mesut/congress_speeches huggingface dataset:
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AND LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2019--CONFERENCE REPORT
Richard J. Durbin (Democrat, IL) \u2014 2018-9-18

I am pleased that the Defense appropriations bill will soon pass the Senate and be sent to the President's desk. This is a massive spending bill--$675 billion--and it has been 10 years since one was enacted on schedule. Passing appropriations bills on time is about being good stewards of the taxpayer's money. prgtoken When appropriations bills are not signed into law on schedule, government programs are put on autopilot, known as a continuing resolution, or CR. CRs create financial headaches, including inefficiency, waste, and unnecessary additional spending. Last year, the Navy estimated that due to CRs, it has wasted $4 billion since 2011--$4 billion. That is enough money to buy 18 F-35s or two new destroyers or 3,000 Harpoon anti-ship missiles. Thanks to good work on both sides of the aisle, we are looking at real savings in every part of the Pentagon just by getting our work done on time. prgtoken I am proud of many things in this Defense appropriations bill, including how this bill prioritizes research by including $94.9 billion for defense R&D, a record level for the Defense Department. GPS, the internet, and satellites are all examples of how Federal innovation research dollars have changed the world. On a bipartisan basis, we are building on previous year's investments, and I am confident that we will see similar breakthroughs. prgtoken In addition, for the fifth year in a row, this bill increases defense medical prgtoken research funding by 5 percent real growth for a total of $2.4 billion in defense medical research for fiscal year 2019. Defense medical research is making breakthroughs in a wide range of fields, from trauma medicine to breast cancer treatments. We have all heard of the quick- clotting tools that paramedics use around the country to stop bleeding in gunshot victims; that was a defense medical research breakthrough. prgtoken Just this past year, researchers discovered a treatment to speed healing of combat-infected wounds and regrow the skin around them more effectively. Others proved that a particular medical assessment tool can accurately assess potentially suicidal behavior. I encourage everyone to go to the Army's medical research website and read the list yourself--a long list--of worthwhile uses of these funds. prgtoken The defense bill is paired with the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education bill this year, which includes another $2 billion funding increase for medical research at the National Institutes of Health. This will be the fourth year in a row that Congress has provided the NIH with at least a 5-percent budget increase. Every NIH institute and center will see their budgets increase, but there are also noteworthy increases for Alzheimer's disease and cancer research. prgtoken I wish we could have given the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention a bigger increase, but I am pleased with what we were able to accomplish here, including the continue
CLIMATE CHANGE
Sheldon Whitehouse (Democrat, RI) \u2014 2018-9-18

as I rise for my 220th ``Time to Wake Up'' climate speech, there is abundant evidence that meaningful action on climate change in the United States is unlikely. We have a President who, against all the evidence, claims that climate change is a Chinese hoax. This is the same President who announced last year that he was pulling the United States out of the international Paris Agreement. prgtoken This is the same President who installed the theatrically corrupt Scott Pruitt, who owed his entire political career to the fossil fuel industry, to lead, of all things, the Environmental Protection Agency. When Pruitt's endless string of scandals finally proved too much even for this epically swampy administration, President then made a coal industry lobbyist the Acting EPA Administrator. prgtoken The fundamentally rotten bargain at the heart of today's politics is that his party is essentially bankrolled by the fossil fuel industry. This is why you see s seeking to freeze voluntary fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars. If consumers pay more at the pump to fill up, fine--what matters is that the oil companies get to keep pumping. prgtoken This is why the Clean Power Plan doesn't really reduce carbon emissions. In fact, the EPA's own numbers show that the replacement plan will result in poorer health for Americans, including 1,400 additional deaths a year, but what matters is that the coal companies sell coal. prgtoken s even plan to weaken standards on methane leaks. It doesn't matter that methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas. What matters is that the oil and gas industry doesn't have to spend any money to prevent those leaks. prgtoken So there is lots of evidence that meaningful action on climate change in this country is unlikely. Yet on Friday I attended the Global Climate Action Summit, organized by California Governor Brown, to keep up progress reducing carbon emissions and fighting the effects of climate change. prgtoken At the summit, States, cities, Provinces, and companies from around the world--indeed, foreign nations--made new announcements about climate change and to reduce carbon emissions. Governor Brown himself signed a law requiring 100 percent of California's electricity to be carbon-free by 2045 and committed that California would be carbon- neutral by the same year. Plus, there is that satellite to measure carbon emissions. prgtoken New Jersey announced plans to install more than 3,000 megawatts of offshore wind. prgtoken States and cities in India announced plans for thousands of electric buses, prgtoken cool roofs, and solar-equipped public buildings. prgtoken IKEA, the furniture store, announced that all of its delivery services will be zero emissions by 2025. prgtoken That is just a small sample of the new commitments--evidence of the determination of Governors, mayors, CEOs, investors, and NGOs to combat climate
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AND LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2019--CONFERENCE REPORT
Patty Murray (Democrat, WA) \u2014 2018-9-18

Senator Blunt and echo his comments this morning. I come to the floor to urge our colleagues to support this conference report. prgtoken I do thank Chairman Shelby, Vice Chairman Leahy, Chairman Frelinghuysen, and Ranking Member Lowey, as well as Leaders McConnell and Schumer. Because of their hard work and leadership, we have been able to work together across the aisle and pass bills under regular order in a way that we have been unable to do for many years. prgtoken I also want to again thank my partners on the LHHS part of this bill--Senator Blunt, Representative Cole, and Representative DeLauro-- and I want to recognize the effort of the staffs on both sides of the aisle who worked extremely hard over the summer. Thank you to all who have brought us this far. prgtoken I am very proud that we were able to negotiate and pass our bill through our prgtoken committees and the Senate floor of Congress--something that has not been done here on the Senate side for over a decade--and that we were able to work together to get this conference report done. I believe this was possible because we rejected partisanship and poison pill riders and worked together to make strong investments in families, patients, students, children, workers, and our middle class. prgtoken Our bill builds on the strong work we have done to increase access to child care and early learning. It includes targeted funding to address the opioid epidemic, especially in underserved areas, and significant new resources to address the truly alarming issue of maternal mortality. Senator Blunt just went through much of what is in this bill, so I will not repeat that but will just echo that we have done much in this bill for a lot of our families. I am proud of the work we have been able to do. prgtoken I do want to note, I was disappointed that we were unable to include language clarifying that the Department of Education can't allow title IV funding to be used to arm teachers and put more guns into our schools. I believe Congress was clear when we passed the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act; that is not what the funds are intended for. I was heartened to hear many s on our committee agree. I had hoped we could clarify this further for Secretary DeVos in our bill, and I do want Senators to know that I will keep working with and s to keep the pressure on her to do the right thing. prgtoken The conference report we will be voting on today is a product of hard work and a commitment to bipartisanship. I am really glad we are taking this next step and moving it closer to becoming law. prgtoken Again, I thank Chairman Shelby, Senator Durbin, Representative Granger, and Representative Visclosky for their work and leadership on the defense side of this bill. I encourage all of our colleagues to vote in support of this conference report. prgtoken . prgtoken I suggest the absence of
STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
Doug Jones (Democrat, AL) \u2014 2018-9-18

I rise today to talk about an issue that, quite frankly, I do not think gets enough attention on the floor of the Senate or on the floor of the House of Representatives, and that is the state of historically Black colleges and universities, or, as they are commonly known, HBCUs. prgtoken Alabama is home to 14 of these institutions, the most of any State in the country. With all due respect to my colleagues, we don't just have the most HBCUs. I believe we have the best. prgtoken Tuskegee University is the only HBCU with a college of veterinary medicine. The school produces over 75 percent of African-American veterinarians in the world. It has also just hired its first female university president, Dr. Lily McNair. prgtoken Alabama A&M University is the only 1890 land grant university offering four Ph.D. programs. It is also the leading producer of African Americans with Ph.Ds in physics. prgtoken Oakwood University is the Nation's fifth highest producer of undergraduate African-American applicants to our country's medical schools. prgtoken Alabama State University, whose president, my friend Dr. Quinton Ross, has joined us in the Gallery today, is home to the National Center for the Study of Civil Rights and African-American Culture. ASU is currently doing preservation work on some never-before-seen documents, such as court pleadings, bond documents, and other official papers that are connected to the Montgomery bus boycott. prgtoken Lawson State Community College was also named a Champion of Change in 2011 by then-President . prgtoken There are over 100 accredited HBCUs today across the country, both public and private. They are in 19 States, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. They enroll approximately 300,000 students--80 percent of whom are African American and 70 percent of whom are from low-income families. prgtoken While HBCUs only make up 3 percent of the country's colleges and universities today, they produce nearly 20 percent of all African- American graduates. Among HBCU graduates, there are countless trailblazing Americans who have, quite literally, changed the course of our Nation's history: Dr. Martin Luther King, Thurgood Marshall, Marian Wright Edelman, Langston Hughes, Katherine Johnson, amongst so many others. prgtoken According to the National Science Foundation, between 2002 and 2011, the top eight institutions at which African-American Ph.Ds in science and engineering earned their bachelor's degrees were all HBCUs. HBCUs annually generate $14.8 billion in economic impact and add more than 134,000 jobs for local and regional economies, and 2014 Alabama HBCU graduates can expect total earnings of $130 billion over their lifetimes. prgtoken I could go on and on with these remarkable statistics for these remarkable colleges and universities. For all of these incredible achievements, though--for every achievement I have prgtoken just named--HBCUs in Alabama
SENATE RESOLUTION 632--DESIGNATING SEPTEMBER 2018 AS ``NATIONAL WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT MONTH''
Dianne Feinstein (Democrat, CA) \u2014 2018-9-18

I rise today to introduce a resolution to recognize September as ``Workforce Development Month.'' I thank Senators Hatch, Enzi, and Baldwin for supporting this bipartisan resolution. prgtoken As technological advances reshape traditional fields and fuel the emergence of new industries, it is imperative that our workforce development system remain agile and flexible in order to educate and train the next generation of workers and those needing additional on- the-job training skills to stay competitive. prgtoken In addition, it is vital that we recognize the importance of all career pathways and professional development--whether an individual pursues a four year degree or seeks to further their education at a community college, through an industry recognized certificate program, or as an apprentice. prgtoken In an effort to face this challenge head on, Congress passed the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act in 2014 (WIOA) with overwhelming bipartisan support. WIOA was signed into law by President and has helped streamline the workforce development system while increasing and strengthening partnerships between regional businesses, workforce development boards, and educational institutions. prgtoken And more recently, Congress passed the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act, which was later signed into law by President . This law aims to increase collaboration between high schools, community colleges, and workforce development programs. In addition, this law supports work-based learning opportunities, provides industry-recognized credentials, and increases federal funding for CTE programs. prgtoken In fact, it is these partnerships that have proven to be key to regional success at addressing the workforce needs of businesses. By working together, local businesses and educators can ensure that not only do businesses have access to the talent they need to grow but that those seeking work can find it. prgtoken Nationwide, the more than 550 workforce development boards and 2,500 American Job Centers have become a driving force behind growing regional economies by providing training, resources, and assistance to workers aiming to compete in the 21st century economy. prgtoken These workforce development boards and American Job Centers work with job seekers and employers across industries ranging from healthcare and information technology to manufacturing and construction. prgtoken There are currently over half a million registered apprentices across the country, including nearly eighty-six thousand in California alone. Bipartisan support for earn-and-learn approaches, such as apprenticeships and paid internships, is critical for helping future workers gain the skills and experience they need while being able to provide for themselves and their families. prgtoken In recognition of workforce development month, Congress reaffirms its support for a comprehensive app
THE UNITED STATES-UNITED KINGDOM FULBRIGHT COMMISSION
Patrick J. Leahy (Democrat, VT) \u2014 2018-9-18

as a member of the British-American Parliamentary Group, I would like to take a moment to recognize the 70th anniversary of the creation of the United States-United Kingdom Fulbright Commission. prgtoken In the aftermath of the Second World War, Congress took steps aimed at creating a more peaceful and prosperous world. The Fulbright Program, along with the World Bank and the IMF, are reminders of the importance of collective action for the common good. Since 1946, the Fulbright Program has fostered bilateral relationships through educational exchanges with postgraduate and postdoctoral scholarships. In the words of Senator J. William Fulbright, ``the vital mortar to seal the bricks of world order is education across international boundaries, not with the expectation that knowledge would make us love each other, but in the hope that it would encourage empathy between nations . . . .'' Those words are as relevant today as they were back then. prgtoken Over the last 70 years, thousands of students from the United States and the United Kingdom have crossed the Atlantic to deepen their understanding of each other's countries and cultures. Fulbright scholarships have not only been the catalysts for great artists, journalists, scientists, lawyers, independent scholars, and many others; they have cemented friendships around the globe for generations. prgtoken I invite my fellow Senators to celebrate the many Fulbright scholars and emerging leaders who have worked in countless ways to foster tolerance and understanding in their communities, countries, and around the world. In my 44 years in the Senate, I cannot think of a time when those attributes were more needed than they are today.
SUICIDE PREVENTION
Joe Donnelly (Democrat, IN) \u2014 2018-9-18

I come to the floor to bring attention to suicide prevention, an issue of tremendous importance to families and communities across Indiana and our country. prgtoken The Senate will be introducing a resolution very soon recognizing suicide as a serious public health problem and expressing support for designation of September as National Suicide Prevention Month. prgtoken Every year, we lose nearly 45,000 Americans to suicide. It is the 10th leading cause of death in this country and second leading cause for those ages 15 to 34. Think about that for a moment: 45,000 lives every year, 123 lives every day, 1 life every 12 minutes. prgtoken The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention champions the message: ``Be The Voice . . . Stop Suicide.'' prgtoken Whether we are Senators or family or friends or coworkers or even strangers, we can all play a role in helping to prevent suicide. We all must ``be the voice.'' prgtoken So what is our voice? prgtoken Formally recognizing Suicide Prevention Month is a start, and I am proud to have cosponsored that resolution. Yet it can't just be about a day or a week or a month on which we pause to reflect. This is a heartbreaking challenge for our communities, and we must be working year-round and across the aisle--there are no or s in this--to find the solutions that provide Americans with the help they need to get through their most trying times. prgtoken Over the past several years, Congress has found a number of bipartisan solutions to help address this tragic problem, but our work is far from done. There are still 45,000 Americans every year and their families and their friends who need our help. They need our action. prgtoken As I started my time in the Senate, I made it a focus to find bipartisan approaches to suicide prevention. In Indiana, suicide claims over 1,000 lives every year. That is one Hoosier lost every 8 hours. In 2013, my fellow Hoosier Jeff Sexton reached out to me to share the tragic story of his son Jake. Specialist Jacob Sexton, an Indiana National Guardsman, tragically took his own life in 2009 while on leave from a deployment to Afghanistan. prgtoken His story is far too familiar for Active, Guard, and Reserve servicemembers and for veterans as well. Despite representing less than 10 percent of the population, these Americans comprise almost 20 percent of the suicides. Their communities lose over 7,000 members every year as they struggle with the stresses of the military service that we as a nation and as a Congress ask of them. prgtoken So the question is, What can we do to help them and to prevent these tragedies? prgtoken Hoping to answer that question, the first bill I introduced in the Senate focused on suicide prevention in the military and in our veteran communities. Introduced in 2013 and signed into law in the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act, my Jacob Sexton Military Suicide Prevention Act addressed a critical
IN HONOR OF TWENTY YEARS OF SERVICE BY CHILDREN'S SAFE HARBOR
Kevin Brady (Republican, TX) \u2014 2018-9-20

today, I rise to recognize the Children's Safe Harbor for their twenty years of service to the communities of Montgomery, San Jacinto, and Walker counties. prgtoken The Montgomery County Children's Advocacy Center, Inc also known as Children's Safe Harbor (CSH), was established over two decades ago to address child abuse. Specifically, CSH cares for children between the ages of two and seventeen who have suffered sexual abuse, physical abuse and trauma. Since this important organization opened its doors on August 31, 1998, it has provided a safe place for children where they can be heard, helped and healed. prgtoken From the beginning, CSH's principle mission has been to provide a supportive, safe environment for children while enhancing the coordination between criminal investigations and the monitoring of child abuse cases. Instead of children unnecessarily accessing multiple law enforcement agencies and child protection systems to seek healing and justice, CSH utilizes a multi-disciplinary, team-oriented approach to successfully coordinate effective, efficient, and child-centered casework. This method allows CSH to offer victimized children the care they need while also ensuring that the evidence necessary for prosecution is gathered effectively and mental health resources for children and non-offending family members are coordinated through completion of care. prgtoken First founded in Montgomery County, CSH has since expanded its operations and is now a multi-county resource for children and families. In its first few months, approximately 23 children were referred to the organization. Now, the average number of cases assisted by CSH totals over 200 a month. Though the increase in requests for help brought forth new challenges, CSH met them head-on. CSH's hard work and selfless service has helped 14,369 vulnerable children seeking the healing and justice they deserve--a truly incredible accomplishment. prgtoken In 1993, I joined my fellow CSH board members and signed a charter application to initiate this life-changing nonprofit organization. It is amazing to see the miracles this organization has accomplished since its founding, and I am proud to recognize CSH for the crucial work it has done in our community over the past twenty years. prgtoken To the staff, volunteers, and community leaders, such as my close friend Executive Director Victoria Constance, Ph.D who have worked tirelessly to make CSH the life-changing organization it is today-- thank you. Without your dedication, CSH would not be able to prgtoken change the lives of the thousands of children who have sought help from your organization. You are all champions of social justice, and it is my honor to congratulate you all on twenty years of devoted service.
HONORING MOLLY EDWARDS
Paul D. Ryan (Republican, WI) \u2014 2018-9-20

I address the House today, the last one with Molly Edwards serving on my staff. After more than five years, Molly is moving on from the House, where she will be missed by not just me but the many with whom she worked to make this institution shine. A proud--very proud--North Carolina native, Molly was part of our team at the Ways and Means Committee, and she was there for the unexpected journey to the speaker's office. It has been a privilege to watch her take on ever-expanding roles over these years. Through hard work Molly earned her way to be my director of press operations. When dignitaries or diplomats visited or whenever the biggest events had the world watching the Capitol, Molly was there to ensure things always went off without a hitch. With a steady hand, as well as some southern charm, no moment was ever too big or challenge too great. Poised under pressure, she is a true professional. And she has always made me look far more polished than I really am. I am enormously grateful for Molly's service, and I wish her nothing but the best in her next adventures.