Lamar Alexander

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee, who has spent a great deal of time on this. I like the way he put that because I think what we want to assure people of--at least, I think that is what almost all of us feel--is that this is step 1. It involves reforms, replacing, and repealing--as the President-elect has said, ``simultaneously,'' and as the Speaker has said, ``concurrently.'' It involves not just one big system replaced by another big system. In our view, the one big system needs to be replaced step-by-step by many different systems as we move more decisions to the States. For example, on employer insurance, or people who get their insurance on the job, we know right now steps that we can take to repeal ObamaCare, which damaged the employer system and which increased costs for employers. I remember sitting around with a group of restaurant company chief executive officers 6 years ago when ObamaCare passed. They pointed out that they were going have to hire fewer people to afford the cost of ObamaCare. We don't want that to happen. We would like for them to be able to hire more people and to offer more people insurance. How would we do that? Well, if we repeal the Washington rules in an orderly way and transfer back to the States responsibility for regulating most insurance, the insurance commissioners have told us they believe they can do that very well--do it one way in South Dakota, another way in Tennessee, another way in Wyoming, and fit the needs of that community, reduce costs, increase choices, and have truly affordable health care. So we can repeal those provisions that interfere with employer insurance and make sure that that repeal does not go into effect until South Dakota, Wyoming, Tennessee, and other parts of the market have in place concrete practical alternatives so they go together. But we have to get started. This is step 1. Now, we can do the same with Medicaid. We have a former Governor of South Dakota in the Chair. Governors spend most of their time trying to figure out how to afford Medicaid. They almost feel that, if Washington would just allow the States to have more flexibility in terms of how the available money is spent, we could cover more people better, offer more options. Well, we can do that. But we are not going to do that tomorrow. We will have to sit down with the Governors and say: How do you suggest we do this? Then, as we do that, we can repeal the extensive Federal regulation that creates a jungle of redtape for Medicaid. But it only would take effect as the States tell us that there are concrete practical alternatives in effect. So this is the step-by-step way to go about making those kind of changes. Finally, as the Senator said, we have to have a rescue team here. I mean, the ObamaCare market is in turmoil. It is only 6 percent of all of those who have insurance, but that is millions of people. If we don't act before March 1 to make sure insurance companies are selling into those markets, we will have many millions of people who will not be able to buy insurance. This will be, as I said, like having a bus ticket in a hometown with no buses running. So that is really one of the first things we have to do--get that rescue team going. I like the analogy of the collapsing bridge. ObamaCare is collapsing in Tennessee, and I would say it is around the country, if you have one-third of the counties where you can only choose insurance from one company. So, if a bridge is collapsing, you send in a crew to deal with that emergency so no one else is hurt. Then you start building these new bridges. After a while, in a prudent way, as you build each of those systems, as States build their systems, then you close that old broken- down bridge that was damaging so many people. So that is an orderly way to go about things. I hope that, over time, we will have bipartisan support for these. We need a consensus. We don't, in the end, want to have just a partisan bill. But we have been acting like the Hatfields and McCoys in West Virginia for 6 years, arguing with each other about ObamaCare--Republicans and Democrats. So it may take a little while to get there. But we can start, and we are starting under the leadership of Senator Enzi. Then, we will move concurrently and simultaneously to reform, replace, and repeal ObamaCare so that Americans have access to truly affordable insurance. By the time we get to that, I am hopeful that we will begin to have a consensus within this body that involves Democrats and Republicans both.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Elizabeth Joseph, a health policy fellow in Senator Cochran's office be granted floor privileges through July 31, 2017.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the Senator from Washington knows how much I appreciate her leadership and enjoy working with her, and I think we all respect the fact that she enjoys getting results that help the American people.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I move to table the motion to concur with the amendment.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, at 2 p.m., the Senate will move to a final passage vote on legislation we call 21st Century Cures. It has been called by the majority leader the most important piece of legislation the Congress is likely to act on this year. The House of Representatives added to the bill a Mental Health Reform Act--actually three separate bills that Senator Murphy, Senator Cornyn, and Senator Cassidy worked on especially here, which is the most important reform of many mental health programs in more than a decade. It is very important to one out of five adult Americans who have a mental illness. It caused me to think this: This is Pearl Harbor Day. Pearl Harbor Day is a day when we remember the terrifying attacks on the American military that killed more than 2,000 and launched us into World War II. We also remember it as a day that began to create and define what we now refer to as the ``greatest generation''--the generation distinguished by the men and women of that era, the era of Bob Dole, George H.W. Bush, and men and women now in their nineties and late eighties. They were defined by being willing to work hard on behalf of the entire country, put their differences aside and work for the greater good; to recognize that our diversity is important, but what is more important is the fact that we are all Americans. There have been some other times in our recent history when we have been reminded of that, and 9/11 is the most important of those. I remember how I felt after 9/11. I watched President George W. Bush speak, and I thought he spoke eloquently, as did Al Gore at that time, about the principles that unite us a country. Celebrating our diversity is a good thing. Celebrating our oneness is more important, and it is harder work. What we are doing today is a more modest--much more modest--example of the same sort of spirit. I do not want to suggest that passing a bill in Congress equals going to war or running into a burning building in New York City after it has been attacked, but it is the same spirit. I don't have any apology for suggesting that. It is a spirit of facing up to a big issue, a complex issue that affects lots of people, about which there are lots of legitimate differences, and working hard to resolve those differences so that we are not celebrating those differences, we are celebrating the fact that we came together and--as we did in the House of Representatives last week 392 to 26 and as we did on Monday in the Senate with 85 votes in favor of 21st Century Cures--we moved toward a solution that we all can support. Sometimes we govern by Executive order in Washington, and Executive orders can be repealed by any new administration. Sometimes we have partisan exercises, as we did with Obamacare 6 years ago, and we have been like the Hatfields and McCoys ever since, shooting each other until we forget what we are arguing about. We actually remember, but it makes it much more difficult than to come together and get a consensus. Other examples are the civil rights bill of the 1960s, the Medicare bill, and the bill last December that President Obama called a Christmas miracle when we fixed No Child Left Behind and came forward with a piece of legislation about which there was a consensus not just to fix it but on how to fix it, a consensus supported by Governors as well as teachers unions, classroom teachers as well as school boards. On that bill, there will not be a movement in Congress to repeal it because everybody voted for it. So those who are teaching in our classrooms in our 100,000 public schools and those who are working in State departments of education and the parents will know that for the foreseeable future, there is a consensus and stability about elementary and secondary education. We hear every day that we have a fractured country, that we have so many differences of opinion, we can't operate. Well, there is one institution in the country that is an institution that is capable of leading the country toward consensus on important issues, and it is the U.S. Senate. Sometimes we are able to do that. We were able to do it last year. As the President said--he called it a Christmas miracle. We fixed No Child Left Behind. We are able to do it today on mental health legislation, which had to navigate its way through gun issues, funding issues, and a whole variety of other issues. We are doing it on 21st Century Cures, which, as I and the majority leader have said, is the most important piece of legislation we will act on. It is pretty rare that we have legislation that the President of the United States says is an opportunity we just can't miss and the Vice President of the United States is telephoning Senators before they go into their caucus meetings to urge them to support it. At the same time, the Speaker of the House, a Republican, is saying: This is part of my agenda for the future of our country. And the majority leader is saying it is the most important bill we will act on. It still wasn't easy to pass because we are dealing with a lot of life-and-death issues: How rapidly can we move treatments and cures through the Food and Drug Administration and make sure they are still safe or how slowly can we do it and run up the cost so high that nobody can afford these treatments? How long can we take so that everybody is dead by the time the medicine is ready? We don't want that to happen. Those were the issues we had. What kind of incentives can we give to drug companies so they can tackle rare diseases in children like the ones at St. Jude whom we see from Mississippi, Tennessee, and across the country? They have rare cancers and other diseases. Nobody is making medicines for those diseases because there is no incentive in the marketplace for it, so we give some incentive in the marketplace for such things. Electronic medical records have been a real burden to doctors. We spent 30 billion taxpayer dollars, and they were in a ditch. This legislation moves it out of the ditch. Francis Collins, the distinguished head of the National Institutes of Health, says that in the next 10 years, we will be able hopefully to prevent Alzheimer's or to identify it before symptoms, an artificial pancreas for diabetes, a vaccine for HIV/AIDS, a vaccine for Zika and a universal vaccine for flu, which killed 30,000 last year. According to the Mayo Clinic, regenerative medicine is a game changer--using our own stem cells to restore eyesight or to restore our damaged hearts. There are provisions in this legislation to move that ahead. There is $4.8 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health. The bill includes the EUREKA Act, sponsored by the Senator from Mississippi, which is so important. The funding includes money for the President's Precision Medicine Initiative, for the Vice President's Cancer Moonshot, and for the BRAIN Initiative. There is an additional $500 million for the FDA and $1 billion for State grants over the next 2 years to fight opioid abuse. As the President says, this is an opportunity we cannot miss. It is an opportunity we cannot miss and we are not going to miss. We are going to have this bill down to the President very shortly, and he will have an opportunity to be presented with another Christmas miracle. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record following my remarks today's editorial from the Wall Street Journal, which says: Cures is a stride toward a more rational and humane drug development system, and legislation is about compromise. The bill could become a useful precedent for successful progress as the 115th Congress starts to take shape next year. On Pearl Harbor Day when we celebrate the ``greatest generation'' and the contributions they made by remembering that while diversity is important, our oneness is more important, this is a much more modest example but a very important one of the same spirit, one that affects virtually every family in America. I would like to extend my deep thanks and sincere appreciation to the dedicated staff who worked on the bill. We talk about that a lot here, but every one of us who is a Senator knows how crucial that is. We have worked for 2 years on the bill, numerous hearings, numerous discussions. It passed the House of Representatives twice. It came through our committee, the Senate HELP Committee, in the form of 19 different bipartisan bills. Every one of those bills, by the time it passed, 2 was the largest number of recorded votes against each one of those 19 bills. The staff did a tremendous job on that. I want to especially thank David Cleary, who is my chief of staff, and Evan Schatz, Senator Murray's chief on these issues, for the remarkable way they are able to work together with both Senator Murray's staff and my staff. On Senator Murray's staff, John Righter, Nick Bath, Andi Fristedt, Wade Ackerman, Remy Brim, Colin Goldfinch, Madeleine Pannell, Julia Tierney, Kalah Auchincloss--I thank them very much for their passion for the issue and their willingness to work toward a result. On our staff, in addition to David, I thank Mary-Sumpter Lapinski, Lindsey Seidman, and Grace Stuntz, who did an enormous amount of work, as did Laura Pence. I thank Brett Meeks, Kara Townsend, Melissa Pfaff, Liz Wroe, Margaret Coulter, Curtis Vann, Kathryn Bell, Andrew Burnett, Bobby McMillin, Lowell Schiller, Jim Jeffries, Liz Wolgemuth, Margaret Atkinson, Taylor Haulsee, Alicia Hennie, and Jamie Garden. We have had an unusual opportunity in this to work across the aisle with Chairman Upton, Representative Pallone, Representative DeGette, and others in the House of Representatives and their staffs. I want to especially thank Speaker Ryan and Senator McConnell. Speaker Ryan did a triple somersault to try to find a funding mechanism that would satisfy both Democrats and Republicans, and Senator McConnell made time on the floor for it. Not everyone is satisfied with the funding mechanism, but we are all voting for it because this is such an important bill. On Chairman Upton's staff, I would like to thank Gary Andres, Paul Edattel, John Stone, Carly McWilliams, Adrianna Simonelli, Katie Novaria, James Paluskiewicz, Josh Trent, and Clay Alspach. On Ranking Member Pallone's staff, I would like to thank Tiffany Guarascio, Kimberlee Trzeciak, Megan Velez, Waverly Gordon, and Arielle Woronoff. I would like to thank the hard-working staff of our Senate HELP Committee members, who played important roles in reaching this agreement, including Liz Schwartz with Senator Enzi, Anna Abram and Angela Wiles with Senator Burr, Jordan Bartolomeo with Senator Isakson, Natalie Burkhalter with Senator Paul, Olivia Kurtz and Amanda Lincoln with Senator Collins, Chelsea Holt with Senator Murkowski, Cade Clurman and Andrew Vogt with Senator Kirk, Claire Brandewie with Senator Scott, Matthew Richardson and Stuart Portman with Senator Hatch, Emily Mueller with Senator Roberts, Robb Walton and Brenda Destro with Senator Cassidy, Jean Doyle with Senator Mikulski, Sophie Kasimow with Senator Sanders, Sarah Mabry with Senator Casey, Beth Wickler with Senator Franken, Rohini Kosoglu with Senator Bennet, Jennifer DeAngelis with Senator Whitehouse, Kathleen Laird with Senator Baldwin, and Joe Dunn with Senator Murphy, and Beth Pearson with Senator Warren. From the Senate Finance Committee, I would like to thank Kim Brandt, Jennifer Kuskowski, Erin Dempsey, Brett Baker, Chris Campbell, and Jay Khosla. I would also like to thank much of the hard-working staff from the White House and Department of Health and Human Services who provided great help in getting this bill completed. From the White House, I would like to thank Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and Kate Mevis. From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I would like to thank Secretary Sylvia Burwell, NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins, Dr. Kathy Hudson, FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf, Dr. Janet Woodcock, Dr. Jeffrey Shuren, Dr. Karen Desalvo, Acting SAMHSA Administrator Kana Enomoto, Sara Singleton, Jill Adleburg, Dayle Cristinzio, Jennifer Tomasello, Rachel Stauffer, Maren McBride, Karson Mahler, Lauren Higgins, Adrienne Hallett, Laura Berkson, Ned Culhane, Patricia Brandt-Hansberger, Dena Morris, Miranda Katsoyannis, Brian Payne, Brian Altman, and Peggie Rice. We always rely on the experts at the Congressional Research Service to give us good information in a timely manner, so I extend my thanks to Andrew Nolan, Maeve Carey, and Wendy Ginsberg. The Senate and House legislative counsel staff worked long hours on the many drafts of this bill, so I would like to extend my thanks to Bill Baird, Jessica Shapiro, Kim Tamber, Katie Grendon, Warren Burke, and Margaret Bomba. From the Congressional Budget Office, I would like to thank Chad Chirico, Holly Harvey, and Ellen Werble. On Senator McConnell's staff, I would like to thank Scott Raab. On Speaker Ryan's staff, I would like to thank Matt Hoffman. Finally, I would like to thank all the patients, doctors, researchers, innovators, thought leaders, and experts who dedicated time and expertise to helping us come up with this legislation. I see my colleague, the Senator from Washington, on the floor. I once again thank her for her strong leadership in helping create the environment where 21st Century Cures and the mental health legislation can succeed.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, knowing there is a reception coming, I will try to set a good example. After hearing a speech, my late friend Alex Haley, the author of ``Roots,'' said: May I make a suggestion? I said: Well, yes. He said: If, when you make a speech, you would say ``Instead of making a speech, let me tell you a story,'' someone might actually listen to what you have to say. I have always remembered that, so let me tell one short story about a Vice President who knows how to get things done. Nearly 2 years ago, you and President Obama invited Senator Corker and me to go with you to Knoxville when the President announced his community college program. Before that, we had lunch privately, and we talked about many things, but the President talked about his interest in precision medicine. I said: Mr. President, we are working on something we call 21st Century Cures. Why don't we fold that into your precision medicine interest, and we will do it together. At the State of the Union address a year later, the President talked about the Cancer Moonshot and announced Vice President Joe Biden would be in charge of that. So I talked to you and said: Well, we will just fold that in as well. It wasn't moving along as fast as I would like because, as you know and as most people here know, it is full of difficult issues--FDA, safety, moving things though, drug companies' incentives, and then the funding issue on both sides of the aisle. So I called you and I said: Joe, we are not moving as we should. You said: Well, let me see what I can do. And you held a meeting of the Democrats and Republicans in the House--Senator Murray and me--and you moved us along pretty well and off we would go. You didn't take credit for that; nobody knew much about it. You were the key to that. Then it got stuck again. So I called you again. I said: Joe, I have the precision medicine, I have the Cancer Moonshot, we have the BRAIN Initiative, we have the opioids money, but I can't get a response. I feel like the butler standing with a silver platter outside the Oval Office, and no one will take the order. You said: If you want to feel like a butler, try being Vice President. Well, the fact was, you went to work again. The President called; he went to work. Speaker Ryan went to work, Senator McConnell went to work, and today that legislation on which you worked so hard passed the Senate with 94 votes. That is an example of a man who understands the issues, who knows how to get things done, and who has the respect of everyone in this body. This is Pearl Harbor Day. Pearl Harbor Day reminds us of the greatest generation of men and women who cared about the country, didn't care about the credit, resolved their differences, and realized that diversity is important but turning that diversity into one America is even more important. You are not of that generation, but you show the same spirit as that generation did. Your work on 21st Century Cures and the fact that the Cancer Moonshot section is not only something that is your initiative--is named for your son--is important not just to you but to all of us. You are a friend of every single one of us. We honor you today. We are delighted you came down to let us tell a few stories about your effectiveness as Vice President of the United States.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak about the fires and tornadoes in Tennessee, but I would observe beforehand that by tomorrow we will be voting on the 21st Century Cures and the mental health bill. I have a little different view of it than the Senator from Vermont. For example, using the money in the prevention fund, which was a part of the Affordable Care Act, I would say is a pretty good use of it to support the President's Precision Medicine Initiative and to support the Vice President's Cancer Moonshot and to support the BRAIN Initiative at the National Institutes of Health. This is what we do in the bill, with $1.4 billion for precision medicine, $1.8 billion for Cancer Moonshot, and $1.5 billion for the BRAIN Initiative. If we are interested in reducing grief and reducing spending in this country, accelerating the arrival of medicines that will identify Alzheimer's before its symptoms and other medicines that will retard the progression of Alzheimer's would be a magnificent thing to do. It would be a miracle for many families. It is not just a miracle; it is something that Dr. Francis Collins, a renowned scientist who is head of the National Institutes of Health--the ``National Institutes of Hope'' is what he calls it--predicts will happen in the next 10 years, along with a vaccine for Zika, a vaccine for HIV-AIDS, a vaccine for universal flu, which killed 30,000 people last year, and advances in regenerative medicine that would put a physician like our former majority leader, Dr. Bill Frist of Nashville, out of business. Bill Frist was at one time a heart transplant surgeon. I think he transplanted more hearts than anybody in the world--or nearly anybody. But Dr. Collins believes that with advances in using our own adult cells, we will restore hearts. We will not have to transplant them. We may be able to restore eyesight. These are the kinds of miracles this legislation will encourage that could affect nearly every American family. The other part of the legislation, equally important to money, is that it would make reforms in the Food and Drug Administration and in the National Institutes of Health that will move research for those treatments and cures through the regulatory and investment process more rapidly, at lower costs, into the medicine cabinets, and into the doctors' offices, where they can help virtually every family in this country. That is why 85 Senators yesterday voted to end debate on this floor, and I suspect more will vote tomorrow to send it to the President. That is why, in the House of Representatives, 392 of them voted for this bill. Only six Democratic Members of the House of Representatives voted against it. They are not persuaded that there is some evil force in there. They like what they see, and not only them. The President of the United States says that this is ``an opportunity we just can't miss.'' The Vice President of the United States, talking about his Cancer Moonshot, says that this is a big and important step forward. The Republican Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, turned a couple of somersaults trying to figure out the way to do the funding on this because it is an important part of his own agenda for our Nation's health care future. I have heard the majority leader of the Senate, Senator McConnell, say in private meetings and in public that this is the most important piece of legislation we will pass this year. Add to it the mental health legislation that Senator Cassidy, Senator Murphy, and Senator Cornyn worked so hard on over here, and you can get something we can be very proud of, which is why it received such a big vote yesterday. I want the American people to know that is what we are doing. I think that is what they want us to do. We could do something in a partisan way, we could do something by Executive order, or we could take 2 years, as we literally did in this bill, with multiple hearings, multiple consultations, many differences of opinion, all of them resolved though in a bipartisan way, and produce a lasting result. It will not be like ObamaCare, where the next day one party is trying to repeal it and the next party is defending it. It will not be like some other partisan legislation. This will last. Nobody is going to be trying to repeal it because almost everybody voted for it. The money will come just as the legislation says, year after year. I am proud of the Senate, and I am happy for the American people, and I look forward to tomorrow. Sevier County Fire Mr. President, on a more somber note, a week ago last Wednesday, on a mountaintop called the Chimney Tops in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, someone spotted a fire and called the National Park Service about 5:20pm in the afternoon. I have been up on Chimney Tops many times--more times when I was younger than when I have been older-- but it is a peak with rocks at the top. We are not like the West where they have a lot of rocky mountains. We don't have many of those. We have an average of 83 inches of rainfall a year, unlike Southern California or Phoenix, places like that, where they only get a few inches of rain a year. We almost have rain forests. When the fall comes, there are lots of leaves on the ground. But the fire started up on the Chimney Tops. I can tell you there wouldn't have been anyone within 100 miles who would have imagined that somehow the next Monday, wind would have swept that fire into Gatlinburg, TN, killing 14 people, injuring another 134, causing an evacuation of 14,000 people, wrecking lives and wrecking homes. There have been some people wondering a little bit: Well, how could this have happened? Look, we have had fires all over East Tennessee this year. We are not used to that. It is because we have had a drought for a long time. I have an article by Bob Hodge about Greg Ward of Sevier County. This is the county where Gatlinburg is. Greg Ward spent his 53 years roaming around the woods and waters of Sevier County, according to Bob Hodge, a writer for the Knoxville News Sentinel. The long and short of it is, those who know the woods and the waters in East Tennessee know that this drought has been with us for a while. Trout stocking programs wouldn't work because the water was so low that the streams wouldn't handle the trout, and the water was too warm for them to survive. In some places the creeks were flowing at 10 percent of normal. We may have seen that once before in someone's memory back in the 1970s, but for the last 3 months, there has been very little rain. According to Bob Hodge's article, we have had a drought since 2015. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record this article by Bob Hodge of the Knoxville News Sentinel following my remarks. On Friday, Governor Haslam of Tennessee, Senator Corker, and I went to Gatlinburg. The only thing I could think to say to the people assembled there were two things. One was that your character is measured not so much by how you handle things when things are going well, but how you handle adversity. If that is the measure of character, the character of the people of Gatlinburg in Sevier County are through the roof because they are not complaining. The mayor of Gatlinburg, Mike Werner, had his home burn down in 15 minutes. He was at the press conference worried about other people, not himself. Cindy Ogle, the city manager of Gatlinburg for a long time, had her home burn down. She was there, not complaining, and worrying about the other people of Gatlinburg and Sevier County. Mike Werner's business was also burned down. He is staying in the apartment of a friend nearby. That story is happening over and over and over in Sevier County. There have been extraordinary gestures by people to help. At one point, shortly after the fire started, there were 140 fire trucks from all over Tennessee and more than 400 volunteers. The fires kept going and going because this wind came up on Monday night after the fire had already started 10 miles away on the top of this rocky mountain, and a 90-mile-an-hour wind blew the fire all the way into Gatlinburg. The wind knocked down transformers and started other fires, and people were racing for their lives. On the floor, I mentioned stories of firefighters having to get back in their trucks to get away from the bears that were running toward them escaping the fire, of people driving through fire to escape, of windshield wipers melting as they drove down the mountain. It was a terrifying experience. In the West they may be used to this. Nobody ever gets used to it, I guess, but we don't see that where we are from, typically with 83 inches of rain in a year. I salute the people of Sevier County and Gatlinburg for their courage, their character, and their compassion for one another. I know it is going to take a long time for many to get back on their feet. We are doing what we can to help. I salute the Governor of Tennessee. He was there the next day. So were many of their agencies, working seamlessly together. As I have said, last Friday we went there together with him. Through the State, we have arranged for Federal assistance, which will pay for 75 percent of the cost of fighting the fires. Then that same day we went to some other counties in Tennessee that had experienced tornadoes about the same time. We went into McMinn County. No one was killed there, but several were hurt. We went to Polk County where we talked with a lady named Mrs. Stoker, who wasn't hurt, but a trailer next to where she lived had been blown across the road, and her daughter and her daughter's husband had been killed. We talked to her for a while, and the Governor and Senator Corker and I were very impressed with her. We doubted that we would have the strength she does. As we left, she said to us: You fellows go back on up there, do your job, and we will take care of it here. I am sure she will, but I am awfully impressed with Mrs. Stoker. I have told the people of Sevier County that many Senators had said something to me about the fire. For example, Senator Feinstein called because of her experience in California. I am here only to say those two things, first that the people of Sevier County, in Gatlinburg, the area of Polk County and McMinn County, if their character is measured by how they handled adversity, their character is over the top. Secondly, I thank all of those who have tried to help. One last example: In McMinn County, a young woman had a baby during the tornado. Her home was damaged. She went to the hospital. When she came back the next day, the neighbors had found another home for her. They had clean sheets and everything that she needed. There are wonderful stories that came out of a terrifying series of instances. I wanted to come to the floor and say that we are proud of the people of East Tennessee.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Kirk be recognized next and then Senator Murphy following him and that after that, I be recognized. We will be voting at 5:30.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, while we are waiting for Senator Murphy, let me salute Senator Kirk for his leadership from the very beginning. He has pointed out to the committee and the Senate that, as the Mayo Clinic has said, regenerative medicine is a game changer for stroke victims, for heart disease, and for people with retinal disease. Thanks to Senator Kirk, Senator Collins, Senator Manchin, and Senator McConnell, we have legislation that takes an important and responsible step forward to recognize the promise of regenerative medicine. This bill includes $30 million to the National Institutes of Health for clinical trials to support regenerative medicine. Then there are two other provisions in the bill. One of them allows the Food and Drug Administration to make regenerative therapeutic products eligible for the FDA's existing accelerated drug approval pathway. We have had great success over the last 4 or 5 years with an accelerated pathway for drugs, similar to what Senators Burr and Bennet and others got enacted into law. We are doing the same thing with combination drugs and devices in this legislation. Now Senator Kirk has added regenerative medicine to the accelerated pathway, and I salute him for that leadership.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the Senator from Illinois is very generous, and I thank him, but I would remind him that he was the persistent agent for the change in support for regenerative medicine. That wasn't easy to do, and he has been the leader, along with others of us who cared about the same thing, in making sure the United States maintains its lead in supercomputing competition around the world. Senator Murphy, the Senator from Connecticut, is coming. I think what I will do is begin, and when he comes I will stop and let him make his 5 minutes of remarks and then resume so I don't delay the vote because I know everyone is looking forward to casting a great big ``yes'' vote in a few minutes. The U.S. Senate majority leader, whose position in the Senate this is, has said more than once in private meetings I attended and on the floor of this body that the 21st Century Cures bill on which we will be voting in a few minutes is the most important legislation Congress will pass this year. In his address to the Nation this past weekend, President Obama urged us to vote for the bill today and tomorrow. ``It could help us find a cure for Alzheimer's,'' the President said. ``It could end cancer as we know it and help those seeking treatment for opioid addiction.'' The President continued: ``It's an opportunity to save lives and an opportunity we just can't miss.'' Vice President Biden has been telephoning Senators urging support for 21st Century Cures because, in the Vice President's words, it is a big step for cancer research and the Cancer Moonshot that is so close to his heart. Speaker Paul Ryan in the House of Representatives has made 21st Century Cures explicitly a centerpiece of his vision for our country's future, describing it as ``bipartisan legislation that would accelerate the discovery, development, and delivery of lifesaving treatments.'' With such bipartisan support from the President of the United States, the Vice President of the United States, the Speaker of the House, the Senate majority leader--two Democrats, two Republicans--it is no wonder that on last Wednesday, the House of Representatives approved 21st Century Cures by the overwhelming vote of 392 to 26. This legislation holds the promise of improving the life and health of virtually every family in the country. It will provide $4.8 billion in a one-time surge of funding for biomedical research in a time of breathtaking opportunity. It will advance Vice President Biden's Cancer Moonshot to find cures for cancer and President Obama's Precision Medicine Initiative, as well as the BRAIN Initiative. It will help move safe and effective treatments and cures through the development and regulatory process more rapidly, and it will lower costs, making medicines available sooner and hopefully also at lower costs to patients. It will provide $1 billion in grants to help deal with the raging opioid epidemic. It includes legislation to help the one in five adults in this country suffering from a mental illness, help them receive treatment by updating many of our country's mental health programs for the first time in a decade. It will improve health information technology for doctors who are eager to get rid of the overdocumentation of hospitals and their patients and help get the Nation's electronic health records system out of the ditch. From a taxpayer's point of view, it does all of these things in a fiscally responsible way by reducing other spending to pay for every penny of the $6.3 billion cost. I see the Senator from Connecticut on the floor, so I would like to suspend my remarks for 5 minutes so that he can make his, and then I would ask unanimous consent that the totality of my remarks follow his remarks. Before he speaks, let me just say once again how much I appreciate his leadership and that of Senator Cassidy and Senator Cornyn. One reason the majority leader calls this the most important piece of legislation Congress will act on this year is because it includes the mental health legislation that these Senators, including Senator Murphy, Senator Cornyn, and Senator Cassidy, have offered.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his words, support, and his leadership this year. I thank also Senator Murray from Washington. She would be here, except her plane is delayed. The vote will be held open to make sure she can be here, but Senator Murray is a Member of the Democratic leadership and well respected on that side of the aisle but also on this side of the aisle because, when she can, she creates an environment where we can do today exactly what we are doing today. I think the American people appreciate that, and Senator Murphy and I both benefit from that. I thank the Senator for those remarks and will now continue my remarks. At a Senate hearing earlier this year, Dr. Francis Collins, the distinguished head of the National Institutes of Health--an agency he calls the ``National Institutes of Hope''--offered ``bold predictions'' about major advances to expect in the next 10 years from sustained investments in biomedical research, such as we are doing with this bill. One prediction is that scientists will find ways to identify individuals at risk for Alzheimer's even before symptoms appear, as well as how to slow or even prevent the disease. Today, Alzheimer's causes untold family grief and costs $236 billion a year. Left unchecked, the cost in 2050 would be more than our Nation spends on national defense. Dr. Collins' other predictions are equally breathtaking. Using stem cells, doctors could use a patient's own cells to rebuild his or her heart. This personalized rebuilt heart, Dr. Collins says, would make transplant waiting lists and anti-rejection drugs obsolete. He expects development of an artificial pancreas to help diabetes patients by tracking blood glucose levels and creating precise doses of insulin. He says a Zika vaccine should be widely available by 2018, with universal flu vaccine and HIV/AIDS vaccine available within the decade. To relieve suffering and deal with the epidemic of opioid addiction that led to 28,000 overdose deaths in America in 2014, he predicts new nonaddictive medicines to manage pain, an even more effective antidote than the $1 billion we would be authorizing by our votes today. These truly would be miracles. The bill has taken more than 2 years to assemble both in the Senate and the House. There have been major differences of opinion, but the resolution of those differences--thanks to Senator Murray and many other Senators--has been bipartisan every step of the way. We saw that on display in the work of the President, the Vice President, the Speaker of the House, and the Senate majority leader. We saw it in the House with its vote of 392 to 26 last week, thanks especially to the leadership of Chairman Upton, Ranking Member Pallone, and Representative DeGette. We saw it in our Senate Health Committee, where we approved 19 bills that include 50 proposals, and every one with both a Democratic and Republican sponsor, except for 1 bill offered solely by Senator Murray, who is the ranking Democratic member of our committee. We have a diverse committee of 22 Members--that would be an understatement, actually--some of the most liberal Members and some of the most conservative Members, but when our committee considered these 19 bills during our 3 markups held over several months, the largest number of votes against any one of these 19 bipartisan bills was 2. Let me say that again. The largest number of votes--recorded votes--against any one of these 19 bipartisan bills was 2 in our committee of 22. Here is what some of those 19 bipartisan bills--again, approved unanimously or by a wide margin--would do to help move safe and effective treatments and cures more rapidly through the regulatory process and into patients' medicine cabinets and into doctors' offices. For example, Senators Bennet, Warren, Burr, and Hatch's act would allow researchers to use their own data from previously approved therapies when they submit for review a treatment or cure for serious rare genetic diseases, like Duchenne's, a rare kind of muscular dystrophy that could impact children as young as 3. Senators Burr and Franken's legislation will help to bring innovative medical devices--such as artificial knees, insulin pumps, and heart stents--to patients more quickly by getting rid of unnecessary burdens in medical device evaluations and streamlining the review process for clinical trials. Senators Baldwin and Collins have a bill to improve opportunities for our young researchers, essential to advancing biomedical research. Senator Kirk just talked about his legislation with Bennet, Hatch, Murkowski, Isakson, and Collins to improve rehabilitation research and help the approximately 800,000 Americans who suffer a stroke each year. Senators Isakson, Murphy, Casey, Wicker, and Vitter will help advance our understanding of neurological diseases. Senator Murray, as I mentioned earlier, will clarify that the FDA requires cleaning and validation data for reusable medical devices. Senators Murray, Hatch, Bennet, Cassidy and Whitehouse's bill will improve health information technology for doctors and their patients. We had six hearings on medical information technology programs in a ditch. We think we are helping to get them out of the ditch. We have been working with the Obama administration to do that, and I look forward to working with the Trump administration to continue that. Senators Burr, Bennet, Hatch, and Donnelly would speed safe breakthrough devices, putting senior people in charge of the review process. Casey, Isakson, Brown, and Kirk's legislation. If you are the parent of a child with a rare disease like brain cancer, their bill would increase the likelihood that your child will be able to take a drug that will help by giving a drug company that develops a drug for such a disease a voucher they could keep or sell that would speed up the review of another drug. One may say this is getting boring. This is too long. It is not boring to the millions of Americans who stand to benefit from this, and it is exactly the kind of work we ought to be doing in the United States Senate and what the American people would like to see us do more of. The Medical Electronic Data Technology Enhancement Act, with Senators Bennet and Hatch and many others interested in that. Senators Burr and Casey and Isakson and Roberts have important legislation for planning ahead for events like bioterror attacks, to help protect against anthrax, for example, or smallpox. The Combination Products Innovation Act, with a number of Senators involved on the committee, will help prevent the growing field of combination products--like bandaids with Neosporin built in or a heart stent that can be implanted to deliver blood thinners to prevent clots--from being caught in redtape. Then there is legislation that will give patients and their families a voice in drug development. There is one that is a top priority for the heads of FDA and NIH which will help those agencies attract and keep the kind of talent they need to approve all these exciting advances that are coming. There is legislation to shorten the development of new treatments to help those affected with life-threatening superbugs. The Advancing Precision Medicine Act, which Senator Murray and I cosponsored, is in direct support of President Obama's initiative to map 1 million genomes so researchers can develop treatments and cures tailored to a patient's genome. There are five or six other major pieces of legislation that I will include in the Record but not read at this time because we are approaching the time for a vote, but let me conclude by saying that in addition to these bipartisan policies, the 21st Century Cures bill includes $6.3 billion in funding. We usually don't attach such funding to a bill authorizing programs. We usually work along two tracks; one track for authorizing programs and one deciding how much to spend on those programs. During the last 2 years, while we have been working on our authorizing legislation, our appropriations committees have recommended major increases in support for biomedical research, and it is important that every Senator know this. In the current year, at the urging of Senators Blunt and Senator Murray, Congress added $2 billion a year to the $32 billion budget of the National Institutes of Health, which could total $20 billion over 10 years. Then, the Senate Appropriations Committee recommended another $2 billion increase for the next fiscal year, 2017, which could total another $20 billion over 10 years. This 21st Century Cures legislation adds $4.8 billion in a surge of one-time spending for the National Institutes of Health on top of the regular appropriated money toward key objectives: $1.8 billion for the Cancer Moonshot, $1.4 billion for precision medicine, $1.6 for the BRAIN Initiative, and it adds $1 billion for State grants to help States fight the opioid abuse epidemic. I believe that for every State represented by a Senator here tonight, the opioid epidemic is on the front pages of the newspapers. It adds $500 million for the Food and Drug Administration, and 21st Century Cures also gives the National Institutes of Health $30 million for clinical trials to support regenerative medicine, which the Mayo Clinic has described as a ``game- changing area of medicine with the potential to fully heal damaged tissues and organs, offering solutions and hope for people who have conditions that are beyond repair.'' It gives the FDA authority to allow regenerative therapeutic products to be eligible for FDA's existing accelerated drug approval pathway. I wish to acknowledge the work of Speaker Ryan and Leader McConnell in designing a way to secure funding that both Democrats and Republicans can accept. That is not always easy. For those concerned about additional spending--often on our side of the aisle--Speaker Ryan and House Budget Chairman Tom Price made sure the funding is one time, not mandatory, paid for, and approved each year by Appropriations Committees. It doesn't add one penny to the overall budget because for every increase in the discretionary budget, we reduce the same amount in the mandatory ledger. For those who worry that Congress might not approve the $6.3 billion in additional spending in later years--I have heard a little of that from the other side of the aisle--my answer is that the best way to ensure the money is spent in the following years is a big vote today and tomorrow when we finally pass the bill, just as the House did last week. In conclusion, it will be hard to explain why you voted to spend $6.3 billion for cancer, the Precision Medicine Initiative, and opioids this year but then voted not to spend it next year, and the legislation provides that the money cannot be diverted for any other purpose than what we vote for today and tomorrow. In addition, this year's portion of Cures funding--including one-half billion for opioid grants--is included in the continuing resolution that we will vote on later this week. This is the kind of lasting legacy the President of the United States and our Congress can be proud of. The next administration or the next Congress will not be repealing this law because we have taken the time to work out our differences and create a consensus of support. We did this at this time last year with an equally complicated bill to fix No Child Left Behind, which, despite its complexities, received 85 votes in this body. When he signed it, the President called it a ``Christmas miracle.'' The 21st Century Cures bill will present President Obama with another Christmas miracle, one that will help virtually every family. When we pass this legislation, the real winners will be the American families whose lives will be improved by this bipartisan legislation. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I come today to the Senate floor to offer congratulations to the U.S. House of Representatives because last night, in an overwhelming vote, they passed what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has described as the single most important piece of legislation the Congress is likely to enact this year. I am referring to the 21st Century Cures Act, combined with the mental health bill, which is the most significant set of reforms of major mental health programs in 10 years. The Cures package is the result of bipartisan work over the last 2 years. Its purpose is to move cures and treatments through the expensive development process and the extensive regulatory process and into the medicine cabinets and doctors' offices of America more rapidly and safely at the same time. That also helps to lower costs, and we hear a great deal of talk about the affordability of prescription medicines. If it takes more than 10 or 15 years and more than $1 billion to develop a drug, such as a treatment for Alzheimer's, that all adds to the final cost. We would like to lower that cost and speed that time up as long as we continue to do it safely. I wish to especially compliment the chairman of the House committee that worked on this, Chairman Fred Upton, as well as Congressman Pallone and Congresswoman DeGette, Democratic Members of the House of Representatives. They have worked with Senator Murray, the ranking Democrat on the Senate's HELP Committee, and with me for the last 2 years on a very complex but very important bill. Part of the bill has to do with money, and one part of that is $1 billion of funding for State grants for opioids. Now, I suspect one reason there was such a large vote in the House of Representatives yesterday--only 26 Members voted no and 392 voted yes--was because of this $1 billion for opioids. At least in Tennessee--and I am sure it is true in most States of the country--there is no more urgent epidemic than opioid misuse. It is filling up the courts. It is filling up the jails. It is filling up the hospitals. It is causing tragedies in families all across America. The Senate passed important legislation earlier this year on programs authorizing new money, but this is the money for State grants to Iowa, to Tennessee, to California, and to every State to help deal with the opioid epidemic abuse. So I suspect that one reason so many Members of the House voted yes yesterday and so few voted no would be that it would be pretty hard to explain a ``no'' vote against $1 billion of State grants for opioid abuse. There is also $4.8 billion of funding for the National Institutes of Health, which Francis Collins, the distinguished Director, calls the ``national institutes of hope,'' and there is $1.8 billion for the Cancer Moonshot led by Vice President Biden. There is $1.4 for the Precision Medicine Initiative, or personalized medicine initiative, a special project of President Obama, and $1.6 billion is for the BRAIN Initiative. There are remarkable advances being made in the ability to identify Alzheimer's before symptoms are evident and then to slow its progression. It is hard to imagine how much grief that would end and the billions it would save if we could do that. So those are other reasons why there are only 26 Members of the House of Representatives who voted no yesterday and 392 who voted yes. The Mayo Clinic has sent a letter to me: On behalf of the Mayo Clinic, I write in enthusiastic support of the 21st Century Cures Act and salute your strong, bipartisan leadership on this essential legislation. We are pleased to see the inclusion of dedicated streaming funds for the Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health. . . . I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record following my remarks. So next Monday the Senate will have a chance to see whether we can do as well as the House of Representatives. I ask my colleagues to think long and hard about a big vote. We need a big vote. Let me give my colleagues one reason especially why. This $6.3 billion that is in the 21st Century Cures bill is designated for opioids, for precision medicine, for cancer, for brain, and for FDA, and it has to be approved every year by a vote. That is the way our appropriations process works. I would say to my Democratic friends as well as to my Republican friends that if you are concerned about whether the $6.3 billion will be available next year and the next year, the best way to ensure that it is will be to cast a big vote on Monday for it this year, because it will be very hard to explain, if you vote for $6.3 billion this year spread over the next few years, why you did not vote to support it next year and the following year. The big vote in the House should give assurance to Democrats as well as Republicans in the Senate that these are real dollars, that they are provided in a fundamentally responsible way. To Republicans who look at the $6.3 billion and say: I like the idea of funding opioids; I like the idea of improving funding for the National Institutes of Health, let me say that this is done in a responsible way. Speaker Ryan, who everybody knows is a conservative budget hawk, created the mechanism for this funding. It was approved by Tom Price, the House Budget Committee chairman. It goes like this: $6.3 billion over the next several years for these dedicated purposes. It can only be spent for those purposes. It has to be approved every year. It does not increase the overall spending of the budget by one penny because it is offset by reductions in mandatory spending on the other side. So $6.3 billion up here and $6.3 billion down there over the next 10 years. So this is a compromise, but it is a magnificent compromise. It is, as Senator McConnell has said, the most important piece of legislation we will deal with this year. The House passed it with a huge bipartisan vote: 392 to 26. I hope that we in the Senate do just as well next Monday because the real winners will be the American people as they look forward to treatments for Alzheimer's, for cancer, a vaccine for Zika, a non-addictive pain medicine that will help deal with the opioid misuse epidemic, and regenerative medicine, which may help restore hearts and perhaps even eyesight in miraculous ways. This is truly an exciting time, and this is truly an effective piece of legislation that deserves our support by coming to the floor on Monday and then by passing it on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to use the time that I may require and that following my remarks, Senator Cassidy and Senator Murphy be recognized.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak on two matters. The first is the matter of wildfires in Tennessee. Anybody who has been watching television the last few days has seen the devastation caused by the runaway wildfires just outside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Gatlinburg, TN. We are not used to that in Tennessee. I know we have debates on the floor, and we have colleagues who see the fires in the West where it doesn't rain much, a few inches of rain a year, but in the Great Smoky Mountains where I live--I live just outside of the park--we have 80, 83 inches of rain a year. We have dense forests, and this time of year the leaves are all over the ground, and usually there is a lot of rain to tamp that down. For the last few months, we have not had rain, and so the forest floor is like a tinderbox. On Monday, in the chimney tops area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a fire started--maybe it was a campfire--and then winds as high as 80 to 90 miles an hour came and swept the fire through the park and into the resort town of Gatlinburg. There were stories of firefighters getting back in their trucks to avoid the bears who were fleeing the fire. There were stories of cars catching fire as motorists drove to escape the fire. A couple from Alabama said they watched their windshield wipers melt on the car as they drove down the mountain. At least four people have been killed and others are missing. Fortunately, by now the fires have been pretty much been put out. There were no fire outbreaks that were new in Pigeon Forge, which is nearby. Gatlinburg had some more fire outbreaks, but the rain that fell last night helped to put most of those out. The small town of Gatlinburg, a picturesque community on the edge of the Smokies where people have vacationed and have gone for their honeymoons, had to evacuate 14,000 citizens. The Red Cross in addition to other independent groups operated six shelters. The mayor of Gatlinburg told people that his home burned up in 15 minutes. The city manager's home burned down. We have had a tremendous response from the Governor of our State, Governor Haslam, who was on the spot the next day with many of his State officials. There were 400 firefighters and more than 100 firetrucks that came from all parts of Tennessee. There were National Guardsmen and highway patrolmen. The Governor said they haven't seen a fire like that in Tennessee in 100 years. As I said, 14,000 citizens have been evacuated. This is a heartbreaking story for all of us who know and love the Great Smoky Mountains and the people who live near there. I want the residents in Sevier County, Gatlinburg, and that area to know that Senator Corker and I--and all of us in the Federal delegation--will do whatever we can appropriately do to help. That starts with helping pay for 75 percent of the cost of fighting fires, and, after that, cooperating with Governor Haslam as the State looks for ways to help individuals who might be hurt by this. I know the mayor of Gatlinburg, the city manager, and Larry Waters, the county mayor, would want me to say that this is a resilient town and resilient people, and they are going to be fine, but it is going to be tough and hard. Fire always is. But Dollywood will be open at 2 p.m. on Friday, and people will be coming back. They have about 10 million people visit the Great Smoky Mountains National Park every year. We don't want people to stay away, but I do want the people of Gatlinburg and Sevier County to know how much we care for them and how determined we are to help them help themselves so they can get back on their feet.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the second subject I came here to talk about is the 21st Century Cures Act and the mental health legislation, both of which are being debated in the U.S. House of Representatives. There will be a vote on that legislation this afternoon at about 5:30. This is legislation that has the strong support of the President of the United States, the active support of the Vice President of the United States. House Speaker Ryan has said that it is an important part of his agenda for health care for the future, and the majority leader, Senator McConnell, has said he believes it is the most important piece of legislation Congress could enact this year. One reason it has been successful is that it has been so bipartisan in its making, both in the House and in the Senate. Let me begin by thanking President Obama and Vice President Biden for their strong support and their interest. The President supports precision medicine--the idea of personalized medicine. For example, if the Senator from Pennsylvania and I each have the same disease, we might not take exactly the same medicine because our genetics might be different. We now know enough about it that if we can help doctors have that information, they can prescribe medicines that will help us live longer. The President and the executive office of the President have issued a Statement of Administration Policy that is one of the strongest I have seen. I hope it persuades both Republicans and Democrats to be supportive of this legislation. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of my remarks, the Statement of Administration Policy be printed in the Record. Mr. President, I mentioned the bipartisan nature of the legislation, and I will give two examples of that. My two colleagues, who are on the floor, will give the second example, which is the mental health bill. This has been complex, no doubt about it. Yesterday I spoke at length on the floor about that. I ask that my colleagues recognize the core of this legislation, which is the following: There were 19 different bills that went through the Senate's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee--22 Members of the Senate. After many hearings, the largest number of recorded votes against any of those 19 bills was 2. We have a very diverse committee. We have some of the most liberal Members and some of the most conservative Members, and we were able to work out 19 bills that are the core of this legislation on a complex issue like this, and the largest number of votes recorded against any of the 19 bills was 2. Secondly, every single one of those 19 bills but one had a Democratic sponsor and a Republican sponsor--usually more than one. In addition to that, there is money attached to the bill. That is very unusual because this is an authorization bill, but the House did it, and we did it as well. We recognized the importance of this to the American people, and we did it in a fiscally responsible way. It is $6.3 billion. It doesn't add a penny to the overall budget because for every increase in the discretionary budget, we reduced the same amount in the mandatory budget. What is the funding for? The National Institutes of Health will get $4.8 billion for research on urgent matters; $1.8 billion for the Cancer Moonshot that the Vice President is leading; $1.4 billion for precision medicine; $1.6 billion for the BRAIN Initiative, including Alzheimer's; and then $1 billion for State grants to help States fight the opioid abuse epidemic. That money has been accelerated so that all of this money is spent in the first 2 years and all of the Cancer Moonshot money is spent in the first 5 years. Speaker Ryan arranged for this money in the following way: While it has to be approved each year by the Appropriations Committee, it cannot be spent on anything other than what it has been designated for. So that $1 billion can be spent only on opioid abuse. I cannot imagine that the House of Representatives, if it overwhelmingly passes the 21st Century Cures bill in a vote, will not complete its promise to spend $1 billion on opioid abuse this year and next year. I cannot imagine the U.S. Senate, which I also expect will approve this by a large vote, doing the same. I also can't imagine Democrats and Republicans going home and having to explain why they would vote no on $1 billion worth of State grants for opioid money when all year we have been talking about what an urgent epidemic it is or having to explain why they voted no for $1.4 billion for Cancer Moonshot when so many advances are being made or voting against $1.4 billion for precision medicine when the President so eloquently made the case of why it is important or $1.6 billion for the BRAIN Initiative at a time when Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health, tells us that we are close to identifying Alzheimer's before there are symptoms and we could have the medicine that will permit us to retard its progression. Think of the grief that will save millions of families. Think of the billions of dollars that will save for our country. This bill has had the participation of dozens of Members of the U.S. Senate but none more effective and important than the Senator from Louisiana, Mr. Cassidy, and the Senator from Connecticut, Chris Murphy. Even though they are both relatively new to the Senate, they have taken the mental health bill and navigated landmines as if they have been here 25 years. They have worked across the aisle with each other, and they have worked with Democrats and Republicans in the House of Representatives to produce a bill that passed overwhelmingly in the House and will be added to the bill today by amendment. It has also been approved by our Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee here, and I thought it would be helpful today--and an example of the bipartisan support for the bill--to ask Senator Cassidy and Senator Murphy to describe the mental health bill. Senator McConnell says the 21st Century Cures bill is the most important piece of legislation that Congress will enact and pass this year. I believe that the mental health bill, which has three parts that we will enact this year--a part from our committee and part from judiciary--is the most significant piece of mental health legislation in terms of reforms of programs that the Congress will have passed in more than a decade.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, once again, I want to thank Senator Murphy and Senator Cassidy for their exceptional passion, leadership, and professionalism on a big issue. We all will have a chance to support their work when the bill comes over from the House on Monday as a part of the 21st Century Cures legislation. I want to reiterate what Senator Murphy said about Mr. Cornyn, the Senator from Texas. He played a key role in developing parts of the legislation that came through the Judiciary Committee and he, like Senator Murphy and Senator Cassidy, had to negotiate a few landmines in order for the bill to be considered and included as it has been. I want to pay my respects to Senator Cornyn and thank him for his leadership on the bill. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I have five requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders. Pursuant to Rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for such time as I may require.