mesut/congress_speeches huggingface dataset:
INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, FINANCIAL SERVICES, AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2019--Continued
Amy Klobuchar (Democrat, MN) \u2014 2018-7-24

from Vermont for his leadership, and I am pleased that Senator Durbin has brought us together. I also see the Senator from Delaware and the Senator from Oregon here. prgtoken I appreciate the work we have seen on the other side of the aisle on so many of these issues regarding elections and Russia, including the Presiding Officer's support for moving forward on a number of these things. prgtoken Our next election is right around the corner. In fact, this coming Saturday marks 100 days from the 2018 elections. As we prepare for the midterm elections, two things are clear: First, we must hold Russia accountable for the attacks against our democracy in 2016. This wasn't meddling. This wasn't just sending a few little tweets. This was an actual cyber attack on our democracy, and we have to call it what it was. Secondly, we must do more to deter Russia and safeguard our democracy against future attacks. prgtoken As complex as all this is, that is really quite simple. The first thing is, we have to figure out what happened and hold the people accountable. That is what is happening with the Mueller investigation, and that is what is happening with the Intelligence Committee investigation and other committees as well. Secondly, we have to protect our own democracy in the future from Russia, from other foreign entities, from anyone who might try to take away our democracy. That is exactly what happened in this last election. prgtoken Over the last 18 months, I have come to the floor time and again to make this point: Election security is national security. Efforts to interfere in our domestic politics and attack our election infrastructure represent a threat to our democracy and our security. prgtoken We know that Russia coordinated an attack against our democracy that launched cyber attacks against at least 21 States, including my own. The latest indictment from Special Counsel Mueller's investigation revealed that the Russians hacked the website of a State board of elections and stole the information of roughly 500,000 voters. We not only have them potentially trying to influence the vote, we also have them actually stealing voters' private information, which, of course, is another way to deter voters from wanting to vote. Russia's efforts also included sophisticated information warfare designed to divide our country and weaken Americans' confidence in our election system. prgtoken Hard-working women and men in our intelligence agencies from both ic and administrations have confirmed this. The heads of all of our major intelligence operations under President and under President have said that this happened. In fact, months ago, Director Coats said that not only did it happen but that the Russians are getting, in his words, bolder. prgtoken Yet, this month in Helsinki, President was asked if he stands by the conclusions of the U.S. intelligence c
INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, FINANCIAL SERVICES, AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2019--Continued
Patty Murray (Democrat, WA) \u2014 2018-7-24

I wish to thank the Senator from Connecticut. I, too, join him in being very proud, as we were a year ago, to see Congress stand with families across the country who did not want to see their healthcare rolled back. prgtoken A year ago, as Senator Murphy said, President tried to make good on his campaign promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act and to jeopardize healthcare for millions of people. A year ago, the President tried to jam Care through Congress. It was a harmful, mean- spirited bill that would have spiked premiums and gutted Medicaid and scrapped protections for people with preexisting conditions, which would put families back at the mercy of big insurance companies. prgtoken But people across the country stood up, they spoke out, and they made it absolutely clear that they did not want President to take away their healthcare or give power back to those insurance companies. prgtoken During that debate, I heard personal stories from patients and families all over my State of Washington who were concerned about Care because it would make it harder to get the care they needed. prgtoken I heard stories like Julie's. Julie has a genetic condition. As a result of that, she has had four--four--different types of cancer. She has had four different organs removed during treatment. She has had her diet severely restricted, and her life has dramatically changed. But she is a fighter. She had excellent care, and she ultimately won each of those four battles with cancer. prgtoken However, without protections for people with preexisting conditions, her healthcare costs could skyrocket. If President had his way, Julie could not get the care she needed, and, by the way, she is not the only one. prgtoken I also heard from families like the family of a woman named Vanessa. When Vanessa was pregnant, she learned that her daughter would be born with significant health challenges. In fact, her daughter Cheyenne had her first surgery when she was just 20 days old, and she would have two more before her very first birthday. Even though Cheyenne was born with preexisting conditions that would be costly to treat for years to come, Vanessa, her mom, was able to get insurance through our State exchange and get her daughter the care she needed. But if President had his way, that might not be possible. prgtoken Last year, in the midst of the Care debate, I shared Vanessa's story, Julie's story, and many stories from families in Washington State, and I heard even more that I would love to share. People from other States across the country were also reaching out and letting their Senators know how damaging Care would be for their prgtoken family and urging them to vote against it. It worked. prgtoken Last year we came together and gave President 's healthcare repeal scheme a big thumbs down. Unfortunately, that has not stopped President from doing everything he can
INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, FINANCIAL SERVICES, AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2019
Claire McCaskill (Democrat, MO) \u2014 2018-7-24

I would like to thank my colleague. He and I were both in Branson last Friday. We didn't have a chance to see each other, but we were both there for the same reason; that is, an unspeakable tragedy in our State that has Federal involvement because the investigations will occur jointly with the Coast Guard and the NTSB. prgtoken I would echo many of the remarks that my colleague made. I particularly was struck when I was there--the highway patrol divers had just finished their work. They had the worst job maybe in the country last Friday, but certainly in Missouri. Their job was to go to the bottom of the lake and find the bodies that had been trapped in this amphibious vehicle at the bottom of one of the most beautiful lakes in the world. prgtoken We never want a tragedy like this to strike in our State. I will tell my colleagues that the only silver lining I can find is that it happened in a part of our State where there is a great deal of love. There is a lot of openness in Branson, MO, for the travelers who come through, for all the tourists who come to Branson. We are very proud of that area of our State. The Ozarks have some of the most beautiful terrain God has created. These lakes that we have, both in the central part of our State and in the southwest part of our State, we are very proud of. They turned ugly and deadly last Thursday, and we have had a tremendous loss of life. prgtoken This investigation will take a year or more. I join my colleague in urging the Senate to approve these two nominees that have been pending for too long. It is my understanding we have gotten movement on that today. It is sad that it would take a tragedy like this to get this moving, but I believe that by the end of the day--I am at least optimistic at this point; I don't know what my colleague Senator Blunt has learned, but I have learned that it appears that these nominees will be approved by the end of the day. prgtoken There were incredibly difficult weather conditions, but there are inherent dangers in these amphibious vehicles. We know this. How do we know this? Because it has been investigated before. We have had 40 deaths associated with duck boats since 1999, yet there has been little done to address the inherent danger of these amphibious vehicles. We had 13 deaths in Arkansas in Lake Hamilton in 1999, 4 deaths in the Ottawa River in Ontario, Canada in 2002, 2 in the Delaware River in Philadelphia in 2010, and then the 17 deaths that occurred last week. Additionally, we had five deaths when a vehicle collided, when it had an on-land collision in Seattle in 2015. prgtoken Back when the NTSB investigated the incident in Arkansas, which is about 200 miles south of Branson, they found contributing factors to that accident to be the lack of adequate buoyancy that would have allowed the vehicle to remain afloat in a flooded condition, the lack of adequate oversight by the Coast Guard, and, importantly
INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, FINANCIAL SERVICES, AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2019--Continued
Sheldon Whitehouse (Democrat, RI) \u2014 2018-7-24

I am here for the now 214th time to urge that we wake up to the effects of carbon pollution on the Earth's oceans, atmosphere, and climate. prgtoken One obstacle to action on the threat that we face from climate change, however, is the manufactured doubt that so often surrounds this issue. We find this manufactured doubt a fossil fuel industry product-- just as oil and gas are fossil fuel industry products--flowing even from the editorial page of one of our Nation's leading publications, the Wall Street Journal. Whenever the issue is harmful industrial pollutants, the Wall Street Journal's editorial page has a long record of misleading its readers, denying the legitimate science, and even ignoring its own news reporting, all to shill for the polluting industries. prgtoken A pattern of science denial repeats itself in the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal on environmental issues--issues such as acid rain and depletion of the ozone layer and now, and for years, climate change. This editorial page has persistently published editorials against taking action to prevent manmade climate change. prgtoken In June 1993, the editors wrote that there is ``growing evidence that global warming just isn't happening.'' prgtoken In September 1999, the editorial page reported that ``serious scientists'' call global warming ``one of the greatest hoaxes of all time.'' If that is what they are saying, I suspect that what those scientists are serious about is the money they get from the fossil fuel industry. prgtoken In June 2005, the page asserted that the link between fossil fuels and global warming had ``become even more doubtful.'' This was June 2005, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page was questioning whether there is a link between fossil fuels and global warming? prgtoken Even more recently, a December 2011 editorial said that the global warming debate requires what the page called ``more definitive evidence.'' I guess having essentially all the serious scientists in the world lined up on this is not serious enough. prgtoken In October 2013, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal warned that in addressing climate change, ``interventions make the world poorer than it would otherwise be.'' I guess if the world of Exxon shareholders is your world, then it does make it poorer, but in any real world, that just ain't so. prgtoken You would think that as the evidence mounted over the past several decades, the Wall Street Journal editorial page would have at some point woken up and begun to publish editorials based on real science and data. To put it mildly, that has not been the case. Instead, the editorial page has doubled down on climate denial. prgtoken Just last month, the Journal published a piece titled ``The Sea is Rising, but Not Because of Climate Change.'' This piece is riddled with readily fact-checked scientific errors, and it ignores all the legitimate science on climate change and sea
NEW LEADERSHIP IS NEEDED IN CONGRESS
Earl Blumenauer (Democrat, OR) \u2014 2018-7-24

it seems every morning we are greeted by another outrage from the administration. Today, we find that the Department of the Interior deliberately manipulated the information surrounding the decision to amend the boundaries of national monuments. They withheld information about the benefits of the monument designation, benefits for Native Americans, for wildlife, for the local economy, and for the environment. prgtoken The only way we found out about this manipulation is because they inadvertently disclosed the entire memorandum, exposed for everybody to see how they blatantly manipulated the process. But this is just another example. prgtoken This last week, we have seen attacks on our long-time friends and allies in Europe, undermining the NATO alliance, questioning the integrity of our American intelligence service, and assaulting American business and consumers with this ill-advised trade war and the tariffs, which are just taxes on American families. This is, in part, due to the fact that we are not getting any pushback on these outrages from most s in Congress, not standing up to for America and for our values. prgtoken It appears that most of my friends are held hostage to the most extreme elements in their districts. They are given enhanced influence because of the practice of partisan gerrymandering, drawing boundaries to enhance the power of the majority, so you only have to worry about voters in the primary. prgtoken I have long supported independent commissions to draw these boundaries, have proposed legislation federally. Although there appears to be little appetite in Congress, luckily, people out in the States are taking matters into their own hands. We are watching citizen initiatives in Michigan, in Utah, and in Colorado. Voters, this year, will have a chance to vote on fair and honest redistricting if the U.S. Chamber and the Party are not able to block it from being voted on, as they are trying to do in Michigan. prgtoken When voters, again, pick the politicians instead of politicians picking the voters, it is much more likely that Congress will do its job until we get fair districts, we will have to rely on renewed, energized voter engagement to elect a Congress that will do its job. prgtoken The good news is that the evidence all across America is that people are responding to a new generation of political leadership. They are getting involved in unprecedented numbers--more voters, more activism. They are going to elect, as leaders, new Members who will provide the accountability to hold in check this reckless administration. prgtoken It is too bad it looks like we will have to wait for the election for the next Congress to do its job.
VETERANS-SPECIFIC EDUCATION FOR TOMORROW'S HEALTH PROFESSIONALS ACT
Marcy Kaptur (Democrat, OH) \u2014 2018-7-24

importantly, pre-health students in the pilot will gain a deeper understanding of veterans' specific health needs and experiences, which is critical for health professionals who treat veterans, many of whom have complex conditions, as the chair and ranking member know. prgtoken One of our top responsibilities as a Congress is to ensure that our veterans, those who have sacrificed so much for our country and for liberty's cause, receive high-quality healthcare from highly trained health professionals. This bill furthers that effort, and I am pleased it will get a vote this evening. prgtoken s: Mr. Takano, for his diligent work on this bill; Ranking Member Walz; and Chairman Roe, for bringing this bill to the floor so expeditiously. On behalf of our health professionals, our veterans, myself, and all the cosponsors, I can't thank you enough.
INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, FINANCIAL SERVICES, AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2019--Continued
Ron Wyden (Democrat, OR) \u2014 2018-7-24

as Senator Klobuchar has noted, and s are here to talk about a critically important issue; that is, protecting the franchise for our people. prgtoken I want to begin by saying that the ink is barely dry on the indictment of the Russian hackers who tried to undermine our democracy, and the President of the United States is trying to deny that it actually happened. Just put your arms around that one for a moment, colleagues. The indictment of the Russian hackers is just days old, the President's own intelligence officials are telling him that an attack on our democracy is a near certainty, and he has just not been willing to step up and prevent it. In fact, he continues to refuse to accept the basic facts of the attack the Russians perpetrated in 2016. prgtoken The fact, however, is that Americans are learning more and more about what actually happened, and it is becoming increasingly clear that what the President calls a witch hunt is turning up a lot of witches. The attack on our democracy was plotted and perpetrated by agents of the Russian Government. It came from the very top. It wasn't perpetrated by some other, unidentified country, and it wasn't some random fellow in his mom's basement; it was Russia. Somehow, the President is too mesmerized by Vladimir Putin to admit that. prgtoken The public learned from the indictments unsealed in the last several days that Russian intelligence officials hacked into the computers of the ic National Committee, stole data, and planted surveillance software. They were basically hoovering up voter data that belonged to one-half million Americans. They targeted our election infrastructure and searched for vulnerabilities that might have allowed them to affect the results. A Russian national with ties to Russian intelligence used what was called a ``gun rights organization'' to infiltrate conservative circles and sway our political judgment. prgtoken Those are the facts, colleagues, and no matter how the President twists himself into a pretzel to try to describe it otherwise, those are the realities. Our election system and our digital infrastructure are still extraordinarily vulnerable to attack. The President's own Director of National Intelligence, our former colleague, has said--not prgtoken months ago but recently--that ``the lights are blinking red.'' prgtoken So our colleagues Senator Leahy and Senator Klobuchar are proposing an important investment of funding to assist the States. There is no question in my mind that when looking at this challenge, this will be a challenge that benefits from the additional funds since this is a national problem. The Director of Homeland Security said in response to my question that paperless voting machines pose a ``national security concern.'' You know, we don't ask Delaware or Oregon or small towns if they are dealing with an attack on their democracy. We don't say to a small town in Dela
PROTECT MEDICAL INNOVATION ACT OF 2017
Bill Pascrell, Jr. (Democrat, NJ) \u2014 2018-7-24

. By the way, Mr. Ranking Member, many medical devices are sold to people old, like myself, who are on Medicare. You continue to cut Medicare, and you will be cutting off your nose to spite your face. prgtoken Congress most recently passed a delay of the medical device tax as part of the continuing resolution. This extended the time that they wouldn't have to pay a dime to the health system through the end of next year, costing taxpayers $4 billion. Nothing to sneeze at. prgtoken Additionally, this year, the industry has stood to benefit tremendously from the reduction in the corporate tax rate, down to 21 percent. You didn't get that break, and I didn't get that break. prgtoken There is nothing that will lead me to believe these benefits will trickle down to help patients afford the devices they need to survive or lower the price of those devices in the first place, regardless of who is paying for them, out of what plan. prgtoken I'll go back to the point. We put the ACA together so that it would be paid for. That is why we had to come up with that money, and we did, so you couldn't repeal it. And what you are trying to do is choke it to death. You are trying to bleed it. prgtoken What you are doing is forcing more and more people--you just went from 20 million down to 17 million because of the subsidies that you wouldn't put through that were in the law, because of the mandate that was originally in the law. prgtoken And what is the alternative? Silence. Health issues are the biggest issue this year, . I am glad I am on the right side.
GOLD STAR SPOUSES LEASING RELIEF ACT
Cheri Bustos (Democrat, IL) \u2014 2018-7-24

I thank the gentleman for yielding. prgtoken , I rise today in support of my bill, the Gold Star Spouses Leasing Relief Act. This bipartisan bill would support the widows and widowers of our fallen heroes by allowing them to terminate residential leases without penalty in the wake of a servicemember's death. prgtoken This issue first came to my attention when I met a Gold Star spouse, Kylie Riney of Farmington, Illinois, which is in a central part of the congressional district that I serve. prgtoken Kylie's life was forever changed on October 19, 2016, when her husband, Sergeant Douglas Riney, tragically died defending our freedom in Kabul, Afghanistan. prgtoken Kylie and her two young children, James and Elea, were living in Texas at the time. This is their beautiful family before tragedy hit. They had moved there when Sergeant Riney was prgtoken assigned to Fort Hood before deploying in support of Operation Freedom's Sentinel. prgtoken After her husband's death, Kylie chose to be back in Illinois with her family, surrounded by those whom she loves and love her so they could mourn together this inconceivable loss. But in the wake of this tragedy, their landlord refused to allow Kylie to terminate the lease that she and her husband had signed--I mean, it is just hard to even get those words out--refused to allow them to get out of their lease. prgtoken The families of our fallen heroes have already sacrificed far too much, and we should do everything in our power to ensure grieving spouses receive the support that they need. For this reason, I was proud to introduce this commonsense, bipartisan bill, the Gold Star Spouses Leasing Relief Act. prgtoken , I want to thank my colleague, Congressman Brad Wenstrup, who is also an Army Reserve officer and a physician, who helped introduce this with me. I would also like to thank Chairman Roe and Ranking Member Tim Walz for their work in bringing this to the floor. prgtoken Currently, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act protects servicemembers from lease termination fees when they deploy or receive a permanent change of station. Our legislation narrowly extends that law's residential leasing protections to the surviving spouses of servicemembers who are killed while serving their country. prgtoken Ranking Member Walz helped ensure the bill would protect all these families, including those who lose a member of the National Guard or Reserves. He has been a tireless advocate for the National Guard in Congress, and it is a pleasure to be able to work with him. prgtoken I can hardly think of anything worse than taking advantage of a grieving widow or widower whose spouse made the ultimate sacrifice for our country I ask my colleagues to support this bill to ensure this does not happen again.