-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I am coming down to the floor to speak briefly on our efforts to protect women's access to birth control and contraception, but before I do, I just want to note something that happened here today that was really odd.

So a few weeks back, we came together and had a consensus bipartisan vote to stand up for our veterans. A number of Republican and Democratic legislators here in the House and the Senate worked together to develop something called the PACT Act.

This is groundbreaking legislation, decades in the making, that provides veterans access to healthcare for exposure to toxic chemicals, exposure that comes through being subjected to military burn pits-- these are pits where a lot of toxic chemicals and plastics are burned at military installations--but also for exposure to chemicals like Agent Orange.

So we had an 84-to-14 vote here just a few weeks ago in favor of the PACT Act and then the bill came back to the Senate due to some technical corrections having nothing to do with the substance of the bill. And yesterday the vote went from 84 to 55. Thirty Senators reversed their vote, and the bill failed. All 30 of those were Republicans.

What happened in 2 weeks that convinced 30 Republicans, who previously thought it was a good idea to help veterans, to decide instead to tank a bill that was helping veterans?

There are really only two explanations.

The more charitable explanation is that 30 Republicans just changed their minds; that 3 weeks ago they thought it was a good bill, helping veterans was a good idea, and 3 weeks later they decided that it wasn't a good idea; that they would rather spend that money on somebody else instead of our most vulnerable veterans.

Now, that would be pretty fantastic to have 30 Members of the Senate change their minds on the merits of a bill, especially a bill that helps veterans, the most vulnerable veterans in this country, veterans who are dealing with cancer and respiratory illnesses.

The less charitable explanation is this. Republicans are mad that Democrats are on the verge of passing climate change legislation and have decided to take out their anger on vulnerable veterans because that is the other thing that has changed in the last 3 weeks. Republicans thought that Democrats weren't going to be able to pass a bill asking corporations to pay a little bit more, tackling climate change. Yesterday, news emerged that there is an agreement that makes it likely that a climate change bill is going to proceed on the Senate floor, and, magically, 30 votes flipped.

That is the less charitable explanation because that would be pretty horrific if Republicans were mad about a climate change bill and decided to take out their anger on veterans--on vulnerable veterans.

So maybe in the coming days we will figure out which one it was. Maybe we will figure out if 30 votes flipped because the merits of the bill dictated that flip or maybe we will find out that Republicans have decided to just take out their anger about the reconciliation bill on veterans. Either way, this is not a good day for veterans in this country.

Democrats are standing up for veterans. We are going to keep voting for the PACT Act. We are going to bring it back. But 30 Republicans who thought helping veterans was a good idea just 3 weeks ago all of a sudden abandoned the cause.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source