mesut/congress_speeches huggingface dataset:
HEROIN AND OPIOID USERS NEED ``A WAY OUT'' OF ADDICTION
Randy Hultgren (Republican, IL) \u2014 2017-9-7

I rise today full of sorrow and hope for those caught in the cycle of addiction to heroin and opioids. prgtoken This destructive plague is taking aim at Americans across the country--young and old, rich and poor, rural and urban. prgtoken Nowhere is this more true than in the Chicagoland area, a hub for drug trafficking spreading across northern Illinois, the Midwest, and the United States. prgtoken The collar counties of Chicago have felt it strongly. This year, in Will County alone, there have been 61 accidental overdose cases and 44 deaths from heroin and fentanyl overdoses. This is an extremely discouraging pace, surpassing previous years. prgtoken The numbers are similar across the seven counties that I represent in the 14th Congressional District. Stories have been long untold, and it continues to gain national attention. It still haunts our communities today. prgtoken I got involved in this issue more than 3 years ago when I met Ken Chiakas, who lost his 17-year-old daughter Stephanie to a heroin overdose. Together, we launched our community action plan on heroin, an analysis of our community leadership forum on the problem, an audit of existing and proposed community partnerships, and the next steps for our communities, our State, and our county. prgtoken In the years following this initiative, I have hosted meetings with law enforcement officers, treatment center workers, advocates for patients and lost loved ones, State and local government officials, emergency room physicians, pharmacists, and drug manufacturers. prgtoken Last month, my staff and I traveled throughout McHenry and Lake Counties to hear from local officials firsthand who are experiencing this plague every single day. prgtoken Law enforcement first responders are on the front lines fighting drug traffickers and dealers. They are also saving lives by reviving abusers in the midst of an overdose through the use of naloxone. It is now common practice in these police and sheriff's departments to have naloxone ready to be deployed in the hands of capable and trained officers. Many lives have now been spared through its use prgtoken But even these encouraging numbers do not tell the whole story. Countless others live and struggle to fight heroin and opioid abuse every day in search of treatment and battling towards recovery. They know what it is like to face an overwhelming force controlling their lives. It affects their relationships, it affects their outlook on life, it affects their ability to obtain and keep quality jobs. prgtoken Local officials expressed great concern at the loss of workforce, and the many months and years of career advancement and experience those caught in addiction have lost. Businesses are concerned by their search for qualified workers that doesn't yield enough or any applicants. Families are concerned that, without adequate outpatient treatment, their loved ones are far more likely to relapse, compounding these work
HURRICANE HARVEY DISASTER RELIEF, FUNDING THE GOVERNMENT, AND PREVENTING A DEFAULT
Mitch McConnell (Republican, KY) \u2014 2017-9-7

. Now, , at the outset of the week, I outlined three issues we needed to address immediately: provide resources for Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma preparedness, ensure that the government remains funded, and ensure that a default is prevented so the emergency resources I mentioned can actually get to Americans who need them. prgtoken That is what the legislation I filed cloture on yesterday achieves, and it achieves it all together in one package. It will provide certainty and stability for first responders, State officials, and the many others involved in preparing for and recovering from these storms with critically needed emergency resources that will not be interrupted by the prospect of a shutdown or default. prgtoken The recovery effort for a record-setting storm like Harvey has strained resources to the limit already. The advance of another historic storm now makes the need for action even more urgent, so let's work together and act on this legislation very quickly. prgtoken .
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2018
Doug Lamborn (Republican, CO) \u2014 2017-9-7

I will conclude by saying there is one other sort of a temporary element in this whole episode. And that is when you go from Colorado into Wyoming, the mouse is no longer threatened or endangered. There is a political boundary line between the two States. prgtoken In its wisdom, the Fish and Wildlife Service says that if you go north far enough across the State line, it is no longer threatened or endangered. There is an element of arbitrariness that I think also calls into question why this was ever done in the first place. prgtoken , I would ask support for this amendment, and .
RECOGNIZING U.S. ARMY MASTER SERGEANT JOHN DORVAL MINATRA
Marsha Blackburn (Republican, TN) \u2014 2017-9-7

there are no greater heroes than our veterans and active military. In worldwide campaigns, they courageously and selflessly serve and protect our nation from foreign and domestic threats. Their efforts have never failed us. prgtoken Today, I would like to recognize and honor U.S. Army Master Sergeant John Dorval Minatra for his extraordinary heroism and exceptional valor in operations during Indo China, Korea, and Vietnam warfare. In the Republic of Vietnam, he was cited several times for valor in combat with U.S. and Vietnamese awards--most notably the Purple Heart, Distinguished Service Cross, and three Bronze Stars. For his Ranger spirit in three voluntary tours of duty, three assignments training the Vietnamese Battalion with the Mountain Ranger Committee, service as Ranger Advisor to the Vietnamese Airborne Battalion, and third voluntary tour with the IV Corps HQ, he received the Ranger Hall of Fame medallion--a validation of ``Rangers Lead the Way.'' prgtoken MSG Minatra's tactical knowledge, initiative, high standards, and unswerving desire to train and produce the best possible warrior made him an inspirational model for Rangers. His ability to rally and direct soldiers under fire, while wounded, reflects great credit upon himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army. prgtoken Leadership is not as it appears, but as it performs. We join his children Barry, Larry and Melissa, nine grandchildren and 11 great- grandchildren in gratitude for his guidance, heroism, and devotion through 20 years of military service.
REINFORCING EDUCATION ACCOUNTABILITY IN DEVELOPMENT ACT
John McCain (Republican, AZ) \u2014 2017-9-7

like all of us, I would like to join with our fellow citizens and colleagues in expressing our deep condolences to the victims of Hurricane Harvey. All Americans stand with the people of Texas who have been devastated by this terrible storm as they work to recover and rebuild their communities. prgtoken My thoughts and prayers are also with the people of Florida as they prepare for Hurricane Irma. I urge everyone in the path of this horrible storm to pay attention to instructions from local officials to stay safe. prgtoken In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, I am pleased that the legislation before us includes $15 billion in emergency funding to help the people of Texas put their lives back together. Congress should and must provide this needed relief. prgtoken In due time, if the devastation of Irma is anywhere near as bad as predicted, obviously I and others will support sending Federal funding to assist the people of Florida with recovery. That is clearly a requirement and function of government. prgtoken , I also support increasing the debt ceiling as a necessary way to prevent default on our government debt. However, I cannot in good conscience support those very important pieces of this legislation if it also means supporting a continuing resolution. prgtoken I have come to this floor many times to talk about the harmful effects of continuing resolutions on our military. Year after year, we have lurched from one short-term fix to another without doing the hard work of governing and budgeting. And year after year, I have reminded my colleagues that continuing resolutions are not only no way to fund the government, they inflict great harm upon those Americans we are constitutionally obliged to provide for, and that is our men and women in uniform. prgtoken Our defense leaders have also sounded the alarm. For the last several years, our senior military and civilian leaders have come to the Senate Armed Services Committee and asked for the same thing: that Congress provide stable, predictable funding and that we provide it on time. Is that a lot to ask, stable and predictable funding, and providing it on time? prgtoken In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee this year, Secretary Mattis pointed out that ``during nine of the past ten years, Congress has enacted 30 separate Continuing Resolutions to fund the Department of Defense, thus inhibiting our readiness and adaptation to new challenges.'' He asked Congress to ``pass a FY 2018 budget in a timely manner to avoid yet another harmful Continuing Resolution.'' prgtoken Let me explain. A continuing resolution just continues and continues at previous years' levels. I will talk about some of the impacts continuing resolutions have had. prgtoken The Chairman of our Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dunford, also stated that ``without sustained, sufficient, and predictable funding, I assess that within 5 years we will lose
STOP ENABLING SEX TRAFFICKERS ACT
Rob Portman (Republican, OH) \u2014 2017-9-7

it is a tragedy that in the Presiding Officer's home State of Louisiana, in my State of Ohio, and around this country, girls and women, children and adults, are being trafficked online. Sex trafficking is really a stain on our country. prgtoken We have taken some actions in the U.S. Senate to deal with this. We passed four or five bills to increase prosecution of those who engage in this, to ensure that women who are victims are treated as such and not as criminals. We have talked about how to help find missing children. I have been involved in those efforts. We have a caucus here on trafficking which has gotten involved in these issues. prgtoken Here is the reality, as I see it. Unbelievably, in the 21st century, this practice of selling people is increasing, and it is increasing primarily because it has moved online, where it is, tragically, efficient. prgtoken We have learned, through an extensive investigation over the last couple of years, that there is one website online which handles most of the commercial sex business and most of the trafficking, and that is a website called backpage.com. prgtoken What we have done in the U.S. Senate by focusing on this issue is we tried to determine how do you turn the tide, begin to get to the point where, instead of hearing more and more stories about women and girls and sometimes boys being trafficked online, in fact, we are beginning to get to a situation where we can find ways to get those people into treatment and recovery, deal with their trauma, and begin to stop this horrendous practice. It is really taking away the God-given potential of those engaged in it. There is nothing more horrible than meeting a young girl who has been trafficked and hearing the horrendous stories. prgtoken I was recently back in Ohio and had the opportunity to visit with some victims. I remember one young woman in particular told me she was trafficked at age 9--starting at age 9--by her father. He would take her to Super Bowls out of town, and he would traffic her online in their hometown. Imagine the trauma and the heartbreak. prgtoken Typically, now it is connected also with heroin or fentanyl or prescription drugs or other opioids. In other words, these girls or women are often made dependent, in part, from their addiction, and the traffickers cruelly use that addiction to force them to do things they would never otherwise envision. prgtoken So we know that. We know this is happening. We know it is increasing. We know it is online. What do we do about it? prgtoken Unfortunately, as we have learned in our investigation, these websites online that engage in this are largely protected. They are immune from prosecution. They are immune from victims being able to get justice. They are denied justice because of a Federal law which protects these evil people who knowingly are engaged directly in sex trafficking. That is pretty amazing; isn't it? But that is what is happening
THE NATIONAL DEBT
David Perdue (Republican, GA) \u2014 2017-9-7

we have had a lot of action today in the Senate, which is unusual here, and I wish to address it. prgtoken I would like to address this to the people in Texas, Louisiana, and to all of those who just experienced the devastating results and the impact of Hurricane Harvey. Obviously, our hearts go out to those people, and, of course, we are going to do the right thing and help the people of Texas, which is just what we voted on today. But there is a bigger issue I want to speak to today. I relate to this personally because, just last year--almost exactly to the day--our family was evacuated from our home in South Georgia. As I speak today, we were just notified today that my wife and mother-in-law, who are there today, will be evacuating this weekend from the south coast of Georgia, trying to get out of the way of the next hurricane--Hurricane Irma-- which looks to be a very dangerous storm as well, coming into Florida over the next day or so. prgtoken But this crisis that we just saw in Texas and that we might see in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina with the next hurricane--Hurricane Irma--reminds us of a bigger issue. It reminds us that because of our inability to get our financial house in order and as a result of the debt crisis we have today, we are losing the right to do the right thing. Whether it is medical research, whether it is infrastructure, or whether it is education, whether it is funding our military, which we will deal with next week, we are losing the right to do the right thing. By that I mean our own financial intransigence over the last 16 years, primarily, but, I would say, ever since 1965, when we had the Great Society and the great War on Poverty, which has failed miserably. That was another great, sweeping, progressive, liberal program that failed to make any dent in our poverty rate in the United States. The poverty rate today is fundamentally the same as it was in the days when that bill was signed into law. prgtoken Because of our intransigence, our ability to appropriate money to deal with disasters like Hurricane Harvey and potentially Hurricane Irma and others is in danger. Moving forward, we just simply will not be able to continue to deal with these emergencies and crises if we don't have a functioning Federal Government that actually pays its bills and has its financial house in order. prgtoken The national debt is actually what pulled me into the political process. It is the reason I am in the Senate today. prgtoken The people of Georgia understand that this is an underlying crisis that we have been digging here for the last two decades and it simply has to be dealt with. prgtoken Today we have $20 trillion in debt. I call that a crisis because we do not have a plan to reduce that back to some reasonable percentage of our GDP. This is greater in size than the size of our entire economy. What is worse than that and what is more concerning is tha
BUDGET SCOREKEEPING REPORT
Michael B. Enzi (Republican, WY) \u2014 2017-9-7

I wish to submit to the Senate the budget scorekeeping report for September 2017. The report compares current-law levels of spending and revenues with the amounts the Senate agreed to in the budget resolution for fiscal year 2017, S. Con. Res. 3. This information is necessary for the Senate Budget Committee to determine whether budget points of order lie against pending legislation. The staff of the Senate Budget Committee and the Congressional Budget Office, CBO, prepared this report pursuant to section 308(b) of the Congressional Budget Act, CBA. prgtoken My last filing can be found in the Record on July 12, 2017. The information contained in this report captures legislative activity since that filing through September 5, 2017. prgtoken Budget Committee staff prepared tables 1-3 of this report. prgtoken Table 1 gives the amount by which each Senate authorizing committee exceeds or is below its allocation for budget authority and outlays under the most recently adopted budget resolution. This information is used for enforcing committee allocations pursuant to section 302 of the CBA. For this reporting period, 11 of the 16 authorizing committees are in compliance with their allocations, two fewer than my last report. Legislative activity during this reporting period brought both the Committee on the Judiciary, for a State compact relating to the Washington Metrorail Safety Commission, P.L. 1l5-54, and the Committee on Foreign Relations, for the Countering America's Adversaries through Sanctions Act, P.L. 115-44, out of compliance. prgtoken In total, authorizing committees are estimated to increase outlays by nearly $2 billion more than they were allocated over the fiscal year 2017-2026 period. The largest spending violation since the passage of the current budget resolution occurred during this reporting period. The VA Choice and Quality Employment Act of 2017, P.L. 115-46, increased budget authority by $2 billion and outlays by $1.9 billion over the fiscal year 2017-2026 window. prgtoken Tables 2-3 of this report, related to activities of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, remain unchanged from my previous report. prgtoken In addition to the tables provided by Budget Committee staff, I am submitting CBO tables, which I will use to enforce budget totals approved by the Congress. prgtoken CBO provided a spending and revenue report for fiscal year 2017, which helps prgtoken enforce aggregate spending levels in budget resolutions under CBA section 311. CBO's estimates show that current law levels of spending for fiscal year 2017 exceed the amounts assumed in the budget resolution for budget authority by $1.8 billion. However, levels for outlays remain nearly $6.4 billion below assumed levels. CBO also estimates that revenues are $1 million above assumed levels for fiscal year 2017 and $8 million above assumed levels over the fiscal year 2017-2026 period. Two piece
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2018
Ken Buck (Republican, CO) \u2014 2017-9-7

I rise in support of my amendment to protect private property rights in Colorado. prgtoken This amendment would prevent the creation and expansion of a National Heritage Area in southeast Colorado. Heritage Areas open the door to new land use restrictions on privately held land that are strongly opposed in this part of my district. prgtoken I recently held multiple townhalls in southeast Colorado to hear the unique concerns of these rural communities. At the top of their list was a need to cut burdensome government red tape that hurts their businesses and threatens their way of life. prgtoken These small family farms and ranches should not be forced to follow new regulations that give control of their private lands to Washington, D.C. That is why this amendment is so important. It allows Coloradans to keep control of their land. prgtoken My amendment would only affect nine counties in Colorado and protect them from new, unwanted land use restrictions. This amendment passed last year by voice vote, and I urge my colleagues to again support the private property rights of these farmers and ranchers. prgtoken , .
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2018
Daniel Webster (Republican, FL) \u2014 2017-9-7

. Mr. Chair, due to the impending landfall of Hurricane Irma in Florida, I departed Washington, D.C. to be in my district during this natural disaster. prgtoken Had I been present, I would have voted: ``Nay'' on rollcall No. 462. ``Yea'' on rollcall No. 463. ``Yea'' on rollcall No. 464. ``Nay'' on rollcall No. 465. ``Nay'' on rollcall No. 466. Amendments En Bloc No. 4 Offered by Mr. Rogers of Kentucky
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2018
Garret Graves (Republican, LA) \u2014 2017-9-7

I certainly sympathize with many of the comments that the sponsor of this amendment has brought up. Certainly, none of us have any intention of trashing the environment, of causing environmental degradation in any of our coastal areas in the United States. prgtoken But the thing is that this amendment doesn't cut production. It would not result in any reduction in oil and gas exploration and production activities. And if it were to do that, then all that would happen is it would increase our dependence upon foreign imports of oil. prgtoken The reality and statistics are very clear. You are less safe transporting energy than you are producing it. The statistics are very clear. Putting it into a ship is less safe. Putting it into a pipeline is less safe than actually producing it. So you are not doing anything to benefit the environment. prgtoken The next thing is that, within approximately 1 month of the administration's being sworn into office in 2009--as I recall, I believe it was on February 10--Secretary Salazar stood prgtoken up and said: We are rewriting the 5-year offshore leasing plan of the previous administration. prgtoken They walked right in and said: We are throwing this out. prgtoken Which the amendment's sponsor said was billions of dollars in implications and much planning. prgtoken It is exactly what the administration did. So if the administration chooses to take a fresh look at these resources and these resources, then I want to quote the administration saying that these are offshore energy resources that belong to all Americans. prgtoken , I want to make one other note. If you read the amendment, it says that none of the funds made available in this act may be used to repair a 5-year offshore oil and gas leasing program that would schedule any Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas lease sale before 2022. This wouldn't just prohibit making changes to it, such as, perhaps, the idea of expanding it if public comments and other input found that that was the best thing to do, but it also would prevent slowing down the lease sale schedule. prgtoken , I urge opposition to this amendment. While I certainly support the gentleman's intent to prevent any type of environmental harm and degradation, I just want to say in closing that I was the lead trustee for the State of Louisiana in the Deepwater Horizon spill. prgtoken When you look at Outer Continental Shelf energy production, we had produced trillions of cubic feet of natural gas. We had produced billions of barrels of oil. What the courts found in the BP incident was that there was gross negligence and willful misconduct. prgtoken They didn't find that there were problems with the rules and other things. That is why, as the gentleman correctly started, that they had to spend tens of billions of dollars paying for their gross negligence and willful misconduct, which is very different than the tril