Justice David Souter.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record this letter I
will be quoting from.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC, May 11, 2009.
The President,
The White House,
Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. President: The announced retirement of United
States Supreme Court Justice David Souter--an outstanding
jurist--has left you with the crucial task of nominating
someone for a lifetime appointment to our nation's highest
bench.
The most important thing is to nominate an exceptionally
well-qualified, intelligent person to replace Justice
Souter--and we are convinced that person should be a woman.
Women make up more than half of our population, but right
now hold only one seat out of nine on the United States
Supreme Court. This is out of balance. In order for the Court
to be relevant, it needs to be diverse and better reflect
America.
Mr. President, we look forward with great anticipation to
your choice for the Supreme Court vacancy.
Sincerely,
Barbara Boxer,
U.S. Senator.
Olympia J. Snowe,
U.S. Senator.
Mrs. BOXER. I am so proud of this letter we wrote together. In the
letter, we said:
The most important thing is to nominate an exceptionally
well-qualified, intelligent person to replace Justice Souter.
. . . Women make up more than half of our population, but
right now hold only one seat out of nine. . . . This is out
of balance. In order for the Court to be relevant, it needs
to be diverse and better reflect America.
Then, of course, the President nominated Sonia Sotomayor and we were
very excited about that.
So it was wonderful to work with her on that, and we worked together
on respecting human rights in Tibet and led 27 Senators in a letter to
Chinese leader Hu Jintao asking that Tibetans be respected. Regarding
women in Afghanistan, we worked together to ask Afghan leaders to
revise a law that would legalize marital rape and impose other Taliban
restrictions on Shiite women in Afghanistan.
This is just a partial list of issues I have worked on with Olympia
Snowe, and I will do a longer tribute for the record at a later time.
But, again, as I heard this news, I was first filled with worry about
her health, and I hoped she was OK. But she has clarified she
absolutely is. So I wish her nothing but the best. I know she will
always work on issues because she is so good at looking at a problem
and solving it and not thinking first whether it is Democratic or it is
Republican or where it falls on the political scales. So I have
appreciated working with her on so many of these important issues that
have come before us.
I think the Senate should take a minute to think about this in
relation to this bill. The whole world is watching us. When I say that,
I don't mean the whole world literally, but I think the country is
watching us. Why do I say that? Because 1,000 groups have endorsed our
moving ahead with this bill--a coalition of 1,075 organizations from
all 50 States. Here is what they said about this Transportation bill:
There are few Federal efforts that rival the potential of
critical transportation infrastructure investments for
sustaining and creating jobs and economic activity.
This is what they wrote. So they know this is the way to sustain and
revive economic activity. This is what is at stake: Right now, 1.8
million jobs are created because we have a transportation bill. That
bill ends March 31. So 1.8 million jobs are at stake if we don't act.
Because of the way we wrote our bill, we leveraged funding, and this
gained great bipartisan support. We have greatly increased the TIFIA
Program, which is the transportation infrastructure financing program,
which leverages funds by 30 times. Because of this, we believe we will
see another 1 million jobs created. So we are talking 2.8 million jobs
that are at stake. Yet we have an amendment on women's health. I just
keep coming back to how insane that is.
I also wish to note again the many unemployed construction workers.
Remember, I said 15 stadiums could be filled with unemployed
construction workers. This is the number: 1.48 million construction
industry workers unemployed. The unemployment rate is 17.7 percent
among construction industry workers; whereas, the national unemployment
rate is 8.3 percent. We know the housing sector is still having major
problems getting out of the funk it is in. It is tough. So we have to
do this bill.
I have a picture, just in case your mind's eye wasn't able to conjure
it up. Here is a picture of a stadium filled with about 100,000 people.
So 15 of these stadiums would basically reflect all the unemployed
construction workers.
Which are the groups that are supporting us and are they bipartisan?
Oh, my goodness. I don't think I could share with everyone a more
bipartisan list of organizations than the AAA, the American Association
of State Highway and Transit Officials, the American Bus Association,
the American Concrete Pavement Association, the American Council of
Engineering Companies, the American Highway Users Alliance, the
American Moving & Storage Association, the American Public
Transportation Association, the American Road and Transportation
Builders Association, the American Society of Civil Engineers--and it
goes on and on--the trucking association, the Metropolitan
Transportation Organizations, Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance,
Governors Highway Safety Association, International Union of Operating
Engineers, Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association, National
Asphalt Pavement Association, National Association of Development
Organizations, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Stone, Sand & Gravel
Association, National Construction Alliance.
Oh, it goes on. That is just a partial list of those 1,000-plus
organizations.
When we started our bill the Presiding Officer will remember we made
history because we had Richard Trumka, the head of the AFL CIO, sitting
next to Tom Donohue, the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Donohue
and Trumka, the odd couple. They are fighting and arguing on
everything. Yet they came together in front of our committee because
they know we will all benefit. All of America benefits when we do a
bill such as this.
I think I have shared a lot, but there is one more point. If we allow
this bill to go away, and we are stuck with an extension because the
transportation fund is not collecting enough gas tax revenues--and
there is a good-news reason for that, which is we are getting better
fuel economy and we are using public transit a lot more, so the gas tax
is not coming in at the rate it normally does--we will be down 35
percent in the fund. So right away--right away--631,000 jobs are gone.
But what is so great about our bill is that four committees, including
the Finance Committee, filled the gap in a way that was bipartisan.
Our story is a great story to tell. If I had to tell my grandkids a
story, I would say: Once upon a time in America, we didn't have a
national road system. But a Republican President named Dwight
Eisenhower had a vision. He was a general. He knew it was important to
move things in a reliable way, and he had a vision of a national
transportation system, and everybody in the country said: What a great
idea. So we started to have a bill every few years to authorize a
highway fund. Then somebody came up with the notion of it being funded
by the users, so that the gas tax would go--part of it--to this fund
and we would have enough in that fund to build our highways and our
bridges, and then, later on, our transit systems. People said: We have
a lot of wear and tear on the roads. What if a lot of people took
public transit and got out of their cars? It would be better for the
air quality. It would be better for everybody and for the state of the
roads, and so they were married up, highways and transit and bridges.
Now we have to live up to that legacy and not bog this bill down with
birth control amendments and women's health amendments and amendments
[[Page S1110]]
about Egypt or anything else. There is time for that. We don't mind
those battles but not on this bill. Infrastructure is the name of the
game. We all know it--Republicans and Democrats.
So I say, let's stop playing games with this bill, please. Let's
dispose of this birth control amendment, this women's health amendment.
It doesn't belong on here. But if that is what it takes to get us off
dead center, fine, let's go. To coin Olympia Snowe's phrase, it will be
polarizing. It will not be pretty, but we will dispose of that and then
we will move on and dispose of this bill.
I hope we will not have to face 5, 10, 20, 30 unrelated amendments. I
hope we can get it down to a small number and move on. Let's pass this
bill, lift the workers and lift our businesses. Every dollar, almost--
most of the dollars--goes straight to the private sector through our
States, through our local entities.
Then let's hold our head up high when we go home. So when I go to the
supermarket I don't have people coming to me and saying: What is going
on over there? Birth control on a highway bill. What, are you kidding?
I don't want to have those conversations every time I go to the
supermarket. What are these guys thinking, they say. I say: I don't
know. I can't speak for them. I think it is an agenda that appeals to
the far right of this Nation. It is not a mainstream way to go.
In closing now, for those who say Republicans and Democrats never
work together, that is not true. Senator Inhofe and I are as far away
from each other politically as two human beings can get, but we teamed
up and put aside our ideologies, put aside our pet peeves, put aside
things that, perhaps in our hearts, we truly wanted to do on this bill,
and we met in the middle. He was over here and I was over here and we
ended up right in the middle. We said: We can do this, and we proved we
could do it. It was a challenge that was put to us by the leadership of
both our parties and we met that test and other committees met that
test.
So here we are. Are we now to say to committee chairs and ranking
members, Republicans and Democrats alike, forget about it? It is not
worth it. Work your heart out.
I pay tribute to my staff, my Democratic staff, and to Senator
Inhofe's Republican staff. They worked night after night after night to
come together on this bill. Then we were given an assignment 2 weeks
ago to resolve the germane amendments and they have come together and
they have resolved I don't know how many but dozens of amendments. So
is the message, work your little hearts out, have your staff give up
their nights with their families and come up with a bipartisan bill and
all of a sudden have it subjected to some polarizing amendments that
have nothing to do with the subject?
Please, let's not see this bill go down. Because if this bill goes
down, let me tell you, I, for one, will go to as many cities as I can
and counties in this country and tell the truth about what happened.
There is no reason for us not to get this done, especially when we have
the Chamber of Commerce working with the AFL CIO, we have Republican-
leaning business organizations working with Democratic-leaning worker
organizations all throughout this country--over 1,000 of them. I talk
to them every week to say thank you to them for keeping the pressure on
all of us to keep moving forward. When we have that kind of
bipartisanship in our committees, when we have that type of bipartisan
bill on the floor, when we have that type of bipartisan support in the
country, it is time to move forward and get the job done for the
American people.
I thank the Chair, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the
quorum calm be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
A Second Opinion
Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I come to the floor today as I do week
after week to talk about the health care law and offer a doctor's
second opinion about this health care law. I do that as someone who has
practiced medicine in Wyoming, taking care of families across the
Cowboy State for about a quarter of a century, and I do it today
because we are now approaching the second anniversary of the
President's health care law, and, as predicted by many on my side of
the aisle, the negative results continue to roll in and billions of
taxpayer dollars continue to roll out.
Each week we learn more about how this law is going to break another
one of the President's promises. He made a lot of promises, one of
which is he said it would not add a dime to the deficit. It is now
clear that the White House and Democrats in Congress completely
underestimated--possibly intentionally but certainly vocally
underestimated--how much the President's new entitlement program is
going to cost the American people.
I come week after week because Nancy Pelosi said, ``First you have to
pass it before you get to find out what is in it.'' This past week a
story came out that talks about the high-risk pools, designed and
established to cover people who were not able to buy health insurance
in the individual market prior to the health care law. The goal was
admirable. The plan, though, they came out with was horrible.
First, the new Obama high-risk plans created more bureaucracy, more
government, and undermined what States like mine, Wyoming, were already
successfully doing.
Next, the White House and the Democrats who crammed this bill through
Congress and down the throats of the American people set aside $5
billion for this program. The money was supposed to last, they said,
until 2014--no problems. The bad news is that the Medicare's Chief
Actuary, the official who actually tracks the spending that goes on as
a result of this law, estimates now that the funding could run out much
earlier than expected.
Last week the Washington Post explained how this could happen. It
reported that ``medical costs for enrollees in the health-care law's
high-risk insurance pools are expected to more than double initial
predictions''--more than double the initial predictions by the
Democrats who voted for this health care law. So the cost for enrollees
are expected to be more than double what the White House and the
Democrats predicted when they drafted the law, as the American people
remember, behind closed doors.
The President promised this would be open--C SPAN--people would be
able to see the discussions and the debates. Everything was done behind
closed doors. Yet our debt as a nation continues to skyrocket. It is
completely unsustainable, and it is irresponsible. You know, it could
have been prevented if the White House and Congress had just let the
American people participate in the process.
So here we are, 2 years later, a second anniversary coming up of a
health care law, a law that the American people are now learning what
is in it because, as Nancy Pelosi said, ``First you have to pass it
before you get to find out what is in it.''
The American people also know that this administration and this
President and this Congress used about every budget trick and
accounting gimmick in the book to turn it into law. They ignored the
real costs, they ignored the red flags, and they ignored reality. Two
years later, the American people understand that we cannot afford the
high cost of the President's health care law and health care mandates.
The longer it stays in place, the more expensive it will get.
That is one of the reasons Americans from both sides of the aisle are
speaking out against this health care law. When I say both sides of the
aisle, I want to talk about a recent USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. This was
Monday's--Monday, February 27--USA TODAY, front-page story, right at
the top: ``Health Care Law Hurts Obama.''
My concern is that the health care law is hurting the American
people. That is what the impact of this law is. It is hurting the
American people.
What the poll shows is that a clear majority of registered voters
call the bill's passage ``a bad thing.'' They support its repeal if a
Republican wins the White House in November.
Eleven percent of voters in battleground States have said the law has
actually helped their families, but 15 percent say it has hurt them.
Looking
[[Page S1111]]
ahead, they predict by a number of 42 percent to 20 percent, so two to
one, that the law will make things worse rather than better for their
families and for their lives.
Americans overwhelmingly believe the individual mandate, which is a
key part of the Obama health care law, is unconstitutional, the mandate
that every American must buy insurance. Americans believe it is
unconstitutional by a margin of 72 percent to only 20 percent. An
overwhelming number of Americans believe that what this Senate and the
House, under Democratic control, and the President in the White House,
Barack Obama, have forced on the American people--they believe, and I
agree with them--is unconstitutional. Even a majority of Democrats and
a majority of those who think the health care law is a good thing
believe that provision--that people across the country be forced to buy
health insurance or to buy any product--is unconstitutional.
Instead of heaping more debt on the backs of the American people, we
need to repeal the law. We need to replace it with health care reform
that allows Americans to have a bigger say, a patient-centered health
care approach.
It is interesting. When you look at this USA TODAY article, there is
a picture of a family, a father and mother and three children. Robert
Hargrove of Sanford, NC, said: You have to have insurance or pay a
penalty? ``That is not the way the country was set up.''
That tells the story I heard around the State of Wyoming last week as
I traveled, as other Members traveled around their home communities,
their home States. They remember the President's promises. He promised,
No. 1, that the cost of insurance for families would go down. The
President promised it would go down by $2,500 per family per year. That
is not what the American people have seen in the last 2 years since it
has been passed. They remember the President promising that if you like
the care you have and the insurance you have, you can keep it. That is
not what American families are finding. Broken promise after broken
promise.
Now, with the Chief Actuary coming out this past week in the
Washington Post, reporting that the high-risk pool is doubling the
costs that were predicted--once again, the President promised that it
would not add a dime to the deficit--another broken Obama promise.
Here we are. I go to townhall meetings, visit with people, and ask
for a show of hands: How many of you believe that under the President's
new health care law, your costs are going to go up? Every hand goes up.
Obviously, they do not believe what the President has told them.
How many of you believe that as a result of the new health care law,
actually the quality of your care and the availability of your care
will go down? Again, every hand goes up.
It is not what the President promised the people of this country.
That is why, when the USA TODAY headline on Monday says ``Health Care
Law Hurts Obama,'' my concern is that it is hurting the American
people. People asked for health care reform in this country. What they
asked for was the care they need, from the doctor they want, at a cost
they can afford. This health care law has provided none of those
things. This health care law is bad for patients, it is bad for
providers--the nurses and the doctors who take care of those patients--
and it is terrible for the American taxpayers. That is why I come to
the floor week after week with a doctor's second opinion, saying it is
time to replace this health care law with reforms that will put health
care under the control of patients--not insurance companies, not
government, but under the control of patients.
Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken). The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. BROWN of Massachusetts. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent
that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Crowdfunding
Mr. BROWN of Massachusetts. Good morning to you, Mr. President, and
everybody in the gallery. I wanted to thank Majority Leader Reid for
highlighting next week's Banking Committee hearing on small business
growth. It is something all of us have a very dear and great concern
with. One of the issues that will be discussed is a concept called
crowdfunding. People may be saying: What is crowdfunding? Well, if you
ever wished that you had the opportunity to invest in a Facebook or a
Google or new idea before they hit it big, wouldn't that be nice? We
would all be multibillionaires. My Democratizing Access to Capital
bill, S. 1791, would expand entrepreneurs' access to capital by
democratizing access to startup investing so they can have the funds to
grow and create jobs.
The House passed a crowdfunding bill 407 to 17. So you know they must
be on to something when they can pass something in such a bipartisan
manner. The President referenced it in his State of the Union. He
supports crowdfunding, and public support for crowdfunding is, in fact,
exploding.
On Monday I hosted a roundtable in Boston at City Hall on small
business access to capital, and I listened to small business owners and
entrepreneurs and investors to get their thoughts and concerns about
business growth, about investing, about the access to capital, and it
was a very successful event. They all had one thing to say and that
was: If we can't get behind the bipartisan, commonsense idea of
crowdfunding, then what can we actually agree upon and how can we
expect small businesses to grow?
With such strong support, I believe we should put, once again,
partisan politics aside and focus on what we can do to help small
businesses as we have done with the 1099 fix, the 3-percent
withholding, the Hire a Hero Act, the most recent insider trading STOCK
Act. All of my bills, all the things I have worked on, we did in a
bipartisan manner. When the leader let them come to the floor and
allowed us to work them through, they passed 96 to 3 and 100 to 0. It
shows that the Senate can work together regardless of our political
differences, our geographical locations, our belief on where we are
because we are Americans first. These are things the business
communities are looking at to move our country forward.
Next Monday I am hosting a roundtable with an entity called Wefunder,
a group of innovators who started a petition for my bill to discuss
crowdfunding. Their petition currently has 2,500 supporters who would
invest over $6 million today if businesses had the opportunity to
participate in crowdfunding, but right now it is illegal.
My bill is a commonsense bill, and I want to note that Senator
Merkley has also introduced a different crowdfunding bill. It is a good
start, but we can do a little bit more. I have reached out to his
staff, and I have asked my staff to continue to do that. So I think we
can work together as Senator Gillibrand and I have, and Senator Cochran
and Senator Collins worked on the recent insider trading bill. We can
do the same with Senator Merkley if he is willing and if the leader
allows us to put those political party differences aside and actually
work on something for the benefit of our country.
Today I am going to talk about some important principles that I
believe are critical to making crowdfunding legislation a success. For
crowdfunding to actually work, we need a national framework, which my
bill creates. If we require entrepreneurs to comply with every separate
State securities law mandate, filing the appropriate paperwork alone
would cost over $15,000. That is the reason we don't have this type of
situation. In my bill we don't have small business owners being able to
give up to $1,000 per person, up to $1 million to invest in that next
new idea with minimal SEC filings and minimal secretary of state
filings. It is something that makes sense. We should not be burdening
our startup businesses, which is where the largest growth is in this
country right now, with costly quarterly reporting requirements. We
might as well go through the whole process of the full SEC filings. It
is not appropriate, especially until they are fully off the ground.
The point of crowdfunding is to allow entrepreneurs to flourish, not
to bog
[[Page S1112]]
them down in an avalanche of paperwork and bureaucracy and redtape.
That is why we are in this mess somewhat, because of the
overregulation, the continued regulatory and tax uncertainty when it
comes to planning and growing businesses.
In addition, I believe our existing fraud laws are solid; we just
need to enforce them. Exposing startup founders to new personal
liability is not going to work. It will create a real wet blanket on
everything we are trying to do here from thousands of investors who are
investing only a maximum of $500 to $1,000 and to have them also put in
a personal guarantee for a $500 investment. How does that make any
sense whatsoever, a quarterly filing, a personal liability guarantee
for a $500 investment? This makes no sense at all. This will cause
investors to use crowdfunding only when there is no other option
available and will leave them to switch out crowdfunding investors for
venture capital firms at the first opportunity, therefore, I believe,
stifling that crowdfunding opportunity.
There was a recent article I read in which Canada's Government is
deeply concerned about us actually doing this because they are fearful
that Canadian money will be flowing into the United States. Wouldn't it
be nice for once to have money flowing into the United States on
something that will actually create small business growth in our great
country? So recognizing that investors need protection, my bill does
require entrepreneurs to offer their securities through regulated
crowdfunding intermediaries.
In addition, my bill requires intermediaries to facilitate
communication between investors and the offerors. I believe Senator
Merkley and I have the same concerns in this regard which I believe can
be addressed without creating a private right of action. It is not
necessary especially for the amount of money we are talking about and
the new business growth opportunities we can actually stimulate.
Crowdfunding depends on small investments by many, which is why we
must exempt crowdfunding securities from the 500 shareholder cap so we
don't create additional redtape for startups. It makes total sense.
Everyone talks about overregulation of small business and how that is
hurting their growth. I see it, you see it where you live, Mr.
President, and in legalizing--let me repeat--in legalizing crowdfunding
I believe we can still provide for the appropriate level of regulation
but also give small businesses the access to capital they so
desperately need.
This is a home run all over the place, and once again I am very
pleased the majority leader has taken an additional step to call for
the hearing on crowdfunding. When he talked about this issue, he
referenced Senator Merkley's bill. I also have a bill. So why don't we
do it as we did it with the insider trading bill, the Hire a Hero, the
3-percent withholding, the 1099, the Arlington Cemetery bill? All of
those things, when we were allowed to work in a truly bipartisan
manner, we were able to get done. With all due respect, there is no
Republican bill that is going to pass right now, and I know that shocks
some people. There is no Democratic bill that is going to pass either.
It needs to be a bipartisan, bicameral bill that the President is going
to sign. That is what I offer, is that olive branch, that one good deed
that begets another good deed and moves us forward to addressing our
very real problems in a truly bipartisan manner as Americans first and
not as Republicans or Democrats.
I would ask the majority leader to also include my bill when he is
moving forward because otherwise I am fearful nothing will move
forward. So I am looking forward to not only working with Senator
Merkley but working with the majority leader and his team. When I was
working on the insider trading bill, which was my bill and Senator
Gillibrand's bill that we combined, we found that common ground. We
worked together, we managed the floor, we had an open amendment
process. Everybody walked out of here saying: That was nice. When was
the last time we did that? Remember? That was unbelievable. Everyone
had a role. Even Senator Kirk, who is recovering, had a role to play
and it was good to see him. We can even do it in this bill.
Mr. President, I thank you for the time. I yield the floor at this
time. I see that we have a speaker all ready to go as well.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Amendment No. 1520
Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time from 2
to 4 p.m. be equally divided, with Senator Blunt or his designee in
control of the first hour and the majority side controlling the second
hour.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, I wish to say a few words today about the
amendment that is being called the Blunt amendment, the purpose of
which I will read from the amendment, to amend the Patient Protection
and Affordable Care Act, to provide rights of conscience with regard to
requirements for coverage of specific items and services.
I oppose this amendment, and I wish to be very clear today as to why
I oppose this amendment. This is not a bill that attempts to address
the necessary divide between church and state.
Let me say that a little more specifically. This is not an amendment
that addresses the necessary divide between the establishment of
religion or the free exercise thereof as outlined in the first
amendment of our Constitution, which is a concept I care deeply about.
This amendment, by definition, attempts to widen the restrictions on
our laws from the necessary divide between church and state into the
unknown and often indefinable provinces of an individual's personal
definition of conscience. The amendment is clear on this point. It is a
preamble in which it lists its findings, talks repeatedly about the
rights of conscience, not the separation of church and state. It
invokes Thomas Jefferson's view of the rights of conscience against the
enterprise of civil authority. It addresses the purported flaws of the
current health care law in terms of governmental infringement on the
rights of conscience of insurers, purchasers of insurance, planned
sponsors, beneficiaries, and other stakeholders. It then mandates that
the right to provide, purchase, or enroll in health care coverage must
be consistent with the religious beliefs or the moral convictions of
these stakeholders.
Again, let me be clear: This language goes well beyond the
constitutional requirement of separation of church and state into the
area of legislative discretion. Quite frankly, it would be the same
thing as Congress saying that not only should religious establishments
be exempted from taxation under the doctrine of separation of church
and state, but also that anyone who has a moral objection that they can
define to paying taxes should not be required to pay them either. There
is a place for this type of conduct in our legal framework. It has a
long history. It is called civil disobedience. The act of civil
disobedience is protected by our Constitution, but the ramifications
are not. Unless there are clear constitutional protections, legal
accountability remains.
The effect of this amendment on its face would be that any
stakeholder could decide to deny health care benefits to any individual
on the very loose definition that to provide such care somehow would
violate a personal definition of one's moral convictions. In other
words, any provider could potentially deny a wide range of benefits to
anybody.
This is a vaguely drafted and potentially harmful amendment. It is
not about protecting religious institutions or protecting the clear
objective and understandable parameters of religious belief. It should
not be approved.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
Mr. TESTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Farm Labor
Mr. TESTER. Mr. President, I thank the Presiding Officer. I also
thank the floor managers of the highway bill for allowing me a couple
minutes and to let them know how appreciative I am of their efforts to
move forward on an important piece of legislation--the highway
legislation. Nothing creates jobs and makes our economy stronger in the
long run than responsibly investing in our infrastructure. So I thank
Senator Boxer and Senator
[[Page S1113]]
Inhofe for their good work and, hopefully, that good work will come to
fruition very soon.
Last September, the Department of Labor published new child labor
regulations. They would have the effect of restricting how young folks
are able to work on farms. I am deeply concerned about these new rules
which will keep teenagers from working on farms and ranches.
As the Senate's only working farmer, I know how important it is for
young people to have the opportunity to work on farms and ranches. I am
not alone in that belief. There are many folks here who understand the
value of family farm agriculture. Growing up on the same farm that my
grandparents homesteaded nearly a century ago--well, it was a century
ago this year--my brothers and I were expected to bail the hay, pick
rocks, feed the livestock, do field work, and the list goes on and on.
That work ethic that was instilled in us as youngsters is a big part of
my success today. It was that work ethic that built this Nation and
that work ethic which I think is critical to the future of America. The
skills young people learn from working on a family farm translate into
a healthy work ethic that will serve them their entire lives, whether
they choose to be in agriculture or in some other business.
Family farm agriculture is one of the foundations of this country,
and irresponsibly regulating the ability of young people to fully
experience and grow from it will be detrimental to this country's
future. I know firsthand that agriculture is uniquely a family industry
in the United States, in Montana, and throughout rural America. Young
people are expected to help out on the family farm or ranch. That is
part of the economics of family agriculture. For smaller farms and
ranches to survive, it has to be everybody pitching in. By
participating in production agriculture, young people learn the value
of a day's work. They also learn that grain doesn't come from a box or
vegetables don't come from a bag or meat doesn't come from a package.
They truly get educated about where our food comes from while they
build that work ethic.
These new rules get in the way of that education. That is because
these rules were not written with a solid understanding of how family
production agriculture works today. We are losing family farms every
day in my hometown of Big Sandy, for example. In that community, I went
to school with about 40 kids or so in my high school class. Today there
are about 60 kids in the entire high school. That is because family
farms are getting bigger, and there are fewer folks living in rural
America. We ought to encourage beginning farmers and ranchers,
preparing them to be our next generation of food producers in this
country.
The proposed rules would expand restrictions on what duties teenagers
can perform on farms, limiting them. Under these new rules, all animal
operations would be off limits until a person reaches 16 years of age.
That is a sad day, a missed opportunity, and a loss of an opportunity
for our young folks to learn.
I am calling on the Department of Labor to withdraw this proposal as
it applies to family farm agriculture and allow this country's youth to
learn a solid work ethic. The common sense that goes with that work
ethic is so critically important to our Nation's future.
With that, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Udall of New Mexico). Without objection,
it is so ordered.
The Senator from Louisiana is recognized.
Mr. VITTER. I thank the Chair.
(The remarks of Mr. Vitter pertaining to the introduction of S. 2138
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills
and Joint Resolutions.'')
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana is recognized.
Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I would ask, what is the pending business
before the Senate?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Blunt amendment No. 1520.
Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I rise to object to the Blunt amendment. I
believe this amendment is extreme and it would undermine the delicate
balance between religious freedom and a woman's health. It would be a
mistake. It goes too far. It would allow any employer to prevent a
woman's access to mammograms, prenatal care, even vaccinations or any
other form of preventive care. In Montana, my State, 62,000 women could
lose access to preventive care. I am here to say that is wrong, and I
am going to go to bat for them. I think a woman should decide for
herself and her family what preventive care makes the most sense for
her.
As Americans, we believe in individual liberties and equal access to
health care. Current policy upholds those values. It preserves the
integrity of a woman's freedom and the right to access all health care
services. It protects the religious liberties that so many Americans,
including myself, value. And that is why both faith-based and health
communities support this policy--not the Blunt amendment but the
current policy. The Blunt amendment would overturn this. It would allow
any corporation or health plan to deny women and their families access
to preventive health care for almost any reason. It is written so
broadly that an employer or an insurance company could deny access to
preventive care for virtually any reason. That is not right.
I urge my colleagues to vote against the Blunt amendment. I urge them
to protect the health of all Americans. That includes our mothers,
wives, sisters, and daughters in Montana and across the country.
In Montana, we are very proud to have sent the first woman to
Congress--Ms. Jeannette Rankin--in 1916. We have a very strong
tradition in our State of respecting women--women who are not only the
hearts of our families but are also those providing the fabric of our
communities. When we support women's health, we are supporting healthy
communities that could be strong for our kids and our grandkids.
Let's uphold our values of liberty. Let women choose for themselves
individually. It is their responsibility what preventive care they
think makes the most sense for them. And let's treat all Americans
fairly. Let's defend against discriminatory health insurance practices,
and let's do so while protecting everyone's fundamental rights.
Mr. President, on another matter, I ask unanimous consent to speak as
in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BAUCUS. In ``Common Sense,'' the American patriot Thomas Paine
wrote in 1776 as follows:
The landholder, the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant,
the tradesman, and every occupation, prospers by the aid
which each receives from the other, and from the whole.
Common interest regulates their concerns, and forms their
law. Common interest produces common security.
In the 240 years since Paine's pamphlet helped define who we are as
Americans, our transportation system has become the cornerstone of our
common interest. There are few things under the Sun that are not
impacted by our highways, our roads and bridges, and our transit
systems, yet we can too easily take our network for granted.
A recent Rockefeller Foundation survey found that two-thirds of all
respondents believe America should invest more in infrastructure. It is
a common interest. That same survey found that two-thirds of all
Americans believe they should not have to pay any more for this
increase in infrastructure investment. That means we have to rise to
the challenge in Congress to come up with a highway bill that invests
in infrastructure without asking folks to pay more than their fair
share.
According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Transportation Performance
Index, we could lose nearly $340 billion in potential economic growth
over the next 5 years if we do not pass a highway bill and provide the
certainty our economy needs. Let me make that statement again. We could
lose $340 billion in potential economic growth over the next 5 years if
we do not pass a highway bill and provide the certainty our economy
needs.
Our transportation system depends on substantial investments from the
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Federal Government. This investment consistently yields a big return
for American jobs. In my home State of Montana, the last highway bill
created or sustained more than 18,000 good-paying jobs, and nationwide
it put approximately 35,000 people to work for every $1 billion
invested. So for every $1 billion invested, it created 35,000 jobs.
These are not just statistics, these numbers represent families able to
put food on the table. They are good jobs. These numbers represent
small businesses able to attract new customers.
I know these types of investments work because I spent a day working
alongside a road construction crew on Amsterdam Road in Bozeman. They
showed me the ropes of running a road grader, a paver, and an
excavator. I might say, the grader was really up to date. All I had to
do was get in the grader, move forward, and it was guided by a GPS
system that raised the blade, turned the blade, tilted the blade at
exactly the right location, and it was a perfect line I made down that
road, whereas if I had had to do it by myself, it would have been a
mess. The GPS made it work. During the workday, I talked to about a
dozen workers who said their families depended on the project for their
livelihood. It was very impressive. Their work also had a major impact
on the community because Amsterdam Road is one of the most traveled
roads in the area.
Investing in our transportation infrastructure is investing in our
families and our economy. It is an investment. It yields great returns.
It pays dividends. This bill seeks to maintain that investment through
2013; that is, the underlying bill that is before us--not the Blunt
amendment but the underlying bill. I would prefer a longer period of
time in the underlying bill to provide greater certainty. We are
already 2 years past due. We have had lots of extensions. We must work
together now to get something done at least until the end of next year,
and a 2-year bill provides the compromise we need to get there.
I have worked on this bill for about 4 years from the leadership
perspective of two different Senate committees: the Environment and
Public Works Committee, which provided the authorization for roads,
highways, bridges, and various forms of nonmotorized transportation,
and the Finance Committee, which provided the money so we can have the
proceeds and the resources to pay for these highways.
From the perspective of investment, I can tell you firsthand that
this bill specifically focuses on those programs that are truly in our
shared national interest. It consolidates nearly 90 road programs down
to approximately 30. Consolidating 90--lots of individual, separate
programs that kind of divide our country, didn't bring us together--to
30--30 programs that rely on the highway trust fund.
This bill also focuses on dramatically improving our national
capacity for data-gathering and data-sharing--desperately needed. We
sought to enable States to address safety and mobility difficulties by
seeing what solutions have worked in other States. More data will help
them better answer those questions. For example, why in some States--my
State of Montana--is the highway fatality rate 2\1/2\ times the
national average? There are a lot of ideas, but what are the real
reasons? We need data to find out.
This bill creates for the first time a dedicated freight program to
address interstate commerce.
The bill extends a program called TIFIA. That is a lending program
that leverages private sector investment, good investment, building
roads and bridges. History tells us that every $1 we put in can
leverage $30 in private sector investment.
This bill has no earmarks--no earmarks. Senators Boxer, Inhofe,
Vitter, and I worked hard to achieve agreements, and I thank my
colleagues who serve on the Environment and Public Works Committee for
unanimously approving this bill and its reforms--unanimously.
I especially would like to applaud Chairman Boxer and Ranking Member
Inhofe for their leadership. They worked very hard, and they worked
together. Sometimes people think Washington can't work together. Let me
tell you, I have watched these two people work very closely together.
They were a team to get a highway bill here before the Senate.
Next, from the perspective of the Finance Committee, the bill
provides the highway trust fund with sufficient funding to last at
least until the end of fiscal year 2013. The highway trust fund simply
does not bring in enough revenue from traditional funding sources, such
as the fuel tax, to meet our national needs. As a result, Democrats and
Republicans on the committee had to look elsewhere to ensure for the
short term that we could maintain current levels of Federal investment.
In the long term, we should use the opportunity to decide what we want
for a transportation network in the 21st century. So we are going to
pass this short-term bill, and while we are passing this short-term
bill, we have to give a lot of thought to what we want to do for the
long term. We should use that opportunity to decide what makes the most
sense for the 21st century. Where we could apply unused fuel tax money
that currently goes to the leaking underground storage tank trust fund
surplus, the Finance Committee did so with support from Democrats and
Republicans. And where we transferred money from the general fund to
the highway trust fund, we sought to backfill the general fund by
closing tax gaps or focusing on tax scofflaws.
It is important that we make sure the highway bill stays focused on
supporting the economy. In Montana, our highways are our lifeblood. We
are a highway State. We log a lot of hours at the wheel. It is a part
of who we are. We are the fourth largest State in the Nation for land
mass, but we have fewer residents than Rhode Island, the smallest State
in size.
My friend the former Senator Mike Mansfield said in 1967:
Montanans are formed by the vastness of a state whose
mountains rise to 12,000 feet in granite massives, piled one
upon another as though by some giant hand. To drive across
the state is to journey, in distances, from Washington, DC,
north to Toronto, or south to Florida. In area, we can
accommodate Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and
New York, and still have room for the District of Columbia.
Yet, in all this vastness, we are . . . less than a million
people.
A few weeks ago, we just tipped the needle on 1 million residents. I
might say, I am not sure we are happy about that. Some of us want to be
under 1 million in population and some kind of like 1 million. It is a
big debate in our State: Should we be 1 million or less than 1 million?
Nonetheless, we lack the population to make the necessary investments
in Federal aid roads and interstates by ourselves, and we shouldn't
have to do so. Montana alone could not support the Interstate Highway
System--we couldn't do it--or the other national highways in our State.
We don't have the people. With more than 10 million visitors annually
and with the majority of our truck traffic originating and ending out
of State, we rely on the Federal program with good reason: It is in our
common interest--in the interest of Montana, in the interest of all
those folks who transport freight across our State, and in the interest
of people who want to visit Glacier Park or Yellowstone Park. It is in
our common interest.
I am here to say that the more we keep our eye on the ball, with a
transportation bill that keeps our common interests in mind, the more
successful we will be.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant majority leader.
Mr. DURBIN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum
call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Midwest Storms
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, overnight and early this morning parts of
my home State of Illinois and our adjoining State of Missouri were
pummeled by severe storms and tornadoes. While the total extent of the
damage is not yet known, it is clear that southeastern Illinois was hit
hard by at least one tornado and heavy storms. The
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towns of Harrisburg in Saline County and Ridgway in Gallatin County
have suffered terrible damage. Several people in Harrisburg have died
as a result of these tornadoes. The earliest reports suggest 10 deaths.
The exact number will not be known for some time. More than 100 other
people in this area are reported to have suffered serious injury.
This is an indication of some of the damage and devastation in
Harrisburg. Between 250 and 300 homes in nearby Gallatin County have
also been damaged. An estimated 25 Harrisburg-area businesses are
damaged or destroyed, including a Walmart and a strip mall that were
hit by the tornado.
This next photograph is an indication of some of the terrible
devastation that took place. Three bodies have been recovered from the
field behind the Walmart, and survivors are still being pulled from the
wreckage of the building. Most roads in Harrisburg have been closed.
People are going door to door to check. The reports are positive in
terms of the accountability.
The Harrisburg Hospital has received damage itself. Yet the personnel
have done a heroic job in setting up triage stations throughout the
hospital after this devastation. Hospital officials are asking that all
nonemergency cases that are unrelated to the severe weather go to other
hospitals. The hospitals are only taking in those who are injured and
asking family members to wait outside because of the limited facilities
available. Patients in the hospital's B wing, which suffered heavy
damage, are being evacuated to Evansville, Indiana's Deaconess
Hospital, which has called in all available staff.
The First Baptist Church in Harrisburg is being used as a shelter,
and I am sure everyone in that community--a wonderful community in
southern Illinois--is pitching in to give a helping hand. Harrisburg
schools, obviously, are canceled for the week. Ridgway is nearby, and
no one is being allowed to visit the town at this point. Between 50 and
60 homes in Gallatin County have been destroyed.
I have an early photograph of some of the scenes there that show the
damage to this historic church. Historic St. Joseph Church, and at
least one business, the Gallatin County Tin Shoppe, have been leveled
by this tornado.
This last photograph is of the same church before the storm, which is
an indication of what happened. This is an historic church which many
of us are well aware of. It has served the Catholics in this community
for many years.
Between 9,000 and 13,000 people are without electricity because of
the storm damage. The Illinois Emergency Management Agency is hard at
work clearing debris and roads. Governor Pat Quinn has activated a
state emergency operations center to help with the damage, and he and
Jonathan Monken of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency are on
their way to the scene this afternoon.
My heart goes out to all of the people in Harrisburg who have lost
loved ones. We are keeping in close contact with the people on the
ground, working together with my colleague Senator Mark Kirk's office
here in Washington. They share our concern for the devastation, damage,
suffering, and death associated with this, and both Senator Kirk and I
have extended to the State of Illinois our willingness to help in any
way possible.
My thoughts are with the residents of these hard-hit towns, with the
first responders, and the Red Cross volunteers who are always on the
scene and who are working to assess the damage and help those who have
been injured. Jonathan Monken had a conference call with many members
of the Illinois congressional delegation a short time ago. He assures
us that all requests for State and FEMA assistance are being met at
this moment. We will continue to make the promise that that will be
true in the future as well.
My staff and I are in contact with local officials, including
Harrisburg Mayor Eric Gregg; the mayor of Ridgway, Becky Mitchell;
State Senator Gary Forby; and State Representative Brandon Phelps. I,
along with Senator Mark Kirk, am committed to help do everything
possible to help communities respond to and help with this disaster.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cardin). The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, my colleague, the Senator from Illinois,
and I live in a part of the country where these terrible weather
events--tornadoes and other things--are not unusual for us. But as
Senator Durbin has pointed out, we did have them last night in a number
of places in southern Missouri, including Branson, the tourism strip,
at one theater and one tourism location after another, as well as in
Branson, Lebanon, Dallas County, and other places in southern Missouri.
We had way too much experience with this last year.
As my friend has pointed out, the Federal Emergency Management people
are quickly there. We had a year of experience with this, particularly
after the Joplin tornado. They were terrific. We want to remember too
the first responders are always our neighbors, and neighbors are coming
forward to help families whose houses were lost and possessions were
scattered, and even in this particular case where there are occasions
where people are injured and lives have been lost as well.
Senator McCaskill and I join with Senator Kirk and Senator Durbin in
their efforts in this regard.
Amendment No. 1520
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy with
my Republican colleagues for 60 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I wish to talk about an amendment that has
had lots of attention. It is an amendment that I offered on the floor a
couple of weeks ago. We weren't able--the leader didn't want to get to
it at the time, but the majority leader brought it up for me yesterday,
and I am glad he did. I am glad we are able to talk about it.
This is an amendment that would allow religious belief or moral
conviction to be an important factor in whether people comply with new
health care mandates. We have long had this exemption for hiring
mandates. In fact, when I served in the House of Representatives, I had
been the president of a Southern Baptist university and I understood
the importance of these institutions, I thought, in maintaining their
faith distinctions as part of why they provide education and health
care and daycare and other things. So I have long been an advocate of
the principle that the Supreme Court upheld a few weeks ago 9 to 0 that
there is a difference in these faith-based institutions. Now that we
have health care mandates being complied with by these institutions,
all this amendment does is extend the same privilege to them and others
who have a religious belief or a moral conviction so that they would be
able to defend their moral conviction.
We don't do anything about the mandate itself. It is important to
understand that the administration--this one or any other--if the
Affordable Health Care Act is still in force, can issue all the
mandates that the act would allow. In fact, if a person doesn't comply
with those mandates, they would have the penalties that the act would
allow. But the difference is if the government wouldn't recognize a
person's religious belief or moral conviction, as I think they would
likely do. For example, the archdiocese in Washington, DC, is saying
this is something we have long held as a tenet of our faith that we
don't believe should happen, we shouldn't be a part of, and we don't
want it to be a part of the insurance policies of our schools, our
hospitals. My guess is if we pass this amendment, without any question,
the Justice Department would say, Well, you are certainly going to be
able to defend that because that has been your belief for centuries,
the belief of your faith.
This amendment doesn't mention any procedure of any kind. In fact,
this morning we had a reporter call the office who said we can't find
the word ``contraception'' in this amendment anywhere. How is this a
vote on contraception? Of course we were able to say, as we have said
for 4 days, the word ``contraception'' is not in there because this is
not about a specific procedure, it is about a faith principle that the
first amendment guarantees.
This exact language of religious belief or moral conviction was first
used in 1973 in the Public Health Services Act. It was brought to the
Senate floor by Senator Church from Idaho, who I
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believe was considered one of the liberals of the Senate at the time,
protecting health care providers from having to be involved in
procedures they didn't agree with. It is part of the Legal
Services Corporation limitation in 1974, the foreign aid funding
limitation in 1986, the refusal to participate in executions or
prosecutions of capital crimes in 1994, the vaccination bill wherein a
person comes to this country as a nonresident and they don't want to
have vaccinations that are otherwise required, they don't have to have
them if they have a religious belief or moral conviction against them.
The list goes on and on: The Medicare and Medicaid Counseling Act,
the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan of 1998, the contraception
coverage for federal employees in 1999, the DC contraception mandate in
2000, the United States Leadership Against AIDS Act in 2003.
Then this exact same language even more specifically has been in
bills that weren't passed. In 1994, Senator Moynihan from New York
brought a bill to the floor that Mrs. Clinton--later Senator Clinton,
now Secretary Clinton--was very involved in, this 1994 health
discussion. That bill said: Nothing in this title shall be construed to
prevent any employer from contributing to the purchase of a standard
benefits package which excludes coverage for abortion or other services
if the employer objects to such services on the basis of religious
belief or moral conviction.
This is Senator Moynihan less than 20 years ago in what was
considered a liberal piece of legislation, putting what the country had
thought since the beginning of government-paid health care was a
natural part of every health care bill. In fact, the bill we are
talking about that this amendment would impact is the first time the
Federal Government has passed a health care bill that didn't include
this language--the first time it didn't include this language. If one
is not offended by the current mandate that some religions are, I think
it is important to think of what one would be offended by. What in
one's faith would be an offensive thing to be told one had to be a part
of, and then imagine the government saying, no, a person has to be a
part of that? Even if a person doesn't do it themselves, they have to
pay for it, or they have to be sure that a person's employees, their
associates, are a part of this thing that is offensive to that person
because of religious belief or moral conviction.
Before I yield to my good friend Senator Johanns, who understands
this issue so well, let me also say that, as I said, we didn't
eliminate a mandate, so we can still have a mandate. The Federal
Government can still come in and say: You are not offering these
services so you have to pay a penalty, and then you have to go to court
and prove that you have a long-held belief that this is wrong. The
Court, in 1965, when this particular phrase became the boilerplate
language for the law, said, You can't become a conscientious objector
the day you get your draft notice, in essence; you have to have these
two principles. You have to have a religious belief, a strong moral
conviction, and you have to be able to go to court and prove that.
All of the fiction writers out there, in fundraising letters and
otherwise, saying things such as women who have contraceptive services
today wouldn't have them, of course that is not true. Of course that is
not true. The women who have those services today either have them
because they have found a way to pay for them themselves or they have
an employer who is providing that as part of health care. That employer
is not going to be able to turn around and say, I am not for that
anymore because I object for some religious reason that I didn't have
all the time I was providing it.
This is an important issue. It is a first amendment issue. It is an
issue that group after group after group thinks violates the Religious
Freedom Act--RFRA. There are six lawsuits already. I suspect they have
a good chance of prevailing because it does exactly what the religious
freedom law says you can't do and it needlessly forces people to
participate in activities that are against their moral principles,
their religious principles.
The circumstance in the country is we have 220 years of history on
this. We have almost 50 years of history of government-paid health care
for one group or another that always included an exemption such as this
exemption. To not do this assumes that the government can make people
do things that Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and others
specifically said were among the rights we should defend the most
vigorously; that we should hold the most dear; that we should not let a
government interfere in these basic rights of conscience, a phrase of
Thomas Jefferson when he wrote the New London Methodist in 1809. These
rights of conscience are an area that we should not let the government
get between the American people and their religious beliefs. Our laws
since then, whether it is for hiring or in the case of any health care
discussion, have always anticipated the protection of this first
amendment right--not a specific thing but, again, if you are not
offended by the things that some people are concerned about today, it
is important to think about what you would be offended by, what your
religious belief leads you to believe would be wrong and how you would
feel if the government says now you have to be a part of that activity.
I wish to turn to my good friend from Nebraska who has been a real
advocate in understanding the importance of the first amendment and the
role it plays in our society.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska is recognized.
Mr. JOHANNS. Mr. President, let me start this afternoon by thanking
my colleague from Missouri for taking on this issue and putting this
legislation together. Let me also thank my colleague for telling the
real story of this legislation. It is critically important we
understand the history that brings us here this afternoon and,
ultimately, to a vote on this legislation I am proud to cosponsor.
My colleague just so ably pointed out that what has changed is, the
Obama administration, working with our colleagues on the other side of
the aisle, took this important language out of this health care
legislation. For decades--for decades--this important protection was in
legislation, and it was supported by Democrats, Republicans,
Independents, liberals, conservatives. That was the history of our
country until all of a sudden this change came about where that
conscience protection was taken out of the health care legislation that
was passed a couple years ago.
But let's look back even further in our history. The first freedom in
our Bill of Rights is the liberty to exercise any religion we might
choose, or for that matter not participate in any religion whatsoever.
That is what this United States of America is based upon, this concept
that we have the freedom to choose what faith we will belong to, what
teachings we will follow, and, as I said, we have the choice to not
participate at all, if we choose, in this country.
Yet the President and my colleagues from across the aisle want to
force--want to force--religious institutions, for the first time in the
history of our country, to violate their strong moral convictions. And
they go even further. They want to somehow shroud this and veil it as a
woman's health issue.
Let me set the record straight. This debate is not about that, as
some would have us believe. It certainly is not about contraceptives.
What this debate is about is fundamental to our freedom as citizens of
this great country. It is religious liberty we are talking about.
It is an American issue that dates back to our very Founders who
looked at the war they had just fought and said to themselves: We are
never going to allow our country to force us to attend a certain church
or to participate in a certain faith--not at all. And it was written in
one of our most sacred documents, the Bill of Rights. Yet the President
of the United States is trampling on this religious freedom and
attempting to convince Americans that it is something else.
His power grab is forcing religious institutions to go against their
deeply held beliefs. If they stay true to their beliefs, the
Congressional Research Service reports these religious insurers and
employers may face Federal fines of $100 per day per plan.
So let me give an example of how that will work in my State. For a
self-insured institution such as Creighton University in Nebraska, a
Jesuit institution--I happen to have graduated
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from there--they have about 6,000 health care plans. So the cost to
Creighton University in Omaha, NE, to exercise their religious liberty
will be an annual pricetag of $24 million. That is the price of
exercising their religious liberty in the President's world.
Unbelievable.
Well, I went on the Internet. I ask unanimous consent to have printed
in the Record an open letter to the President that is being signed by
women all over this country.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Open Letter to President Obama, Secretary Sebelius and Members of
Congress
Don't Claim to Speak for All Women
We are women who support the competing voice offered by
Catholic institutions on matters of sex, marriage and family
life. Most of us are Catholic, but some are not. We are
Democrats, Republicans and Independents. Many, at some point
in our careers, have worked for a Catholic institution. We
are proud to have been part of the religious mission of that
school, or hospital, or social service organization. We are
proud to have been associated not only with the work Catholic
institutions perform in the community--particularly for the
most vulnerable--but also with the shared sense of purpose
found among colleagues who chose their job because, in a
religious institution, a job is always also a vocation.
Those currently invoking ``women's health'' in an attempt
to shout down anyone who disagrees with forcing religious
institutions or individuals to violate deeply held beliefs
are more than a little mistaken, and more than a little
dishonest Even setting aside their simplistic equation of
``costless'' birth control with ``equality,'' note that they
have never responded to the large body of scholarly research
indicating that many forms of contraception have serious side
effects, or that some forms act at some times to destroy
embryos, or that government contraceptive programs inevitably
change the sex, dating and marriage markets in ways that lead
to more empty sex, more non-marital births and more
abortions. It is women who suffer disproportionately when
these things happen.
No one speaks for all women on these issues. Those who
purport to do so are simply attempting to deflect attention
from the serious religious liberty issues currently at stake.
Each of us, Catholic or not, is proud to stand with the
Catholic Church and its rich, life-affirming teachings on
sex, marriage and family life. We call on President Obama and
our Representatives in Congress to allow religious
institutions and individuals to continue to witness to their
faiths in all their fullness.
Helen M. Alvare, JD,
Associate Professor of Law,
George Mason University (VA).
Kim Daniels, JD,
Former Counsel,
Thomas More Law Center (MD).
Mr. JOHANNS. Women have signed this, and one of the things they say
is, they are proud to work for institutions that contribute to their
community.
Let me quote from that letter. They value ``the shared sense of
purpose found among colleagues who choose their job because, in a
religious institution, a job is . . . also a vocation.''
These women are Americans who believe this mandate by the Federal
Government, interfering with religious liberty, is wrong.
I will wrap up my piece of this colloquy by again thanking the
Senator from Missouri for his leadership in this area. The President
has said he offered an accommodation. The accommodation is, woe, lo and
behold, this is going to be free.
Now, I would like to know what legal authority he relies upon that
the President could ever order anyone to offer a service or an item for
free. He has no such authority. This is not the Soviet Union; this is
the United States of America. We do not believe that for a moment. Of
course we are going to be paying for this through our insurance
premiums.
Well, my hope is we will read our Constitution and we will stand as a
united front upholding religious freedom, which is being violated by
this mandate.
I thank the Chair.
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I thank my friend for those good additions
to what we are talking about.
I might say, also, even if there is some accounting issue that makes
this appear that maybe someone you are hiring is paying for it instead
of you, if this is something you are opposed to for religious grounds,
it is not about the cost; it is about the fact that this is something
you do not believe you should be part of.
In my particular faith, the contraception part of this is not
troublesome for me. But it does not mean I should be less troubled that
it bothers others or that I should care less about their religious
freedom than I do mine or that I should not care about the government
using the heavy hand of these fines to force people to do something.
The other point I would like to make, before I go to my friend from
Idaho, is, if the government chooses to fine people, people actually
have to go to court and prove they have a deep religious belief. I do
not think that would be very hard for Creighton University. The entire
history of the university is founded on the principles of faith that
would say: This is something we do not want to be part of. If that is
the case, maybe that Justice Department would not take them to court or
would not make them go to court rather than pay the fine. But they
could. We are not saying that anybody can do anything they want to do.
We are just creating a way that we can assert your first amendment
rights if we choose to do that.
As the Governor of Idaho, Senator Risch was responsible for lots of
people who worked for the State of Idaho. He knows about this both from
a faith perspective and an employer's perspective, and I am glad he
came down to the floor.
Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, I thank the Senator very much.
Fellow Senators, I am going to speak briefly on this issue, and I
thank those who have actually put this on the table for us to talk
about.
Every single American should watch the debate on this issue. This
debate strikes to the heart of the freedoms we as Americans enjoy. Why
do we have these freedoms? We have them because in 1776 the people
decided they were sick and tired of the King telling them they had to
do this and they had to do that and had totally wiped out a number of
freedoms they had--not the least of which was speech and religion.
We will remember, these people operated under a King who was so
powerful--the Monarchy was so powerful, it established a religion and
said: You must belong to this religion if you are a citizen of this
country.
When we fought to be free of that, when we fought to be a free
people, the Founding Fathers put together a document that specified
very clearly the freedoms we would have.
We have come many years since then, but we will lose these freedoms
if we do not guard them when even a little chip comes out of it. That
is what they are doing here. Think about this for a minute. We have
gotten to the point where this government has gotten so big and so
powerful that it has said: Look, we do not care about what you believe
in your religion because what we are doing is a good thing and,
therefore, you must do what we are telling you because the ends justify
the means--the means is to chip away at the religious freedoms we as
Americans enjoy.
It is wrong. It is the way we lose our freedoms. If we turn our back
and let a government do this to us, this is how we lose our freedoms.
This government is big. It is getting bigger by the day. It is
getting more powerful by the day. When they sat around the table in
1776, they had just fought with a government that had been terribly
oppressive. They argued amongst themselves: Well, what are we going to
do? We are going to create a government.
They knew from a historical perspective, and they knew from their
recent experience, that any government they create needed to be
distrusted, needed to be watched, needed to have shackles on it because
if they did not, that government would abuse them--just as every
government had throughout history.
So that is why they drew the document we live under today, the
Constitution we have. They not only gave us one government, they gave
us three governments. They gave us a legislative branch, an executive
branch, and a judicial branch--each with the duty to watch the other
and beat the other over the head if, indeed, they got out of line. They
were so afraid of a government that they did everything they possibly
could to see that government did not abuse them.
Well, we learn frequently that their fears were well founded. Today
we see, once again, their fears were well founded. What we have is a
government that is saying: We do not care what your religious beliefs
are; you must do what
[[Page S1118]]
we are telling you to do because we think it is the right thing to do
regardless of your religious beliefs.
It is wrong. It has to be fought. It must be reversed.
I thank the Senator for bringing this issue to the attention of
everyone.
I yield the floor.
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I thank the Senator.
There are a number of waivers on this. The administration has given
over 1,700 waivers to 4 million people. If you have a plan that is
better than the government plan, if you have a plan that might be taxed
under the law because it has been negotiated as part of collective
bargaining, if you are a fast food institution that has insurance but,
apparently, with high deductibles--those were all reasons to create a
waiver. You would think that a faith-based belief would also be a
reason that a waiver could have been granted.
This amendment just assures that we can have the same kind of
opportunity to exercise our religious beliefs going forward as every
American has in health care, in labor, in hiring, and other areas up
until right now.
I would like to turn to my friend, the Senator from Texas.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I want to express my gratitude to the
Senator from Missouri for his leadership on this issue.
This used to be a topic that was a bipartisan issue dating back to
the passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.
But just so people can refresh their memories, there have been a
number of allusions made to the language of the Constitution. But let
me just read the first amendment to the Constitution, part of our Bill
of Rights, the fundamental law of the land that cannot be abridged or
changed by a mere act of Congress, which is what we are concerned
about; that the President's health care bill, the Affordable Care Act,
so-called, purports to change the Constitution, which it cannot do.
When there is a conflict between the Constitution and a law passed by
Congress, that law falls as unconstitutional.
But the first amendment to the Constitution says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .
Let me repeat that:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .
That is what we are talking about is the free exercise of religion. I
agree with Senator Risch that one of the biggest problems with this
legislation, the President's health care bill, the so-called affordable
care act, which we have came to learn is not so affordable, is that it
forces each individual in this country to buy a government-approved
product according to the dictates of Congress. That is one of the
issues the Supreme Court will be ruling on, whether that is even within
the scope of congressional power under the commerce clause.
But Senator Risch makes a very good point; that is, the basic problem
with this legislation generally is it is too big, it is too expensive,
and it is too intrusive on the individual choices and freedoms of
American citizens.
As I said, it used to be that religious freedom was a bipartisan
issue. That is why I am so concerned this has turned into a purely
partisan issue. It is very obvious to me that some of our colleagues on
the floor believe they can make political hay by scaring people, by
misleading people; that this is somehow about denying women access to
contraception when that is not the issue.
This is about protecting our sacred constitutional freedoms. When I
said religious freedom used to be a bipartisan issue, I was referring
to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. I think it is
interesting to see who the sponsors were and people who were some of
the principal proponents of the bill. That demonstrates it was
bipartisan.
The lead sponsor in the House was Senator Chuck Schumer, now a Member
of the Senate. Cosponsors included then-Representative Maria Cantwell,
now in the Senate; then-Representative Ben Cardin, who is presiding
today; and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
In the Senate it had 60 cosponsors. Ted Kennedy was the lead sponsor.
We have heard Senator Brown from Massachusetts saying the position he
is taking on this issue of religious freedom is exactly the same
position Senator Kennedy took during his lifetime. But 60 other Members
of the Senate cosponsored this, including Senator Boxer, Senator
Feinstein, Senator Kerry, Senator Lautenberg, Senator Leahy, Senator
Levin, Senator Murray, and Senator Reid, the majority leader of the
Senate today.
It was signed into law by then-President Clinton, demonstrating that
religious freedom was not a partisan issue, it was a bipartisan concern
of Congress and the reason why this bipartisan legislation passed to
protect religious freedom.
So similar to members of the Catholic Church who are concerned about
being forced to provide coverage for surgical sterilization or drugs
that induce abortions or other forms of contraception, members of the
Muslim faith, if they are a woman, need not be concerned about
restrictions on their ability or desire to wear a head scarf in public
or in government buildings or dietary rules practiced by observant Jews
or that Christians would not be somehow interfered with when it came to
wearing religious symbols such as crosses or rosaries. This is not
about those rules or those items of clothing or religious symbols, this
is about religious freedom, over which Congress shall pass no law,
under the words of our Constitution.
I am somewhat disappointed we now find ourselves--that the lines seem
to have been drawn so sharply in a partisan way on an issue that used
to enjoy such broad bipartisan support. It is my hope our colleagues
will reconsider because it is not good for the country, it is not good
for our Constitution, it is not good for the preservation of our
liberties, for the very fundamental law of our land, the Bill of
Rights, to become a partisan issue.
But if there is a fight, if there is a disagreement, I believe it is
our responsibility to speak in defense of religious freedom and to
remind our colleagues that Congress shall pass no law restricting
religious freedom. That is what we are talking about.
I thank my colleague from Missouri for being the leader on this
important amendment. I am pleased to have had the opportunity to voice
the reasons for my support, and I hope our colleagues who are opposed
to the amendment or have already publicly stated their opposition will
reconsider.
Mr. BLUNT. I do too. I hope we find out now that while we do not have
as much bipartisan support as we would like to have, we will have some.
Senator Ben Nelson from Nebraska, along with Senator Ayotte from New
Hampshire and Senator Rubio from Florida and I introduced this bill in
August of last year. This is not just something we came up with
recently.
Members who were in the Senate when the health care act, the
affordable health care act passed, said they believed if it had passed
in a more normal way, this would have been in the final bill, that
would have been an understanding, as it was in the Patients' Bill of
Rights draft and legislation that was introduced in 1994 or the health
care bill in 1999. This same language was an accepted and bipartisan
part of who we are as a country enforcing the first amendment.
In fact, in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, it says:
``Government shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of
religion even if the burden results from a rule of general
applicability.'' Even a rule that would generally apply, the government
should not burden a person's exercise of religion unless it
demonstrates a burden that it is in the furtherance of a compelling
government interest.
I cannot imagine--nobody has had to do this ever before. Why would
suddenly defining insurance policies beyond the faith beliefs of
individuals and groups that were long held, why is that a sudden
compelling government interest or it is the least restrictive means of
furthering that government interest? Surely not.
Again, I am going to repeat for what may be the third or fourth time:
We do not do anything in this amendment that would end the mandate.
That is for another debate at another time. The government can still
have a mandate. The government can still say: Here is what we are
telling you a
[[Page S1119]]
health care plan has to look like. But this allows people who have a
faith-based first amendment right to object to that to have a way to do
it.
One of the original cosponsors of the bill; that is, the amendment we
are debating today, has joined us and that is Senator Ayotte from New
Hampshire. She is an advocate of the first amendment, as a former
attorney general. I am glad she is here.
Ms. AYOTTE. I thank the Senator. I appreciate the opportunity to be
here to rise in support of the pending amendment that is based upon, as
Senator Blunt mentioned, a piece of legislation that was introduced on
a bipartisan basis earlier in the year called the Respect for Rights of
Conscience Act, which I was proud to cosponsor.
During the past few weeks, we have heard certainly impassioned
arguments from both sides of the aisle about this issue. Certainly, it
has been a robust and important exchange of views, which I have
appreciated. However, I think it is regrettable that similar to so much
else that happens around here, this issue has been used as an election-
year tactic to score political points, and in some cases there have
been the facts of what this amendment and our bill hope to accomplish
have been supplanted by mischaracterizations and distortions.
That is unfortunate because what we are here to talk about is
incredibly important. This is a fundamental matter of religious freedom
and the proper role of our Federal Government. It is about who we are
as Americans and renewing our commitment to the principles upon which
this Nation was founded.
This debate comes down to the legacy left behind by our Founding
Fathers and over 200 years of American history. We have a choice
between being responsible stewards of their legacy, as reflected in the
first amendment to the Constitution, or allowing the Federal Government
to interfere in religious life in an unprecedented way. The first
amendment to the Constitution starts with: ``Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof.''
Just last month, we saw our Supreme Court unanimously uphold, under
the establishment and free exercise clauses of our Constitution, a
ruling in the Hosanna-Tabor case that the Federal Government may not
infringe on the rights of religious institutions in their hiring
practices. To do so, they ruled on a unanimous basis, would interfere
with the internal governance of the church.
Protecting religious freedom and conscience rights has in the past
been, as was mentioned here, a bipartisan issue. No less than Ted
Kennedy himself, a liberal icon of the Senate, wrote in 2009 to the
Pope: ``I believe in a conscience protection for Catholics in the
health care field and will continue to advocate for it.''
Senator Kennedy had previously pushed for the inclusion of conscience
protections in legislation he proposed in 1997 as well as in his
Affordable Health Care for all Americans Act proposed in 1995. These
are the same protections our amendment seeks to restore.
In 1994, provisions aimed at protecting conscience rights were
included in the recommendations made by the Task Force on National
Health Care Reform, led by then-First Lady Hillary Clinton. In 1993,
when President Bill Clinton signed the bipartisan Religious Freedom
Restoration Act into law, he said: ``The government should be held to a
very high level of proof before it interferes with someone's free
exercise of religion.''
Protecting religious freedoms was once an issue that bound Americans
together. It certainly is a very important issue as we take the oath of
office here to uphold the Constitution of the United States. I believe
this effort which is so fundamental to our national character must
bring us together once more on a bipartisan basis.
I would like to make one very important point about this amendment.
Unfortunately, many have tried to characterize this amendment as
denying women access to contraception. That is a red herring, and it is
false. We are talking about government mandates that are interfering
with conscience protections that have long been engrained in our law.
To be clear, women had access to these services before the President
passed the Affordable Care Act, and after this amendment would be
passed, they would still have access to these important services.
Contrary to what some of my friends on the other side of the aisle have
asserted, this measure simply allows health care providers and
companies to have the same conscience rights they had before the
President's health care bill took effect.
We are not breaking any new ground. In fact, we are respecting what
is contained within our first amendment to the Constitution and what
has long been a bipartisan effort to respect the conscience rights of
all Americans, whatever their religious views are.
This vote goes to the heart of who we are. If we allow the government
to dictate the coverage and plans paid for by religious institutions,
that is the first step down a slippery slope. When religious liberty
has been threatened in the past, Members of both sides of the aisle of
Congress have taken action to preserve our country's cherished
freedoms. We must do so again now or risk compromising a foundational
American principle.
I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will give this
amendment careful consideration and appreciate that it is an amendment
that will respect the conscience rights of all religions and will
certainly not deny women access to services they need and deserve.
I appreciate the Senator having me here today. I hope my colleagues
will support this important amendment.
Mr. BLUNT. I thank the Senator for her leadership and from the
beginning of this discussion back in August when Senator Ayotte,
Senator Rubio, Senator Nelson from Nebraska and I introduced this bill,
we have been joined in this amendment by three dozen or more other
sponsors, one of whom actually I mentioned a piece of legislation he
was involved in the first time he was in the Senate. It protected the
religious rights of people who were temporarily in the country, with
exactly this same language, who might have some religious belief or
moral conviction that meant they didn't want to get the vaccines we
would require a visitor to have. In 1996 Senator Coats put this in a
law that virtually every Member of the Senate serving today, in both
parties, voted for, as they have time after time when this issue was
brought up. This language was understood to be an important defense of
the first amendment in a health care piece of legislation.
I am glad Senator Coats has joined us today. Whenever I researched
this, I saw that he had used this very language 15 years ago in a piece
of legislation. I know the Senator is an important advocate of
religious freedom.
Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Missouri. I thank
him also for his willingness to engage with this amendment, to put it
in play here for us to debate and discuss. It is a very fundamental
principle of our Constitution that is at stake, and it deserves debate,
and it deserves this body putting their yea or nay on the line relative
to how we are going to go forward. I commend him for his leadership,
and I am pleased to join him, as well as many others, in this colloquy.
This is an issue that is as old as this Nation. We are all blessed to
live in this Nation and are blessed by the wisdom of our Founding
Fathers, guaranteeing our rights. The very first right they guaranteed
in the Constitution was the right to religious freedom. Many of the
earliest settlers came here because of that right and their desire to
come to a country where their religious beliefs, tenets, and principles
would be respected and honored, where they would not be dictated to by
a government like they lived under before they came here, but it would
be protected and preserved as a basic fundamental right. It was a
transformational idea at the time. Yet, now for well more than 220
years or so, it has been maintained throughout the history of this
country. It stands as a bulwark against government interference with
personal beliefs and government trying to dictate how we exercise the
religious freedoms we are all so privileged to have.
It has been said--and I want to repeat it--that the debate today is
not about access to contraception. This is not about whether it is
appropriate to use contraception. It is not about a woman's right to
contraception. As a pro-life Christian and a Protestant, I am
[[Page S1120]]
not against contraception, but I also believe it is a decision
individuals must make in accordance with their own faith and beliefs,
not a decision to be made by the Federal Government.
What this is about is whether Congress is going to sit by and idly
allow this administration to trample our freedom of religion--that core
American principle--or whether we will stand and protect what our
Founding Fathers put their lives on the line for and what millions of
Americans today will defend. We cannot pick and choose when to adhere
to the Constitution and when to cast it aside in order to achieve
political prerogatives. We must consistently stand for our timeless
constitutional principles. The debate that is taking place is a stand
to protect an inalienable right, the right of conscience established in
our Nation's founding days and sustained for over 200 years.
I regret that this issue has been reframed for political purposes
into a woman's right to choose, to deny women the opportunity to
exercise their right to make a choice. That is not what this is about
at all. Yet some have said it has been so successfully reframed that,
politically, those who defend this as a matter of religious conscience
and freedom are on the losing side of the political argument. Well, we
may be or we may not be. I think it is up to this body to decide that
with a thorough debate and vote that puts our yeas and nays on the
line.
Nevertheless, whether it is a winner or a loser politically, it is
irrelevant to the argument. It should be irrelevant to the debate
because this clearly is a fundamental principle of religious freedom
that needs to be protected regardless of the political consequences. So
those of us standing up to debate this are setting aside any kind of
political risks, any advice that basically says: You don't want to
touch this because it has been reframed in a way that the American
people don't understand it. We are here to say that we stand to protect
the liberties that are granted to us by our Constitution and,
regardless of political consequences, we will continue to do that.
Mr. President, I again thank Senator Blunt and all those who are
willing to address this issue and trust that our colleagues will see
this as a fundamental breach of a constitutional provision provided to
us by the people who sacrificed their lives to do so.
I yield the floor.
Mr. BLUNT. I thank the Senator.
Mr. President, I want to go next to my neighbor in the Congress, and
now my neighbor in the Senate, and my neighbor in real life from
northwest Arkansas. I am from southwest Missouri. I am glad Senator
Boozman came down to discuss this issue.
Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Missouri, and I
appreciate his hard work and his leadership in bringing this amendment
forward.
President Obama's accommodation of religious liberty in his revised
health care mandate covering contraceptives, sterilizations, and
medicines causing abortion raises more questions than it answers.
Perhaps the most troublesome part is that even with this revision, the
President's mandate refuses to acknowledge that the Constitution
guarantees conscience protections. He instead tries to run around them.
You don't ``accommodate'' religious liberties, you respect them. That
is why they are enshrined in the Constitution.
Those constitutional protections should prevent the President from
trampling the conscience rights of Americans and religious institutions
that hold a strong belief that contraceptives, sterilizations, and
drugs causing abortion are wrong. Clearly, however, these
constitutional protections are not enough. President Obama's
``accommodation'' shows that he considers conscience rights to be an
inconvenience in his effort to remake America in his vision. That is
why we need the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act. The Respect for
Rights of Conscience Act--introduced by my colleague from Missouri,
Senator Roy Blunt--seeks to restore conscience protections that existed
before President Obama's health care law. These are the same
protections--and I think this is important--that have existed for more
than 220 years, since the first amendment was ratified.
The amendment of the Senator from Missouri has been offered to the
surface transportation act, and we expect to vote on it as early as
tomorrow. The amendment's goal is commendable, and I look forward to
supporting it. It is simply asking the President to respect the
religious liberties of Americans.
Many longstanding Federal health care conscience laws protect
conscientious objections to certain types of medical services. The
President could have just as easily followed that course when he issued
a mandate requiring almost all private health insurance policies--
including those issued by religious institutions, such as hospitals,
schools, and nonprofits--to cover sterilizations and contraceptives,
including emergency contraceptives at no cost to policyholders, but he
did not.
Now Congress must step up and protect the religious liberties of all
Americans. We can do this by passing Senator Blunt's amendment. I
certainly encourage all of my colleagues to take a close look at this--
this is so important--and restore the conscience protections we have
always stood for as a nation. I commend the Senator from Missouri and
look forward to supporting his amendment.
Mr. BLUNT. I thank the Senator.
Mr. President, let me conclude in the next few minutes by first
saying that a growing list of groups support this amendment: Home
School Legal Defense Association, Family Research Council, Southern
Baptist Convention, Americans United for Life, American Center for Law
and Justice, Susan B. Anthony List, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty,
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Focus on the Family, Christian
Medical Association, National Right to Life, National Association of
Evangelicals, Orthodox Union of Jewish Congregations, Concerned Women
for America, Eagle Forum, Religious Freedom Coalition,
CatholicVote.org, American Family Association, Catholic Advocate,
Traditional Values Coalition, Christus Medicus Foundation, Alliance
Defense Fund, Christian Coalition, Advanced USA, American Association
of Christian Schools, American Principles Project, Wallbuilders, Let
Freedom Ring Liberty Consulting, Liberty Counsel Action, Free Congress
Foundation, Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, Students
for Life of America, Heritage Action, and there are others that are
supporting this amendment.
We can go back to 1965 and a Supreme Court case where the
determination of how a conscientious objection would be defined was
clearly established in ways that led to this religious belief and moral
conviction becoming the standard. It is not just something we came up
with for this amendment, it has been the standard since that 1965 case.
It said: These are the elements you have to have. You cannot suddenly
decide you have a religious conviction. This is a conviction that has
to be a provable part of who you are.
The Public Health Service Act in 1973, where Senator Church brought
this language into the public health arena, is really the first major
legislation after Medicare and the Medicaid discussion. There was also
the Legal Services Corporation limitation, the foreign aid funding
limitation, and the refusal to participate in executions or in
prosecutions of capital crimes limitation. This language was good
enough for those things, and almost every Member of the current Senate,
if they were there then, voted for these, and since, including the
action Senator Coats talked about earlier. The Medicare and Medicaid
Counseling and Referral Act, the Federal Employees Health Benefits
Plan, contraceptive coverage for Federal employees in 1999, the DC
contraceptive mandate in 2000, and the United States Leadership Against
HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act in 2003 all included this
language. We had to get to the affordable health care act, which passed
the Senate, and then suddenly it wasn't possible to go through the
final process of legislating here. There was no conference committee,
no House bill. My belief is that almost nobody who voted for that act
originally thought that would be the final bill.
Frankly, I think that if we had ever had a more normal process, this
normal element of protecting the first amendment would have been added,
as it was every other time. This is about the first amendment. I
understand the
[[Page S1121]]
fundraising ability to make it about something else. I understand the
PR ability to make it about something else. But it is not about
anything else.
A minute ago, we had three Protestants on the floor on the
contraception issue who probably have no religious problem at all.
There may be other elements I have problems with, but it doesn't matter
if I have a problem. What matters is that I represent lots of people
who do have a problem with it, and the Constitution is specifically
designed to protect those strongly held religious views.
As Senator Coats said, it was the first thing in the first amendment.
It was exact in its duplication in 1994 in the great health care effort
made then, whether it was the protection of religious freedom or the
Patients' Bill of Rights or the effort First Lady Clinton worked hard
to do. This wasn't even really a debatable item then because everybody
understood this was a necessary part of protecting the first amendment
to the Constitution.
Again, I would say if these two or three things that are most
objectionable to the Catholic community right now--and many of the
people who are opposed to this are opposed to this because they wonder
what they could be opposed to that the government would decide they had
to participate in, they had to be a provider of, they had to pay the
bill for. I would ask my colleagues to think of something in their
religious view that they would not want to be forced by the government
to be part of, and let's give all Americans that same capacity who have
these strongly held religious beliefs.
I would encourage my colleagues to support the first amendment. I am
grateful for those groups around the country that have rallied around
the first amendment. Freedom of religion defines who we are and has
defined who we are since the very beginning of constitutional
government, where the first thing added to the Constitution was the
Bill of Rights. And the first thing in the Bill of Rights is respect
for religion. We need to not give that away just to prove that
everybody has to do what the government says because the government
knows best rather than our conscience and our personal views.
This is not about whether people provide health care or not, it is
about whether they are required to provide elements of health care they
believe are fundamentally wrong, and how the government can force
people to do things they believe and have a provable religious
conviction are fundamentally wrong.
Mr. President, I think we have used the hour we had, but this debate
will go on. There will be a vote tomorrow, but this debate will go on
until this important freedom is soundly protected in health care, in
hiring, in all of the elements that create that faith distinctive in
our individuals and institutions that make us uniquely who we are.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Merkley). The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I had the opportunity to listen to my
colleague from Missouri as he talked about his amendment. I know he is
very sincere in his efforts to protect the first amendment, and if that
is what this amendment was about, he would have my support. But let me
try to go over the amendment and put in context how it is drafted,
because this amendment goes well beyond that.
I would agree with my colleague that the genesis of this amendment
was because of contraceptive services and the request from religious
institutions not to have to provide coverage for those services. The
amendment we have before us, however, would allow an employer--any
employer--or any insurance company to deny essential medical services
coverage based upon a religious or moral objection. So the concern with
this amendment is that it would allow any employer in this country to
deny coverage of essential medical services in the plan that employer
provides. And that could cover women's health care issues; it could
cover contraceptive issues, mammography screenings, prenatal
screenings, cervical cancer screenings. An employer could very well
say, I am against the moral issue concerning providing that coverage.
I don't believe the historical interpretations my colleague went
through apply to those types of circumstances. This amendment would go
well beyond one particular service and would cover any medical service.
In fact, it says if an employer or insurance plan had any religious or
moral objection to a service it can choose to exclude that service from
the essential benefit package or the preventive services provisions of
the Affordable Care Act. Yes, it would affect women's health care.
There is no question about that. It would also affect the health care
of men and of children.
The Affordable Care Act guarantees that all plans offered in the
individual small group market must cover a minimum set of essential
health benefits, including maternity and newborn care; pediatric
services, including oral and vision care; rehabilitative services and
devices; and mental health and substance use disorder services,
including behavioral health treatment.
Under the Blunt amendment, any employer could say, look, I don't want
to cover rehabilitative services, for whatever reason--I have a moral
objection to it--and they could exclude that service. Preventive care
would be at risk, prenatal care would be at risk, life-saving
immunization could be at risk, developmental screening, mental health
assessments, and hearing and vision tests. Any employer could make it a
judgment not to cover any one of those services. Any insurance company
could, based upon a ``moral objection.'' That is a very broad standard.
That is why pediatricians and advocates for children across the
Nation oppose it. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American
Congress of Obstetricians oppose it, the Association of Maternal and
Child Health Programs, the Children's Dental Health Project, Easter
Seals, Genetic Alliance, the March of Dimes, and the National
Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners oppose it. These are not
political groups, these are health care groups. They know this
amendment could put at risk what we were attempting to achieve in the
Affordable Care Act, and that is to make sure we have coverage for
essential health services for all the people in this country.
Well, what if an employer could say, I don't want to cover preventive
services based on a moral objection? That could happen. This amendment
would allow employers to decline to offer life-saving screenings for
prostate cancer screenings by simply citing a moral objection, even
though one in six men in the United States will be diagnosed with
prostate cancer during their lifetime. Last year, 33,000 Americans died
from prostate cancer.
An employer who claims a moral objection to cigarette smoking could,
under the Blunt amendment, deny employees coverage for smoking
cessation programs or treatment for lung cancer. I have a moral
objection to smoking; I am not going to cover in my health care plans
treatment for lung cancer. More people die from lung cancer than any
other type of cancer. More than 200,000 people are diagnosed with lung
cancer each year and more than 150,000 die from it. Last year, 85,000
were men.
An employer who claims a moral objection to alcohol consumption
could, under the Blunt amendment, deny coverage for substance abuse or
rehabilitation or for medical treatment for liver disease, if it is
found to be the result of alcohol abuse.
Nowhere in the Affordable Care Act does it stipulate any American
must take advantage of the expanded preventive health services. Here is
where we have an agreement. We have an agreement that we are not trying
to tell anyone what they have to do. I have been a defender of the
first amendment my entire legislative career. If you have a religious
objection to this, then don't use the services. Nowhere in the
Affordable Care Act does it require a woman to use contraception or a
man to have cancer screening or a child to receive well-baby visits.
What the Affordable Care Act requires is that every American have
access to these services so they can decide for themselves, with the
advice of their physician, whether they are appropriate and healthy to
utilize. If the Blunt amendment were used by employers to deny access
to care, we are denying the people in this country the right to make
that choice themselves.
I agree it is not just contraceptive services, it is the choice to be
able to have preventive services--to take care
[[Page S1122]]
of your children, to have the screenings for early detection of cancer
or to have treatment for serious diseases. All that could be put at
risk. The Affordable Care Act views health care as a right, not a
privilege, and it expands the freedoms available to American workers
and their families rather than limits them.
I understand the intentions may be very pure. And if we want to have
a resolution saying we support the first amendment, you will have all
of us in agreement on that. But when you say you are using that to
remove from the Affordable Care Act the essential health coverage for
services that I think all of us agree should be available to every
person in this country, to make a decision whether he or she wants that
health care, then this amendment could be used to deny them that
ability to get that health care. Whether it is women's health care
issues, which was the genesis of this amendment originally, in the
debate we had a couple of weeks ago, or whether it is the care of our
children or the care of each American, this amendment puts that at risk
by allowing an individual employer or insurance company to make a
decision to eliminate essential health service coverage. I don't
believe we want to do that, and I urge my colleagues to reject the
Blunt amendment.
With that, Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cardin). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the attack on
women's health care that has been taking place over the last few weeks.
There has been a heated debate in Washington about access to
contraception for all women, regardless of her employer. There is a
fundamental question here: Do women get control over their health care
or do a small handful of people--the presidents of companies and the
presidents of insurance companies--get to choose for a woman whether
she has access to birth control?
First, I think it is important to note that 98 percent of all women
have relied on contraception at some point in their lives. The
nonpartisan scientists and experts at the Institute of Medicine who
first recommended covering contraception without a copay did so because
there are tremendous health benefits that come from use. But now some
in this Chamber are holding up this transportation bill, a bill that
would create more than 1 million jobs across the country and 7,000 jobs
in Oregon, because, apparently, it is a higher priority to take away
women's health choices, to come between a woman and her doctor.
How is this relevant to a transportation bill? The answer: It is not.
But regardless, we are going to vote on an amendment to this bill that
would allow those CEOs of companies and insurance companies the right
to refuse coverage not just of contraception but of any health care
service they consider in violation of their personal convictions. So
the personal convictions of one will be imposed on the dozens or
hundreds of thousands of employees of that company. That is an
incredible philosophy.
I wish one of my Republican colleagues was on the floor to have a
little conversation about it, because I would simply ask the question:
Please explain why you think that the CEO of a company should get to
come between a woman and her doctor and choose what health care she has
access to.
We talk a lot about big government. Well, this is big government.
This is big government, giving power to an individual who runs a
company, making choices for dozens or hundreds or thousands of their
employees. Not only are we talking about contraception but any health
care service.
A company CEO could deny access to HIV or AIDS treatment, to
mammograms, to cancer screenings, to maternity care, to blood
transfusions. The list goes on and on.
The Blunt amendment would allow an employer who objected to
premarital sex to deny an unmarried pregnant woman maternity care. Is
that right, that an employer should make that choice for all the
employees who work for him or her? The Blunt amendment would allow an
employer to deny children of employees access to vaccines because the
CEO has a conviction that the vaccine poses a risk. Is that right, that
the leader of a company should make that decision for Americans, coming
between them and their doctors? The Blunt amendment would deny all
health coverage if a CEO believes that physical health problems are
simply God's will. That is the imposition of one's religion on those
who work for you, making it their religious requirement. That is not
the way the Constitution is designed. The Constitution is designed to
allow us to all follow our own course, not to impose our course on
everyone else through an employment relationship.
The Blunt amendment would allow a CEO to say we are not going to
cover end-of-life care because, in that conviction of that CEO--whether
it be a man or a woman, the CEO believes that such end-of-life care is
interfering with God's will. The Blunt amendment would allow an
employer to deny access of folks who suffer from obesity to health
care-related obesity programs because they believe that obesity comes
from a moral failing.
I think we can all understand with these examples that this is simply
wrong--simply wrong--that a CEO should be able to take their personal
convictions and impose them on their employees.
This amendment is just the latest in a litany of extraordinary and
extreme efforts by my Republican colleagues to curtail women's access
to health care services. In the last year alone, Republicans nearly
shut down the government over Planned Parenthood, tried to eliminate
title X funding for low-income women's health, and tried to take away
preventive services such as cancer screenings for women because of
ideological objections.
What this amendment is all about is that a few powerful CEOs dictate
health coverage for the rest of America. If this, giving the powerful
few the ability to dictate coverage for everyone else, isn't an
overreach by an overly intrusive government, I don't know what is.
Some have said that blocking women's coverage of contraception
through their insurance doesn't affect access. They say that
contraception doesn't cost that much; that, in the words of one
Republican House Member, there is not one person who has not ever been
able to afford contraception because of the price. Well, tell that to
our young women between age 18 and age 34 who actually know what
contraception costs. More than half of women struggle to afford it at
some point. Tell that to a young couple struggling to figure out how
they can afford to buy their birth control and put food on the table
for their children. Tell that to a college student deciding whether to
buy textbooks or fill her prescription. The truth is, contraception is
hugely expensive without insurance. Based on information compiled by
the Center for American Progress, the cost to an average woman using
birth control pills continuously between age 18 and menopause would be
more than $66,000 over the course of her lifetime if she had to pay out
of pocket.
I think this point bears reinforcement, because I would never have
imagined that that is the price of birth control. I think the House
Member I was quoting probably had no idea of what contraception costs,
$66,000 for a woman between the age of 18 and menopause. Where I come
from, that is a lot of money. A lot of money. That is 5.5 years of
groceries for a family of four. That is putting two kids through the
University of Oregon with 4-year degrees, not including the cost of
room and board. That is a downpayment on a nice family home. In fact,
where I come from, that is a third of the price of a nice family home.
I think a lot of families would wish they had extra cash in their
pockets right now. And I certainly have heard from many women in Oregon
who are extremely concerned about the impact this amendment would have
on their pocketbooks and on their health.
Therese from Washington County writes to me:
As one of your constituents, and a practicing Catholic
woman on birth control, I am urging you to please back up the
President on this most recent decision requiring
contraception coverage for all of their employees . . .
[[Page S1123]]
There are many, many reasons women use the pill in addition
to preventing pregnancy. I have issues with pre-menopause.
There are lots of women I know who have heavy periods,
horrible acne, endometriosis, debilitating cramps . . . the
list goes on. And to not treat these ailments because the
treatment also prevents pregnancy is to allow women to
suffer.
Bridget from Multnomah County writes:
This amendment does not protect religious freedom. Rather,
it empowers insurance companies and businesses to impose
their religious views on their employees and the insured. It
is an example of government intrusion into the personal lives
of millions of women who would prefer to privately make their
own choice about family planning, without politicians
interfering.
It is incredibly, vitally important to me that you do not
support this amendment. I happily attended a Catholic college
and cannot imagine what I would have done had I found out
that my health insurance did not cover birth control. . . .
This would be a disastrous decision.
It is not Congress's job, it is not an employer's job, to impose our
beliefs on others. Let's let women and families make their own health
care decisions without the heavy hand of government intrusion being
provided from my colleagues across the aisle. Let's not put government
between women and their doctors or between men and their doctors or
between families and their doctors.
I am committed to fighting for women's health and will do whatever I
can to defeat this amendment--this amendment, which is so wrong on
health care and so wrong on imposing religious views of one or personal
convictions of one on the many.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senator Merkley,
the Presiding Officer, and the others of my colleagues who will come to
the floor this afternoon to speak out against the Blunt amendment.
Over the past year, we have come to the floor many times to speak out
against the attacks on women's health. Since this Congress began, we
have seen assaults on Planned Parenthood, on Federal funding for family
planning and on contraception. But now we are facing the Blunt
amendment which is even more extreme and far reaching than we have seen
in all those other attempts to politicize women's health.
This proposal would affect health care not just for women but for all
Americans. It will affect the care of our children, of our husbands,
and our wives. In short, the Blunt amendment would let your boss make
your health care decisions instead of you and your doctor. The
amendment would empower corporations or any other employer to deny
virtually any preventive or essential health service to any American
based on any religious or moral objection. I would point out that in
the bill, religious and moral objections are not defined. So it can be
whatever anybody interprets it to mean.
Under the amendment, an employer could claim a moral or religious
basis in order to deny things such as coverage for HIV/AIDS screenings
or counseling, prenatal care for single mothers, mammograms,
vaccinations for children, or even screenings for diabetes if the
employer claims a moral objection to a perceived unhealthy lifestyle.
While this amendment could affect men, women, and children, make no
mistake; at the most fundamental level, this debate is about a woman's
access to contraception. Supporters of the amendment want to turn back
the clock on women's health. They want to deny women access to
preventive health services.
Birth control is something most women use sometime in their lifetime,
and it is something that the medical community believes is essential to
the health of a woman and her family. I would point out the decision
that the Blunt amendment claims to be addressing is one that was made
not for political reasons but for medical reasons by the Institute of
Medicine, and it was made because contraception is important to women's
health. It prevents unintended pregnancies. The United States has the
highest rate of unintended pregnancy in the developed world.
Approximately one-half of all pregnancies here in America are
unintended. Contraception can help women and families address this.
Access to birth control is directly linked to declines in maternal
and infant mortality. In fact, the National Commission to Prevent
Infant Mortality has estimated that 10 percent of infant deaths could
be prevented if all pregnancies were planned.
For some 1.5 million women, birth control pills are not used for
contraception but for medical reasons. As the Presiding Officer pointed
out in that poignant letter from your constituents who pointed out all
of the reasons that women could take contraceptives, it could reduce
the risk of some cancers, and it is linked to overall good health
outcomes.
As Governor of New Hampshire, I was proud to sign a law back in 1999
that requires health care plans to cover contraception. At that time,
we heard little controversy, little uproar, virtually no concerns about
religious exemptions to the law. The bill in New Hampshire back in 1999
passed the Republican-led State legislature with overwhelming
bipartisan support. In fact, in the House, almost as many Republicans
voted for the bill as Democrats. I think that was because it was
understood by people on both sides of the aisle of all religious faiths
that requiring contraceptive coverage was about women's health and it
was about basic health care coverage.
For 12 years, that law in New Hampshire has been in place with little
opposition because it has worked. And it is particularly unfortunate,
as we are having this debate about women's health, thinking about what
happened back in New Hampshire, to see this debate become so
politicized. It is not right. It is not what is the best interest of
women's health, and I urge my colleagues to oppose the Blunt amendment.
The decision about a woman's health care should be between her, her
doctor, her family, and her faith. Let's not turn back the clock on
women's access to health care.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Merkley). The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, do we have a specific order here for
speaking?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democrats currently have 30 minutes of
time.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am on the floor here today, as I was
earlier, to talk about the dangers of this Blunt amendment.
Senator Blunt says it has nothing to do with providing health care to
women; it has nothing to do with that. It is just about freedom of
religion, he says. Well, as many people say, when someone comes up to
you and says it is not about the money, it is about the money. And when
someone says it is not about access to women's health, it is about
religious freedom, it is about access to women's health care. Why do I
say that? Because that is what this debate is all about. And we see it
all over the country with rightwing Republicans trying to take away
women's health care. Why are they trying to do this? You would have to
ask them. But we are here to say no.
The thing about the Blunt amendment is, it would not only say that
any insurer or any employer for any reason could stop women from
getting access to contraception; it could also stop all of our families
from getting access to essential health care services and preventive
health care services.
Why do I say that? Let's take a look at the Blunt amendment. Enough
of this chatter. Let's take a look at it. Here is what it says: A
health care plan shall not be considered to have failed to provide the
essential health care benefits package described in our law or
preventive health care services described in our law if they exercise
what they call a moral objection.
So say someone has a moral objection to someone who has smoked, and
the person wants to give up smoking and they want to get a smoking
cessation program as part of their insurance. If the insurer says, That
is your fault, you are not getting it; or someone may have diabetes and
the employer or the insurer says, You know what? That was your problem.
You ate too much sugar as a kid. Too bad.
That is what the Blunt amendment does and that is a fact. Here it is.
I placed it here because this is the amendment. That is what it says.
[[Page S1124]]
I wish to show a list of preventive services and essential health
care services that the Blunt amendment threatens. Remember, the Blunt
amendment says there is a new clause that now says any insurer or any
employer can deny any one of these benefits: emergency services,
hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health treatment,
pediatric services, rehabilitative services--that is just some.
Here is the list of the preventive health care benefits that any
insurer or any employer could deny: breast cancer screenings, cervical
cancer, hepatitis A and B vaccines, yes--contraception, HIV screening,
autism screening, hearing screening for newborns.
This is the list. Why do I show this list? Particularly because I
know the Senator served on the HELP Committee and helped put this
together. This is the list of services that was put together by the
expert physicians in the Institute of Medicine, this list, preventive
health care, and this list, essential health benefits.
I was stunned to come on the floor and hear Senator Ayotte invoke the
name of our dear colleague and our dearly missed colleague, Ted
Kennedy. She tried to imply that he would support the Blunt amendment.
She is not the first Republican to do it. I am calling on my
Republican friends to stop right now because there are several reasons
why they are wrong to do that. First of all, Ted Kennedy, in one of his
last acts, voted for the health care bill. He voted for the health care
bill that came out of the HELP Committee. He helped to write the
preventive section. He helped to write the essential health benefits
section. He would never ever--as his son has said--support the Blunt
amendment that would say to every employer in this country if they
don't feel like offering any of these, they don't have to.
He fought hard for these. He wouldn't give an exception to an
insurance company or a nonreligious employer, never.
How else do I know that to be the case? I ask unanimous consent to
have printed in the Record a list of bills that Senator Kennedy
cosponsored.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
S. 766, Equity in Prescription Insurance and Contraceptive
Coverage Act of 1997.
S. 1200, Equity in Prescription Insurance and Contraceptive
Coverage Act of 1999.
S. 104, Equity in Prescription Insurance and Contraceptive
Coverage Act of 2001.
S. 1396, Equity in Prescription Insurance and Contraceptive
Coverage Act of 2003.
S. 1214, Equity in Prescription Insurance and Contraceptive
Coverage Act of 2005.
S. 21, Prevention First Act (110th Congress).
S. 21, Prevention First Act (111th Congress).
Mrs. BOXER. What are these bills? These are bills that called for
equity for women to get contraceptive coverage. If they were given
other coverage, they had the right to get contraceptive coverage. Ted
Kennedy was a leader. He is a cosponsor on all these bills. Do you know
for how many years? Thirteen years. For thirteen years, Ted Kennedy
fought for women to get access to contraceptive coverage in their
insurance.
I say to my Republican friends, don't come to the floor and invoke
the name of our dear colleague. I was so proud that the first thing I
did when I came to the Senate, he asked me if I would help him work on
a bill to protect people who were going to clinics, women's clinics,
who were being harassed at the clinic door. You know what. I worked it
for him. I helped him on the floor, and I was so proud we won that. Now
there is a safety zone for women when they go to a clinic for their
health care, their reproductive health care. That was Ted Kennedy.
Yes, Ted Kennedy supported a conscience clause--we all do, and
President Obama has taken care of that. He has stated clearly in his
compromise that if you are a religious institution, you do not have to
offer birth control coverage. If you are a religiously affiliated
institution, you don't have to cover it directly but you do indirectly.
That was a Solomon-like decision by our President. But that is not
enough for my Republican colleagues. They have to fight about
everything.
I ask unanimous consent also to have printed in the Record the letter
Patrick Kennedy wrote to Senator Brown.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
February 26, 2012.
Hon. Scott Brown,
Suite 100, 337 Summer Street,
Boston, Massachusetts.
Dear Senator Brown: In your current radio ad and in many
news reports, I hear you claim my father would have joined
you in supporting an extreme proposal now before the U.S.
Senate that threatens health care coverage for women and
everyone. Your claims are misleading and untrue.
Providing health care to every American was the work of my
father's life. The Blunt Amendment you are supporting is an
attack on that cause.
My father believed that health care providers should be
allowed a conscience exemption from performing any service
that conflicted with their faith. That's what was in his 1995
law and what he referenced to the Pope. That is completely
different than the broad language of the Blunt Amendment that
will allow any employer, or even an insurance company, to use
vague moral objections as an excuse to refuse to provide
health care coverage. My father never would have supported
this extreme legislation.
You are entitled to your own opinions, of course, but I ask
that, moving forward, you do not confuse my father's
positions with your own. I appreciate the past respect you
have expressed for his legacy, but misstating his positions
is no way to honor his life's work.
I respectfully request that you immediately stop broadcast
of this radio ad and from citing my father any further.
Sincerely,
Patrick J. Kennedy.
Mrs. BOXER. In that letter, he said: ``You are entitled to your own
opinions but I ask that, moving forward, you do not confuse my father's
position with your own.''
He said: ``I appreciate the past respect you have expressed for his
legacy, but misstating his positions is no way to honor his life's
work.''
I ask my colleagues in this debate, come and state their own views,
but don't misstate the views of a dear departed colleague who for 13
years supported a woman's right to have access to contraception.
I think people watching this today have to be a bit confused because
when they look up at the screen it says we are on a transportation
bill. Indeed we are. Indeed we have been on it for almost 3 weeks now.
I say to my colleagues who know the importance of this bill: Please,
let us get to it. Let us get to the heart of the matter. We have a huge
unemployment rate among construction workers. The unemployed
construction workers could fill 15 Super Bowl stadiums. That is how
many are unemployed. We need to get to this bill.
It is important to our businesses. It is important to our workers. It
is important to our communities. It is important for our safety. It is
important to fix the bridges and the highways. It is important to carry
out the vision of Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, who said it
was key that we be able to move people and goods through our great
Nation.
When Olympia Snowe, our very respected colleague from Maine, told us
yesterday she would not seek reelection, she said it was because there
is so much polarization here. I said this morning, this bill is exhibit
1. Here we have an underlying bill that came out of four committees in
a bipartisan way. It means we can save 1.8 million jobs, create up to 1
million new jobs, and guess what. The first amendment is birth control,
women's health, an attack on women's health. We have to come to the
floor and stand on our feet and fight back.
You know what. I am proud to do it. I am proud of the men and women
who have stood on this floor and have come to press conferences and
been on conference calls fighting for women's rights. But this issue
was decided a long time ago. We know access to contraception is
critical for people. A full 15 percent of women who use it use it to
fight debilitating monthly pain or to make sure tumors do not grow any
larger or for severe skin conditions, and the rest use it to plan their
families.
When families are planned do you know what happens? The babies are
healthier. The families are ready. Abortions go down in number. It is a
win-win. We all know that and I always thought we could reach across
the aisle and work together to make sure there was family planning. But
today just proves the opposite, our colleagues on the other side, the
Republicans, are bound and determined to go after women's health.
[[Page S1125]]
I stand opposing the Blunt amendment, thanking my colleagues for
their eloquence, and hoping we can dispose of it, defeat it, and get
back to our Transportation bill.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I rise to oppose the Blunt amendment
which simply goes way too far. The President has struck the right
balance in his decision to address religious institutions' concerns
when it comes to providing women's health services, but this amendment
gives all employers shockingly broad discretion to make moral decisions
for their employees, fundamental decisions about some of the most
personal issues an individual faces--the health care needs of
themselves and their families, a woman's decision about contraception
and family planning, decisions about whether their child gets a blood
transfusion for deadly disease, decisions regarding the use of
prescription drugs, decisions on who to treat and how to treat them--
based entirely on an employer's moral views, not an individual's moral
beliefs.
The bottom line is health services should not be provided at the
moral discretion of an employer but on the medical determination of the
employee and their doctor. According to the Department of Health and
Human Services, 1.7 million New Jerseyans, almost 500,000 children,
over 600,000 women and over 600,000 men benefit from the expanded
preventive service coverage from their private insurers that we created
under the law: screenings for colon cancer, mammograms for women, well
child visits, flu shots, a host of other routine procedures. All these
could be taken away under this proposed amendment should their employer
determine it is against their personal beliefs or convictions.
Every day, millions of Americans who are worried about a health
condition go to see their doctor. Millions of women go for necessary
screening and access to legal medical procedures. Their doctor
evaluates their condition and recommends a course of treatment and that
can range from simple preventive measures, such as exercise and diet,
to a prescription drug regimen, to major surgery. The last thing a
woman or her doctor should have to concern themselves with is whether
their employer will deem their medical treatment to be immoral based on
their employer's personal beliefs, regardless of their own beliefs or
needs. The last thing they need is to be denied coverage by an employer
who would be allowed, under this amendment, to effectively practice a
form of morality medicine that has nothing to do with accepted medical
science or the affected individual's personal beliefs.
Under the language of this amendment, that is exactly what would
happen. It would allow employers simply to deny coverage based on a
particular religious doctrine or moral belief, regardless of the
science, medical evidence or the legality of the prescribed treatment.
Put simply, we expect our health insurers, no matter where we work, no
matter what our faith, to cover basic benefits and necessary medical
procedures recommended by our doctor and then we as individuals should
have the right to decide which of those benefits we use based on our
own personal beliefs, our medical diagnosis, and our treatment options.
Just because one person makes one decision or holds one belief doesn't
mean someone else will do the same. That is what freedom is all about.
The arbitrary denial of coverage based on anything other than good
science and rational medical therapy was the driving force behind the
need for health care reforms that ensured that if one paid their
premiums, they would be covered, freeing families from having to choose
between putting food on the table, paying their mortgage or using their
savings to pay for medical treatment because an insurer, based on their
own rules, refused to cover them.
With this amendment, we are turning back the clock and allowing the
arbitrary denial of coverage based on someone else's sense of morality.
That is not what America is about. It is not what freedom of religion
is about.
In a system predicated on employer-based health insurance coverage,
in which workers often forgo other benefits such as wage increases in
exchange for coverage, it is vitally important to ensure families can
count on their coverage to provide the treatments and benefits they
need. We can continue doing so, as we have for many years, while
respecting people's personal moral beliefs.
Supporters of this amendment claim it is about protecting religious
freedom. They are wrong. Supporters of this amendment claim that recent
regulations guaranteeing a woman's access to preventive health care
services is a governmental overreach. They are wrong. What supporters
of this amendment are actually trying to accomplish has nothing to do
with either of those issues. It has to do with trying to dismantle
heath care reform to score cheap political points and throw America's
mothers, daughters, and sisters under the bus in the process.
This amendment is not about religious freedom. The President rightly
addressed that concern with a recent compromise he announced for
religious institutions. No, it is about allowing morality-based
medicine to deny coverage for neonatal care for unwed women, to deny
access to lifesaving vaccines for children, to refuse to cover
medications for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases or even
deny coverage for diabetes or hypertension because of an unhealthy
lifestyle. The scope of this amendment is unlimited.
If it were truly about religious freedom or about contraceptives,
then why have so many nationally respected organizations that have
nothing to do with birth control, reproductive issues or religion, such
as the Easter Seals, the March of Dimes, the Spina Bifida Association,
come out in such strong opposition? The answer is simple, because the
amendment isn't about birth control and it isn't about religious
freedom. The amendment is about fundamentally undermining our system of
patient protections, especially for women, and leads us backward to a
time when insurance companies and employers could play life-or-death
games with insurance coverage. Supporters of this amendment will stop
at nothing to undermine the progress made thanks to health care reform,
progress that says insurance companies can no longer deny coverage
because of a preexisting condition, can no longer impose arbitrary caps
on the coverage you can receive or cancel a policy because of a
diagnosis they deem too expensive to cover. In my view, it is shameful
that they are using women's health and access to vital preventive
services as a scapegoat for a larger anti-health agenda. Any attempt to
say otherwise is wrong.
Let me close by saying to allow any employer the ability to deny any
service for any reason is doing a disservice to the people we
represent. We would be turning the Constitution on its head to favor a
morality-based medical decision over good science and over the
relationship between a patient and their doctor. This is an incredibly
overreaching amendment with radical consequences, and I urge my
colleagues to oppose it and preserve the progress we made on trying to
level the playing field for workers and patients in this country.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise to thank the distinguished
Senator from New Jersey for his remarks, and most particularly for the
remarks of my friend and colleague from California. She has fought this
fight along with the dean of our women, Senator Mikulski, year after
year and time after time.
Before I speak about the Blunt amendment, I wanted to express that
the retirement or announced perspective retirement of Senator Olympia
Snowe is, for me, a heartbreak. I have regarded her as one of the most
impressive Senators in our body. She still has many good years ahead of
her. I have had the pleasure of working with her on a number of bills.
Most importantly, we did really the only fuel economy improvement that
had been done in 20 years in the 10-over-10 bill. What is interesting
about it is it was a bipartisan bill and it got passed thanks to
Senator Ted Stevens who was Vice-Chairman of the Commerce Committee at
the time and it was put in his bill. So it was really quite wonderful
to see that happen.
This is my 20th year here, along with my friend and colleague Senator
[[Page S1126]]
Boxer, and over the last 10 years what I have seen is more and more
attacks on women and women's health, stemming largely from the abortion
debates, but not only that. We have fought--and Senator Mikulski has
led the way--for equal pay, we have fought against discrimination,
attacks on Title X Family Planning grants, attempts to defund Planned
Parenthood, and attempts to limit access to preventive health care such
as contraception. These attacks to limit a woman's right to make her
own reproductive health care choices have now escalated to an
unprecedented level. I am not going to go into the specifics of some of
them, but trust me, I never thought I would see people in public office
put forward some of the bills out there. I believe strongly that all
women should have access to comprehensive reproductive care, and should
be able to decide for themselves how to use that care regardless of
where they work or what insurance they have.
The other side of the aisle has tried to take away access not only to
contraception but also primary and preventive screenings for low-income
women that are provided by the Title X Family Planning program and by
Planned Parenthood. Title X programs serve over 5 million Americans
nationwide, Planned Parenthood almost 3 million. They are not minor,
they are major, and for many individuals it is their only source of
care. And now here we are defending not just women's rights but the
rights of all Americans to have access to essential and preventive
health care benefits.
I strongly oppose this latest attack in the form of the Blunt
amendment, and I join my colleagues on the floor to speak about the
harm that this amendment will do.
I think it was stated by Senator Menendez that the amendment is
vague. In its vagueness it becomes a predicate for any provider,
employer, or insurer to decline to provide to cover a myriad of health
care benefits simply on the basis of religious beliefs or moral
conviction. There is no statement in the legislation as to what the
religious belief or moral conviction has to be, when it begins, or when
it ends. It is an excuse as to why they do not want to do something.
What does this mean? Well, what it means in reality is 20 million
women could be denied any preventive health care benefits, including
contraception, mammograms, prenatal screenings, and cervical cancer
screenings. In addition, 14 million children--and this is right--could
be denied, under this Blunt amendment, access to recommended preventive
services including routine immunizations, necessary preventive health
screenings for infants, and developmental screenings.
In my State alone an estimated 6.2 million individuals--2.3 women,
1.6 million children, and 2 million men--could be denied access to the
preventive health services afforded to them by the health reform law,
which incidentally is four typewritten pages, single spaced, a list of
preventive health services. This debate is not about religious freedom.
It is about allowing providers and employers the right to deny access
to care for autism screening, STD and cancer screenings, and well-baby
exams for any reason. All they have to say is they have a moral concern
with it, that their conscience bothers them.
For instance, any employer could refuse to cover screening for type 2
diabetes because of moral objections to a perceived unhealthy
lifestyle. A health plan could refuse to cover maternity coverage for
an interracial couple because they have a religious or moral objection
to such a relationship. The only thing this amendment does is protect
the right to deny. It doesn't give anything. It allows denial. It does
nothing to protect the rights of employees to access fundamental health
care.
The radical wing of the Republican Party does not speak for most of
the women in this country. About 100 organizations nationwide oppose
this amendment, including the National Partnership for Women and
Families, National Physicians Alliance, Human Rights Campaign, and the
American Public Health Association.
Earlier we heard from an intensive care nurse who had worked 37 years
in intensive care in a Boston hospital who said people get the best
care essentially when the politicians stay away, and I believe that. I
have heard to date--and I am sure Senator Boxer has heard from a
similar number--from 11,500 constituents in my State, Senator Boxer's
State, who oppose this amendment and have grave concerns about its
implications. I don't need to tell the women in this body that we have
had to fight for our rights. No one has given women anything without a
fight. We had to fight for our right to inherit property, our right to
go to college, our right to vote, and for the last 10 years, the right
to control our own reproductive systems. We will continue to fight the
Blunt amendment and other attempts to roll back the clock.
I urge my colleagues to think carefully about the long-reaching
implications of this amendment and oppose it. Senator Boxer shared with
me a letter, and she indicated that she had read one part of it. I wish
to read another part of it. This is a letter from Patrick Kennedy to
Scott Brown, and I want to read this paragraph because it involves
someone everybody on this floor knows sat right over there at that desk
for years and was known as the lion of the Senate. When he stood on his
feet, everyone listened. Here is what Patrick Kennedy said:
My father believed that health care providers should be
allowed a conscience exemption from performing any service
that conflicted with their faith. That's what was in his 1995
law and what he referenced to the Pope. That is completely
different than the broad language of the Blunt amendment that
will allow any employer, or even an insurance company, to use
vague moral objections as an excuse to refuse to provide
health care coverage. My father never would have supported
this extreme legislation.
It is signed Patrick Kennedy, and I believe Senator Boxer put the
letter in the Record so anyone who wishes to see the whole letter has
access to it. But I hope this amendment is defeated on the floor.
I see the distinguished Senator from the neighboring State, Maryland,
the dean of the women, is on the floor.
I will yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Thank you very much, Mr. President.
Mr. President, what is the parliamentary situation?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority has 1\1/2\ minutes remaining.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to extend the
time on the Democratic side for 15 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Thank you very much. I want to thank my colleagues who
have spoken on this amendment, particularly those who oppose the
amendment.
I come to the floor today with sadness in my heart. I come because
over the weekend one of our Maryland National Guards was killed in
Afghanistan. He was one of two men working in a building in which he
was attacked by someone he trusted at the Interior Service, and it
appears that he was assassinated. I talked to his widow. We are sad. We
are sad that somebody who went to defend freedom was killed in such a
terrible way.
I am sad because last night I spoke to a dear friend of mine whose
husband is very ill from the ravages of brain cancer, and we remembered
so many good times we had together, but those good times don't seem
possible in the future. I want so much for her to be with her husband
and not think about the consequences of costs and so on.
Last night we learned that our very dear friend and colleague,
Senator Olympia Snowe, is going to retire not because she is tired but
because she is sick and tired of the partisanship. Senator Snowe is not
tired. She is sick and tired of the partisanship. And you know what. So
am I.
We have a highway bill here. We have an unemployment problem. We
could solve America's problems and get it rolling again, and if we pass
the highway bill--with the appropriate debate on amendments germane to
the bill--we could do it. So I am really sad.
I am sad that I have to come to the floor to debate an amendment that
has no relevance to the highway bill. And I am sad because we are so
tied up in partisan politics and scoring political points that we don't
look at how we can get our troops out of Afghanistan. How can we make
sure we have a budget that can fund the cure for cancer and at the same
time make sure any
[[Page S1127]]
family hit by that dreaded C word doesn't go bankrupt during care?
I am devastated that a dear friend and extraordinary public servant
is so fed up with how toxic we have become that she chooses not to run
for office again. So I want to be serious, and therefore you need to
know I am really sad about this, but I also am frustrated about this.
So I want to talk about this Blunt amendment because we have heard
nothing but mythology, smokescreens, and politics masquerading as
morality all day long.
Let me tell you what the Blunt amendment is not. It is not about
religious organizations providing health care and the government saying
what the benefits should be. It is not about affiliated religious
organizations and the government saying what the service is to be. This
amendment is about nonreligious insurance companies and nonreligious
employers. It is about secular insurance companies and it is about
secular employers. The Blunt amendment allows that any--any--health
insurer or employer can deny coverage for any health service they
choose based on something called religious beliefs and moral
convictions.
Now, there is a body of knowledge that defines religious beliefs, but
what is a moral conviction? That is not doctrine. That is a person's
personal opinion. A moral conviction, no matter how heartfelt, no
matter how sincere, no matter how fully based upon ethical principles,
is still a person's personal opinion. So we are going to allow the
personal opinions of insurance companies and the personal opinions of
employers to determine what health care a person gets. What happened to
doctors? What happened to the definition of essential health care? So
this is not about religious freedom; this is not about religious
liberty because it is not even about religious institutions. So let's
get real clear on this Blunt amendment.
This amendment is politics masquerading as morality. Make no mistake.
The politics is rooted in wanting to derail and dismember the
Affordable Care Act and our preventive health care amendment.
So what the Blunt amendment does, as I said, is allow any insurer or
any employer to deny coverage based on religious beliefs or moral
convictions. Well, what that essentially means is this: Let's look at
examples. If an employer has a conviction, a personal opinion, against
smoking, they can refuse to cover treatment for lung cancer or
emphysema. If an employer has a personal opinion that they call a moral
conviction that doesn't approve of drinking alcohol, they can refuse to
cover any program for alcohol treatment or substance abuse.
Let's say there is an employer who doesn't believe in divorce and
they say: I will not cover health care for anybody who is divorced
because I have a moral conviction against that. Suppose a person says--
there are some schools of thought that say: I have a moral conviction
that a woman can only see a woman doctor, and I will not cover anything
where she is seen by a male physician. Where are we heading? These are
not ridiculous examples. It puts the personal opinion of employers and
insurers over the practice of medicine.
This is outrageous. This is vague. It is going to end up with all
kinds of lawsuits--let's speak about lawsuits. While some have been
pounding their chests talking about religious freedom and the
Constitution, what is also in the Blunt amendment is this whole idea
that gives employers access to Federal courts if they believe they
can't exercise the amendment. This is a new lawyers full employment
bill.
I am shocked because the other party is always trashing lawyers. They
are always trashing the trial lawyers associations. Now they have
created a whole new right--or an opportunity--for Federal court action,
clogging the courts on this particular issue.
This is why Americans are so fed up. They want us to focus on health
care. They want us to focus on how to lead better lives.
Let me talk about how we got here in the first place. Do my
colleagues remember why we had health reform legislation? I remember
because it still exists: 42 million Americans are uninsured; 42 million
Americans are uninsured for health care.
This is the fifth anniversary of a little boy in Prince George's
County who died because he could not have access to dental care. His
infection was so bad, so severe, and there was nobody to see him. His
mother was too poor to be able to pay for it. That little boy, in the
shadow of the Capitol of the United States, died.
Now, that is why we work for the Affordable Care Act. People can call
it ObamaCare. I don't care what people call it. I call it an
opportunity for the American people to get what a great democratic
society should provide.
Then, we not only looked at what was uninsured, we also looked at the
issues around women. Senator Stabenow held a hearing, and I held a
hearing, and guess what we found. Women pay more for their health
insurance than men of equal age and equal health status. Nobody said
that is a social justice issue. Well, I have a moral conviction about
that. I have a really deeply felt moral conviction that if you are a
woman, you shouldn't be discriminated against by your insurance
company.
We also found that women were denied health care because of
preexisting conditions. We found that in eight States, if a person was
a victim of domestic violence, they were doubly abused--not only by
their spouse, but they couldn't get insurance coverage because they
said the cost of physical and mental health care would be too much.
Well, I had a moral conviction. I had a moral conviction that if you
are a victim of domestic violence, you shouldn't be denied health care.
I had a real strong moral conviction about that.
Then, during my hearing, I heard a bone-chilling story. It wasn't
just me; it was all who attended. There was a woman who testified that
she had a medically mandated C-section. Then she was told by her
insurance company, in writing, that she had to get sterilized in order
to receive health insurance. The insurance company was mandating
sterilization for her to get coverage. I nearly went off my chair.
At that hearing there was a representative of the insurance company.
They had no moral reaction to that. They had no moral reaction to that.
I had a reaction. I had a really big one. That is why we got the
amendments we did, where you could not deny health care on the basis of
preexisting conditions. So I have a lot of moral convictions about
this: that in the United States of America no child should die because
of the absence of health care; no woman should be discriminated against
in the health care system; and, at the same time, a person needs to be
able to have the opportunity to get the services their doctor says they
need.
The other thing on our agenda was to not only save lives, but to save
money, and we knew that prevention was the way to go. I came to the
floor and offered the preventive health amendment. It was a great day.
Many women spoke for it. It was primarily oriented toward women, but it
was going to cover men as well. It was going to make sure that early
detection and early screening would save lives. We spoke about the
necessity for mammograms. We spoke about the necessity for screening
for diabetes and heart disease and the kinds of things that, if
detected early, could save lives. That bipartisan amendment passed.
Then, after it was passed, and after the bill passed, the Secretary
of Health and Human Services said: Preventive benefits should be
defined not by politicians and not by a bureaucrat at HHS but by the
medical community. So she requested the Institute of Medicine to define
the preventive health care benefit. The preventive benefits we are
talking about that Senator Blunt says an employer doesn't have to
provide came from the Institute of Medicine. It didn't come from the
Congress. It didn't come from bureaucracy at HHS. It came from a
learned, prestigious society that we turn to--the Institute of
Medicine. This is what they said are the essential preventive services
that would save lives as well as save money.
So this is where this came from. Now, some are on the floor saying:
If you have a moral conviction against what the Institute of Medicine
says is an essential benefit, you could go ahead and do it. Again, we
are not talking about religious institutions who are employers; we are
not talking about religious-affiliated institutions; we are talking
about nonreligious institutions.
[[Page S1128]]
Ordinarily I would call this amendment folly, but this is a
masquerade. I think it is just one more excuse to opt out of the
Affordable Care Act. It is one more excuse to opt out of ObamaCare.
They want to opt out, but I think it is a cop-out, and we have to stop
masquerading that this is about morality or the first amendment or
someone's religious beliefs.
So I hope we defeat this Blunt amendment. Most of all, I wish we
could get back to talking about the serious issues affecting the
American people. I am going to bring those troops home. I sure want to
find that cure for cancer and help come up with the resources so we can
do it. I am going to be sure that no little boy ever goes through what
Deamonte Driver and his family had to suffer.
Let's defeat the Blunt amendment. Let's get back to the highway bill.
Let's get America rolling--and how about let's start functioning as an
institution that focuses on civility and finding the sensible center
that America has been known for in other years when we had the ability
to govern.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Klobuchar). The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, before the Senator from Maryland leaves
the floor, I think it is an opportunity to thank her so much for
speaking the truth today on the floor of the Senate--just the facts--
and what the Blunt amendment is about and isn't about. Also, I watched
her recite the history of trying to bring preventive care and essential
health care benefits to our people, realizing that she was in that
pivotal position in the HELP Committee.
I remember her looking at me one day--because we are very close
friends; we are not on that particular committee together--and she said
to me: Senator Kennedy asked me--I just get the chills when I think of
it--to take on this issue of prevention and work with Tom Harkin and
Chris Dodd and step to the plate on these essential benefits and on
preventive benefits. She literally raised this issue, particularly on
the prevention side--I don't know if the Presiding Officer remembers--
in caucuses, on the floor, in the committee, at press conferences, that
we could have a new day in health care in this country because although
we spend more than any country in the world, we are not getting the
same results because we haven't invested in prevention.
As she said, it is not up to politicians to decide what prevention
should look like; it is up to the doctors. Under the Senator's
leadership and that of Senators Harkin and Dodd and all the wonderful
members of the HELP Committee, as well as the Finance Committee--and,
yes, Ted Kennedy in the background because he was quite ill, but he
sent his messages, and his staff helped--they came up with a list of
essential health care services that nobody could ever quarrel with.
They also came up with a list of preventive health care services that
were so critical to all of us, particularly to women. The great news:
Proving to us that when we invest in prevention, we save so much down
the line. We all know this is a fact.
Access to contraception, by the way, was put on the list not by
politicians but by the Institute of Medicine because it is known that
if the individual chooses that route to plan their families, that means
we have fewer abortions and it means we will have healthier families,
healthier babies. And many people take the birth control pill as
medicine to prevent debilitating monthly pain. It is prescribed for
skin diseases. It is prescribed to make sure cysts on ovaries do not
keep growing and growing and possibly lose an ovary.
But what has happened--and I guess I want to ask my friend one
question before she leaves--is that the Blunt amendment would say that
anybody, for any reason, any day, could cancel out that whole list of
preventive and essential health care services that she fought so hard
for.
So when they say this is about religious freedom, no, no, no; that
has been taken care of by our President. In terms of any provider that
is religious or religiously affiliated, they do not have to provide
contraception directly. Even Catholic Charities' response was ``We are
hopeful that this is a step in the right direction . . . '', the
Catholic Health Association supports the compromise, and so on. So I
want to ask my friend, is she aware that when Congressman Issa held a
hearing on women's health care, there was not one woman on the panel,
on that first panel? Did she see those photos of that panel that was
called to speak on women's health?
Ms. MIKULSKI. Oh, I sure did, and it was deja vu all over again, I
say to my colleague from California, because it was like the Anita Hill
hearings. The Senator remembers what happened there.
Mrs. BOXER. Yes, I do.
Ms. MIKULSKI. During that time, there was not one woman on the
Judiciary Committee.
Mrs. BOXER. Absolutely.
Ms. MIKULSKI. This is not new. The discrimination against women has
been around a long time. I consider discrimination against women one of
the great social justice issues, whether you are a secular humanist or
you have core beliefs in an organized religion.
I found not only the picture appalling, but I want to reiterate what
we have been saying here: There is a systematic war against women. We
do not get equal pay for equal work. We are often devalued in the
workplace. We worry more about parking lot slots for our cars than
childcare slots for our children. Then, when it comes to health care,
what was so great about the preventive amendment was, first of all, we
talked not only about family planning, where women could have the
children they knew they could care for, but we talked about prenatal
care. We talked about making sure our children had the opportunity for
viability and survivability at birth.
So, yes, it was both a picture of us not being included, but it shows
we need to be able to fight to be heard. The issue is, women's voices
are not being heard, and I am saying today the voices of women are
being heard and the voices of good men who support us. I am telling
you--not you, Senator Boxer, but I am saying out loud--if this Blunt
amendment passes, I believe the voices of women will be heard. They
will be heard on the Internet. They will be heard in streets and
communities. Most of all, they will be heard in the voting booth.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I just want to thank my colleague from
Maryland for her eloquence and for her fighting spirit. The year I came
here was following on the Anita Hill issue, when the world saw and this
country saw we had no women on the Judiciary Committee. Now, our
Presiding Officer sits on that committee. Senator Feinstein and Senator
Moseley-Braun were the two women to serve on that committee after we
saw there were no women, and they paved the way for my good friend to
bring her fabulous background and expertise to the table.
But when Congressman Issa, the chairman of the committee that had no
women on a panel talking about women's health--imagine, no women. Do we
have that photo, Cerin? Do we have the photo of the five men testifying
about women's health, talking about women's access to contraception,
talking about birth control? Not one of those men ever gave birth as
far as I know, unless they are a medical miracle. This photo I have in
the Chamber I think is changing this country this year because a
picture is worth thousands of words. Look at this picture, and we see
over on the House side on that Republican side, that is who they want
to hear from. When a woman in the audience said to the chair of that
committee: Can I speak? I think I have some important information, he
said she was not qualified. So I suppose if a person wants to be
qualified to speak about women's health, they have to be a man. Her
story she wanted to share was of a friend who was unable to get access
to birth control because her employer did not offer it, and she was too
financially strapped to purchase it. As a result, a cyst on an ovary
became so large and so complicated she lost her ovary.
Now, I just want to say to my colleagues, we are on a highway bill.
We have to be kidding that we have now wasted 3 weeks because we are so
consumed with attacking women's health. Get over it. We are not going
to go back. The women of this country will not allow it.
Look what happened in Virginia. They had a plan. They were going to
[[Page S1129]]
mandate an invasive procedure, a humiliating procedure, a medically
unnecessary procedure to women. In Virginia the women said: What? And
the Governor said: Whoops, I have some ambitions to do more than this.
I better change.
I just want to say to my colleagues: Vote this down. Table this
amendment, this Blunt amendment. This is not going to get us anywhere.
What does it do to create one job--except new jobs for attorneys, as it
sets up a whole no right of action. I am sure the trial lawyers are
going to love the Republicans for this bill. It sets up a whole new
right of action because somebody is going to say: I have a moral
objection against giving cancer treatment to a child because I think
prayer is the answer. Somebody will sue, and that employer will sue,
and they will sue and they will sue and there will be money, money,
money going to lawyers. Great. What did that do to help one child? What
did that do to make somebody feel better? What did that do to create
one job?
I know the leaders on both sides are trying to figure out a pathway
forward on this highway bill. I am just saying, we better have a
pathway forward. I want to say to the Presiding Officer sitting in the
chair, who was a proud member of the Environment and Public Works
Committee--and I hated to lose her, but everybody wanted her on their
committee, so I lost her--she knows how it is. She lives in a State
where a bridge collapsed. She fought hard to get that bridge rebuilt in
record time. She knows how important it is to protect people by making
sure our bridges are safe, that we have safe roads to schools, that we
have good transit alternatives, that we fix our roads and our highways.
Madam President, 70,000 of our bridges are deficient, 50 percent of
our roads are not up to standard, and we are voting on birth control?
Come on. What is next? Egypt? They have a whole list of things that
have nothing to do with the highway bill. Bring it on. Let the people
see who is stopping progress, who is stopping this bill because at the
end of March do you know what happens. We run out on the authorization
of the highway bill. We run out on the authorization of the
Transportation bill. We run out, and we will lose 630,000 jobs right
then and there.
Instead, we can get this bill done. It is terrifically bipartisan. It
came out of the committee 18 to 0. It came out of other committees with
a bipartisan vote. We can get on with it, protect 1.8 million jobs, and
create up to another 1 million jobs. Madam President, 2.8 million jobs
are at stake, and we are debating birth control.
I think this is resonating in the country. All of a sudden, people
wake up and they say: What are they doing there? What is happening
there? When they see this, it is going to be very clear we have a bill
that has been stuck on the floor for 3 weeks because the Republicans
are demanding votes on matters that have nothing to do with the highway
bill. The first one is on birth control. They are talking about
something on Egypt. They are talking about something on--oh, this is a
good one--repealing an environmental law that is keeping arsenic, lead,
and mercury out of the air. They want to repeal that law. Great. That
is great. That will really do something to make us safe.
So I am ready for these amendments. Come on to the floor. Give us a
time agreement. Let's get on with it. Let's then allow the germane
amendments to be offered.
The last comment I will close with is this because it is haunting me:
The picture of 15 football stadiums, with every seat filled, would
equal the number of unemployed construction workers we have out there
today. Well over 1 million suffering because they cannot find
construction work.
So I can only say, it is time to get this birth control amendment
behind us. Let's beat it. Let's beat the Blunt amendment. It is a
disaster. It is dangerous. It is hurtful. It is irrelevant to this
bill, and it is dangerous for the country. Stop invoking the name of a
departed colleague. Respect his family. Respect his memory. Let's get
this vote over with. Let's go to the business at hand and create the
jobs the American people are crying for.
I am very pleased to see a colleague has arrived, so I yield the
floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin is recognized.
Mr. KOHL. Madam President, I come here today to speak about my
amendment No. 1591, which is a bipartisan amendment to repeal the
freight railroad industry's undeserved exemptions to the antitrust
laws, exemptions that result in higher prices to hundreds of businesses
and millions of consumers every day. These outmoded exemptions do
damage to numerous industries across our country--industries that are
vital to our economy and to the job market.
From power companies that rely on coal shipped by rail, to farmers
shipping grain, to chemical companies that rely on rail to transport
raw materials, to paper companies that ship their finished products via
rail, the railroad's antitrust exemption leads to higher prices and
renders rail shippers at the mercy of rail monopolies engaged in
anticompetitive practices.
The railroads enjoy these antitrust immunities despite the industry's
very high levels of concentration--with four freight railroads
controlling nearly 90 percent of the market as measured by revenue and
dividing up the country so that they face very little, if any, rail
competition in many areas of our country.
This amendment is very simple. Wherever the law provides freight
railroads with an antitrust exemption, this amendment repeals it. In
this way, the railroads will have to abide by the same rules of free
competition as virtually every other industry. This amendment is
identical to the Railroad Antitrust Enforcement Act, bipartisan
legislation that has passed the Judiciary Committee by overwhelming
margins in this Congress as well as in the past two.
Virtually no industry--other than baseball and insurance--enjoys the
sweeping nature of the antitrust exemptions as does the freight
railroad industry. Yet, paradoxically, the consolidated nature of the
freight railroad industry makes full application of antitrust law even
more necessary.
Just three decades ago there were more than 40 class I freight
railroads in the United States. But today, after massive waves of
consolidation, nearly 90 percent of industry revenues are controlled by
just four railroads. Many areas of the country are served by only one,
leaving their shippers captive to rate increases and anticompetitive
measures.
The effects of these antitrust exemptions protecting monopoly
behavior are easy to see. Increased concentration, combined with a lack
of antitrust scrutiny, have had clear price effects. A September 2010
staff report of the Senate Commerce Committee stated:
The four Class I railroads that today dominate the U.S.
rail shipping market are achieving returns on revenue and
operating ratios that rank them among the most profitable
businesses in the U.S. economy.
Since 2004, this report found ``Class I railroads have been raising
prices by an average of 5% a year above inflation.''
The four largest railroads nearly doubled their collective profit
margins in the last decade to 13 percent, ranking the railroad industry
the fifth most profitable industry as ranked by Fortune Magazine. A
2006 GAO report furthermore found that shippers in many geographical
areas ``may be paying excessive rates due to a lack of competition in
these markets.'' Given the industry's concentration and pricing power,
the case for full-fledged application of the antitrust laws is plain.
It is more than just railroad shippers who pay the price of a
railroad industry unchecked by antitrust oversight. These unjustified
cost increases cause consumers to suffer higher electricity bills
because a utility must pay for the high cost of transporting coal,
higher prices for goods produced by manufacturers who rely on railroads
to transport raw materials, as well as higher food prices for everyone.
Railroad monopoly conduct ripples through the economy, causing pain
in countless corners of commerce. The current antitrust exemptions
protect a wide range of railroad industry conduct from antitrust
scrutiny. Unlike virtually every other regulated industry, the Justice
Department cannot bring suit to block anticompetitive mergers--a fact
that has greatly aided the sharp industry consolidation I have already
described.
Private parties and State attorneys general cannot bring private
antitrust
[[Page S1130]]
lawsuits to obtain injunctive relief, leaving pernicious industry
practices such as bottlenecks and paper barriers exempt from antitrust
review. Railroad practices subject to the jurisdiction of the Surface
Transportation Board are effectively immunized from antitrust remedies.
Our amendment will eliminate these exemptions once and for all.
Railroads will be fully subject to antitrust law and will have to play
by the same rules of free competition that all other businesses do.
The rail industry's widespread grant of antitrust exemptions has its
origin decades ago when the industry was subject to extensive
regulation by the long-ago abolished Interstate Commerce Commission.
But no good reason exists today for these exemptions to continue.
While railroad legislation in recent decades, including, most
notably, the Staggers Rail Act of 1980, deregulated much railroad rate-
setting from the oversight of the Surface Transportation Board, these
obsolete antitrust exemptions remained in place, insulating a
consolidating industry from obeying the rules of fair competition.
There is no reason to treat railroads any differently than dozens of
other regulated industries in our economy that are fully subject to
antitrust.
When this amendment was filed a couple of weeks ago, the railroad
industry responded by claiming this amendment ``goes way beyond
antitrust laws and looks to create new regulatory law on matters
unrelated to antitrust, and in so doing treats [railroads] differently
than other regulated industries.''
These arguments are completely without merit. Nothing in this
amendment goes ``way beyond antitrust law'' or ``looks to create new
regulatory law.'' In fact, this amendment creates absolutely no new
regulatory law whatsoever. It simply repeals all of the antitrust
exemptions enjoyed by the freight railroad industry.
This amendment would not treat railroads any differently than other
regulated industries. The mere fact that an industry is regulated does
not exempt it from antitrust law. Many other regulated industries,
including the telecommunications sector regulated by the FCC and the
aviation and trucking industries regulated by the Department of
Transportation, are fully subject to antitrust law.
This amendment simply seeks to end the special exemption from
antitrust law enjoyed by freight railroads--an exemption which is both
wholly unwarranted and raises prices to shippers and consumers every
day.
Dozens of organizations and trade groups representing industries
affected by monopolistic railroad conduct have endorsed the Railroad
Antitrust Enforcement Act, which is identical to this amendment.
Supporters of the legislation have included 20 State attorneys general
in 2009; the leading trade associations for the electrical,
agricultural, chemical, and paper industries; the National Industrial
Transportation League; and the Nation's leading consumer groups.
In sum, by clearing out this thicket of outmoded antitrust
exemptions, this amendment will cause railroads to be subject to the
same laws as the rest of our economy. Government antitrust enforcers
will finally have the tools to prevent anticompetitive transactions and
practices by railroads. Likewise, private parties will be able to
utilize the antitrust laws to deter anticompetitive conduct and to seek
redress for their injuries.
In the antitrust subcommittee, we have seen that in industry after
industry vigorous application of our Nation's antitrust laws is the
best way to eliminate barriers to competition, to end monopolistic
behavior, and to keep prices low and quality of service high. The
railroad industry is no different. All those who rely on railroads to
ship their products, whether it is an electric utility for its coal, a
farmer to ship grain, or a factory to acquire its raw materials or ship
out its finished product, deserve the full application of the antitrust
laws to end the anticompetitive abuses all too prevalent in this
industry today.
I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as
in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Tribute to Wilbur K. Hoffman
Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, my late friend, the late Alex Haley,
the author of ``Roots,'' lived his life by these six words: Find the
Good and Praise it.
I am here today to praise a remarkable hero who served in one of the
most difficult battles in our Nation's history and who today at 90
years old lives a quiet life in Memphis with his family.
Wilbur K. Hoffman, or ``Bill'' to his fellow Rangers, was a member of
the Dog Company of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, which in 1944 was among
the select few companies that stormed the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc on D-
day and turned the war around for the Allies.
Forty years after Bill Hoffman and his fellow 2nd Battalion Rangers
clambered up the rocky cliffs on the shoreline of France, President
Reagan returned to the windswept spot to pay tribute. President Reagan
called them ``the boys of Pointe du Hoc.'' The President said:
These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the
champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes
who helped end a war.
This is Bill Hoffman, a hero who helped free a continent and end a
war.
Bill volunteered to join the Army in 1942. A year later he
volunteered to join the Rangers, a select group that were charged with
special missions. Bill says that because of all of their special
training, they would simply ``get the mission done.''
Bill got out of the Army in 1945, after the war, but took a look at
the job market and said, ``I think I'll go back in.'' Bill served in
the Army for 24 years. Bill likes to say, ``Everything that happened, I
volunteered for.'' And if you happen to ask how he feels when he looks
back, he will say just as plainly, ``No regrets.''
This year the Army has awarded Bill a Purple Heart. But not for the
first time. During World War II, the Army tried. But Bill, in an Army
ward surrounded by soldiers who had lost arms and legs in fighting,
believed his wounds did not measure up, and so he said, ``I don't think
so.''
Bill's son David, more than 60 years after his father first declined
the Purple Heart, contacted the Army about trying again. Capturing his
father's humility in declining the medal decades ago, David calls his
dad ``the nicest guy you'll ever meet. Friendly and outgoing but by the
same token, he doesn't like to talk about himself'' says the son.
Bill is the father of seven children, and nearly all of them who
could join the service did or married someone who did.
Bill is not a native Tennessean. He was born in Newark, NJ. He came
to Tennessee first as a Ranger in training. The Rangers came from all
over the country and assembled in Camp Forrest in Tullahoma for
training. Bill's wife came down to visit him there for a couple of days
during training, and it must have had a real effect on her, because
more than 30 years later, after Bill was out of the Army after 24 years
of service, and they were living in New York State, Bill's wife said to
him, ``I want to go to Tennessee. I like it down there.'' So they
packed up the U-Haul and moved to Ashland City, along the Cumberland
River.
Today Bill is one of only three Rangers left from the original 2nd
Battalion Dog Company. While the Ranger reunions used to occur once
every 2 years, the guys are getting old, Bill says, and now they are
doing them every year. ``Good bunch of guys,'' Bill calls his fellow
heroes. ``They say Ranger friendships are forever. It's true.''
Bill turns 91 on Friday. It is an honor for me to wish this American
hero a happy birthday.
Congratulations, Bill Hoffman. We're proud of you. Your Nation is
proud of you. ``Find the good and praise it.''
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I rise today to speak in support of
the Transportation reauthorization bill that is currently before the
Senate. It is called the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century
Act, so we call it by its acronym, MAP 21. It is a
[[Page S1131]]
critical piece of legislation that will put Americans back to work and
lay the foundation for future economic growth.
Our transportation infrastructure has long been at the heart of
America's success, from the transcontinental railroad to the interstate
highway. Yet, across the country, the infrastructure that helped build
our great economy has been allowed to fall into disrepair.
For evidence of our Nation's crumbling infrastructure, one need look
no further than my home State of Rhode Island. Anyone who drives to
work or school in our State sees the problems--bridges that are subject
to weight restrictions, highways with lane closures, and roads
everywhere marked with potholes. Only one-third of our highway miles
are rated in fair or good condition; the majority are poor or mediocre.
According to a recent report, one in five bridges in Rhode Island is
structurally deficient--the fourth highest figure for any State. You
look nationwide, and the picture does not improve.
The American Society of Civil Engineers rates our national
transportation systems as near failing. They give our roads and
highways a D-minus, our bridges a C, our freight and passenger rail a
C-minus, and our transit systems a D. This is not the kind of report
card you want to post at home on your refrigerator, and it is not one
our great Nation should tolerate.
Instead of committing ourselves to solving our infrastructure
deficit, however, we continue to fall short. The civil engineers
estimate that we would need to dedicate $250 billion each year to bring
our transportation systems into a state of good repair. At current
levels, the United States spends only 2.4 percent of GDP on
infrastructure, compared with European nations at 5 percent and China
and India at about 9 percent.
Let's recall why it is so important that we invest in transportation.
Our economy relies on the ability to get goods and services to where
they are needed. An entrepreneur cannot start a business if his
employees cannot get to work. A manufacturer cannot stay in business if
its products cannot reach its customers. A free market can only operate
if supply can actually get to demand. Our roads, trains, and buses are
what allow this to happen.
If we don't make the necessary investment, our global competitors
nevertheless will. MAP 21 represents a downpayment that will fund
important highway, transit, and rail projects to repair our aging
transportation infrastructure and help ensure that America can succeed,
as it has since we first broke ground on the Interstate Highway System.
As important as this bill is to our long-term prosperity and our
global economic position, MAP 21 also provides immediate support to
local construction projects and the quality jobs that go along with
them.
It is estimated that MAP 21 will protect 1.8 million existing jobs
around the country, with the potential to create up to a million more
new jobs. This is particularly important given the high level of
unemployment in the construction industry. In my home State of Rhode
Island, this bill would support an estimated 8,100 jobs. At a time when
our State's unemployment rate hovers stubbornly around 10 percent,
those jobs are absolutely crucial.
Given the decrepit state of our transportation systems, it should be
obvious that we will have to address our infrastructure needs at some
point. We need to do this work sooner or later, and there is no better
time to make that investment than now, with so many workers ready to
get to work and so many projects ready to get underway. I know that in
Rhode Island there is no shortage of workers or worthwhile
transportation projects. In fact, Secretary of Transportation LaHood
was in Providence today, and I invited him to tour one of the most
significant of Rhode Island's transportation projects, and that is the
Providence viaduct. That viaduct is an overland highway bridge that
carries Interstate 95 for nearly a quarter mile through downtown
Providence, our capital city. It is one of the busiest stretches of the
entire I 95 corridor.
The viaduct runs north and south over U.S. Route 6 and State Route
10, the Amtrak northeast corridor, commuter, and freight rail lines,
and over the Woonasquatucket River. It provides access to downtown
Providence, four universities, Rhode Island Hospital, our convention
center and arena, and the Providence Place Mall, not to mention the
north-south traffic along the eastern seaboard that traffics through
this area.
What Secretary LaHood saw on his tour today is a bridge that is quite
literally crumbling. The viaduct was built in 1964, and it is showing
its age. Its deck is badly deteriorated, steel girders are cracked and
don't meet minimum specifications for brittleness, and our State
department of transportation has installed these wooden planks under
the I-beams to keep concrete from falling through onto the cars,
pedestrians, and even the trains that travel underneath the highway.
You can also see here where a section of the concrete has fallen
through the supports, exposing the steel reinforcement, which is now
rusting out in the open.
While the viaduct remains safe for travel today, it is a weak link in
the critical I 95 corridor. It is a potential safety hazard for the
160,000 vehicles that travel on it each and every day, as well as to
the cars and trains that pass underneath. The bridge is inspected on a
regular basis, just as a precaution. If the viaduct were to fail or
simply require posted weight limits, it would cause substantial
regional disruptions to traffic and commerce and trade.
Clearly, this is a problem that needs to be addressed. The cost of
repairing the Providence viaduct is estimated at roughly $140 million.
This is a reasonable investment to help ensure the flow of commerce
through the entire Northeast, but it represents a very significant
financial burden for a small State such as Rhode Island. Fixing the
viaduct would take out almost two-thirds of the money that Rhode Island
would get from this bill. Rhode Island simply isn't big enough and
doesn't have the resources to tackle this important project and still
meet our other transportation obligations.
I have filed an amendment to MAP 21 to fund the program for the
Projects of National and Regional Significance Program. The Projects of
National and Regional Significance Program is a competitive grant
program that is designed to support critical, high-cost transportation
projects that are difficult to complete with existing funding sources.
This program can help us address those big infrastructure projects
around the country--ones such as the viaduct--that are currently being
kicked down the road because the State DOTs cannot scrape enough money
together to get them underway.
The Projects of National and Regional Significance Program is
authorized in MAP 21. We got that done in the Environment and Public
Works Committee. Now we need to get that authorized program funded. I
am pleased to have the support of my senior Senator, Jack Reed, and
Senator Merkley on this amendment. I look forward to working with them
and other Senators so that we can start the important work of
rebuilding critical infrastructure projects, such as the viaduct, that
are so important to our economy.
While I am thanking other Senators, let me recognize Senator Olympia
Snowe for her work on another amendment that would grant States limited
flexibility to use congestion mitigation and air quality funds toward
their transit systems. This is an important issue for Rhode Island, as
we begin to scale up our new South County commuter rail.
I introduced a version of this amendment in committee and continue to
believe that increased flexibility in the Congested Mitigation and Air
Quality Program, or CMAQ, would promote State-level transit options
that we so critically need.
Let me thank our chairwoman, Senator Boxer, and her ranking member,
Senator Inhofe, for their consideration of our amendment and, more
important, for their hard work on this bill overall. As a member of the
Environment and Public Works Committee, I can testify that the
leadership of Chairman Boxer and Ranking Member Inhofe, working
together, is what has made the difference for this transportation
reauthorization. Through their efforts, we were able to unanimously
vote the bill out of committee, making the important statement that
investment in our Nation's infrastructure
[[Page S1132]]
has strong, bipartisan support. They have set an example that I hope
ultimately will be followed by the handful of Senators who are
obstructing progress on this transportation bill, and our colleagues on
the other side of this building. The American people deserve better
than efforts to gut transportation jobs and slash infrastructure
programs, or to slow down progress on this bill with irrelevant
amendments.
With our economy struggling to get back on its feet, with our roads
and bridges in desperate need of repair, now is not the time to be
debating unpopular and misguided efforts to roll back protections for
women's health. Now is not the time, and this is not the bill, to
debate whether we should undermine rules that protect our environment
or fast track a pipeline project that is clearly not ready for prime
time. We have a bipartisan bill before us. We have a bill that will
create jobs. We have a bill that will get our economy moving forward.
That should be our priority. We should get to the business of
legislating on this bill.
This is a country that does big things. We built highways and rail
systems connecting Americans from coast to coast. We built skyscrapers
and airplanes and rockets to take us to the Moon and back. Big things
are part of America's national identity. Just as important, they are a
vital source of jobs during this trying economic time.
Let's keep doing big things. Let's give the people in Rhode Island
and across the country a transportation infrastructure they can be
proud of, and let's not cut funding and retreat. We cannot afford to go
backward. The infrastructure is what supports our economy. We need to
refocus on the job of getting America moving ahead, and MAP 21 is a
step forward.
I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I thank Senator Whitehouse of Rhode
Island for his words. Also, he is an exceptional member of the
Environment and Public Works committee. First and foremost, he brings
us the point of view of his State and he fights on every issue every
day. He brings national leadership to the floor on the issue of
infrastructure and the need to keep up with our incredible failing
infrastructure--the fact that we have to fix these bridges, 70,000 of
which are insufficient, and 50 percent of the roads that are not up to
par. In Rhode Island, we have serious problems, and the Senator has
brought those to the floor. He is a leader on a clean and healthy
environment, protecting the air and water for his people.
The Senator could not be more eloquent. He is making a point that we
could come up with very difficult amendments and slow things up and gum
up the works, et cetera, but doesn't my friend think that with so many
construction workers out of work--they have well over 15 percent
unemployment in the construction industry, which is about twice the
national rate, which is too high as it is--we have a chance to protect
1.8 million jobs and create another million jobs, and isn't it time to
say that birth control was an issue that was resolved decades ago and
let's move on to the task at hand and put people back to work?
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. It doesn't make sense. I thank her for getting us to
this point. I know how much frustration she must feel, having worked so
hard and in such a bipartisan way to get us to this point and to now
have a process that would get this bill moving forward and get funding
out there, get infrastructure repaired, put men and women to work in
good, solid, high-paying jobs, only to be all snarled up so that a
small group of people can score points with a political issue that has
nothing to do with transportation, infrastructure, or highways.
If people want to have a fight about whether women should get access
to contraceptive medicine, I suppose that is their right in the Senate.
But the idea to stop a highway bill to forge that fight is what to me
is irresponsible.
Mrs. BOXER. I know my colleague worked very hard on the health care
bill, am I right on that?
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Yes.
Mrs. BOXER. I remember him being so proud of the prevention piece he
brought to us. He made the case to us publicly, and privately in
caucus, that it would save so much money for the American people. Right
now, we know, for example--and I just read this--if you have colorectal
screening, you are 50 percent less likely to die of colorectal cancer.
This is a screening test.
We certainly know about mammography and all of this. Is my colleague
aware that what the Blunt amendment says is that any employer,
religious or not, any insurance company, religious or not, can withhold
any one of those preventive services from being offered to employees if
they had some kind of vague moral objection? Is my colleague aware that
all the work he put in on making sure that insurers cover our people
for preventive services, such as mammography, colorectal screening, HIV
screening, and all of these important benefits, plus a list of
essential benefits just as important, that all of that could come to
nothing if the Blunt amendment passed and an employer woke up and said:
I know how to save money, I will have a moral objection and not offer
anything? Is my friend aware of how deep this Blunt amendment reaches
into health care reform?
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I thank my chairman, and yes, it is kind of
astonishing, the breadth and the scope of this amendment. As if CEOs
don't have enough power over their workforce, as if they haven't done
enough to send jobs from American factories offshore to factories
overseas, now they would be able to dictate what kind of health care
their employees can receive, and not based on marketplace
considerations, not based even on health considerations, but based on
their own unchecked moral or religious beliefs.
Mrs. BOXER. Exactly.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I think it is a terrible mistake to go down that
road, but I think it is a double mistake: it is wrong to go down that
road in the first instance, but it is also wrong while we need jobs so
urgently, while our highways crumble and our bridges deteriorate and
water works continue to fail and we have the ability to put people to
work in America at good jobs. You can't offshore a job building an
American highway; you have to do it right here in this country. These
are important jobs and this is important work. We should be getting
about this.
I think it sends a terrible signal to the American people when the
Senate, taking up this piece of legislation, has to be led off into all
these other battles that have nothing to do with highways, that have
nothing to do with infrastructure, that have nothing to do with jobs,
but are simply an exercise in political gamesmanship.
Mrs. BOXER. Right.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. It is unfortunate, when there are real stakes for
real families on the table and real time slipping by, that we don't get
this done. We get jacked up enough around here, but as hard as the
chairman has worked to bring this to the floor and to be ready, here we
are, stopped again, dealing with irrelevant issues again, and all for
the entertainment and distraction of people. It is not about jobs, it
is not about the economy, it is not about our infrastructure, it is not
about laying the foundation for future prosperity, and so it is
frustrating that we have to go through this exercise.
Mrs. BOXER. I thank my friend. When I looked at him, I thought, He is
one of the few people who have such a personal stake in two issues that
have been merged together, unfortunately: the Blunt amendment, which
would allow anyone to opt out from providing so many of the services my
friend worked to make sure the American people have, plus 3 weeks we
are now delayed on a bill my friend helped me with so strongly and so
powerfully. So I wanted to make sure people in his State understood
that he has worked so hard to make sure people have access to health
care, and the Blunt amendment would drive a big Mack truck through
this--not to use a kind of funny analogy on the highway bill, but that
is what it would do, in the meantime stopping us from getting on to our
work in creating all these jobs.
My feeling is we will defeat the Blunt amendment tomorrow. I am very
hopeful. But with that in mind, Madam President, I ask unanimous
consent to have printed in the Record a number of letters speaking to
the Blunt amendment.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[[Page S1133]]
American Cancer Society,
Cancer Action Network,
Washington, DC, February 29, 2012.
Dear Senator: On behalf of millions of cancer patients,
survivors and their families, we write to express our
opposition to the amendment proposed by Senator Roy Blunt to
the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act that
would permit employers to refuse employee insurance coverage
for any health benefit guaranteed by the Affordable Care Act
if the employer raises a religious or moral objection to
those benefits.
Annually, seven out of ten deaths among Americans are
attributed to chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes,
heart disease and stroke. The Affordable Care Act made
significant strides to stem this epidemic by ensuring
patients would have access to essential care that could
address prevention, early detection, and treatment--all
necessary elements to improve the health and well-being of
our nation.
Unfortunately, the expansive nature of the proposed Blunt
amendment would directly undercut this progress.
Specifically, it would allow any health insurance plan or
employer, with a religious affiliation or not, to exclude any
service required by the Affordable Care Act if they object
based on undefined ``religious beliefs or moral
convictions.'' The implications of this provision could
result in coverage denials of lifesaving preventive services
such as mammograms or tobacco cessation based on employer
discretion. Consider the reality that under the amendment a
tobacco manufacturer could refuse coverage of tobacco
cessation benefits for its employees.
We urge all members of the Senate to consider the undefined
impact this amendment could have on employee health care
coverage, and to please vote against it. Thank you for your
consideration of this request.
Sincerely,
Christopher W. Hansen,
President.
____
Trust for America's Health,
Washington, DC, February 14, 2012.
Senator Barbara Boxer,
Chairman, Committee on Environment & Public Works, Hart
Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Boxer, I am writing to express my deep
concern over the Blunt Amendment, which is expected to be
offered during the debate over S. 1813, Moving Ahead for
Progress in the 21st Century (MAP 21). This amendment would
undermine the Affordable Care Act's guarantee that all
insurance plans cover preventive services and would do
serious harm to our efforts to reduce the rate of chronic
disease in this country.
One of the most important provisions in the Affordable Care
Act (ACA) was the requirement that preventive services be
covered with no cost-sharing. Chronic diseases--such as heart
disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes--are responsible for 7
out of 10 deaths among Americans each year and account for 75
percent of the nation's health spending. Including preventive
services within essential health benefits represents a
critical opportunity to ensure that millions of Americans
have access to prevention-focused health care and community-
based preventive services. This is essential if we are to
address risk factors for chronic diseases--such as tobacco
use, poor diet, and physical inactivity--which will allow us
to improve the health of Americans and reduce health costs
over the long term.
The Blunt Amendment would allow any health insurance plan
or employer, religious or not, to exclude any preventive
service if they object based on undefined ``religious beliefs
or moral convictions.'' This is an extraordinarily broad
provision which could result in coverage denials for
virtually any preventive service. Americans should be able to
count on a minimum level of coverage no matter where they
work, and this amendment sets a dangerous precedent.
Transportation legislation is an opportunity to expand
access to healthy transportation choices, such as walking and
cycling, which will keep our communities moving by providing
healthy, safe, and accessible transportation options. It
should not be a forum for re-opening the ACA and reversing
gains we have made in prevention and public health. I hope
the Senate will defeat the Blunt Amendment and instead focus
on amendments to MAP 21 that would promote good health and
21st century transportation policy.
Sincerely,
Jeffrey Levi, Ph.D.
Executive Director.
____
Feburary 13, 2012.
Dear Senator, on behalf of the more than 2.1 million
members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU),
I urge you to oppose an amendment offered by Senator Blunt
(S. Amdt. 1520) to the surface transportation,
reauthorization bill (S. 1813) that would allow employers to
deny coverage for contraception and other critical health
care services.
The Affordable Care Act, in an enormous step forward for
working women and their families, requires all new health
insurance plans to cover certain preventive healthcare
services with no cost-sharing or co-pays, including
mammograms, pap smears, and well-woman yearly exams. Starting
this August, most health insurance plans will be required to
cover women's preventive services, including contraception.
This is a tremendous milestone for women's health and
equality in our country.
Unfortunately, the Blunt Amendment is an extreme proposal
that turns back the clock on this important advance, allowing
employers to impose their beliefs on their employees and take
away the health care benefits their employees would otherwise
be entitled to receive. The Blunt Amendment allows any
employer to deny insurance coverage for any essential health
benefit or preventive service to which the employer has a
religious or moral objection, including contraception, as
well as many other health services.
As the nation's largest union of nurses, doctors, and
healthcare workers, we know that women's healthcare choices
are too often driven by the reality that the cost for gas and
groceries comes first. Contraceptive use is the rule, not the
exception, for women who can afford it. In fact, 99 percent
of women overall and 98 percent of Catholic women use
contraception at some point in their lives. Women should have
the freedom to make personal, private decisions about their
families and their future with their doctor and their loved
ones. An employer has no place in that decision-making
process.
We urge you to oppose the Blunt Amendment when it comes up
for a vote on the Senate floor. SEIU may add votes on this
amendment to our scorecard, located at www.seiu.org. Should
you have any questions or concerns, contact Steph Sterling,
Legislative Director, at steph.sterling
@seiu.org or at 202 730 7232.
Sincerely,
Mary Kay Henry,
International President.
____
February 29, 2011.
Friends, this week the Senate may consider an amendment by
Senator Blunt (R MO) that would eliminate access to essential
health benefits for millions of Americans. The Human Rights
Campaign (HRC) strongly urges your boss to vote no on the
Blunt Amendment. HRC will consider this a key vote.
When Congress passed the Affordable Care Act in March of
2010, the intent was to ensure that all Americans had access
to health insurance. More specifically, it required that a
core set of benefits be covered, including preventive care
specially designed for women and children. The essential
health benefits package was carefully crafted to respect
religious interests and individual conscience. To that end
the ACA includes a strong exemption, allowing approximately
335,000 churches/houses of worship to refuse to provide birth
control for their employees. In response to concerns raised
by religiously-affiliated hospitals, universities and other
facilities, the President has proposed additional protections
that would allow those entities--which operate as businesses
and serve and employ the broader public--not to provide birth
control coverage, but still ensure that their employees have
access to that benefit.
HRC respects the right of religious groups to maintain
their beliefs and the important role religious organizations
play in providing important health, education and social
services. The ACA and the President's proposed compromise
strike a respectful balance between religious interests and
the health needs of women. However, HRC is particularly
concerned by efforts to go even further and permit the
religious or moral beliefs of individuals or private
businesses to limit nondiscrimination protections and equal
access to services and benefits. When the balance shifts too
far in that direction, all too often, lesbian, gay, bisexual
and transgender (LGBT) individuals are negatively impacted.
The Blunt Amendment would go far beyond the President's
reasonable step and dramatically expand the ACA's religious
exemption, permitting any employer to opt-out of providing
coverage for an essential health benefit or preventive
service by asserting it violates its ``religious beliefs or
moral convictions,'' regardless of whether that employer is
in any way a religious organization. This language would
undermine the entire healthcare law by allowing employers to
cherry-pick what is covered by their health insurance. While
the amendment comes in response to recent debate over the
coverage of birth control, it would be all too easy for
employers to decide to drop other benefits, like HIV testing,
or limit coverage for specific medical conditions, based on a
purported religious or moral objection. If enacted, the Blunt
Amendment would place the moral objections of any employer
over the health of millions of Americans, including members
of the LGBT community. For these reasons, HRC strongly urges
you to oppose the Blunt Amendment.
Should you have any questions at all please feel free to
contact me at (202) 216 1515 or [email protected] or
Andrea Levario at (202) 216 1520 or [email protected].
Allison Herwitt,
Legislative Director.
______
To Members of the United States Senate: The undersigned
organizations are opposed to the amendment introduced by
Senator Roy Blunt (R MO) that would jeopardize quality health
insurance coverage for millions of people in this country.
The Blunt Amendment #1520 to S. 1813, the Surface
Transportation bill, allows any employer or insurance
company, religious or not, to deny health insurance coverage
for any essential or preventive health care law, service that
they object to on the basis of religious beliefs or moral
convictions. That
[[Page S1134]]
means employers and insurance companies can not only deny
access to birth control, they can deny access to any health
care service required under the new health care law including
maternity care for unmarried women, vaccines for children,
blood transfusions, HIV/AIDS treatment, or type II diabetes
screenings. This expansive control over employees' coverage
will have a harmful impact on all people, and it will
discriminate against those who need access to essential
health services the most.
In short, the Blunt amendment would eviscerate critical
protections in the Affordable Care Act and completely
undermine a fundamental principle of the health care law--
that everyone in this country deserves a basic standard of
health insurance coverage.
We urge you to reject the Blunt amendment and oppose all
efforts to undermine peoples' access to health care.
Sincerely,
Advocates for Youth; The AIDS Institute; AIDS United;
America Votes; American Academy of Pediatrics; American
Association of University Women; American Civil
Liberties Union; American College of Nurse-Midwives;
American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists;
American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees; American Medical Student Association;
American Medical Women's Association; American Nurses
Association; American Public Health Association; Asian
Communities for Reproductive Justice; Association of
Reproductive Health Professionals; Black Women's Health
Imperative; Catholics for Choice; Center for Health and
Gender Equity; Center for Reproductive Rights.
Center for Women Policy Studies; Coalition of Labor Union
Women; Choice USA; Concerned Clergy for Choice; Doctors
for America; EQUAL Health Network; Feminist Majority;
Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC); Hadassah, The Women's
Zionist Organization of America, Inc.; Health Care for
America Now; Healthy Teen Network; HIV Medicine
Association; Human Rights Campaign; International
Union, United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural
Implement Workers of America, UAW; International
Women's Health Coalition; Jewish Women International;
Justice and Witness Ministries of the United Church of
Christ; Law Students for Reproductive Justice;
MergerWatch; Methodist Federation for Social Action.
MoveOn.org Political Action; NARAL Pro Choice America;
National Abortion Federation; National Alliance on
Mental Illness; National Asian Pacific American Women's
Forum; National Center for Transgender Equality;
National Coalition for LGBT Health; National Coalition
of STD Directors; National Council of Jewish Women;
National Council of Women's Organizations; National
Education Association; National Family Planning &
Reproductive Health Association; National Gay and
Lesbian Task Force Action Fund; National Health Law
Program; National Immigration Law Center; National
Latina Institute for Reproductive Health; National
Organization for Women; National Partnership for Women
& Families; National Physicians Alliance; National
Women's Law Center.
New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good;
Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health; Planned
Parenthood Federation of America; Population
Connection; Progressive Majority; Raising Women's
Voices for the Health Care We Need; Religious Coalition
for Reproductive Choice; Religious Institute;
Reproductive Health Technologies Project; Service
Employees International Union; Sexuality Information
and Education Council of the United States; SisterSong
NYC; Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine; The
National Alliance to Advance Adolescent Health; The
National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned
Pregnancy; Trust Women/Silver Ribbon Campaign; Union
for Reform Judaism; Unitarian Universalist Association
of Congregations; United Methodist Church, General
Board of Church & Society; U.S. Positive Women's
Network and Women Organized to Respond to Life-
threatening Diseases; Women Donors Network.
____
February 27, 2012.
Dear Senator: As organizations dedicated to the health,
safety, and well-being of infants, children, adolescents, and
young adults, we strongly urge you to oppose Sen. Blunt's
amendment, S. Amdt. 1520, to the Moving Ahead for Progress in
the 21st Century Act, S. 1813. Our organizations oppose this
amendment that will hinder access to necessary preventive
health screenings for infants, children, and their families.
The Affordable Care Act made significant progress in
prioritizing preventive care, health promotion, and disease
prevention in our health care system. The law includes a
number of provisions that safeguard children's access to and
remove disincentives from accessing preventive health care
services. Specifically, the ACA establishes Sec. 2713 of the
Public Health Services Act, which requires that individual
and group health plans cover preventive health services
without any cost-sharing to the patient, including evidence-
based services recommended by the United States Preventive
Services Task Force; immunizations recommended by the CDC's
Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices; and preventive
care and screenings supported by the Health Resources and
Services Administration (HRSA), which are outlined in the
American Academy of Pediatrics' Bright Futures handbook.
Children's health is the foundation of health across the
lifespan and preventive health services are the bedrock of
pediatric care. All adults once were children, and their
health is significantly influenced by preventive care during
their early years. Denying childhood preventive care could
result in billions of dollars of extra expenditures in adult
health care, as we continue the unsustainable system of
paying for adult conditions that could have been
inexpensively prevented during childhood. Life-saving
immunizations, developmental screenings, autism screenings,
other behavioral and mental health assessments, hearing and
vision testing, body mass index (BMI) measurements, oral
health risk assessments, identification of special health
care needs, solicitation of parental and child health
concerns, and anticipatory guidance are all essential
components of a pediatric well-child visit and are all
required to be covered without cost-sharing under the ACA.
This amendment would undermine efforts to promote pediatric
preventive health and would jeopardize the health of infants,
children, adolescents and young adults by denying them access
to these clinically appropriate services and treatments.
Before the law's passage, pediatricians reported that their
patients were often required to provide co-pays or provide
other cost sharing for preventive health screenings. Co-pays
and other cost sharing are often imposed by insurers to
decrease health service utilization, even though families
already pay a monthly premium. Our organizations have argued
that imposing cost sharing is completely inappropriate in the
context of pediatric preventive services, as cost sharing has
the aggregate effect of limiting clinically appropriate
interactions between children and their health providers.
Indeed, one of the main reasons that the Academy cautions
families to seriously consider alternatives to Consumer-
Directed Health Plans is that these plans often do not
provide ``first dollar'' coverage for preventive services.
Unfortunately, S. Amdt. 1520 would create a substantial
loophole in the requirements for preventive health services
because insurance plans would not be required to offer the
appropriate array of pediatric preventive services and due to
the cost sharing disincentive discussed above. Specifically,
S. Amdt. 1520 would allow any employer or insurance company
to deny health insurance coverage for any service that it
finds objectionable on the basis of personal beliefs. The
amendment would not only allow employers and insurance
companies to deny access to contraception, but would include
all preventive health services covered by Sec. 2713 of the
Public Health Service Act. For instance, if an employer
objects to childhood vaccines on the basis of personal
beliefs, he or she could purchase insurance that would not be
required to cover these life-saving medical interventions.
Our organizations are seriously concerned that if this
amendment passes, children will not receive the preventive
services they need as a result of the personal beliefs of a
single individual, employer, or insurance company.
Our organizations urge Congress to oppose S. Amdt. 1520 to
the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act and
protect children's access to preventive services, including
vaccines, well-child check-ups, and other essential health
benefits that help children grow to be healthy, productive
adults. If you have questions or concerns, please contact
Kristen Mizzi with the American Academy of Pediatrics at 202/
347 8600 or [email protected].
Sincerely,
Academic Pediatric Association; American Academy of
Pediatrics; American Pediatric Society; Association of
Medical School Pediatric Department Chairs; The Society
for Adolescent Health and Medicine; Society for
Pediatric Research.
____
Dear Senator Boxer: As organizations committed to the
health and wellbeing of infants, children, adolescents, and
pregnant women, we urge you to oppose the amendment offered
by Senator Roy Blunt (R MO), Senate Amendment 1520, to the
Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (S. 1813).
Senate Amendment 1520 threatens to undermine crucial
clinical and preventive health services by allowing plans,
employers, providers, and beneficiaries to refuse coverage
for any service currently required under Section 2713 of the
Public Health Service Act and Section 1302 of the Public
Health Service Act, if deemed objectionable to them on moral
or religious grounds. The Amendment would give expansive and
explicit license to any employer, health plan, provider, or
beneficiary to exclude any health service from insurance
coverage. For instance, a small employer or health plan could
ban maternity care for women due to religious convictions
regarding out-of-wedlock pregnancies. Likewise, a health plan
or small
[[Page S1135]]
employer that objects to childhood immunizations, newborn
screening for life-threatening genetic disorders, other
components of well-child visits, or prenatal care would be
fully within the law to deny coverage for any and all of
these vital services.
The Affordable Care Act has made significant gains toward
providing critical health services for infants, children,
adolescents, and women of childbearing age. Section 1302 of
the Affordable Care Act guarantees that all plans offered in
the individual and small group markets must cover a minimum
set of ``essential health benefits,'' including maternity and
newborn care, pediatric services, including oral and vision
care, rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices,
and mental health and substance use disorder services,
including behavioral health treatment. Section 2713 of the
Public Health Service Act requires that all new health plans
cover, without cost-sharing, certain preventive services,
including evidence-based services recommended by the United
States Preventive Services Task Force; immunizations
recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization
Practices; preventative care and screening services for
children contained in Bright Futures: Guidelines for Health
Supervision of Infants, Children and Adolescents; and
preventive health care services for women developed by the
Institute of Medicine and promulgated by the U.S. Health
Resources and Services Administration, such as prenatal care,
well woman visits, and breast cancer screening.
If passed, Senate Amendment 1520 could limit access to
necessary health services well beyond contraceptive coverage,
putting infants, children, adolescents, and pregnant women in
danger of not receiving even the most basic health care and
preventive services. We urge you to oppose Senate Amendment
1520 to the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century
Act. If you have any questions, please contact Michelle
Sternthal at [email protected].
Sincerely,
American Academy of Pediatrics; American Congress of
Obstetricians and Gynecologists; American Federation of
State, County and Municipal Employees; Asian Pacific
Islander American Health Forum; Association of Maternal
& Child Health Programs.
Association of University Centers on Disabilities; CHILD
Inc.; Children's Dental Health Project; Children's
Healthcare Is a Legal Duty; Easter Seals; Families USA;
Family Voices; First Focus Campaign for Children;
Genetic Alliance; National Association for Children's
Behavioral Health.
National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners;
National Association of Social Workers; National
Alliance on Mental Illness; Planned Parenthood
Federation of America; Service Employees International
Union; Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine;
Spina Bifida Association; Voices for America's
Children.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, the first letter is from the Cancer
Action Network asking us to vote no on the Blunt amendment.
On behalf of millions of cancer patients, survivors and
their families, we write to express our opposition to the
amendment proposed by Senator Roy Blunt.
They talk about the fact that it would permit employers to refuse
employees insurance coverage for any health care benefit guaranteed by
health reform. And they are very strong on this issue. They say:
The implications of this provision could result in coverage
denials of lifesaving preventive services such as mammograms
or tobacco cessation based on employer discretion.
That is a new letter, dated today.
Then we got a letter from the Trust for America's Health. They say:
The Blunt amendment would allow any health insurance plan
or employer, religious or not, to exclude any preventive ser-
vice. . . .
The SEIU--Service Employees International--calls the Blunt amendment
``an extreme proposal that turns back the clock.''
The Human Rights Campaign Letter:
. . . The Blunt amendment would place the moral objections of
any employer over the health of millions of Americans. . . .
Eighty organizations signed a letter, and, referring to the Blunt
amendment, part of that letter says:
That means employers and insurance companies can not only
deny access to birth control, they can deny access to health
care service. . . .
That is signed by Advocates for Youth, America Votes, the AIDS
Institute, American Association of University Women, American College
of Nurses and Midwives, American Congress of Obstetricians and
Gynecologists, American Medical Students, Black Women's Health
Imperative, Catholics for Choice, Reproductive Rights Center, Center
for Women Policy Studies, Coalition of Labor Union Women, Choice USA,
Concerned Clergy for Choice, Doctors for America, EQUAL Health
Network--I mean, this goes on and on--the National Latina Institute for
Reproductive Health, Planned Parenthood, Population Connection,
Progressive Majority, Society of Adolescent Health and Medicine,
National Alliance to Advance Adolescent Health, National Campaign to
Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, Trust Women/Silver Ribbon
Campaign, Union for Reformed Judaism, Unitarian Universalist
Association of Congregations. This is a long list of organizations that
oppose the Blunt amendment.
This letter came in from the Academic Pediatric Association and a
number of other youth organizations. They urge us to oppose the Blunt
amendment because it doesn't protect children's access to preventive
services.
This is another letter signed by many more organizations, including
the Spina Bifida Association, Voices for America's Children, Children's
Healthcare Is a Legal Duty, Easter Seals, Family Voices, First Focus
Campaign for Children--it goes on and on--American Federation of State,
County and Municipal Employees, American Association of Maternal and
Child Health Programs, Association of University Centers on
Disabilities, CHILD, Inc. All these organizations have come together,
and they say:
As organizations committed to the health and well-being of
infants, children, adolescents, and pregnant women, we urge
you to oppose the amendment offered by Senator Roy Blunt. . .
.
So all you are going to hear from the other side is misstatements
about how the Blunt amendment is nothing more than what we have always
done. Then why are you doing it? It is because it reaches so far.
We all support an exemption for religious providers. We all support
that. We do not support the ability of any insurance company,
nonreligious, or any employer, nonreligious, to stand up and say: You
know what, I don't believe vaccines work; therefore, I don't think they
should be made available to my people. And when you ask why, they say:
I have a moral conviction. I have a moral conviction that people should
have known better before they took that first cigarette when they were
11 or 12; therefore, I am not going to give any treatment. Too bad.
They will just get lung cancer.
I mean, seriously. That is what the Blunt amendment will do. It will
allow anyone--nonreligious--to say they have an objection and not offer
a host of preventive and essential health care services, including
contraception.
So tomorrow is our time. We are going to defeat the Blunt amendment,
and when we defeat the Blunt amendment, we are going to move on to the
highway bill. Hooray. And maybe, just maybe people will listen to
Senator Olympia Snowe, who said we should not get tied up in knots over
these controversial things and we should do what is right for the
American people. I certainly support that.
There is just one more thing I want to put in the Record.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the
Record the testimony of a woman who tried very hard to be allowed to
speak with a panel of men at a congressional hearing.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Law Students for Reproductive Justice Chapter]
Testimony From Law Student Barred From House Hearing
Members of Congress, good morning, and thank you for
allowing me to testify. My name is Sandra Fluke, and I'm a
third year student at Georgetown Law, a Jesuit school. I'm
also a past president of Georgetown Law Students for
Reproductive Justice or LSRJ. I'd like to acknowledge my
fellow LSRJ members and allies and thank them for being here
today.
Georgetown LSRJ is here today because we're so grateful
that this regulation implements the nonpartisan, medical
advice of the Institute of Medicine. I attend a Jesuit law
school that does not provide contraception coverage in
student health plans. Just as we students have faced
financial, emotional, and medical burdens as a result,
employees at religiously affiliated hospitals and
universities across the country have suffered similar
burdens. We are all grateful for the new regulation that will
meet the critical health care needs of so many women.
Simultaneously, the recently announced adjustment addresses
any potential conflict with the religious identity of
Catholic and Jesuit institutions.
[[Page S1136]]
As I have watched national media coverage of this debate,
it has been heartbreaking to see women's health treated as a
political football. When I turn off the TV and look around my
campus, I instead see the faces of the women affected, and I
have heard more and more of their stories. You see,
Georgetown does not cover contraceptives in its student
insurance, although it does cover contraceptives for faculty
and staff. On a daily basis, I hear from yet another woman
who has suffered financial, emotional, and medical burdens
because of this lack of contraceptive coverage. And so, I am
here to share their voices and ask that you hear them.
Without insurance coverage, contraception can cost a woman
over $3,000 during law school. For a lot of students who,
like me, are on public interest scholarships, that's
practically an entire summer's salary. Forty percent of
female students at Georgetown Law report struggling
financially as a result of this policy. One told us of how
embarrassed and powerless she felt when she was standing at
the pharmacy counter, learning for the first time that
contraception wasn't covered, and had to walk away because
she couldn't afford it. Students like her have no choice but
to go without contraception. Just on Tuesday, a married
female student told me she had to stop using contraception
because she couldn't afford it any longer.
You might respond that contraception is accessible in lots
of other ways. Unfortunately, that's not true. Women's health
clinics provide vital medical services, but as the Guttmacher
Institute has documented, clinics are unable to meet the
crushing demand for these services. Clinics are closing and
women are being forced to go without. How can Congress
consider allowing even more employers and institutions to
refuse contraceptive coverage and then respond that the non-
profit clinics should step up to take care of the resulting
medical crisis, particularly when so many legislators are
attempting to defund those very same clinics?
These denials of contraceptive coverage impact real people.
In the worst cases, women who need this medication for other
medical reasons suffer dire consequences. A friend of mine,
for example, has polycystic ovarian syndrome and has to take
prescription birth control to stop cysts from growing on her
ovaries. Her prescription is technically covered by
Georgetown insurance because it's not intended to prevent
pregnancy. At many schools, it wouldn't be, and under Senator
Blunt's amendment, Senator Rubio's bill, or Representative
Fortenberry's bill, there's no requirement that an exception
be made for such medical needs. When they do exist, these
exceptions don't accomplish their well-intended goals because
when you let university administrators or other employers,
rather than women and their doctors, dictate whose medical
needs are good enough and whose aren't, a woman's health
takes a back seat to a bureaucracy focused on policing her
body.
In sixty-five percent of cases, our female students were
interrogated by insurance representatives and university
medical staff about why they need these prescriptions and
whether they're lying about their symptoms. For my friend,
and 20% of women in her situation, she never got the
insurance company to cover her prescription, despite
verification of her illness from her doctor. Her claim was
denied repeatedly on the assumption that she really wanted
the birth control to prevent pregnancy. She's gay, so clearly
polycystic ovarian syndrome was a much more urgent concern
than accidental pregnancy. After months of paying over $100
out of pocket, she just couldn't afford her medication
anymore and had to stop taking it. I learned about all of
this when I walked out of a test and got a message from her
that in the middle of her final exam period she'd been in the
emergency room all night in excruciating pain. She wrote,
``It was so painful, I woke up thinking I'd been shot.''
Without her taking the birth control, a massive cyst the size
of a tennis ball had grown on her ovary. She had to have
surgery to remove her entire ovary. She's not here this
morning. She's in a doctor's office right now. Since last
year's surgery, she's been experiencing night sweats, weight
gain, and other symptoms of early menopause as a result of
the removal of her ovary. She's 32 years old. As she put it:
``If my body is indeed in early menopause, no fertility
specialist in the world will be able to help me have my
own children. I will have no chance at giving my mother
her desperately desired grandbabies, simply because the
insurance policy that I paid for totally unsubsidized by
my school wouldn't cover my prescription for birth control
when I needed it.'' Now, in addition to facing the health
complications that come with having menopause at an early
age--increased risk of cancer, heart disease,
osteoporosis, she may never be able to be a mom.
Perhaps you think my friend's tragic story is rare. It's
not. One student told us doctors believe she has
endometriosis, but it can't be proven without surgery, so the
insurance hasn't been willing to cover her medication. Last
week, a friend of mine told me that she also has polycystic
ovarian syndrome. She's struggling to pay for her medication
and is terrified to not have access to it. Due to the
barriers erected by Georgetown's policy, she hasn't been
reimbursed for her medication since last August. I sincerely
pray that we don't have to wait until she loses an ovary or
is diagnosed with cancer before her needs and the needs of
all of these women are taken seriously.
This is the message that not requiring coverage of
contraception sends. A woman's reproductive healthcare isn't
a necessity, isn't a priority. One student told us that she
knew birth control wasn't covered, and she assumed that's how
Georgetown's insurance handled all of women's sexual
healthcare, so when she was raped, she didn't go to the
doctor even to be examined or tested for sexually transmitted
infections because she thought insurance wasn't going to
cover something like that, something that was related to a
woman's reproductive health. As one student put it, ``this
policy communicates to female students that our school
doesn't understand our needs.'' These are not feelings that
male fellow students experience. And they're not burdens that
male students must shoulder.
In the media lately, conservative Catholic organizations
have been asking: what did we expect when we enrolled at a
Catholic school? We can only answer that we expected women to
be treated equally, to not have our school create untenable
burdens that impede our academic success. We expected that
our schools would live up to the Jesuit creed of cura
personalis, to care for the whole person, by meeting all of
our medical needs. We expected that when we told our
universities of the problems this policy created for
students, they would help us. We expected that when 94% of
students opposed the policy, the university would respect our
choices regarding insurance students pay for completely
unsubsidized by the university, especially when the
university already provides contraceptive coverage to faculty
and staff. We did not expect that women would be told in the
national media that if we wanted comprehensive insurance that
met our needs, not just those of men, we should have gone to
school elsewhere, even if that meant a less prestigious
university. We refuse to pick between a quality education and
our health, and we resent that, in the 21st century, anyone
thinks it's acceptable to ask us to make this choice simply
because we are women.
Many of the students whose stories I've shared are Catholic
women, so ours is not a war against the church. It is a
struggle for access to the healthcare we need. The President
of the Association of Jesuit Colleges has shared that Jesuit
colleges and universities appreciate the modification to the
rule announced last week. Religious concerns are addressed
and women get the healthcare they need. That is something we
can all agree on. Thank you.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, this is a panel of men who were called
by House Republican Chairman Issa to testify about women's health--not
one woman there, but they were the experts. They denied this woman the
chance to speak. If she had been allowed to speak, this is what she
wanted to say:
She had a friend who went to the doctor, and the friend had a cyst on
her ovary. The doctor said: You have to take birth control. That is
going to help. Those pills are going to help reduce the size of that
cyst.
She couldn't afford the birth control pills and her employer wouldn't
cover them, so she couldn't take them. She is a student. She wrote her
friend saying that the cyst ``was so painful, I woke up thinking I'd
been shot.''
I will quote part of the friend's testimony relaying what her friend
told her.
Without taking the birth control, a massive cyst the size
of a tennis ball had grown on her ovary. She had to have
surgery to remove her entire ovary. She's not here this
morning. She's in a doctor's office right now. Since last
year's surgery, she has been experiencing night sweats,
weight gain, and other symptoms of early menopause as a
result of the removal of her ovary. She's 32 years old. As
she put it, ``If my body is indeed in early menopause, no
fertility specialist in the world will be able to help me
have my own children. I will have no chance of giving my
mother her desperately desired grandbabies, simply because
the insurance policy that I paid for totally unsubsidized by
my school wouldn't cover my prescription for birth control
when I needed it.''
And so her friend says:
Now, in addition to facing the health complications that
come with having menopause at an early age--increased risk of
cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis--she may never be able to
be a mom.
So when we talk about the Blunt amendment, we are not talking about
some obtuse issue, we are not talking about some philosophical issue.
What we are talking about when we talk about the Blunt amendment is a
young woman, a student at law school who couldn't afford to pay for the
birth control pills which would have saved her fertility, which would
have saved her horrific pain--a painful operation where she lost her
ovary simply because she couldn't have access to her birth control
pills.
This is not about some argument that doesn't have real consequences
for our people. The Presiding Officer's constituents and my
constituents deserve
[[Page S1137]]
to have access to preventive care. They deserve to have access to
essential health care. The Blunt amendment will take that away from
them. It will take that away from them. And all on a highway bill. All
on a highway bill.
So let's keep the Blunt amendment away from this highway bill. This
highway bill is a product of strong bipartisanship, as the Presiding
Officer has told the Senate. Let's keep it clean. Let's keep out these
extraneous amendments that will roll back environmental laws that are
cleaning up the air, that will keep the arsenic and the mercury out of
the air and the lead out of the air. Let's not roll back these laws on
a highway bill. Let's get the highway bill done. When we have other
arguments about other issues, let's put those issues on a relevant
bill.
This is the time now for us to pull together, not pull apart. The
Nation needs us to work together. It is an election year, and it is a
difficult time. There is a lot of name-calling going on out there on
the campaign trail, but we are still here, last I checked, and we are
supposed to be doing our work for the American people. We have a chance
to do it on this highway bill. Let's defeat the Blunt amendment in the
morning.
I thank my friends for coming over to the floor and speaking so
eloquently today against this dangerous, precedent-setting Blunt
amendment that will turn back the clock on women's health and on our
families' health.
I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Whitehouse). The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleagues in
opposition to the amendment offered by Senator Blunt.
It is discouraging that when we should be having a debate on our
Nation's infrastructure and surface transportation needs, we are
instead talking about women's health and contraception. As the Senator
from California noted earlier, my State is a State that understands the
importance of upgrading our infrastructure and investing in surface
transportation. I live just a few blocks from the bridge that collapsed
in the middle of that river on that sunny day in Minnesota, an eight-
lane highway, in the Mississippi River. So we understand the importance
of investment in infrastructure, and that is what we should be focusing
on in this bill. Instead, we have taken a different turn.
I understand there are many different perspectives and opinions when
it comes to issues related to contraception and women's health;
however, we shouldn't be talking about them when we are supposed to be
talking about infrastructure, highway, roads, and bridges. People are
free to give speeches, they are free to talk about whatever they want,
but this amendment doesn't belong on this bill. Nevertheless, it is
here, and I think it is very important that we address it and the
American people understand what it would mean.
Unfortunately, this amendment impacts more than just contraception.
This amendment ultimately limits our ability to address our health care
challenges through prevention and wellness. Chronic conditions such as
diabetes, heart disease, and cancer can be avoided through prevention,
early detection, and treatment. We all know that. That is pretty common
knowledge in our country.
During health care reform, we made great strides in improving the
health and well-being of our Nation by strengthening preventive
services. We addressed prohibitive costs by eliminating copays and cost
sharing for essential services such as mammograms and colonoscopies. We
addressed access issues by ensuring coverage for preventive autism or
cholesterol screenings, to name a few. I also fought to include the
EARLY Act, which promoted early detection for breast cancer for young
women. These types of preventive and early detection services are vital
to so many people in this country.
As a cochair of the Congressional Wellness Caucus, a bipartisan
caucus, I have also heard from numerous employers that understand a
healthy workforce only increases productivity and output. It would be
unfortunate if we eliminated access to prevention and wellness services
that keep our Nation's workforce strong and productive. Because of the
necessity of these services and the benefits they provide to men,
women, and children, including contraception, I asked my colleagues to
oppose the Blunt amendment.
The Blunt amendment would allow any employer or insurance company to
refuse to cover any of the prevention services, any essential health
benefit or any other health service required under the health care law,
allowing these entities to deny critical health care to the millions
who rely on these entities for insurance. The consequences of this
provision could mean employers and other organizations for any reason
refusing to offer coverage of lifesaving preventive services such as
mammograms or tobacco cessation would be based on employer discretion.
That is why I don't think it is a surprise that organizations such as
the American Cancer Society, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the
American Public Health Association, and the March of Dimes oppose this
amendment.
I think we all know the American Cancer Society, March of Dimes,
American Academy of Pediatrics, and these groups tend not to get
involved in contraception issues, and that goes to show us right now
this amendment is much broader than just talking about contraception.
According to the American Cancer Society:
Annually, seven out of ten deaths among Americans are
attributed to chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes,
heart disease and stroke. The Affordable Care Act made
significant strides to stem this epidemic by ensuring
patients would have access to essential care that could
address prevention, early detection, and treatment--all
necessary elements to improve the health and well-being of
our nation. Unfortunately, the expansive nature of the
proposed Blunt amendment would directly undercut this
progress.
I am concerned the broad-based nature of this amendment would prevent
men, women, and children from getting the preventive services they need
as a result of the personal beliefs of a single individual or an
employer or an insurance company. I do not believe this is the way to
protect Americans in need of health care services, and I urge my
colleagues to oppose this amendment.
I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I come to the floor today with sadness
and reluctance because we are actually debating an extraordinarily
worthwhile, even historic bill that would not only improve our
infrastructure--our roads and bridges and highways in the State of
Connecticut and throughout the country--but also provide jobs, enable
more economic growth, and promote the effort to put Connecticut and our
country back to work. My reluctance is we are debating an amendment
that distracts from that essential task, the work that the Nation
elected us to do, to make our priority creating jobs and promoting
economic growth.
We are debating an amendment that seems fundamentally flawed. I am
respectful, as is everyone in this body, of the moral convictions and
religious beliefs that others may hold. I believe this amendment is
unconstitutionally overbroad and vague. It is unacceptably flawed in
the way it is written because it essentially gives every employer--
anytime, anywhere, with respect to any medical condition, any form of
treatment--the right to deny that essential health care and those
services based on his or her undefined religious beliefs or moral
convictions--quoting from the language itself, ``religious beliefs'' or
``moral convictions''--without any defining limits.
Insurance companies can even deny a person coverage for mental health
treatment or cancer screening or HIV and AIDS screening simply because
that employer or insurance company
[[Page S1138]]
may believe the causes of those conditions somehow violate his or her
religious beliefs or moral convictions. This amendment would threaten
access to a number of clinical preventive services such as diabetes
screening, vaccinations or cancer screenings, essential preventive
services that have been proved to reduce health care costs and save
lives. Those services should be guaranteed to every American without
cost.
In my home State of Connecticut, one of the smallest States in the
country, approximately 270,000 women would lose access to preventive
care if this amendment is agreed to. Around the country some 20 million
women would lose that kind of access to preventive care. That is a
result that simply is unacceptable. The amendment goes too far. It
would endanger the lives of millions of Americans, would completely
undermine the progress--and we have made progress--in providing crucial
health care services to millions of individuals.
I oppose this amendment because of its practical implications,
because of its apparent unconstitutionality, and because it flies in
the face of sound public policy. At a time when we are considering a
bill, the transportation measure that deservedly has broad, widespread,
bipartisan support in this Chamber and across the country, we are again
polarized, Republican against Democrat, regrettably divided and
potentially gridlocked because of an amendment that has nothing to do
with transportation or putting America back to work. That should be our
task. It is my priority. It should be the priority of this Chamber at
this historic moment when we are reviving a still struggling economy,
when people are hurting, striving to find work, and when we should be
doing everything in our power to put America and Connecticut back to
work and enable economic growth.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the quorum
call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak before the
Senate for 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I rise to urge my colleagues to oppose the
Blunt amendment, which could lead to devastating health outcomes for
over 20 million women across our country. Just 2 weeks ago, I applauded
the Obama administration's decision to require health insurance plans
to provide coverage of FDA-approved contraception needed for women's
health care without copays beginning this August. The final rule issued
by the Department of Health and Human Services was a tremendous step
toward improving the health of our Nation's women and their families--a
step that was long overdue and one made with due respect for all
Americans' religious freedom.
Tomorrow, we will be voting on an amendment that would not only undo
that progress, it would move us backward. What is especially
frightening is that this amendment goes much further than just
reversing the rule because it is not limited to religiously affiliated
entities. The proposal would allow any employer or health plan issuer
to refuse coverage of any service for any reason, not just religious
objections. If an employee had any moral objection, it would be
permitted to refuse coverage for critical care such as alcohol and
other substance abuse counseling, prenatal care for single women, and
mental health care too. The way this measure is worded, employees could
deny screening and treatment for cervical cancer because it is related
to HPV or refuse HIV-AIDS testing and treatment due to an objection to
ways the viruses can be transmitted. They could even refuse to cover
certain FDA-approved drugs and treatments because they object to the
research that led to the drug's development.
Major national pediatric organizations recently voiced their concern
that if this amendment becomes law, employers who say they object to
childhood vaccines on the basis of personal beliefs could refuse to
cover these lifesaving and otherwise costly medical services. In short,
this amendment allows corporations nationwide to overrule the religious
and ethical decisions made by the people they employ and to trump the
health care advice of their doctors.
If this amendment passes, it will discriminate against most of those
who need financial support, and that is not right. All Americans
deserve access to health care. We cannot allow partisan ideology to
hurt the health of our women and children. If we do, our sisters,
daughters, and granddaughters will pay the price. If we defeat this
amendment, the final rule will save most American women who use
contraceptives hundreds of dollars each year in health care costs.
Health experts agree that birth control helps to save lives, prevent
unintended pregnancies, improve outcomes for children, and reduce the
incidence of abortion.
Another point raised by my colleagues, Senators Gillibrand and
Boxer--and I thank them for promoting awareness on this issue--is that
14 percent of women who use birth control pills, and that is 1.5
million American women, use them to treat serious medical conditions.
Some of these conditions include endometriosis, ovarian cysts,
debilitating monthly pain, and irregular cycles.
Religious principles are deeply important to me as a Christian, so I
am glad the current rule accommodates conscience objections and exempts
religiously affiliated organizations from both offering and paying for
birth control coverage for their employees. At the same time, the core
principle of ensuring all women's access to fundamental preventive
health care remains protected because the care will be offered directly
by the insurance companies. To deny any women access to affordable
health care--as this amendment would do--is unconscionable. It could
have devastating effects not only on her health but her family's as
well.
In speaking with women's health advocates and providers in Hawaii and
across the country, one of the most common recommendations I hear for
improving women's health outcomes is to ensure access to effective
contraception. Across the State of Hawaii about 150,000 women seek
access to birth control every year, and almost half of them depend on
financial assistance to obtain it. Right now, women in States that do
not have plans that cover birth control face costs of around $600 per
year. Women and families who cannot afford it can end up facing tens of
thousands of dollars in costs arising from complications from
unintended pregnancies and other health care problems, costs that
taxpayers often end up supporting.
With these facts in mind, I am not surprised that a survey has shown
that 71 percent of American voters--including 77 percent of Catholic
women voters--support the administration's requirement to make birth
control available to all women. I firmly believe religious liberty is
protected under the new rule, while access to preventive care does not
discriminate against anyone, no matter whom they work for or what their
occupation is.
I urge my colleagues to join me in voting against this dangerous
amendment, which would set back improvements in preventive services and
women's health care in this country.
I yield back the remainder of my time and suggest a quorum is not
present.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, tomorrow morning, the Senate will vote on
a measure which is controversial and has gathered a lot of attention
across America. It is an amendment offered by the Senator from
Missouri, Mr. Blunt, and it relates to the health services that will be
available to people across America and it calls into question an issue
which we have debated
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since the earliest colonists came to this country; that is, the
appropriate role of religion and government in America. It is an issue
which has been hotly debated and contested in the earliest days of our
Nation and was finally resolved by our Constitution in a manner that
has served us well for over two centuries.
The Constitution speaks to the issue of religion in three specific
places. It states in the first amendment that we each have the freedom
of religion; that is, the freedom to believe or not to believe. It says
there will be no official State religion; whereas, in England they
chose the Church of England, but in our government there will be no
choice of any religion.
Finally, there is a provision which says that there shall be no
religious test for office. These are all constitutional provisions
which, though sparing in language, have guided us carefully through
over 200 years of history. We see around the world where other
countries have not been as fortunate to come together in basic
principles that have kept a diversity of religious belief alive in the
country. Time and again we have seen differences when it comes to
religion lead to conflict and death. We see it today in many places
around the world. So when our government is called on to make a
decision relative to the role of religion in American life, we should
take care to stick to those basic principles that have guided us for
over two centuries.
The issue before us today is what will be the requirements of health
insurance that is offered by employers across America. What we have
tried to establish are the essentials and basics of health insurance
and health care. We are mindful of the fact that if the market were to
dictate health insurance plans and policies, they may not be fair to
the people of this country. I recall an instance before I came to
Congress while working in Illinois where we learned that health
insurance companies were offering policies which refused to cover
newborn babies in the first 30 days of their life. Of course, that was
done for economic reasons, because children born with a serious illness
can be extremely expensive in that 30-day period. We changed the law in
Illinois and said, if you want to cover a maternity, if you want to
cover a child, it is from the moment of birth. That became the policy:
to establish basic standards so that families buying these policies
would have the most basic protections.
This issue we are debating with the Blunt amendment is what will be
required of health insurance policies across America when it comes to
preventive care. We asked the experts: What basics in preventive care
should be included to make certain we don't overlook something that is
fundamental to a person's survival or life? One of the things they said
is when it comes to preventive care, to offer to women across America
family planning services. That, of course, is the nub of the
controversy, the center of it.
Some religions--the Catholic religion in particular--have strongly
held beliefs about family planning. They have been opposed to what they
call artificial forms of birth control from the beginning. At this
point, the controversy came up--although those religious institutions
that are strictly religious, such as the church rectory, the convent,
and the like, are exempted from any requirements when it comes to
health insurance--what of those religious-sponsored institutions such
as universities, hospitals, and charities? What should their
requirements be when it comes to health insurance for their employees?
So the Obama administration said their employees should also receive
the most essential and basic services, including preventive care for
women, including family planning, and that is when the controversy lit
up.
The President came to what I thought was a reasonable compromise, and
here is what it says: A religious-sponsored university hospital,
charity, or the like will not be required to offer health services such
as family planning if it violates their basic religious beliefs. Their
health insurance policy will not be required to cover those services.
However, if an individual employee of that religious-sponsored
institution chooses on their own initiative to go forward to the health
insurance company, they can receive that service without charge. So the
women will be offered these preventive care services, which are
essential to their health, and yet there will be no requirement of the
sponsoring institution to include those services. It is strictly a
matter of the employee opting for that coverage.
Now comes the Blunt amendment. Senator Blunt of Missouri said we
should go beyond that and allow employers and insurance companies
across America to decide the limitations of health insurance policies
if those limitations follow the conscience and values of the employer.
Keep in mind, we have gone way beyond religious-sponsored institutions;
we are talking about individual employers making that decision.
Think of the diversity of opinion and belief across America, and
imagine, then, what we will come up with. We have heard many things
mentioned on the floor. My colleagues have made reference to
individuals who may have a particular religious belief, and own a
business that has no connection at all to a religion otherwise, and
decide then that under the Blunt amendment they will limit health
insurance coverage accordingly. We can think of possibilities. Someone
believes in conscience that a woman should never use birth control and
says, then, that it will be prohibited from being offered by the health
insurance policy of that employer. At the end of the day we would have
a patchwork quilt of health insurance coverage and many people in this
country--men and women--denied basic health coverage in their health
insurance because the employer believes in conscience it shouldn't be
offered. That is an impossible situation. It goes beyond the freedom of
religion, to imposing someone's religious belief on another, in a
situation that could endanger their lives.
The Blunt amendment would be a step in the wrong direction for this
country. I think what the President has seized on is a reasonable
course of action, to allow religious-sponsored institutions to follow
their moral dictates when it comes to the health insurance they offer,
but to still protect the right of individuals to seek the protection
they need. I know it is going to be a controversial vote, but it is one
that is important, because I think it strikes the right balance. I
think it reflects back on decisions and values we have established as a
country and that we should work to protect, even in the midst of a
Presidential campaign when the rhetoric involved in it is very hot and
inflammatory.
Syria
Mr. President, I rise to speak of the atrocities that are being
committed every day by the Syrian Government against its own citizens--
thousands who have stood bravely month after month against unspeakable
violence simply to ask for basic political freedoms we take for granted
in this country. And I rise to speak of the indefensible and
inexplicable support of this brutal regime by Russia.
It has now been almost one full year since the Syrian uprising began
in March 2011. By some reports, over 6,000 innocent people--civilians--
have lost their lives in Syria. The exact number may never be known.
Humanitarian groups have been prohibited from even assisting the
wounded, and reporters prohibited from telling the story to the world.
Syria's third largest city, Homs, has been bombarded with rockets and
bombs by the Syrian military for over 3 weeks with scores of deaths,
shortages of food and medical supplies.
One report describes rockets--11 rockets--slamming into a single
apartment building in the space of 2 minutes. As soon as the barrage
stopped and people started to rush to get away, it started again,
killing even more. The result: a horrific trail of death and dying in
this building from the fifth floor on down.
Those killed in Syria include two western journalists. Some suspect
they might have been targeted. The murder of a well-known video
blogger, Rami el-Sayed, supports that claim.
In this photo, my colleagues can see the results of the Syrian
Government's bombardment of the city of Homs. Sadly, this is likely one
of the many burial ceremonies that the people of that city have had to
endure recently. Just a few days ago, it was reported that the bodies
of 64 men were covered in a mass grave on the outskirts of the city.
The women and children who were with them have gone missing.
[[Page S1140]]
The Independent National Commission of Inquiry on Syria, working with
the U.N., submitted its most recent report on February 26. It said the
Syrian Government has accelerated the killing of its own people,
particularly in Homs, resulting in the deaths of nearly 800 civilians
in the first 2 weeks of February alone. From the report:
On several occasions in January and February 2012, entire
families--children and adults--were brutally murdered in
Homs.
It is also noted that protesters have been arrested without cause,
tortured, and even summarily executed.
In October, Senators Cardin, Menendez, Boxer, and I sent a letter to
the Ambassador to the United Nations from the United States, Susan
Rice, urging that the Syrian Government be referred to the
International Criminal Court for possible indictment for war crimes.
Certainly the evidence for such charges is overwhelming and continues
to this day.
Assad has paid lip service to reforms such as the sham constitutional
referendum last Sunday. The document's most important changes included
giant caveats that they would, in effect, maintain the status quo as it
exists in Syria.
One example is Assad's introduction of Presidential term limits to 2
terms of 7 years each, but the clock wouldn't start until Assad's
current term expires in 2014, giving him 14 more years in office, a
total of 28 years. Incomprehensible.
Secretary Clinton aptly described the referendum as a cynical ploy,
to say the least.
On February 17, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution that:
Strongly condemns the government of Syria's brutal and
unjustifiable use of force against civilians, including
unarmed women and children and its violations of the
fundamental human rights and dignity of the people of Syria.
Additionally, the U.N. General Assembly on February 16 passed a
resolution by a vote of 137 to 12:
Strongly condemning continuing widespread and systematic
human rights violations by the Syrian authorities.
Last Friday, more than 60 governments and organizations gathered in
Tunis under the auspices of the Friends of Syria rubric and they called
for an immediate cease-fire, the provision of humanitarian aid, and a
U.N. peacekeeping force.
The international community has coalesced in support of the Syrian
people. I wish to recognize once again the leadership of the Arab
League in building this consensus against the bloodshed. Even some U.N.
Security Council members such as India and South Africa, that early on
had concerns about speaking out, can no longer stand by silently as the
killing continues. In the most recent U.N. Security Council vote
earlier this month, they chose to do the right thing and to vote in
favor of the latest resolution backing the Arab League peace plan.
However, as sad as it is to report, this resolution was vetoed by
Russia and China. The exceptions to the international solidarity and
support of the Syrian people have been Iran, China, and Russia. While
both Iran and China's support for the Assad regime is deplorable, it is
even worse in the case of Russia, for it is Russia that has the most
blood of innocent Syrian women and children on its hands. Russia is not
only protecting President Assad as he kills his own people, but it
continues to supply him with the weapons to do it. How can any
responsible nation take such action?
In an interview following the Friends of Syria meeting, Secretary of
State Clinton said:
It's quite distressing to see two permanent members of the
Security Council using their veto when people are murdered:
Women, children, brave young men. It's just despicable. And I
ask, whose side are they on?
Russia has chosen to align itself with a murderous regime, to impede
democratic reform, and to facilitate the killing of innocent people by
putting more and more weapons into the hands of those eager to pull the
trigger.
Despite 6,000 innocent civilians dying, despite the overwhelming
international consensus that Assad has lost legitimacy to lead the
Syrian people, Russia continues to sell arms to Syria. According to
media reports:
Shipping data shows at least four cargo ships since
December that left the Black Sea port of Oktyabrsk--used by
Russian arms exporters for arms shipments have headed for or
reached the Syrian port of Tartous. Separately was the
Chariot, a Russian ship which docked at the Cypriot port
of Limassol during stormy weather in mid-January. It
promised to change its destination in accordance with a
European Union ban on weapons to Syria but, hours after
leaving Limassol, reset its course for Syria.
The Russian arming of the Syrian murderers continues.
A Cypriot source said that ship was carrying a load of ammunition and
a European security source said the ship was hauling ammunition and
sniper rifles of the kind used increasingly by Syrian Government forces
against protesters.
I want to show one other photograph I have here in the Chamber. This
photo is of one of those Russian warships--an aircraft carrier--docked
at the Syrian port of Tartous on January 8. What we could not turn into
a poster is the video clip showing the Russian warship captains being
greeted like royalty by the Syrian Minister of Defense who went out to
personally welcome their ship.
Rebel soldiers and an official who defected from the Government of
Syria say Moscow's small-arms trade with Damascus is booming, and that
the government doubled its military budget in 2011 to pay for the
brutal response to this opposition.
That said, Russia is in a unique position. It has President Assad's
trust and confidence--maybe more than any other country. Should Russia
choose, it could use this power and influence to constructively broker
a real transition and an end to this bloodshed.
The longer President Assad holds power in Syria, the more innocent
people will die. The window for a more peaceful transition and ending
is closing. Now is the time for Russia to lead in the right direction--
to be a responsible global partner, and to be part of a solution in
ending the carnage, bloodshed, and death in Syria.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennet). The Senator from West Virginia.
Tribute to Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College
Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize two pillars of
West Virginia--an educational institution that is educating the people
of our State for good-paying jobs they are going to need and a beloved
figure who put our State at the forefront of advances in mental health.
First, please allow me to recognize Southern West Virginia Community
and Technical College for its distinguished ranking as the 14th best
community college in the Nation because of all the work its staff and
students have done together to develop the skills necessary to compete
in the workplace.
All of us in my great State know about Southern's dedication to
active and collaborative learning, and we are so proud that Washington
Monthly recognized the school's achievements in its most recent
rankings.
This accomplishment is not the work of any one person, but a shared
commitment to excellence from the school's leadership, faculty, staff,
and students. I applaud everyone who is involved at Southern for their
focus on improving educational quality through strengthened student
engagement and student success.
In addition, I am so pleased that Southern is thriving under the
steadfast leadership of President Joanne Jaeger Tomblin, who is also
serving the public as West Virginia's First Lady. For more than 12
years, Joanne has been the visionary and the driving force behind many
of these accomplishments. Her unwavering enthusiasm and tireless
dedication transcend geographical barriers to bring extraordinary
educational opportunities to all of southern West Virginia.
I tell young people all the time that they cannot sit on the
sidelines and watch life happen. They have to get in the game and start
making the calls. The same goes for those students who are returning to
school for training or who are taking the initiative to take their
careers to the next level.
Southern helps all students--those who are just starting out and
those who are in the middle of their careers--build critical skills and
get an education to become a workforce that will meet our needs in the
21st century and beyond. Every day, these students and their teachers
are doing the hard work
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that will make our great State and country competitive by finding new
ways to create good jobs and rebuild our economy.
Again, I am so proud of this accomplishment at Southern, and it is
just one example of what we can achieve when we all work together.
Remembering Dr. Mildred Mitchell-Bateman
Mr. President, I also rise today to recognize the accomplishments and
life of a mental health pioneer and a most beautiful and true West
Virginia hero, who we were so sad to lose last month. It is only
fitting to honor her today on the last day of Black History Month.
Dr. Mildred Mitchell-Bateman leaves behind a remarkable legacy. She
transformed care for mentally ill patients by working tirelessly to
provide hope to people who were once believed to be untreatable. Her
work emphasized the importance of family and community--two values we
hold so dear in West Virginia--and she put a high priority on making
sure people received care near their homes.
Mildred Mitchell made West Virginia her home in 1946, when she was
hired as a staff physician at West Virginia's Lakin State Hospital,
which at the time was a hospital for mentally ill patients who were
African American. There she met and married her husband William L.
Bateman, a therapist at Lakin and a native West Virginian.
Throughout her 89 years, Mildred Mitchell-Bateman remained committed
to serving those without a voice in our community. After leaving Lakin
to practice medicine privately, Mildred returned to the hospital as the
clinical director, and 3 years later was promoted to superintendent. In
1962, Mildred was named as the director of the State's Department of
Mental Health, becoming the first African-American woman to lead a West
Virginia State agency.
Mildred's vision for psychiatric care extended beyond West Virginia,
earning her national recognition and requests for service. In 1973, she
became the first Black woman to serve as vice president of the American
Psychiatric Association. A short time later, she was appointed to the
President's Commission on Mental Health, where she played an important
role in the creation of the 1980 Mental Health Systems Act.
Dr. Mitchell-Bateman was a doctor, a teacher, and a pioneer. Her
accomplishments are made even more remarkable by the adversity she
faced. Her life serves as a powerful example to us all of what one can
accomplish with conviction, dedication, and true West Virginia grit.
Mildred Mitchell-Bateman will forever be remembered for her many
years of dedicated service to the Mountain State, her passion and
dedication to the mental health community, and for touching the lives
of so many patients. On top of that, she was also a loving mother to
seven children, and a very proud grandmother to ten wonderful
grandchildren.
Gayle and I are keeping the Mitchell-Bateman families in our hearts
and prayers. While we know that Mildred Mitchell-Bateman is gone, her
legacy and service to the people of West Virginia will keep her alive
in our hearts forever.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, we have had a long discussion today on
the amendment to the surface transportation bill offered by my
colleague and friend from Missouri, Senator Blunt. I think the
discussion has shown pretty clearly that the amendment by the Senator
from Missouri is both way beyond the scope of what most people
envisioned and is extreme. It is way beyond the scope because it would
cause the deprival of certain types of health care to perhaps millions
of Americans in areas that go way beyond contraception.
All an employer would have to do is say they have a moral objection
to providing vaccinations and they would not have to provide health
care. Maybe the employees could sue or go to court for 10 years and
figure this out, but that is not what we want. So it would be a giant
step backward in terms of health care.
It is also a giant step backward in terms of depriving millions of
American women of contraception. In a sense, this is a ban on
contraception, at least for the millions of American women whose
employers would say they do not want to provide contraception. Some
might be motivated by religious beliefs, some might be motivated by
simply saving money, and we would never know except after long and
costly litigation. Again, that would deprive the employee of
contraception for a very long time.
I think if people listened in on this debate, they would say this was
a debate occurring not in 2012 but maybe in 1912 or even 1812 because
issues such as a woman's right to contraception without the employer
making a determination have long been decided by this country. We have
seen the statistics. The overwhelming majority of Americans of every
faith believe contraception should be available.
So the debate has been pretty clear. I think the other side is making
a huge mistake--certainly substantively, and in my judgment
politically--so much so that today the leading Presidential candidate
on the Republican side, when asked whether he supported the Blunt
amendment said, no; he did not think Congress should be getting
involved in contraception. Mr. Romney said we should not be doing this
amendment, and he did not support it, unequivocally and clearly.
A few hours later, of course, his folks walked that back, probably
because of political pressure. He is facing Republican primaries where
this issue is debated seriously, even if the rest of America does not
believe that it should be debated. But what it shows is even when a
leading candidate of the other side who is seeking votes from the hard
right has doubts about whether this is a good idea, those doubts are
real.
The other side should make a retreat. Our Republican colleagues
should not make the same mistake they made on the payroll tax deduction
by appealing to an extreme group. They should back off this amendment.
They should vote with us, and we should move on and debate the highway
bill and put millions of Americans to work and update our
infrastructure.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the amendment we are considering today
represents a direct assault on access to preventive health care
services for millions of women in this country. The ostensible purpose
of this proposal is to protect the rights of conscience of any employer
or healthcare insurer, religious or secular, who may have a religious
or moral objection to providing family planning services free of charge
to their employees. I respect and will defend the moral values of
employers and insurance companies. But I also respect the moral values
of people who need medical services. So we will end up deciding whether
or not to deny access to critical and possibly lifesaving health
services for millions of people in this country, not whose religious or
moral values have precedence.
As drafted, Senator Blunt's amendment would grant employers and
health insurance companies the power to deny access to not just
preventive healthcare services for women, but any healthcare service,
for anyone, regardless of its nature. This means any employer could
choose to deny employees insurance coverage for such things as
children's immunizations; mammograms; lifesaving cancer treatments; or
blood transfusions simply because that employer may find these or any
other healthcare services morally objectionable.
For the Senate to pass such a policy would be indefensible. It would
go far beyond nullifying the administration's rule to implement
provisions in the Affordable Care Act requiring access to some
preventive services at no cost. Instead, this amendment would codify
infringement on personal healthcare decisions, would grant an employer
the right to substitute his moral convictions for those of his
employees, and would effectively deny access to critical healthcare
services.
Considering that some of my colleagues vociferously defend the idea
of personal liberties, I am truly surprised they would support a policy
to undermine those same liberties by handing
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power over an individual's personal healthcare decisions to that
individual's employer or his insurance company.
This body took a bold and historic step by enacting healthcare reform
in 2010. We accomplished something that had eluded the country and the
Congress for decades. The law recognizes that women have specific
medical needs and that gaps have historically existed in preventive
care for women. And it correctly called for specific steps to address
that. We should not now support policies that would not only walk these
advances back, but take giant leaps backwards in access to healthcare
services for everyone. I urge our colleagues to vote against this
amendment.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am proud to join Senator Kohl and have
long supported the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act, NOPEC.
We were able to pass this NOPEC bill as a response to the OPEC oil
cartel by a vote of 70 to 23 a few years ago. The Senate should pass it
again. This time, the House should also adopt this sensible application
of our antitrust laws to those who fix prices and manipulate the oil
market to the detriment of American consumers.
We should be doing what we can to ensure that oil prices are not
artificially inflated. That affects gas prices at the pump. This NOPEC
amendment will hold accountable the collusive behavior that
artificially reduces supply and increases the price of fuel. The rise
and fall of oil and gas prices has a direct impact on American
consumers and our economy. We should increase accountability and take
away the profits of those who manipulate prices and supply to their
benefit and unfairly prey upon consumers.
On Monday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that
prices for regular gas rose 13 cents per gallon last week to a
nationwide average of $3.78. Gasoline pump prices are up 34 cents a
gallon over last year. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on
the skyrocketing price of oil in May 2008, but these recent increases
in price have led to renewed calls for investigation into their causes.
We already know one significant cause: anticompetitive conduct by oil
cartels.
The artificial pricing scheme enforced by OPEC affects all of us.
Fuel prices are on the rise and American consumers and businesses are
feeling the pain at the pump. This week Vermonters are paying $ 3.79
for a gallon of regular gasoline; last week, Vermonters were paying
$3.70--a price jump of 9 cents in just 1 week. In 2011, the price for
certain fuels rose by as much as one-third from 2010, according to the
Vermont Department of Public Service. These prices affect everyone.
These high fuel prices hit Vermonters especially hard in even the most
mild of winters.
In rural States such as Vermont, the cost of simply getting to work
or to the grocery store because of high gas prices can further hurt
already strapped household incomes. Vermont farmers shoulder the burden
of surging fuel prices year-round, regardless of the season. Higher
fuel prices can add thousands of dollars in yearly costs to a 100-head
dairy operation in the Northeast.
As we head into the summer months, when gas prices typically
increase, soaring prices at the pump can affect the tourism industry,
an economic driver in vacation destinations such as Vermont. As our
summer months approach, many families in and around Vermont are going
to find that OPEC has put an expensive crimp in their plans. Some are
likely to stay home, others will pay more to drive or to fly so that
they can visit their families or take their well-deserved vacations.
American consumers should not be held as economic hostages to the
whim of those who collude unfairly for their gain. We should not permit
anyone to manipulate oil prices in an anticompetitive manner. The
collusive behavior of certain oil producing nations has artificially
and drastically reduced the supply and inflated the price of fuel. Put
simply, the behavior of these oil cartels, which would be illegal under
antitrust laws, harms American consumers and businesses and our
recovering economy.
Authorizing action against illegal oil price fixing and taking that
action without delay is one thing we can do without additional
obstruction or delay. Our amendment would allow the Justice Department
to crack down on illegal price manipulation by oil cartels. This bill
will allow the Federal Government to take legal action against any
foreign state, including members of OPEC, for price fixing and
artificially limiting the amount of available oil. While OPEC actions
remain sheltered from antitrust enforcement, the ability of the
governments involved to wreak havoc on the American economy remains
unchecked.
Our antitrust laws have been called the ``Magna Carta of free
enterprise.'' If OPEC were simply a foreign business engaged in this
type of behavior, it would already be subject to them. It is wrong to
let OPEC producers off the hook just because their anticompetitive
practices come with the seal of approval of national governments.
In the past, our NOPEC legislation has had bipartisan support. A few
years ago it passed overwhelmingly. By passing this legislation, we can
say no to OPEC.
I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Merkley.) The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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