Fire Grants and Safety Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, when I took the gavel as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, one of my first goals and objectives was to restore the committee's oversight role.
Since the beginning of the 117th Congress, we have kept a close watch on those Agencies in the executive branch which are within our jurisdiction. We have held oversight hearings on the Justice Department, the FBI, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, to mention a few. This last Tuesday, we continued that tradition with a second oversight hearing on the Department of Homeland Security.
It is worth noting that, under the previous administration, the previous President, the Homeland Security Secretary only appeared before our committee one time in 4 years. So we were glad to welcome Secretary Mayorkas back to the hearing room and learn about the work that he is undertaking to keep America safe.
As I mentioned on Tuesday, I think Secretary Mayorkas has one of the hardest jobs in Washington. The Department of Homeland Security is responsible for defending our Nation from a wide range of threats from domestic terrorism, narcotics trafficking, the climate crisis, and even cyber attacks. But, despite this broad mandate, our discussion kept returning to one subject last Tuesday: America's broken immigration system.
It was interesting to hear the Republican Senators on my committee being critical of the job that Mr. Mayorkas is doing as head of the DHS while, at the same time, it has been over 30 years since this body, the U.S. Senate, has enacted legislation to upgrade and modernize our immigration system--30 years. Trust me. The world has changed dramatically in that period, but the Senate has refused to keep pace.
It is easy to criticize Secretary Mayorkas about our border situation, and he faces some amazing challenges. But let's face it. We share in the responsibility for this situation, and we certainly share in the burden of coming up with solutions that help.
For years, I have tried my best to pass appropriations reform. There was a bipartisan moment 10 years ago when the so-called Gang of Eight Senators--four Democrats, four Republicans, and I was included in that group--sat down and wrote a comprehensive immigration reform package. I think it was pretty good. In fact, it was so good that it passed on the floor of the U.S. Senate with over 60 votes in favor of it.
We had our fingers crossed and sent it across the Rotunda over to the Republican-controlled House, and, for 2 years, they refused to even consider it, even call it for a debate, or even offer their own amendments. They did nothing--nothing--and we are paying the price for that today.
So here is the question after this week's hearing: Are we going to keep pointing our fingers and mugging for the cameras or are we going to come together to fix our immigration system?
I am ready. I certainly hope the Members of the House are ready. But we need a bipartisan consensus to get that done.
Restoring America's Health Care Workforce and Readiness Act
On another topic, Mr. President, it is a problem I am going to discuss that affects roughly 100 million Americans. In the wealthiest Nation in the world, nearly one in three people in this Nation lives in an area with too few doctors.
You know the story in your home State of Georgia. I know it in Illinois. I have seen it. Whenever I visit a clinic or a hospital outside of Chicago, I hear the same thing: Our healthcare system is understaffed, underfunded, and underequipped to address the health needs of American families.
The greatest healthcare system in the world is suffering from serious shortages and deficiencies. The pandemic brought this to light. It may not have broken us, but it showed us where our health system is broken.
Over the past 3 years, our doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers have been pushed to the brink, and, as a result, nearly one out of every five healthcare workers has quit their jobs. Think about that: 20 percent quit their jobs.
These departures have taken a massive toll in the healthcare of America. In the years ahead, as our population ages, our needs grow, and more providers leave the profession. Those challenges will get worse unless we in Congress do something.
In the next decade, America is expected to face a shortage of more than 120,000 doctors. By 2025, we may face a deficit of nearly a half a million nurses. And that is on top of our current shortage of about 100,000 dentists that we need now and hundreds of thousands of mental healthcare professionals.
This is a ticking timebomb for every community in America, especially rural communities and communities of color that already have less access to affordable care.
So here in Congress, we need to prevent these shortages from becoming a crisis. Earlier this month, Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, and I joined in introducing the Restoring America's Health Care Workforce and Readiness Act. It is a bipartisan measure to address the healthcare work shortage in America. Over the next 3 years, our bill would provide hundreds of millions of dollars to the National Health Service Corps Scholarship and Loan Repayment Program, more than doubling the current funding level.
This program is vital to pay for the education and training and recruitment of the next generation of doctors, nurses, dentists, and behavioral health specialists.
Why is this program, in particular, so important? Let me tell you, one of the biggest drivers of the American healthcare shortage is the cost of medical education. Doctors graduating from medical school with $200,000 or $300,000 in student loan debt or more can hardly consider taking posts in rural and underserved areas. They have got to pay off those loans. So because of those debts, they may not be able to do what they want to do--give care and professional treatment to some of the most needy people in America. We take our best and brightest, we educate them so well, but we heap debt on them unimaginable that makes a real difference in their career choices.
So with the National Health Service Corps and Nurse Corps, aspiring health professionals have another option. If they will serve in areas of need, we will forgive student loans--in fact, in some cases, providing scholarships for those who are in medical training.
The National Health Service Corps was created 50 years ago. More recently, we have seen the difference it can make. In the American Rescue Plan that Congress passed in 2021, I included a one-time, $1 billion funding increase for scholarships and loan repayments for the National Health Service Corps. It was the largest single-year appropriation for our healthcare force in history. At this very moment, that funding is supporting thousands--thousands--of doctors, nurses, dentists, and other professionals across America. Today, 21 million Americans receive healthcare from the National Health Service Corps personnel.
I recently received a letter from one of those who provide that kind of healthcare. Her name is Shannon. She is a licensed clinical social worker in Illinois. She is a first-generation college student from a working-class family. She tells me her life-long dream was to have a professional career in social work, but her ambitions were limited because of the cost of graduate school. She just couldn't imagine taking on that debt.
Then, in July of 2022, she found a path forward. She was accepted into the program I described. In Shannon's words, ``being accepted into this program has changed my life. . . . [It] has given me a chance at financial freedom . . . [and] professionally, this program allowed me to grow into my career.
Today, Shannon is working as a behavioral healthcare provider in Carbondale, IL, in wonderful Jackson County.
In Shannon's words, this role allows her to ``come into contact . . . with those in rural southern Illinois who are in great need of behavioral health services, such as counseling.''
It is hard to imagine a better investment in America's future than programs like the National Health Service Corps and Nurse Corps. In Shannon's case, this program enabled her to pursue her life-long passion. The community is winning. Shannon is winning. It is a win-win situation.
We need to make more stories like Shannon's possible, and we have a chance to do it with the bipartisan bill that Senator Rubio and I have.
If you go home to your State as a U.S. Senator, and you visit and ask local healthcare providers, they are going to tell you the same thing from one corner of America to the other corner: We are in desperate need of medical professionals to care for people who are underserved now.
What are we going to do about it? What is the Senate going to do about it? What will our generation do about it? Can we put together the resources now to meet these shortages and needs in the healthcare workforce? That is the challenge that we face.
The National Health Service Corps is up for reauthorization this fall. I will be working with the HELP chair, Bernie Sanders, and Ranking Member Bill Cassidy to pass our legislation. SIREN Act
Mr. President, there is one last point I would like to make. It was several years ago that I was visited by a couple of emergency medical service personnel from Illinois, Mark and Mavis Kennedy. They are EMTs in Nauvoo, IL, a storied and historic town on the western part of downstate Illinois. They told us about trying to provide ambulance and emergency health services in a rural county, in this case Hancock County, where Nauvoo is located.
They talked about the expense of upgrading the equipment in their ambulances so that they can make sure that the person that they were trying to help gets all the necessary medical care on their way to the hospital. They dreamed up an idea. I want to credit the Kennedys of Nauvoo, as well as Andrew Jackson, the fire chief in Magnolia, and many others who said: Why don't we have a grant program specifically for our equipment in these ambulances and for the training of emergency medical personnel?
At the time, we were debating the farm bill. I think it was about 4 or 5 years ago. I went to the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Senator Pat Roberts of rural Kansas, and said to him: Pat, I think we have got an idea here that is going to help communities not only in our States but across the Nation. He generously agreed to serve as my cosponsor on a bill that we called SIREN Act.
The SIREN Act said to these ambulance services and emergency medical responders: You can apply for assistance and help to the Federal Government, and we will try to help you buy the new equipment you need to make sure that your ambulance is right where it needs to be.
You have to understand, if you don't live in a rural area, that some of these ambulance services are really the difference between life and death. They are the first responders. In fact, they are the only responders. They come to scenes across smalltown America and provide the kind of medical services to keep people alive for those precious minutes on their way to a hospital. So the idea of giving them the best and most modern equipment makes all the difference in the world.
Well, thanks to Senator Roberts, who has since retired from the State of Kansas, we included the SIREN Act in the farm bill several years ago.
I have talked to Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, who is now the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, and told her that I hope we can reauthorize this program in the next farm bill. She supports it. I am going to talk to the Republicans on the committee as well. I hope that we can do that.
What we have done has been able to make grants available: First, $5 million in fiscal year 2020, $10\1/2\ million in 2023, and we hope to go higher in the years to come.
Does it make any difference?
Just a few minutes ago, Mark and Mavis Kennedy of Nauvoo, IL, were in my office. They were in uniform, and they are very proud of the work that they do in Hancock County. Because of the assistance that we provided to them on one of their applications, they have been able to extend their emergency medical services to virtually all the towns in Hancock County. What it means for their ambulance service is, instead of 140 calls a year, they are now receiving 361--virtually a call every single day for services--and they have the equipment and the personnel well trained by the same SIREN Act to respond and save lives as they are transporting people who live in that county to nearby hospitals.
If it is someone you love in your family who is in desperate medical need, if it is your child or your grandchild or your parents, and you have that one phone call to make, you want that ambulance there as quickly as possible and the people on board as well trained as possible. The SIREN Act does that.
It is small by Federal standards. I hope it will increase in the years ahead. But it just proves that, when people are willing to sacrifice and volunteer to help in local communities and we stand by them and give them a helping hand, it is the difference between life and death.
I hope all of my colleagues will join us in this effort to reauthorize the SIREN Act as part of our commitment to increase healthcare personnel and their qualifications across the United States.
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