mesut/congress_speeches huggingface dataset:
NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED--Resumed
Jerry Moran (Republican, KS) \u2014 2019-2-6

I rise today to express my dissatisfaction and disappointment over what is a life-and-death matter for many Americans. My disappointment is about the actions recently taken by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the action they took was reinstating the organ procurement organization LiveOnNY. prgtoken I am a Kansan. This is not an organization that is located in my State, but this decision by CMS, when combined with recent policy changes from the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network, misses the mark, and it misses it widely. We should be improving the organ procurement process and increasing the number of available organs for transplant rather than expanding the distance organs travel and moving additional organs from high donation areas to low donation areas. prgtoken CMS' recent decision to renew this contract, which was initially meant to be canceled due to years of poor performance, is troublesome. This organization was the only organization out of the 58 organ procurement organizations to have a contract canceled for poor performance, which was only done after numerous reprimands and penalties that failed to lead to improvement. prgtoken Conversely, it was reassuring that CMS was finally going to take some responsibility toward ensuring that donor organizations are adequately performing their jobs and protecting patients. However, CMS quickly reversed course and abdicated their duty to protect some of our Nation's most vulnerable patients when they announced they would reinstate this license. prgtoken Our Nation continues to face a shortage of organ donors. We need more donor organs, but our agencies and organizations, which should be demanding accountability and improvements, continue to turn a blind eye to a culprit, and that is the consistent failure to live up to expectations and to waste organs that could save lives. prgtoken This failure to address this issue increases wait times for patients who need organs and causes unnecessary stress and anxiousness for those who are on that waiting list for a potential organ at a time when they grow sicker and sicker. prgtoken Health and Human Services, CMS, or the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services, HRSA, OPTN, and UNOS are all abbreviations for organizations that share the blame for the predicament our country finds itself in. prgtoken This is perhaps the most important part of what I want to reiterate or state again on the Senate floor: These organizations have decided that instead of pushing organ procurement organizations to do their job, they will simply draw more organs away from areas with quality donor organizations and high donation rates--places in the Midwest, places like Kansas, places like Missouri. So the solution to a problem--the lack of organs to be transplanted--is not to get more people to donate organs and to improve the organizations responsible for those donations but, instead, to take organs from
S. 47
John Cornyn (Republican, TX) \u2014 2019-2-7

finally, following the President's call for unity and bipartisanship in his State of the Union Address earlier this week, I am glad to see the Senate responding to that call and taking up legislation that we are currently on that has received broad bipartisan support in the Senate just today. prgtoken Near the end of the last Congress, the Senate and the House reached an agreement on a package of more than 100 individual lands bills that received broad bipartisan support. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and weren't able to get it done, but next week, we will have the opportunity to vote on this important piece of legislation and send this bipartisan bill to the President's desk and demonstrate, once again, to the American people--lest anybody be in doubt--that we are capable of working together in a bipartisan way in advancing the interests of the American people. prgtoken Throughout my time in the Senate, I have been an advocate for America's outdoor sporting traditions and commonsense wildlife conservation policies. Enhancing and expanding sportsmen's access to Federal lands has been on Congress's to-do list for years, and this legislation will help make that a reality. prgtoken This package includes a series of bipartisan provisions negotiated over years, which will provide increased opportunities for sportsmen and sportswomen to utilize Federal lands for hunting and fishing. Those changes are coupled with additional ones for conserving and enhancing wildlife habitats to ensure we are protecting these lands for generations to come. prgtoken This legislation also authorizes dozens of land swaps--exchanges--and conveyances, which will deliver big changes to communities across the country, including in my State. prgtoken For example, the Lake Fannin recreation area was once a thriving tourist attraction for Texas, but, through the years, it has become dilapidated due to the inability of the Forest Service to properly do maintenance. prgtoken The county has now developed a comprehensive plan to manage that land for recreation, and this bill will restore local control to more than 2,000 acres in Fannin County, TX. prgtoken This legislation will also protect property owners along the Red River--the border between Texas and Oklahoma--who have faced uncertainty following a flawed Bureau of Land Management survey under the previous administration. This legislation will assure these landowners that the Federal Government has no rightful claim and will make no claim to their property. prgtoken Again, I look forward to debating this legislation in the coming days, and I hope we can pass this bill, which will allow for the responsible development and conservation of land across our country. prgtoken I see no Senators seeking the floor, so .
NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT ACT
Mike Lee (Republican, UT) \u2014 2019-2-7

the Land and Conservation Fund was enacted for a laudable goal; that is, to promote recreational opportunities on our Federal public lands. But in recent decades, the program has regrettably drifted far from its original intent and has become rife with abuse. prgtoken Indeed, the Land and Water Conservation Fund--or LWCF, as it is often described--has instead been used as a primary tool for more Federal land acquisition rather than to actually help people access or to help the government care for the land we already manage. prgtoken Through the LWCF, the Federal Government has added more and more land to its already vast estate, currently totaling 640 million acres of land in this country. To put that in perspective, that is bigger than about seven major European countries combined--and I don't mean their public lands; I mean the entire countries themselves--nearly one-third of all land in the United States. This is 640 million acres. That includes a whole lot of land for the Federal Government, and no single owner, for that matter, could ever be able to take care of it. But the Federal Government is failing to take care of these lands; make no mistake about it. prgtoken Indeed, the magnitude of unfunded needs on these public lands is staggering. There is an $18.5 billion maintenance backlog on Federal lands, including $11.6 billion in the National Park System alone. prgtoken Wildfires have run rampant in the West because of mismanagement and neglect. Ill-kept roads and trails have actually kept citizens from accessing these national treasures, and the American people are paying the price. prgtoken The package before us currently reauthorizes this broken program, denying us any leverage--any real opportunity--to regularly reform the program in the future. prgtoken Senator Lankford and I have offered several amendments that would help address this program, but at the very least, we ought not to be permanently reauthorizing it without any of these conditions in place. prgtoken That is why I have offered an amendment that would reauthorize for 5 years the Land and Water Conservation Fund so that we are forced to reassess the program at a later date and can hopefully correct and improve the program to actually empower the States with recreation opportunities. prgtoken To that end, I encourage my colleagues to vote for this amendment. prgtoken I call up my amendment No. 162.
STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
John Barrasso (Republican, WY) \u2014 2019-2-7

I have spoken many times in this Chamber about human health from my perspective as an orthopedic surgeon. Today, I am here to talk about a different crisis that is facing our Nation. prgtoken Earlier today, 24 of my colleagues joined me in introducing a bill to combat chronic wasting disease in cervid populations across this country. Chronic wasting disease is a terrible degenerative brain disease. It affects captive and wild deer, elk, moose, and caribou in at least 26 States and several Canadian Provinces. It is highly contagious and always fatal. prgtoken In my home State of Wyoming, chronic wasting disease was first detected back in 1985. Since then, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department has partnered with scientists, State wildlife managers, and Federal Agencies to understand how the disease spreads. Many other state agencies have forged similar partnerships to study the same things. Over the last 34 years, their work has shown that the disease is spread by prions, but how these prions actually infect animals remains a mystery. prgtoken The disease can be transmitted through nose-to-nose contact, through prgtoken animal waste, or through carcasses of infected animals. Some studies have suggested that prions can remain in affected soil for up to 16 years. prgtoken Well, there is a lot we still don't know about the disease, including the risk to humans. Chronic wasting disease is a type of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, like bovine spongiform encephalopathy and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. prgtoken There are a number of diseases I studied in medical school from a human standpoint that now seem to be affecting animals as well. prgtoken There have been no reported cases of this chronic wasting disease in humans as of this time, but the Centers for Disease Control takes the risk of human infection quite seriously. The CDC developed a list of things people can do to reduce their own risk of consuming meat from an infected animal. Across the country, many people rely on meat they harvest from deer, moose, and elk to feed their families. For them hunting is not a recreational activity but an important part of their way of life. prgtoken Hunting also contributes tens of billions of dollars in economic activity each year. Those dollars fund important wildlife research and habitat conservation and contribute nearly 10,000 jobs in Wyoming alone. Dollars derived from the sales of tags or hunting licenses and hunting equipment are used by State wildlife agencies to carry out important monitoring, management, and conservation work. prgtoken If this disease persists and we cannot instill confidence in the public that the risk can be controlled, hunting will decrease. Fewer licenses sold means less money for our wildlife agencies, which means less research. So we need to act now. prgtoken Chronic wasting disease threatens the iconic deer, elk, and moose herds that roam our State. It is a threat to our west
NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT ACT
Dan Sullivan (Republican, AK) \u2014 2019-2-7

it has been a few weeks since I have been able to come to the floor and speak about an Alaskan in my State who is making the State a much better place. It is one of my favorite times of the week. I think it is one of the pages' favorite times of the week, by the way. Nearly every week when we are in session, I come down to the floor and bring attention to someone in Alaska who is doing something that may be is recognized by the country, by the State, or maybe by the community, or maybe not recognized at all. We like to celebrate this person. We call that person our Alaskan of the Week. prgtoken Alaska can feel a little bit far away from the rest of the country--a little bit like our own country sometimes, given our distance--but it is definitely part of this great Nation. prgtoken Although we don't have a major professional sports team--some actually say the professional sport of Alaska is politics--just like the rest of America, we love our sports. Of course, we are big fans of winter sports--hockey, cross-country skiing, snow-machining, dog mushing, ice skating. But we are also pretty big football fans. prgtoken Just like Americans throughout the country, last Sunday we were with family and friends tuned into America's most watched sporting event of the year, the Super Bowl. Many Alaskans watched the Super Bowl this year with special interest because we caught sight of one of our own-- our Alaskan of the Week, Camdyn Clancy. prgtoken Let me talk a little bit about Camdyn. Last time I was here a couple of weeks ago, I recognized our oldest Alaskan of the Week ever, 100- year-old Urban Rahoi, from Fairbanks, AK. He is a great American and a World War II veteran, and he is from the greatest generation. He is 100 years old. prgtoken This week, Camdyn, who is 8 years old, is our youngest Alaskan of the Week to date. We are really proud of him just for that. Camdyn lives in Juneau, our State's capital, with his mother Hannah, who is a medical technician at Bartlett Hospital, and his father Brett, who is a firefighter. Last week, Camdyn experienced the dream of a lifetime for a young boy, which was made possible after he won the NFL PLAY 60 Super Kid contest. prgtoken What is that? On Super Bowl Sunday, Camdyn delivered the official game ball to the officiating crew just before kickoff, which is a pretty big deal for an 8-year-old. The days leading up to the game, he acted as the NFL's official kid correspondent, interviewing several Rams and Patriots players. You might have seen some of his interviews on the internet. They have literally gone viral. prgtoken What did he do to win the trip? For one, Camdyn loves all sports, but he really loves football. In fact, his parents took him to a Seattle Seahawks game when he was just 4 years old. Like I said, he really loves football, and it showed as he was competing to win this national Super Bowl competition. He showed it during a video that his mom Hannah f
NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT ACT
Chuck Grassley (Republican, IA) \u2014 2019-2-7

I want to express my strong concern about various countries and a lot of places in the world potentially implementing discriminatory tax laws. These laws that they are thinking about target U.S.-based multinational companies operating particularly in the high-tech or the digital industry. prgtoken Let me be clear right from the outset. These countries--mostly in Europe--should immediately cease any unilateral actions that target U.S.-based multinationals. Instead, these countries should focus their energy and their efforts on the multilateral solutions that are being developed by the global community operating as the OECD. prgtoken I will provide a bit of background for those who haven't been following this issue closely. prgtoken Recently, the European Commission proposed a 3-percent digital services tax on the revenues of multinational companies that provide certain digital services to users based in Europe. The tax would not be on profits but, instead, on revenues. By its design, this proposal would specifically target U.S.-based multinational companies. prgtoken Implementing such a discriminatory proposal would have required the unanimous approval of the European Union member states. Fortunately, for American companies, the European Union did not go ahead with that proposal. prgtoken However, some of the European Union nations see a large pot of money that they can extract from U.S.-based multinationals. They are currently taking unilateral steps to implement new digital taxes that are the same as or are similar to those proposed by the European Commission that the European Commission has decided not to move forward with. To be clear, these types of taxes are discriminatory. They target U.S.-based multinationals. They will likely result in double taxation, and they will create a new transatlantic trade barrier. These effects will then come just as we head into negotiations for a new trade agreement with the European Union. This is the exact opposite direction in which our transatlantic trading relationship should be going. prgtoken Last October, then-Finance Committee Chairman Hatch and Ranking Member Wyden sent a letter to the Presidents of the European Council and the European Commission. Hatch and Wyden expressed strong concerns about these indefinite and discriminatory digital services taxes targeting U.S.-based multinational companies. The Senators called on the European Union to abandon the proposal and for member states to delay implementing any similar type of digital services tax. Instead, the Senators argued that the EU member states should refocus their efforts on reaching consensus on a multilateral solution at the OECD. prgtoken I happen to concur with the sentiments of those Senators and echo the concerns that Hatch and Wyden raised in that letter. In fact, I reinforced those concerns in a letter with Ranking Member Wyden that we sent to Treasury Secretary Mnuchin just last week
NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT ACT
James Lankford (Republican, OK) \u2014 2019-2-7

pending, we have an amendment of mine coming up. We have a large lands package with the Land and Water Conservation Fund, with a lot of lands, transitional properties. A lot of things are coming up in this. prgtoken There are multiple reforms that are built into it, but we missed one. I think it is important that we deal with this before we do a long- term, permanent reauthorization of this program because when this Congress does a permanent reauthorization, we seldom ever get back to it. We say: It is moving, and there are other things that need to be dealt with. It becomes less important. prgtoken My amendment has two basic parts. It addresses two critical issues of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. One of them is that the Land and Water Conservation Fund is set up to purchase new properties, but if there is a problem on that piece of property that we purchased, there is no requirement to fix it. prgtoken Here is how it works: The fund actually purchases the property, and then the hope is that Congress will then appropriate dollars separately to do the prgtoken repairs to open up the property. So it is announced to the community that this new area will be opened up as public lands, but when the purchase is actually done, there is a big sign on it saying ``closed for safety repairs.'' Those repairs may cost $1 million, $2 million, $3 million, and there is a wait of sometimes 10 years or more before the actual appropriation is done. prgtoken This is an easy fix. This fix should be noncontroversial. When we purchase property with the Land and Water Conservation Fund, if there is any maintenance needed on that property, then that needed maintenance is also taken care of by the Land and Water Conservation Fund at the same time. It has to be budgeted in. That way, we don't purchase property and then wait a decade to actually put it into public use. That doesn't make sense to anyone. Everyone walks by it and says: Here is inefficient government again. We bought this property, but there is a different pot of money to fix it up, and we have to wait a decade. prgtoken I hope that this is noncontroversial to all us and that we see the common sense in this. prgtoken In this package, there is some land that we will purchase and literally not be able to use for who knows how long. There is a hope for future appropriations at some point to deal with safety issues so that people will be able to actually use the land. prgtoken The second part of this deals with the past because this has been the process for a while. We purchase new properties and try to put them into use but can't because they came with maintenance issues. We have other public lands, such as our national parks, where there is $11 billion in backlogged deferred maintenance, with no plan to actually fix those. Let me give some examples. We have all heard of Yellowstone. There is $100 million of deferred maintenance at just that one park, with
PUT TRAFFICKING VICTIMS FIRST ACT OF 2019
Ann Wagner (Republican, MO) \u2014 2019-2-7

I thank the ranking member very much for his voice on this issue and so many others, and I thank my dear friend from California, Karen Bass, for her leadership. prgtoken , I rise today to urge my colleagues to support the Put Trafficking Victims First Act, which I wrote and introduced in the last Congress with Congresswoman Karen Bass. prgtoken The bill passed unanimously in May of 2017, and I hope that the House will again stand with the victims of human trafficking. Too often, trafficking victims are overlooked and underserved. prgtoken In my home State of Missouri, I have met with many survivors and listened to their painful stories. They need help to rebuild their lives and that is exactly what this legislation will do. prgtoken America's courtrooms need to adopt victim-centered practices oriented towards justice and recovery. While victims technically have access to mandatory restitution in Federal courts, the sad reality is that according to one estimate, sex trafficking victims get restitution in only 14 percent of Federal sex trafficking cases. This is unacceptable, . prgtoken This legislation will direct the Attorney General to work on increasing restitution and to adopt victim-friendly procedures in criminal cases. We believe the trauma-informed care helps victims recover and cooperate with law enforcement so we may put pimps and buyers behind bars. prgtoken Lack of help for victims in the justice system can lead to revictimization, or even result in victims being criminalized for offenses that they were forced to commit. prgtoken The Putting Trafficking Victims First Act of 2019 encourages training for agencies, law enforcement, and prosecutors across the country to implement victim-centered approaches to investigating and preventing trafficking. prgtoken We also encourage law enforcement to make every attempt to determine whether an individual's participation in trafficking is free from force, fraud, and coercion before arresting or charging them. prgtoken The lack of good data on how to find and rescue victims of trafficking is another major challenge in the United States. We don't really know how best to identify and locate victims; what proportion are coming from foster care; or their ages; ethnicity; or other characteristics. We can't help victims if we can't find them, and we desperately need to improve victim outreach. prgtoken The Putting Trafficking Victims First Act of 2019 establishes a national working group to develop a public survey of survivors and robust methodologies to estimate the prevalence of trafficking. This will help us understand how and where victims are accessing help to improve service provision. prgtoken Finally, victims of trafficking are mostly served at the State level. So it is critical that States improve how they respond to victims. We need to make sure that all child trafficking victims receive the same level of care that any other child abuse survivor would receive