Conor Lamb

Mr. LAMB

Mr. LAMB. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. LAMB

Mr. LAMB. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask my colleagues to support H.R. 5891, a bill I introduced with my Republican colleague, Mr. Grothman, and I thank Mr. Grothman and Ranking Member Bonamici for their efforts. This bill is part of the fight against opioids. It creates an interagency task force to study how we can take the work that these government agencies are doing and do it even better. We have to do it better for the families that are affected, and I think the range of bills we are talking about today recognizes that. I thank my Republican colleagues for focussing on that because the mothers, the fathers, the brothers, and the sisters who have been left behind, they are our first line of defense, and they need our support. Mr. Speaker, heroin and opioid addiction is a full-blown crisis in western Pennsylvania. It is a disease that does not discriminate. People with money, people without money, people of all races, everyone has been affected, and our people are dying every single day. An entire generation of Americans, which is my generation, will have a huge hole in it where our brothers and our sisters should have been. Last year, we lost more than 60,000 Americans to the disease of drug addiction, and they left behind more than 60,000 families. For too long, those families have carried too heavy of a burden with too little support from our government. I can tell you about the first one of these families I met. When I was a prosecutor investigating the death of their son, I met a family whose son reminded me of so many young men that I served in the Marines with. He was in his twenties. He was a hard worker. He was prescribed prescription drugs for an injury that he got on the job. He worked in the natural gas fields. He became addicted to opioids, and he survived three different drug overdoses. His family kept him alive. They rescued him from the side of the road when he had been in a car with other drug addicts who threw him out when he started to overdose. They fought for years to get him into treatment and finally got him into a 30-day treatment program, where he went and succeeded. On the 31st day, that young man was released too soon, and his mother was in a near fatal car accident the same day. He spent the day staring at her in the ICU, and, no surprise, returned to heroin that same night and passed away the next morning. That man should still be with us today. He was discovered by his grandfather and by his brother, and that family will think about him and be asking forever what more they could have done. I have met them. I sat across from the father who cried in front of me and asked what else he could have done. The fact is that they are doing what they can, and if we, as a government, are going to ask them to do everything they can, we have to ask the same of ourselves. We have to have their back. H.R. 5891 is a positive step forward. That is what this is for. If this were any foreign military threat, we would study it in detail. We would proceed strategically with great discipline and in a bipartisan way, and that is what we are doing here. This bill requires Federal agencies to do something that they don't always do on their own, which is talk to each other and to put families first. It also requires them to go listen to the people who are already working most closely with these families--nurses, doctors, teachers, therapists--so that we can use their testimony to make sure that this task force produces results and not just a report. That is something we have seen so far in western Pennsylvania. Our former U.S. attorney, David Hickton, led a local working group and task force in the western district of Pennsylvania, which then became the model for the National Heroin Task Force. Within a couple of years, they gathered enough data, enough testimony, and enough momentum that that became the basis for the White House's unprecedented request for funding to fight this battle. Eventually, this Chamber got together with the Senate and, in a bipartisan way, passed the 21st Century Cures Act. We need to harness that same spirit now. As Ranking Member Bonamici said, we need to spend more than we spent so far. This is an existential threat, and we need to treat it that way. Mr. Speaker, I thank, again, my colleague, Congressman Grothman, and I urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 5891.

Mr. LAMB

Mr. LAMB. Mr. Speaker, I rise today so that we can finish the work that we started with the VA MISSION Act. Just yesterday, the President signed the VA MISSION Act into law, and it is a good bill. But the words on that piece of paper and his signature, Mr. Speaker, are not what takes care of our veterans. It is the doctors and nurses in our VA facilitates who do that. The VA MISSION Act gives us a chance to make their jobs easier and let them do it better. But we have to be honest about the fact that it also poses serious risks because of these strict budget caps. These budget caps were in place, Mr. Speaker, before we ever did the VA MISSION Act. I don't know if they were put in place because people had lost faith in the VA, but I recently visited two VA hospitals in the Pittsburgh area and came away with a renewed faith in what the VA can do. I met a man who was a Vietnam veteran, wheelchair-bound, who has lived in the VA hospital for 3 years. If things were as bad as its critics say, you might expect a man like that to be downtrodden or upset with the VA. Instead, when I asked him how he was feeling, tears came to his eyes and his voice choked with emotion as he described for me the way that the director of that hospital comes to mass with him every morning and asks about his family. We had that conversation in a kitchen built inside that hospital that looks like the kitchen in any nice home. The nurses bring in food of their own to cook for the patients of theirs. It operates like a real family. This is what it looks like, Mr. Speaker, when we keep our promises to our veterans and, more accurately, when our doctors and nurses keep that promise on our behalf. But all of this is at risk if we do not finish what we started with the VA MISSION Act. If we do nothing, the money that we have appropriated for the Veterans Choice Program will bust the strict budget caps that VA is under, and that will trigger automatic, indiscriminate cuts across the board. Mr. Speaker, that man asked me for one thing. He said that next year on Memorial Day he was hoping that they could have a cookout and that I would come back and have a hot dog with him. When that happens 1 year from now, Mr. Speaker, that same VA hospital may very well be under the strict budget cuts. Something like a cookout would be seen as an extravagance if you are getting 25 percent, 30 percent cuts across the board. And we will be responsible for that, Mr. Speaker. That is the only thing that man asked for. He has been cared for. We have gotten him the care he deserves. We need to ensure that for the next generation. We can fix that today. We can exempt the new money in the VA MISSION Act from the strict budget caps by voting ``no'' on the previous question so that my bill, H.R. 5805, can be made in order.

Mr. LAMB

Mr. LAMB. Mr. Speaker, the VA MISSION Act is a good bill. I support it. For too long, our veterans could really question whether this government means it when we say that we value their service. We cannot erase those doubts in one day or in one bill, but we can take a positive step forward, and we are doing that today. Both parties are doing that together. Together, we are finally giving all caregivers the tools they need for the heroic work that they do. We are strengthening VA at its core by attracting the best and the brightest to work there, and we are giving veterans a real choice to seek the best treatment anywhere, whether in or outside of the VA. This is a good bill, but it is not perfect. We owe it to our veterans and to the taxpayers to explain how we will pay for this. There is a strict cap on VA's budget, and the MISSION Act will bust that cap, so all of the good things in the MISSION Act will trigger harsh, automatic cuts in the rest of VA's budget. This will force the VA to rob Peter to pay Paul. This is not hypothetical. One year from now, these cuts will be triggered, and a veteran today would be right to ask if his favorite nurse will be laid off or if the old and slow computer systems at the VA will get even older and even slower. The money has to come from somewhere in the VA's budget. But there is another way. The money we are spending today does not have to count against the budget cap. That budget cap was set before we ever made these improvements to the VA. It is a separate issue, and the cap number shouldn't hold us back. My bill, H.R. 5805, would simply count the new money as separate so that it does not bust the rest of the VA's budget. Mr. Speaker, both sides of this House are working together to improve the VA. That is a great thing. Let's not make it any harder than it already is. Instead, let's finish the job. We have to spend what it takes to get the job done. No more, but also no less. Our veterans are looking to us to make the VA stronger, not weaker. The workers of the VA are depending upon us to give them what they need for their mission. Automatic budget cuts will not accomplish that mission. I ask my colleagues on both sides to help us, help our veterans, and help our workers. Vote ``no'' on the motion on ordering the previous question so that my bill, H.R. 5805, can be made in order.

Mr. LAMB

Mr. LAMB. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to take this oath and to join this House. The founding creed of our country holds that we are endowed by our Creator, that our rights do not come from the State, but from the hand of God. We have always believed that government is established to secure those rights, and the oath we have taken binds us to that cause. I believe in that cause. When we started our campaign, we heard a lot of talk about how nothing could get done in the government anymore. Wise commentators worried that we were too divided, our institutions too old and too slow to respond, and our people's ancient faith in our democratic process was disappearing, but that is not what we found. At Legion posts, at union halls, and on people's doorsteps, we found a faith in America and a fierce determination to make our institutions work again, as they have so often in our history. The people of western Pennsylvania picked me up every day. The essential truth of our situation is we are all in this together. We need solidarity with each other; we need universal programs and aspirations; and we need to honor the service of our fellow citizens. I will do my level best to reach out, to find common ground, and to help this great American institution deliver the results we need and deserve. It may be difficult to acknowledge everyone, but I will start with my grandmother, Barbara Lamb, who is in the House. My parents, Tom and Katie, are with her, along with my uncles, my aunt, and my brother. I also have a brother and sister watching from far away. My fiancee is in the House as well, and I hope everybody gives her a round of applause.