mesut/congress_speeches huggingface dataset:
ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS
Jon Tester (Democrat, MT) \u2014 2024-7-31

I rise today to recognize an outstanding Montanan who today took home the bronze Olympic medal in women's 100m backstroke. prgtoken Katharine Berkoff, a Missoula native and Hellgate High School graduate, has been setting records since high school. She made her name on the national stage at just 17 years old and has already led an impressive career in and out of the pool. Today, she rose to the top among the best of the best when she finished the 100m backstroke in just 57.98 seconds, earning her spot on the Olympic podium. prgtoken Katharine, you have made Montana proud. Team USA is lucky to have you. prgtoken I join today with my fellow Senators to congratulate you on this remarkable achievement. I have got a feeling you will continue to do great things.
Nomination of Dorothy Camille Shea (Executive Session)
Benjamin L. Cardin (Democrat, MD) \u2014 2024-7-31

shortly we are going to be voting on the cloture motion for the confirmation of Dorothy Shea, the nominee for Deputy U.S. Representative to the United Nations. prgtoken I come to the floor today as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We have recommended to the Senate in a very strong bipartisan vote the support of Dorothy Shea to be the Deputy Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations. prgtoken We need a full team in place to fight for the interests of the United States and our allies at the United Nations; to counter adversaries like China and Russia; to work with our allies to respond to conflicts, from Ukraine to Sudan; to ensure that the United States is at the table for conversations on the role of technology and AI; and to stand up against anti-Semitism on the global stage. Yet our mission to the United Nations has been without a Senate-confirmed Deputy for nearly 2 years. prgtoken This post is not only crucial to managing the safety and security of U.S. and foreign personnel during U.N. meetings of heads of State in New York in September, the Deputy plays a key role in the policy planning process. prgtoken At a time when strong U.S. leadership at the U.N. is so important, we need someone in this post who has experience tackling the complexities of the United Nations General Assembly; someone who will make sure the U.N. is positioned to take on the challenges of the future, including reforms; someone who will multiply our engagement in the Security Council and General Assembly, working alongside Ambassador Thomas- Greenfield; someone who is not afraid to stand up for American values. That is why, as the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I fully support Dorothy Shea's confirmation to this post. prgtoken Ambassador Shea has decades of experience working in the Foreign Service, at the State Department, and with the National Security Council. She is a career senior Foreign Service officer who has proudly served both ic and administrations for 32 years, including working for colleagues across the aisle on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. prgtoken While she was our chief diplomat in Lebanon, Ambassador Shea was awarded the Distinguished Presidential Rank Award for sustained extraordinary accomplishment. Throughout her career, she has demonstrated her deep commitment and ability to advance U.S. interests. prgtoken At a time of war and escalating humanitarian crises worldwide, we can count on Ambassador Shea to represent U.S. interests at the United Nations. From advancing the peace process in the Middle East and Sudan, to revitalizing the global humanitarian system, to implementing institutional reforms at the United Nations, she will work to find solutions to our global challenges. prgtoken I strongly urge support for her nomination. I urge my colleagues to support the cloture on her nomination so that we can
NOMINATION OF MEREDITH A. VACCA
Charles E. Schumer (Democrat, NY) \u2014 2024-7-31

. On the Vacca nomination, today, the Senate will confirm another exceptional judicial nominee from New York whom I recommended to President , Meredith Vacca, to serve as district judge for the Western District of New York, the Buffalo and Rochester areas of our State. prgtoken Judge Vacca's confirmation will be a historic moment for Western New York. A proud Korean American, Judge Vacca will be the first Asian American and first woman of color ever to serve in the Western District of New York. prgtoken I am proud to say Judge Vacca is a Western New Yorker through and through, a Buffalo Law School graduate, longtime resident of the Rochester area, raised in the suburban town of Greece. prgtoken Judge Vacca will bring great talent, experience, and respect for the law to the Western District of New York. prgtoken The Western District, as I mentioned, stretches to Buffalo and Rochester and many other counties in Western New York. These are places that have benefited immensely from New York's great Asian-American community. As the senior Senator from New York and as majority leader, I have always worked to make New York's Federal bench reflect better the communities it serves. And I know the Presiding Officer and I have worked hand in hand on that noble goal. prgtoken Judge Vacca's nomination will mark another major step toward that goal. Judge Vacca has every quality you could want in a jurist: compassionate, tough, legally astute, with a genuine love for her community. She spent over 15 years as an attorney, prosecutor, and judge fighting for vulnerable New Yorkers. prgtoken She has developed a rare institutional knowledge of our State and our country's laws and will bring tremendous legal expertise and experience to the Western District bench. And notably, once confirmed, Judge Vacca will make the all-male Western District bench 50 percent female, making it one of the few country's 50 percent female benches. One day, I hope this is the norm across the country. prgtoken So I am proud to support Judge Vacca's nomination, and I look forward to voting to confirm her later today. prgtoken . prgtoken .
Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024 (Executive Session)
Alex Padilla (Democrat, CA) \u2014 2024-7-31

I, too, rise today in support of every parent across the country working multiple jobs to help put food on the table, parents who are now buying school supplies and clothes as their kids are preparing to go back to school, parents who are working hard just to afford basic childcare. I rise in support of every American, including many in my home State of California, who are struggling to find housing that they can afford. And I rise today for every constituent of mine wondering why Senate s continue to block a bill that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in the House of Representatives, because we know that the policies included in this measure are, indeed, bipartisan. prgtoken In the bipartisan Wyden-Smith tax proposal, these measures are not controversial. We know that they are actually effective because we have seen them work. In 2021, we saw an expanded child tax credit cut the rate of child poverty in our Nation in half to historic lows. prgtoken We also saw a 12\1/2\-percent increase in the low-income housing tax credit allocation help finance the construction of affordable housing-- affordable housing that in communities across California and across the country are so desperately needed. prgtoken So let's just kind of simplify this conversation here. We know these policies can work. We know these policies have worked. We know that letting them expire has been detrimental to so many parents, so many children, and so many communities across the country. And we have, today, an opportunity to do right by them once again. prgtoken This past week, the Park fire and other wildfires continuing to burn in California have burned hundreds of thousands of acres. But in addition to that, they have reawakened painful memories of some of the worst wildfires in California history, many just in the last decade. So I also want to spend a moment to highlight what the disaster assistance provisions of this bill would mean for many, many families in my State. prgtoken Now, earlier this month, the Los Angeles Times told a story of Ria Abernathy, a 55-year-old woman living in Butte County in Northern California. Six years ago, Ria experienced devastation that most Americans couldn't even dream of but to which many Californians have grown all too familiar. prgtoken On one morning in November of 2018, Ria woke up to see black smoke engulfing the land around her, flames moving so fast that, within hours, the entire town of Paradise, CA, would be nothing but embers. prgtoken Fortunately, Ria acted quickly, and she was able to flee safely. But in order to save her life, she had to sacrifice all of her possessions. In what would become the deadliest wildfire in California history, the Camp fire went on to burn everything that Ria owned, and it leveled the town around her, and it claimed 85 lives--all because of a failed piece of equipment from a transmission tower that ignited the fire. prgtoken So for
Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024 (Executive Session)
Ron Wyden (Democrat, OR) \u2014 2024-7-31

. And Senator Cornyn said I could take a second to add on. prgtoken I think my colleague from California has made a central point. In the West, in particular, we want to make sure that those who have been clobbered by these fires don't get clobbered again by an outdated tax code. So I am strongly in support of Senator Padilla's work. prgtoken We have an opportunity to get it on the books tomorrow, if it passes. Tomorrow, it goes to the President and gets signed into law. prgtoken .
EXECUTIVE CALENDAR
Peter Welch (Democrat, VT) \u2014 2024-7-31

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate consider the following nominations en bloc: Calendar Nos. 719 through 740, 742 through 763, and all nominations on the Secretary's desk in the Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and the Space Force; that the nominations be confirmed en bloc; that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to any of the nominations; and that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate then resume legislative session.
Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2770 (Executive Calendar)
Amy Klobuchar (Democrat, MN) \u2014 2024-7-31

I will note again that Senator Hawley is the lead on this bill, and I don't think for a minute that he would allow for a bill that is something that he disagrees with when it comes to being radical or broad or anything like that. He simply agrees with me, as does Senator Collins, that we have a major, major issue here with these deepfakes that are going to extend to, say, what happened in New Hampshire, which involved a fake robocall ad from President that people believed was him calling on people not to vote. That case is, of course, being investigated by a Attorney General, and a case is being brought in New Hampshire. prgtoken But the point is this is just the beginning. We haven't even entered the general election yet. That will start at the end of August. And so that is why time is of the essence here, and that is also why we drafted this bill with ic and lawyers in a method that was narrowly tailored so that it would abide by the Constitution.
Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024 (Executive Session)
Michael F. Bennet (Democrat, CO) \u2014 2024-7-31

. I want to thank the Presiding Officer who has been such a champion on all these texts, the Senator from Nevada, and the Senator from New Hampshire as well, for bringing together people from both sides of the aisle to work on this. And you, , for your steadfast leadership over many, many years. prgtoken And I am not going to give everybody a long history lesson here, but you want to know why our politics are so messed up, what feels like we are having these incredible, disagreeable disagreements and divisions and all of this in our politics, I believe there is one fundamental reason for it, and I think that fundamental reason is that people in America have lost a sense of having economic mobility for themselves and their families. prgtoken You know, the whole idea of the American dream was that, if you work hard enough, that your kids were going to do better than you did and that your grandkids were going to do better than they did. And that has been lost. It is not irrecoverable, but there are so many families in Colorado, in Nevada, New Hampshire, Oregon, that are going through the same stuff that people all over America are going through, which is they are working harder than ever before and they are bringing less home. prgtoken And more of the benefit has been going, for years and years and years, to the people at the very top. That is the result of a real philosophical approach to how to run an economy, which is called trickle-down economics or supply side economics; it was something that Ronald Reagan led here. But I have to say this: There are and s who supported those tendencies for a long time, and the result of that is that, today, the bottom prgtoken half of Americans in our economy have less wealth than they did in 1980 when Ronald Reagan was President. prgtoken We are the first generation of Americans, the people in this Senate, that are actually leaving less opportunity, not more, to our kids and our grandkids. That has never happened before in American history. Half the people that are in their 30s today are earning less than their parents did. prgtoken And I heard my colleague from Rhode Island talking about housing in Rhode Island. You can say exactly the same thing in Colorado. There is not a single place in Colorado where people think they can afford housing--because they can't. prgtoken There is no workforce housing left, as you and I have discussed in the State of Colorado or the State of Oregon. And all of that is a preface to saying finally--finally--we have a bill in front of us that doesn't just cut taxes for the biggest corporations and the wealthiest people in the country, but actually cuts taxes for working people. And amazingly, as has been said, amazingly, it got 357 votes in the House. I know the chairman is fond of saying you couldn't get that kind of a majority vote for--what?
STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
Jack Reed (Democrat, RI) \u2014 2024-7-31

today, I am joining Senator Capito to introduce the Innovation in Pediatric Drugs Act of 2024 in order to improve access to needed therapies for children. prgtoken Children are not just small adults. Drugs affect their developing bodies differently, so new treatments need to be studied carefully to ensure that they are appropriately prescribed and that dosages are properly adjusted. Additionally, drugs that are designed to treat a specific condition in adults may have enormous benefits in treating completely different illnesses in kids, but research is needed to unlock these potentially lifesaving possibilities. prgtoken Unfortunately, drug development still leaves children behind. The legislation we are introducing today would help speed therapies to children who need them by making needed changes to the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act BPCA, and the Pediatric Research Equity Act, PREA--two laws that encourage and require the study of drugs in children. prgtoken Data resulting from BPCA and PREA studies are added to drug labels to give parents and providers essential information on the safety and efficacy of drugs used in children. I was proud to have helped author these laws when I prgtoken was a member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. While we have made tremendous progress in advancing treatments for children because of these laws, there are gaps. For example, there is a loophole in PREA that exempts drug companies from pediatric study requirements when the treatment would only be used for a rare pediatric condition. prgtoken There are close to 7,000 rare diseases without appropriate treatments, and the vast majority of these diseases affect children as well as adults. But in developing new drugs also known as orphan drugs to treat rare diseases, pharmaceutical developers focus their research on adult patients only since they are not required study their impact on children. prgtoken And since the majority of new drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration, FDA are orphan drugs, this means that the majority of newly approved drugs have not been studied for their impacts on kids. This leaves doctors, parents, and sick kids in the dark about the best possible treatments. Our bill closes this loophole to require studies for children so that they, too, can benefit from new and innovative treatments for rare diseases. prgtoken In addition to this change, the Innovation in Pediatric Drugs Act would invest in pediatric studies of older, off-patent drugs. The FDA incentives and requirements under BPCA and PREA work for many newer drugs but unfortunately cannot help encourage studies of older drugs. For this reason, in 2002, Congress authorized a program which funds the National Institutes of Health to conduct studies of off-patent drugs used in children that would never be completed otherwise. Drug studies are expensive, and costs have only increased since then, b
NDAA (Executive Session)
Dan Sullivan (Republican, AK) \u2014 2024-7-31

I want to join my colleagues here on the Senate floor and talk about the importance of national security right here in the Congress of the United States. It is certainly one of our top priorities--protecting our Nation. prgtoken You know, President Ronald Reagan, who very much focused on the issue of peace through strength--and I am going to talk about that here in a minute--he once said: We know only too well that war comes not when the forces of freedom are strong, but when they are weak. It is then that the tyrants are tempted. ``It is then that the tyrants are tempted.'' prgtoken Tyrants like this guy--that is Xi Jinping sporting some cammies there with his military--tyrants like this guy and the tyrants around the world, they are tempted. They are tempted. They are on the march. prgtoken Look at this poster. That is Xi Jinping again in his military uniform. He kind of looks ridiculous, from my perspective, but, hey, they are on the march. prgtoken Putin, the terrorists in Iran, Kim Jong Un in North Korea, Venezuela, for goodness' sake--all the tyrants are working together, and they are on the march because the forces of freedom, as President Reagan said, have become weak. prgtoken You have heard it from my colleagues from North Carolina and Mississippi. We are on Armed Services together. By the way, they are both doing a great job. Let me make sure everyone can see that. Thank you. Yet this body has not taken up what we need to take up. prgtoken Just a couple of examples. Senator Budd was talking about the chaos in the Middle East, the appeasement of Iran by the - administration. prgtoken By the way, in my great State, just this past week, we had a joint Russian-Chinese strategic bomber patrol come into our ADIZ, into the kind of territorial airspace right near Alaska. It never happened before in the history of the country--Chinese and Russian joint bomber patrols, with fighters, coming into American airspace. The tyrants-- this guy--they are tempted. They have never done that before. prgtoken We heard about this. We all know this started due to the botched, chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan that has sent the message of weakness. prgtoken Our wonderful military up in Alaska scrambled 10 fighter jets, fully armed, went and greeted the Chinese and the Russians, and said: Not today, guys. Turn around. Get out of our airspace. prgtoken But that was an escalation. It never happened before. prgtoken In the United States, we need to be stronger--much stronger than the - administration has enabled us to be. prgtoken So what can we do here on the Senate floor? Well, what we can do--and you have heard my colleagues talk about it--is that we can bring up the National Defense Authorization Act. prgtoken Like a lot of my colleagues who have been talking on the floor right now, I serve on the Armed Services Committee and was glad to work on this bill in a bipartisan way
Tribute to Ron Forman (Executive Calendar)
John Kennedy (Republican, LA) \u2014 2024-7-31

I want to speak for a few minutes about a favorite son in Louisiana, but to do that, I have to give my remarks a little context. prgtoken I think, like most Americans and, I know, like the Presiding Officer, I love animals. I grew up in a rural area in Louisiana. And let's see. We had dogs--not all at the same time, but we had dogs. We had cats. We had hamsters. We had chipmunks. We had squirrels. We had alligators, baby alligators. prgtoken Now, the danger of a baby alligator is that they become a big alligator, and we used to keep our little, baby alligators--their names were Tim and Tubo--in a big washbasin in our backyard, and we put wire on the top. The alligators--they were about this long--were in the tub. Why would we keep wire on the top? Because the neighborhood cats would try to get in there and eat them. prgtoken Well, Tim and Tubo grew, and they grew, and they grew, and, one day, we forgot to put the screen wire on the top of the washbasin with the water in which Tim and Tubo were residing. By this time, they were about this long. And one of our neighbor's favorite cats, all of a sudden, just had three legs. And we had to release Tim and Tubo at that point. prgtoken Dad said: No, Tim and Tubo are too big. We have got to release them back to the swamp. prgtoken Well, I remember we had a baby possum, and I am probably leaving some varmints out. But I love animals. I especially love dogs. I have two at home. I wouldn't ask Becky to choose between me and our pups. And I love when people bring their dogs to work. prgtoken I am not going to wade into this fierce debate about what kind of pet and what kind of animal is best, but I think we can all agree that there is a special bond between our species and our animal friends. Animals can teach us a lot. Animals teach us love. Animals teach us patience. Animals teach us compassion. Animals, especially dogs, teach us responsibility. Animals teach us to appreciate God's creation. Through our connection with animals, including but not limited to dogs, we all gain a deeper respect for the world around us. prgtoken Now, in Louisiana, we are blessed to have many animal havens. Some of our animals, of course, are wild. I can remember in my State when alligators were almost extinct. Now we have more alligators than people. By the way, the alligators are surprisingly well organized. So be careful. prgtoken But we also have a lot of zoos. We have aquariums, none better than those in New Orleans, and those of you who have been to New Orleans may know this. New Orleans is home to what we call the Audubon Nature Institute. That is a nonprofit that we set up in Louisiana. It operates the Audubon Zoo in Uptown New Orleans; the Audubon Aquarium on the riverfront, down near the French Quarter--the Audubon Aquarium and Insectarium we call it; the Audubon Louisiana Nature Center; the Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species; and the Audubon Coastal W