mesut/congress_speeches huggingface dataset:
ADVANCED GEOTHERMAL INNOVATION LEADERSHIP ACT OF 2019--Resumed
Dan Sullivan (Republican, AK) \u2014 2020-3-5

it is Thursday afternoon, and it is the time I love to come down to the floor. It is one of my favorite times of the week prgtoken because I get to talk about an Alaskan who has done something really, really important for their community, for their State, and for their country. I know the pages like the speech because I talk about stories in Alaska--the great State of Alaska and what is happening in the State right now. Sometimes I call this person the Alaskan of the Week. Usually, it is one person. Sometimes we fudge a little and recognize more than one person. Today we are going to recognize our Alaskans of the Week. prgtoken In any case, these are people who help their communities, help their country, and oftentimes do something that is unheralded, nobody knows about, very few know about, so I like to come down and tell the country about what they are doing. As you know, Alaska is a big State. It holds a lot of imagination for our Nation--the last frontier, with good reason, because we are filled with resilient people, some who have lived in Alaska for thousands and thousands of years, building communities in some of the most extreme weather environments on the planet, and they are tough, my constituents. They are also kind, and they make it through our tough winters. prgtoken It is below zero in many, many parts of the State--well below zero. We make it through these winters through toughness, ingenuity, and, importantly, looking out for one another. prgtoken Last week, I highlighted a heroic Coast Guard rescuer, Evan Grills, in a real epic story for those who listened to it--what this young scout swimmer--rescue swimmer did in his first mission ever in the Coast Guard, something that people should remember for a long, long time. prgtoken This week, I am going to talk about another rescue mission--an only- in-Alaska mission--and I am going to recognize four extraordinary young Alaskans who stuck together, toughed it out, looked out for one another, and were rescued in another perilous situation. They are Christopher Johnson, age 14; Frank Johnson, age 8; Ethan Camille, age 7; and Trey Camille, 2 years old. All of them are alive and recovering because of their own ingenuity, determination, toughness, and looking out for one another. These four boys are from Nunam Iqua, a Yupik village 495 miles northwest of Anchorage. prgtoken Home to about 200 people, this village is a close-knit Yupik community on the south fork of the Yukon River. A 2005 mission statement, written by community leaders and elders, describes the village like this: ``a small quiet community of family, relatives, and friends working together [to pursue] our Yupik way of lifestyle with respect to our surrounding land and waters for subsistence.'' prgtoken Like many places in Alaska, temperatures there can be extreme, as they would be on February 2, when these four boys were rambunctiously playing in the house. Irene, the grandmo
CORONAVIRUS PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2020
Chuck Grassley (Republican, IA) \u2014 2020-3-5

a new study showed that from the years 2007 to 2018, prices for, actually, hundreds of drugs rose many times-- many times faster than the rate of inflation. List prices on 602 medicines rose by 159 percent. That would average out to 9 percent annually. After discounts and rebates, net prices increased by 60 percent or 4.5 percent annually. That is 3.5 times the rate of inflation. prgtoken These are drugs for multiple sclerosis, cholesterol, rheumatoid arthritis, chemotherapy, diabetes, and many other debilitating and life-threatening conditions. Put into real terms, these price increases mean that if one of these drugs cost $100 a month in 2007, that same drug would cost $259 in 2018. prgtoken Meanwhile, you have to consider the working American. Wages for the average American over the same time period increased about 30 percent in the private sector. That means wage growth is about half the rate of the growth of prescription drug prices, even after the rebates and even after the discounts. prgtoken For many, increased drug costs are wiping out progress that these workers are making in their wages. Some families are even going backward financially after paying for their prescriptions. This doesn't take into account at all the many other increases in the cost of living from college to housing, to insurance. prgtoken Now, we Americans are surely fortunate, aren't we, to see the significant wage growth that we have had in this country for our workers under President --great progress. prgtoken The President and s in Congress can rightly take credit for the country's booming economy, but all that wage growth doesn't mean much--or at least as much--if it is spent on the same prescription drug refills every month. That is something that ought to concern every Member of this Congress, and for most, I am sure it does because we hear about it constantly from our constituents. In fact, during this election season, polls show that it is one of the top three or four issues that are most on people's minds. prgtoken Let me be clear. These price hikes aren't because the medicines got better or there was a significant increase in research and development. No, this is because the pharmaceutical companies could do it, and in doing it, they could get away with it because, in many cases, consumers don't have a choice; consumers don't have options or alternatives. That is because we don't have a healthy marketplace that drives costs down for pharmaceuticals. prgtoken Right now, pharmaceutical companies can essentially charge Medicare whatever they want, and taxpayers don't have much recourse. Right now, every single working American who pays Federal taxes is subsidizing Big Pharma's record profits through the drugs that the Federal Government pays for through various programs like Medicare and Medicaid. prgtoken Now, there has to be a solution for this situation, and Ranking Member Wyden and I are worki
JOHN WESLEY UNITED METHODIST CHURCH CELEBRATES 180TH ANNIVERSARY
Jefferson Van Drew (Republican, NJ) \u2014 2020-3-5

I would like to recognize the John Wesley United Methodist Church in Cape May Courthouse in south Jersey on their 180th anniversary celebration this year. prgtoken John Wesley United Methodist Church is the oldest African American church in all of Cape May County. John Wesley founded the church in 1840 after escaping slavery in North Carolina in 1823. prgtoken The church also is home to a cemetery, where there are veterans from the Civil War all the way to the Vietnam war. prgtoken I was proud to attend the celebration event on Saturday, February 29. In addition to the celebration, the congregation is planning to hold an African prgtoken American cemetery tour in April of this year, which should be extremely enlightening and interesting. prgtoken John Wesley's mission statement is that they will promote unity and diversity within our church and our community. prgtoken I thank them for their commitment to this community. I thank them and congratulate them on 180 years. May God's blessing be upon them.
ADVANCED GEOTHERMAL INNOVATION LEADERSHIP ACT OF 2019--Resumed
Marsha Blackburn (Republican, TN) \u2014 2020-3-5

as I begin my remarks today, I express my thanks to my colleagues here in this Chamber and, certainly, all across Capitol Hill who have extended their thoughts and their prayers and have asked ``How are you doing?'' when it comes to talking about Tennessee and our citizens and those who have been so adversely impacted by the tornadoes this week. prgtoken The damage is absolutely indescribable. Even though, on early Tuesday morning, when the news broke and I started watching some of the local TV stations that had put drones up there around Nashville and Putnam County and over in Wilson County, I could not appreciate the extent of this damage until I walked these neighborhoods. That is something I did yesterday. prgtoken You can see the damage. Communities are now debris fields. It is just indescribable the power of this storm--an F-2, an F-3, and an F-4. These tornadoes ripped through Tennessee--through Carroll County, Gibson County, Humphreys County, Benton County, Davidson County, Wilson County, and Putnam County. The damage that they have seen on the ground is sometimes for 50 miles. It is just absolutely indescribable. prgtoken What we have seen are many families who have been left homeless. Their homes are now piles of rubble. We have seen over 100,000 Tennesseans initially without electricity, but because of the good work of the TVA, which is the power generator, and our local power distributors, we have that number worked down to 23,550. So that is beginning to improve, and the lights are, indeed, coming back on. Yet the damage is still there and the loss of property. It is going to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Those estimates are beginning to take place, but there is a lot of work to do. prgtoken The loss of life is, indeed, the most tender as 24 individuals have lost their lives--18 in Putnam County. We have children who have lost their lives. We have dozens who have been injured and who have been hospitalized. We still have some individuals who are unaccounted for and are missing. So there is a long way back to normalcy as we look at this situation. prgtoken I will tell you that I give a lot of credit to our Governor and the leadership that he has shown as we have worked through this. He did get a formal request submitted to FEMA today. He has asked for President to issue a major disaster declaration. This is going to include individual assistance for Davidson, Putnam, and Wilson Counties; public assistance for Benton, Carroll, Davidson, Gibson, Putnam, and Wilson Counties; and hazard mitigation statewide. He has also requested Small Business Administration loans for several counties. prgtoken This is catastrophic damage. As our teams worked together to assess the situation and as I worked yesterday with our State's insurance commissioner; with Director Sheehan of TEMA, the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency; with General Holmes, our Adjutant General for the Nati
RECOGNIZING A SPACECOAST SYMBOL OF KINDNESS
Bill Posey (Republican, FL) \u2014 2020-3-5

. Madam , I rise today to commend kindergarten students in my Congressional district who have made it a priority and to remind us that kindness ``is always possible.'' prgtoken Nearly a year ago, transition kindergarten teacher Ms. Barbara Wilcox inspired her class at Tropical Elementary on Merritt Island in Brevard County, Florida, to join an initiative they called ``Together Kind.'' She shared, ``I do a lot of service learning with them, talking about how to be kind to people.'' prgtoken Children often ``get it'' when adults are slow to respond. That certainly played out strongly in Ms. Wilcox's class. The children wanted to make a difference. They recognized the meaning behind common symbols like the peace sign, the happy face and the heart, for love. And, in their wisdom, they perceived the value of having a symbol to remind the world of the importance of just being kind to one another. prgtoken The class designed four candidates for a Symbol of Kindness and took their vision to the world. They shared their symbols on Facebook, through email, and a website they created called togetherkind.com. About 1,000 people from 25 states (and England and Ireland) voted and decided the winner. prgtoken The children use social media only through parents and their teacher. But, they learned the power of communication and how to engage people in a meaningful and valuable way. They sold $1 magnets with the winning Symbol. ``Every day we looked to see how many people had signed the petition, and we highlighted, on a map, all the states people are from,'' said Ms. Wilcox, who's been teaching for 22 years. So, showing a little kindness can teach geography and bringing people together. prgtoken Those are some of the things that kindness is about: prgtoken Reaching out beyond ourselves and showing respect and care for others. Their symbol builds on the heart as the symbol of love. The heart is enclosed in a circle of arrows and that reminds me that kindness is more than just a noun. Kindness is an ``action'' word. Kindness happens by doing. prgtoken I'm so proud that a class of young people in my district could remind us, ``Kindness is always possible'' in what they did and in the Symbol of Kindness they have given to the rest of us as a reminder. prgtoken I have introduced a resolution to recognize their work as the Spacecoast Symbol of Kindness. Hopefully, their symbol can be carried by our astronauts on some future mission into space to spread their message beyond even our planet. If the nation needs kindness today, we can surely look forward to taking kindness with us to the moon, Mars, and beyond. prgtoken Once again, I commend Ms. Wilcox and her class. They remind us that kindness is doing something for another person without expecting anything in return other than the possibility that others will pass on kindness to others. I thank the kindergarteners at Tropical Elementary, for this reminder.
ADVANCED GEOTHERMAL INNOVATION LEADERSHIP ACT OF 2019--Resumed
Lisa Murkowski (Republican, AK) \u2014 2020-3-5

I appreciate the strong vote that we had yesterday, 90 to 4, to advance and continue debate on S. 2657. prgtoken Just after that vote was concluded, I laid down a substitute amendment that contains the full text of the bipartisan American Energy Innovation Act. Having done that, we would normally begin the process of voting on amendments, whether by voice or by rollcall in this so- called regular order. We certainly have no shortage of options. We have some 200 amendments that have now been filed to the bill. What we are missing is a little bit of cooperation so that we can actually reach consent and move to votes. prgtoken We could not reach agreement to have votes throughout the course of prgtoken this week from Monday until, effectively, now. It has been frustrating. Both Senator Manchin and I have been working to try to facilitate that. We want to take amendments. The leader wants us to take amendments. We have a good bill. We think we have a pretty strong bill, but we know that it is always possible to make it better by gathering those ideas from colleagues who have not been part of the process on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. We want to address those priorities from as many Members as we can. prgtoken While we were blocked on votes this week, our staffs have been working together--Senator Manchin's and mine--to develop a modified substitute that will add to the original text. We now have a total of 18 filed amendments that will be included as part of the underlying text. We have been working this week--maybe not actively out on the floor with a process where folks are voting--but we have been able to take some of these consensus areas, bring them together, and put them into a modified text. prgtoken This is not my preferred approach. If we could do it the good old- fashioned way, if you will, through individual votes or a managers' amendment--a managers' package--that is great. But a modified substitute was the only option that was available to us, recognizing that we have limited time on the floor, and we were still not able to form that path forward. prgtoken I want to speak quickly about what is very much a highlight. Our modified substitute includes an even number of priorities from both sides, some with amendments, some with modifications. We have been able to take provisions from the Senator from Arizona, the Senator from Rhode Island, Senator Ernst of Iowa, Feinstein of California, Tillis of North Carolina, from New Hampshire, South Dakota, Senator Hassan, Senator Shaheen, Senator Enzi of Wyoming, Duckworth of Illinois, Cramer of North Dakota, Casey of Pennsylvania, Romney of Utah, Brown of Ohio, Wicker of Mississippi, Stabenow of Michigan, Risch of Idaho, Senator Markey of Massachusetts--18 different provisions, which added to what we had done previously. prgtoken We have priorities from nearly 70 Members of the Senate. That makes a good, strong bipartisan bill even bett
ADVANCED GEOTHERMAL INNOVATION LEADERSHIP ACT OF 2019--Resumed
James Lankford (Republican, OK) \u2014 2020-3-5

in the fall of 2001--it seems like forever ago--Trae Young, the great OU point guard and now Atlanta Hawks phenom, was just 3 years old. Darius Bazley, a player for the Thunder right now, one of the young guys, he was just barely 1 year old in the fall of 2001. prgtoken At that same time period now, almost 20 years ago, there was a man named Osama bin Laden working with a small group of people in a country called Afghanistan that most Americans could not even find on a map at the time. He was meeting privately with them to organize an attack on Americans that we could have never imagined. He was training individuals and sneaking individuals into the United States, training them further to be pilots and preparing them for an attack that happened September 11, 2001. prgtoken There is not a soul who was alive during that time period who doesn't remember where they were and what was happening on September 11, 2001. All of us, we were locked to our TVs watching an airplane fly into a side of a building and kill thousands of our friends and neighbors. prgtoken On September 14, the U.S. Congress passed an authorization for the use of military force for those individuals who carried out this attack, 3 days after that attack. By October 7, the first troops had landed in Afghanistan. They were organizing an effort to find Osama bin Laden and to eliminate the threat of them carrying that out again. prgtoken The very clear mandate at the time was to work with the government at that time in Afghanistan, the Taliban, who were a ruthless dictatorship. They had spread their hatred across Afghanistan, but they had also made a deal with al-Qaida to hide them inside of Afghanistan. And the Taliban, who willingly allowed Osama bin Laden and the terrorist group they knew was a terrorist group to remain there, became the spark for us to go to the Taliban and say: Either turn Osama bin Laden over to the United States for trial and those who were with him in al-Qaida or we will come get them. And the Taliban's choice was to say: Come and get him, which we did. prgtoken Over the years, 775,000 American troops have deployed to Afghanistan at least once--775,000. There were 40 different nations that participated with us in Operation Enduring Freedom to remove the threat from that region of al-Qaida attacking us. Our twofold purpose was: Remove Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida's leadership organization and their ability to attack the United States and our allies, and No. 2, remove the Taliban from leadership in Afghanistan because they allowed al- Qaida to function and to operate in their country, and they would willingly do it again, so they could not be allowed to remain in Afghanistan as leaders. Those were our two agendas going into Afghanistan. prgtoken I am proud to say that the United States has won this war with Afghanistan. Al-Qaida has been decimated. We hunted down Osama bin Laden until, in 2011, we found him and to
ADVANCED GEOTHERMAL INNOVATION LEADERSHIP ACT OF 2019--Resumed
Rob Portman (Republican, OH) \u2014 2020-3-5

Senator Shaheen and I are here today to report this amendment. This is simply language that is being reinserted back into the Energy bill that was taken out. I will say that it is clarifying language. We made some slight changes to clarify that there are no mandates in this legislation, and it has to do with ensuring that we have encouragement of energy efficiency in the single largest use of energy in our country, which are our residential homes and commercial buildings. So I appreciate the fact that Senator Shaheen is here on the floor. I yield to the Senator.
LEGISLATIVE SESSION
John Thune (Republican, SD) \u2014 2020-3-5

as I begin this morning, I want to associate myself with the remarks of the leader, Senator McConnell, earlier this morning. prgtoken The attacks that were made by the ic leader, Senator Schumer, on the Supreme Court yesterday were not only irresponsible; they were reckless and they were shameful. I think we need to just call that what it is. prgtoken For them to suggest--for him to suggest--that this isn't what he meant and that this is somehow manufactured outrage on the part of us or s in general doesn't fit with the way that these comments came across either, because I want to read for you from the CNN Supreme Court reporter: ``Schumer, speaking at a rally of abortion rights supporters, appeared to threaten Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, President 's two Supreme Court nominees who were confirmed after bruising nomination fights.'' prgtoken That is the interpretation not of FOX News but of CNN. prgtoken I think we need to be very clear: When comments like that are made that threaten an independent judiciary in this country, they need to be called out and they need to be walked back. I appreciate the fact that the ic leader acknowledged today that he should have said it differently, but it doesn't in any way diminish what was said or the context in which it was said or the attacks that were made on the Supreme Court. prgtoken It needs to be recognized as that, and I think all of us need to be, as U.S. Senators, aware--aware--no matter what the audience, particularly when you are the ic leader, of how these things come across and what they mean to the people who have been threatened by them. Coronavirus prgtoken , I am pleased that s and in both Chambers have quickly come together to provide emergency funding to combat the coronavirus, and I look forward to voting this afternoon to send this important funding measure to the President's desk. 5G prgtoken , on another subject, our Nation is poised for the widespread deployment of the next generation of internet technology: 5G. With its incredible speed and connectivity, 5G will usher in a new era of innovation. Advances in medical care, the large-scale deployment of precision agriculture, safer transportation technologies--5G will bring all of these things and more. prgtoken But, like any new technology, 5G networks will present new risks and vulnerabilities. Because 5G will mean a vastly greater number of connected devices, the risks with 5G will be greater. That is why an essential part of deploying 5G networks has to be looking at how we can mitigate security risks. prgtoken Yesterday, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, of which I am a member, held a hearing on supply chain risks for 5G. We need to ensure that the component parts of our devices and, critical
ORDERS FOR MONDAY, MARCH 9, 2020
Mitch McConnell (Republican, KY) \u2014 2020-3-5

I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 3 p.m Monday, March 9; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed; further, that following leader remarks, the Senate resume consideration of S. 2657; further, that notwithstanding rule XXII, the cloture motions filed during today's session of the Senate ripen at 5:30 p.m Monday, March, 9, and that the mandatory quorums under rule XXII be waived; finally, that the first-degree filing deadline with respect to the cloture motions filed during today's session be at 3:30 p.m.