Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Ms. HASSAN. Thank you, Mr. President.

It is good to hear from my colleague from Texas. I am here to talk about two different issues, but I did just want to say that I have had the pleasure and honor of visiting Senator Cornyn's wonderful State. In fact, I was at the border last spring. It is a beautiful State that is full of hard-working and welcoming people. Certainly, our men and women on the frontlines at the border are working incredibly hard and have a lot of excellent ideas about how to secure the border.

I do just want to make one point, which is simply that in addressing a humanitarian crisis at the border, we shouldn't create another one by separating families at the border. To be clear, there is nothing in our law that requires families to be separated at the border. We simply should not be harming children as we deal with this issue.

I would welcome Senator Cornyn to our Homeland Security Committee, where we have discussed the various options that would keep us from hurting children in our care.

Title X

Mr. President, I am here today to rise in opposition to the Trump administration's domestic gag rule on the title X program.

For more than 40 years, title X has provided women and families with comprehensive family planning and preventive health services. Congress created title X with a strong bipartisan vote, with Members of both parties recognizing how vital the services it provides are. Since then, for those in rural communities, for low-income women and men, and for members of the LGBTQ community, title X-supported health centers have been a major source of preventive care and reproductive health services, including cancer screenings, birth control, HIV and STI tests, and counseling services.

Title X helps communities and people throughout my home State of New Hampshire. Title X-funded centers deliver care to nearly 18,000 Granite Staters annually, and title X-supported Planned Parenthood centers serve 60 percent of those Granite Staters. In some parts of my State, there are no options other than a title X center, and if other options exist, they don't provide the same expertise and commitment to reproductive healthcare services that title X centers offer. Community health centers around my State do important work, but they have told me that they will not be able to replace the services lost if the administration is successful in its efforts to target Planned Parenthood.

The Trump administration's gag rule is simply dangerous. It would force providers to violate their professional and ethical standards regarding their obligation to give patients full and accurate information about their healthcare and would discriminate against providers who refuse to curtail truthful communication with their patients. This rule would cut investments in family planning clinics, taking away services that so many people depend on, with a disproportionate effect on low-income families and those who already struggle to access care. This effort is part of the shameless and blatantly political attempts from this administration to restrict access to healthcare.

By attacking providers, such as Planned Parenthood, the Trump administration is once again threatening the health and economic well- being of millions. Women in New Hampshire and across the country deserve better. They should have the right to make their own choice about if or when to start a family, and they should be able to visit providers of their choice who understand their healthcare needs and will be truthful about their healthcare options and realities. This title X gag rule undermines all of that.

I am going to continue to stand up for a woman's constitutionally protected rights, and I will do everything I can to fight back against these partisan attempts from the Trump administration to undermine women's reproductive healthcare.

Thank you.

Nomination of Neomi J. Rao

Mr. President, I also want to take a moment to express my opposition to a nominee the Senate is considering today for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals--Neomi Rao.

Ms. Rao is up for a lifetime appointment on the DC Circuit, but her record and previous statements make it clear that she is unfit for this position.

Ms. Rao's writings as a college student are nothing short of outrageous. Ms. Rao once described race as a ``hot money-making issue.'' She has called the fight for LGBTQ equality a ``trendy political movement.'' She has criticized the ``dangerous feminist idealism which teaches women that they are equal.'' Perhaps most disturbing are Ms. Rao's previous writings on campus sexual assault and rape. Ms. Rao once claimed that women shared the responsibility for being raped, saying: ``If she drinks to the point where she can no longer choose, well, getting to that point was part of her choice.'' She also noted that ``a good way to prevent potential date rape is to stay reasonably sober.''

I know that Ms. Rao has said she regretted these comments now that she is up for this appointment, but that cannot make up for the type of damage that rhetoric like this has done. In 2019, survivors are still not listened to and taken seriously, and dangerous rhetoric and callous beliefs like these have prevented women from coming forward with their experiences of sexual assault in the first place.

I cannot support a nominee who made a decision to publish these types of outrageous sentiments.

If Ms. Rao's previous statements aren't already disqualifying, then her record as a member of the Trump administration certainly is.

As the head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, OIRA, Ms. Rao signed off on a policy that would allow the Environmental Protection Agency to not use the best available evidence when developing clean air and clean water protections--a policy with dangerous implications given the fact that the Trump administration has ignored science and fought to undermine these protections. Ms. Rao signed off on this policy even after publicly pledging to meet in a Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee hearing that she would do just the opposite.

Additionally, one of Ms. Rao's first efforts in the Trump administration was approving an effort to eliminate reporting requirements proposed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to identify wage discrimination with regard to race and gender.

Finally, Ms. Rao approved of the title X gag rule, which, as I just discussed, will harm the health and well-being of people across the country.

It is clear that Ms. Rao is a partisan nominee with a dangerous record.

By the way, she has never tried a case--not in Federal court and not in State court.

Given her past comments, her record in the Trump administration, and her complete lack of experience, it is clear that she does not meet the standard that a lifetime appointment to a vital court requires. I will oppose her nomination today, and I urge my colleagues to do the same thing.

Thank you.

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