Roy Blunt

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session and be in a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session for the consideration of the following nomination: Executive Calendar No. 568.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate vote on the nomination with no intervening action or debate; that, if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs be discharged and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the following bills, en bloc: H.R. 2246, H.R. 4279, S. 4409, H.R. 2969, H.R. 3275, H.R. 3847, H.R. 3870, H.R. 4034, H.R. 4200, H.R. 4672, H.R. 4785, H.R. 4975, H.R. 5062, H.R. 5317, S. 4684, H.R. 2454, H.R. 3005, H.R. 3680, H.R. 4725, H.R. 4875, H.R. 4971, H.R. 5307, and H.R. 5954.

Mr. BLUNT. I ask unanimous consent that the bills, en bloc, be read a third time and passed and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all en bloc.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 793, submitted earlier today.

Mr. BLUNT. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 473 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H. Con. Res. 125, which was received from the House and is at the desk.

Mr. BLUNT. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 791 submitted earlier today.

Mr. BLUNT. I know of no further debate on this measure.

Mr. BLUNT. I ask unanimous consent that the preamble be agreed to and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 792, submitted earlier today.

Mr. BLUNT. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 3 p.m., Monday, December 7; 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 proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the Schwartz nomination. Finally, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask that the cloture motions filed during today's session of the Senate ripen at 5:30 p.m. on Monday.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I have 3 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: Committee on Armed Services The Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, December 3, 2020, at a time to be determined, to conduct a hearing on nomination. Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs The Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, December 3, 2020, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. Committee on the Judiciary The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, December 3, 2020, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on nomination. Committee on Rules and Administration The Committee on Rules and Administration is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, December 3, 2020, at 10 a.m., to conduct a closed briefing.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I feel a little guilty, as the chairman of the Rules Committee, standing in between the Enzi desire to get the devices on the floor. I have watched in recent weeks. If you looked around on the floor, you would assume that we had adopted that rule. It is a pretty hard rule to enforce with all the information that Senator Enzi always knew was there and needed to be available in ways that we have not made it available yet. I just want to stand as a particular friend of Mike Enzi. We came to the Congress at the same time. I came to the House, and he came to the Senate. He and Diana and I were together on travel fairly early in that we had an opportunity to go to Lithuania, as they were desperately trying to get included in NATO. And, Mike, you remember walking on that little square where people had their signs up: We want in NATO. They had been left behind one time; they didn't want to be left behind another time. But that is one of the many memories I have with Mike. Another is just Mike's incredible capacity to listen. I think without question and by plenty of evidence, Mike is the best listener in the Senate. In fact, he has listening sessions in his State, where what he does, shockingly, is listen. His talking is at a minimum at those sessions. His interest in taking in input from whoever wants to talk-- you can envision Mike at the front of the room with his notepad, taking notes on what everybody says, and then often the move from one speaker to the next is ``Thank you'' and ``Let's hear what other people have to say,'' and he absorbs that in a great way. There are many times when I have come to Mike in the Senate and said: Tell me what you are thinking about this. And it is amazing how much you can learn by listening. Mike so often has a different view, a more nuanced view than others do because of that. I also thought, Mike, as you were speaking today--I know that your driver in the State is usually Diana. And even describing the return from the Jaycees event back to Gillette, I noticed who was driving, that you spent so many hours together and miles together in a State that maybe doesn't have the most people, but it sure has lots of distance, and I know it was just a challenge to get home to Wyoming every week and then to get to the place you live in Wyoming, in Gillette, as often as you can, and that is not often possible. But what an honor and privilege to serve with you, to spend these 24 years in the Congress together, and for me to get to spend the last 10 years of your Senate time here in the Senate with you. It is a great honor. It is a great privilege. I am trying to learn all I can about listening from the master listener who then takes all that information and actually produces, as we have heard here today, real results.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I think Mark Twain said, among many other things, that there is nothing more troubling than a great example. And, as we have had all of these speeches today, I felt less and less adequate as the speakers talked about the great things that Lamar has done, the great things he stands for, the incredible character that defines his life and his work. It has been wonderful to be here and to see the appreciation that Senators have for somebody who is proud to be a Senator. Not that often do you get to start a last speech in the Senate referring to somebody else's maiden speech over almost 50 years ago. But that kind of sense of the Senate, that sense of community, that split screen that Lamar talked about with educators, where you do have the one screen where it appears that nobody can get along and get anything done--and, particularly in the Senate, you have this relatively small community of people, all of whom got here by figuring out, normally, how to get along with other people, as one of their attributes of getting to the Senate. And then you have rules in the Senate that require you to get along to get anything done. So you have that other screen that doesn't get nearly the attention. But when you do look at the accomplishments, even at a time of great frustration, those accomplishments have been significant, and so many of them have included Lamar. I knew Lamar before I came to the Senate, but, particularly, the last 10 years of working with Lamar in the Senate have been great for me, and the time that Abby and I have been able to spend with him and Honey have been great. He says things in passing that really define the opportunity to be here in such a significant way. We have heard many of them today. There are others I think of often--one Lamar told me not too long ago, when I was talking about how well our staffs work together. He said: Well, it always seemed to me that when the Senators obviously got along, the staff figures that out and they understand they are supposed to get along too. Lamar is blessed with a great staff. It will be interesting to see the new standard of having that other speech that so significantly talks about the staff and what the staff means. I have a great staff-- many of us do--but when those staffs work together, as opposed to looking for reasons they shouldn't work together, things happen. I remember Lamar told me one day: They always remember the last thing you do. And if that turns out to be the case, at least the last Senate year of Senator Alexander has been extraordinary, as others have been. But this year I had a chance, as the appropriating chairman of the committee that Lamar is the authorizing chairman for--and, by the way, he also sits right beside me on the Appropriations Committee in most of our hearings when Senator Shelby isn't able to be there, the chairman of our full committee. But in this last year, particularly from March on, we have done so many things together. In March, April, May, June, there was almost never a day when we didn't have at least one call with somebody who is running a laboratory or someone at the FDA or someone who understood this investment arm we had, BARDA, that had been designed about 10 years earlier but never used as we have used it to bring the private sector and public sector together in partnership in a way that advances both tests and vaccines. We would spend sometimes hours a day in a series of 30-minute phone calls, trying to put the pieces of this puzzle together. I remember one day we were talking to someone at the White House, and the comment from his part of the conversation was knowing how many other conversations we had had that day. If people had any idea how much the Senate and the two of you--he was saying at that moment--are committed to get things done, they would be surprised because that is a story that never gets told. So much of the story of Lamar--his work here and the good spirit he brings to that work--isn't told, but it is so very obvious, certainly for me. One of the great gifts of my working life has been for Lamar Alexander to be such an important part of it for the last 10 years. I am grateful for it; I am grateful for him. I look forward to his continued friendship and advice. I think Senator Alexander, like many of us, is more of a next-chapter guy than a last-chapter guy. He is neither shy nor retiring. I expect him to continue to have great impact in his State and in our country. And, in my case, I hope he continues to have great impact in my life.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, first, let me thank Senator Ernst for organizing this opportunity to talk about our veterans, to talk about those who serve and the obligations we have to them, to talk about their challenges. Last week, certainly Veterans Day was very much on our minds, but also we ought to be sure that our veterans are on our minds all the time. We have appropriations bills we need to pass that will make a big difference in how veterans' issues are dealt with. Obviously we need to pass the appropriations bill for the Department of Veterans Affairs, and every veteran would want us to pass the appropriations bill for the Department of Defense. But there are also provisions in other bills that help veterans get back into society more effectively when they leave the military. The Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education bill that I talked about on the floor last week increases assistance for veterans' employment programs and veterans' training programs. It supports veterans when they move from the military workforce to the civilian workforce. It works to give homeless veterans a chance to have a home, have a job, have an opportunity--break through whatever barrier is a barrier for them. Opioid dependence--we all know those numbers are back up. Those opioid death numbers are back up. Veteran suicide--not one is acceptable. Funding the veterans hotline, funding behavioral health programs, being sure that telehealth can be available to veterans who may not be able to drive all the way to a provider but would be able to quickly contact the person who helps them. We need to understand the challenges for homeless veterans particularly and post-traumatic stress in other veterans who sometimes don't develop post-traumatic stress until decades after they serve. Often our veterans, not just in leaving the military but in retirement from whatever they did next, don't realize until that moment how much their service has impacted the way they see things and do things and think about things and are concerned about things. We need to be sure that veterans who have experiences and skills that they take out of the military are able to quickly connect with employers as they transition to civilian life. Every employer--in fact, at least I have never talked to an employer who doesn't say: We really hire vets. It is a priority where we are to hire vets. But we passed some legislation a few years ago, the HIRE Vets Act, which gave the Department of Labor the authority to recognize employers that actually do that--that hire vets, that promote vets, that retain vets. Secretary Alex Acosta was Secretary of Labor at the time, and they took a program that--everybody who advised him on this said it would take about 3 years to set this up. They set it up in about 6 months, and we began to recognize employers around the country who truly do meet the standard that all employers say they meet, and some do. Everybody wants to, but it is easier to say you do it than it is to do it. Seven Missouri businesses just received earlier this month the 2020 HIRE Vets Medallion Program Award. They are C2C in Chesterfield; Connectria in St. Louis; Arnold Defense & Electronics in Arnold, MO; AME Construction in Cottleville; Veterans of Foreign Wars in Kansas City, an employer that at one time was the World War I Memorial--the only memorial; On Target Solutions in Belton; and Pod-Grown in Wentzville. They all received the recognition that they really do hire vets and they really do promote vets and they really do meet extraordinary standards that are part of that program. The program aims to highlight companies that do just that. Third, we have worked to make it easier for military spouses to transfer their licenses and skills from one State to another. We included that in the Defense Authorization Act passed in July. That Defense Authorization Act hasn't passed the Congress yet. It has passed the Senate; it hasn't passed the House yet. I know we have every intention of getting that done this year. But when we do, we put provisions in there that really do allow much easier transfer from one State to another, whether you are a teacher or a nurse or a beautician or a barber or an engineer, architect--whatever you might be transferring and want to transfer as your spouse moves from one assignment to another, it shouldn't take most of the time you are there to finally get qualified to do what you were qualified to do before you got there. Lowering these license barriers for spouses--I think we ought to also do all we can to lower those barriers for veterans themselves. If you have been a medical technician in the Air Force, it shouldn't be very hard to become a medical technician wherever you decide to move to after the military. If you have been a truckdriver in the Army, it shouldn't be very hard to get a truckdriver's license pretty quickly once you decide this is where you want to go. If you have been an electrician in the Navy, you ought to be able to get your license to be an electrician pretty quickly when you go to where you go after you leave the military. So these are the kinds of things we can do. Certainly, our deep appreciation for veterans, our deep appreciation for their families, our honoring the flag that they have done so much for--all of that is important. It is an integral part of what we are as a country. But there are things we also do that show veterans that what they did, what they learned counts, it matters, and we are going to recognize that as employers, as coworkers, as Members of Congress. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I rise today to congratulate Mr. Blake Hurst on an extraordinary career and well-deserved retirement. Blake has been an outstanding leader and voice for Missouri's agriculture industry and has played a vital role to elevate our State's national presence among the agricultural community when it comes to advocacy on behalf of Missouri farmers and ranchers. Among his contributions to Missouri's agriculture industry, Blake has served with the Missouri Farm Bureau in a variety of capacities throughout his career, including as a district board member, vice president, and most recently as the organization's president for the last 10 years. Mr. Hurst was elected in 2010 as the 14th president of Missouri Farm Bureau and will cap off a 25-year career with the Missouri Farm Bureau upon his well-earned retirement. A devoted family man, Blake Hurst and his wife Julie have three children, Lee, Ann, and Ben. The family raises corn and soybeans on their family operation in northwest Missouri. Blake also operates a wholesale greenhouse business with his wife, Julie; daughter, Lee; and sons-in-law, Ryan Harms and Matt Clutter. The family raises flowers in two acres of greenhouses. In addition to his time consuming role at Missouri Farm Bureau, in his spare time, Blake also contributes as a freelance writer, with work appearing in the Wall Street Journal, The American, Weekly Standard, Wilson's Quarterly, Reader's Digest, Today's Farmer, and the Show Me magazine of Missouri Farm Bureau. Mr. Hurst has had a tremendous career with the Missouri Farm Bureau and is one of the most forward-thinking agriculture leaders in America. Over the years, I have truly valued the working partnership and, most importantly, the friendship, that I have fostered with Blake. Blake brings a certain passion and tenacity when it comes to agriculture, whether it is fighting against costly and burdensome regulations from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, advocating for better management of our Nation's rivers and inland waterway system, defending the Renewable Fuels Standard, promoting healthcare services for rural America, or delivering assistance to producers that are impacted by natural disaster. He has demonstrated the ability to communicate big ideas and advocate for commonsense solutions that has been a big help to me and so many others across Missouri and the country. There is no one I would rather be in the trenches with than with Blake. Blake and Julie have done so much for our State and understand it incredibly well. I look forward to their continued advice, success, and friendship. It is with great pleasure I wish Blake continued success in retirement and well-deserved time with his family. Thank you, Blake, for all you have done and will continue to do for Missouri.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I am pleased to be here today to talk about the 2021 appropriations bill that we filed this week for Labor, for Health and Human Services, and for Education. Obviously, with what we have gone through this year, those three agencies have all experienced dramatic challenges--labor challenges, health challenges, education challenges. And while this bill would not specifically be a COVID relief bill, it is a bill that funds these agencies so they can move forward with their normal work rather than have to, in some piecemeal way, try to deal with their normal work while they are trying to work with us on the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID bill. This is the largest bill--Labor, Health, and Education is the largest nondefense bill on the discretionary side of the agenda. It is about 30 percent of all the money left when the Defense appropriations is taken off the table. There are 11 bills left at that point, but this bill has about 30 percent of all the money. It has a lot of competing priorities, from apprenticeships to biomedical research, to public health and preparedness programs, to childcare and special education. National service and community service are all in this bill. We received 8,352 requests from Senators of things they would like to see in the bill. They are not all in there, but we did all we could to take the money we had and move forward with priorities that make sense. I am disappointed at this point that our Democratic colleagues on the Appropriations Committee were unable to support the bill right now, but we have worked together in the past. I hope we can continue to work together to find a way forward. And, frankly, my view is if appropriations bills appear to have a path to the President's desk, that is the thing that brings us together most quickly. This bill continues in our sixth year of commitment to robustly and consistently funding medical research at the National Institutes of Health. We provided a $2 billion increase on that research. We target funding toward Alzheimer's, toward precision medicine, premature birth research, the BRAIN Initiative. In my time as chairman, we have actually increased NIH funding by 45 percent in budgets that often had virtually no increase at all. We truly had to work together to prioritize. We have done that. My time as chairman is about 6 years, if you are wondering how long it took us to get that 45-percent increase. Six years ago, we hadn't had any increase for 12 years. NIH was about 22 percent behind in buying power where they had been a decade earlier. We made up that 22 percent. And actually, now, we are putting real money on the table in an environment that has never been better and never been more promising in the NIH research area. We continue our focus of combating opioids. Between 1999 and 2018, nearly 450,000 people in the United States died from opioid overdose. These drug overdose deaths in 2018 were four times higher than in 1999. The bill provides money to deal with this. With the effort we made in this area over the last several years, we saw a consistent decrease in opioid overdoses until 2020. Of course, the increase in 2020, in many ways, related to the pandemic and the isolation. The support structure that appeared to be working to move you from dependency was no longer there, and suddenly you are back where you were. The bill provides a $20 million increase for apprenticeship programs. This week, I joined the Missouri Chamber of Commerce in highlighting the importance of apprenticeships. Last year, Missouri was the second in the Nation in the number of new apprenticeships. First in the Nation is California. We are not a small State, but we are not nearly as big as California, so I think the leadership in our State--the business community, the employers, the Governor, and others--has made a real difference there. We fund both registered apprenticeship programs, and it allows for industry-recognized programs as well. Fourth, the bill invests in education, from early childhood through college and career. It increases funding for high-quality early childcare and education by more than $150 million. It increases funding for elementary and secondary education programs that provide the most flexibility to school districts to decide how to best use those limited resources. This also includes increased investments in title I; in IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act; the title IV student support and academic enrichment grants; charter schools; and Impact Aid. It increases the maximum Pell grant award by another $150, or a 2.4-percent increase, at a time when the mandatory money is gone. To find that 2.4-percent increase, we have to find it in other programs, and some programs are just not able to fund it. If they are not working, we shouldn't fund them, and we have seen several years of growth in areas in which we have a priority like Pell grants. To do that, we had to look carefully at programs that just, frankly, were not working. Fifth, we continue our focus on closing the care gap between mental health and physical health. Approximately one in five adults in America has a diagnosable and almost always treatable mental health problem. This bill provides an increase of almost $200 million in the mental health area. I would mention again the excellence of the mental health pilot. We have increased that pilot to eight States from two. We are seeing what happens in a positive way in people's other health issues when you deal with their mental health issues like it was any health issue, and it is making a difference. This year, it was reinforced again by understanding the need to address disparities in foster care, a greater diversity in healthcare, education, and the workforce. Many populations across the country, whether defined by race, ethnicity, geography, experience higher rates of certain diseases and often lack the access to health services. This bill tries to look at that in a way that analyzes where those gaps are, and it has programs that encourage filling those gaps. Furthermore, the bill continues our efforts to ensure that these disparities are addressed through a number of programs, including workforce development programs, diverse medical community efforts, research initiatives that focus on underserved communities, programs that target health disparities, and education- workforce programs that create opportunity. This bill prioritizes programs that provide the most benefit and greatest return for all Americans. The bill continues key program integrity activities that are aimed at reducing the waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars. These initiatives have proven to be a worthwhile investment in their returning billions of dollars to the Treasury and allowing us to look in other places as to how we could fund that money in programs that work better and work more transparently. This bill eliminates eight programs equaling nearly $115 million in spending reductions by focusing on programs that are the most efficient and cost-effective and with proven outcomes. We all know that budgets are tight, but making careful choices about health spending can be one of the most valuable investments we make in Congress. You don't have to look any further than the recent announcements about the record progress we have made in finding a vaccine for COVID- 19. Through the CARES Act and other legislation, Congress provided $18 billion for research into therapeutics and vaccines, and $12.5 billion went to vaccines. It did it in a way that is going to allow us to set a record in having a safe vaccine available that meets the highest standards. The vaccine that appears to be the first in line for approval is 90 percent effective. Now, I am not an expert in vaccines, so my first thought would be, well, I want a vaccine that is 100 percent effective. As it turns out, no vaccine is 100 percent effective. The measles vaccine that schoolkids took for years and that most still take is 90 percent effective. It was 9 months ago that healthcare experts said, if we could have a vaccine that was 50 percent effective, we should approve that vaccine and every other one that was at least 50 percent effective. We are looking at vaccines that are going to help us move beyond this as we look at tests that help us move beyond this, but the fundamental foundation of all of that is in the healthcare framework that we maintain. You can't look at a pandemic and say that now it is time to think about how we do important health research. You can't look at a pandemic and say that now it is time to think about having care providers in underserved areas. You can't look at a pandemic and say that now it is time to begin to think about how you connect childcare and work and school altogether. This bill does as much of that as we could figure out how to do in the best way we could figure out how to do it. I hope Congress can pass it. It would be a great gift to the next Congress and administration after January 20 to be able to start next year with next year's work rather than having to start next year with this year's work. Let's get this year's work done. Let's get it done now. Let's send the bill to the President that the House and Senate have agreed on, and let's get back to looking at these bills in the right way at the right time. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUNT

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