Senate Proceeding on Apr 21st, 2008 :: 0:00:00 to 0:20:00
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Rear Adm. Barry Black: ~ the chaplain: let us pray. o god our father, help us to have the right attitude. keep us from pride that makes us think more highly of ourselves than we should. save us from false plod city

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Speech By: Rear Adm. Barry Black

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Rear Adm. Barry Black: that would sometimes -- false plod city that would sometimes move us in the direction of evading responsibility. instead help us to think of ourselves, to think of others and to think of you as we

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Rear Adm. Barry Black: ought. inspire the members of this body. let them not be content to wait and see what will happen, but give them the determination to make the right things happen. give them the humility to know

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Rear Adm. Barry Black: that no one has a monopoly on your truth and that they need each other to discover your guidance together. we pray in the name of the light of the world. amen. the presiding officer: please join

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Rear Adm. Barry Black: me in reciting the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty

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Harry Reid: and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington, d.c, april 21, 2008. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph

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Speech By: Harry Reid

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Harry Reid: 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable jim webb, a senator from the commonwealth of virginia, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: robert c. byrd, president -- press

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Harry Reid: pro tempore. mr. reid: following morning business there will be morning business. tomorrow at 12:00 noon, there will be a vote to proceed to s. 1315. tomorrow in addition to the usual recess for

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Harry Reid: the caucus luncheons from 12:30 to 2:15, the senate will recess from 3:30 to 4:30 for the unveiling of the majority leader's daschle's portrait. this is very traditional, we have done this for each majority

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Harry Reid: leader, mr. president. and that will be from 3:30 to 4:30 tomorrow afternoon. i want to invite all of those senators who want to attend to make themselves available. dr. debakey gold medal ceremony in

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Harry Reid: the rotunda. also on the same day, admiral mullin will brief us from 4:00 to 5:30. we'll be in recess from 4:00 to 5:00 on wednesday. a briefing in room 407. so, again, tomorrow afternoon we're going

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Harry Reid: to invoke -- hopefully invoke cloture on the motion -- motion to invoke cloture on the veterans benefit matter, and we will also have the unveiling of senator daschle's portrait from 3:30 to 4:30

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Harry Reid: we'll be in recess. on wednesday we'll be in recess from 11:00 to 12:00 for the michael debakey medal ceremony and we'll be in recess 4:00 to 5:00 on wednesday that. will allow the staff of the various

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Harry Reid: offices to follow what we're doing. mr. president, i just maybe an hour ago, my wonderful assistant, janice shelton said, i've got bad news. i said, what is it? carole bradbird worked for me many

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Harry Reid: years. wonderful woman. she loved to have parties at her home for the staff. she came from nevada. she was a legal secretary to my friend who then was an attorney and later became a justice on the

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Harry Reid: nevada supreme court for many years. 18 years. he came back, her husband was a labor leader, moved back here from nevada. he died within 18 months, he was dead. young man, just dropped dead. so

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Harry Reid: carole kept their home in centerville, a long drive back and forth for a long, long time working for me. such a hard worker. so happy. but many years after her husband died and her daughter returned

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Harry Reid: to nevada, she had raised the girl here, she found a retired colonel and they were married, moved to florida, and she had wonderful -- i don't know how many years it has been, maybe eight years, time

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Harry Reid: goes fast. i don't know how long it's been. janice said to me, i was going to tell you that she had -- last week that she had breast cancer and that you should give her a call. she said she died yesterday.

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Harry Reid: i feel real -- real bad about that. she was such a good woman. had worked so hard and found happiness. she's not an old woman. i don't know how old carole is, 58, 59. i don't really know how old she

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Harry Reid: is. mr. president, every year hundreds -- hundreds of thousands of women, just like carole, are diagnosed with breast cancer. breast cancer will strike approximately one in eight american women and

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Harry Reid: a new case is diagnosed every two minutes. we made progress in breast cancer diagnoses and treatment, but we still don't know the cause. we do not know the cause. now, i don't really know if carole died

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Harry Reid: from lung cancer or breast cancer, but i want to direct my attention to breast cancer. science has identified some risk factors, but those factors help explain fewer than 30% of the cases. breast cancer

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Harry Reid: and the environmental research act that i started here with lincoln chafee, former senator from rhode island to establish a strategy to study the links between breast cancer and the environment and

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Harry Reid: would authorize funding for research. many, many people believe, mr. president, that these cases of breast cancer have something to do with the changing environment, resulting discoveries of this

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Harry Reid: research could be critical to improving the knowledge of the complex illness that could lead to better prevention, treatment, and maybe even one day a cure. although we first introduced this legislation

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Harry Reid: in 2000, despite strong bipartisan, congress has yet to act and send this bill to president bush. the last session of congress, the bill was reported out of the health, education, labor committee

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Harry Reid: but one of my colleagues prevented final passage. in this session we worked in good faith to address concerns that may have been raised about this legislation. as a result, this legislation, the breast

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Harry Reid: cancer environmental resingle parent act was once again reported out of the help committee and cosponsored by two-thirds of the senators, democrats and republicans. it's a long time passed for the senate

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Harry Reid: to take up this strongly support bipartisan legislation. to many women an their families, -- and their families, they've waited so long. i'm in agreement with them, they've waited far too long. there

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Harry Reid: are many examples that i could give. i talked about carole who died of cancer yesterday. in january of 2007, nevada lost a life-long resident and somebody who worked so hard on this issue will her

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Harry Reid: name was dianna wright sequencen, she was a -- -- jensen. she taught something in the environment was causing this illness. i don't know if she is right. but we should find out. many people agree with

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Harry Reid: her. scientists agree with her. even after enduring a regimen of chemotherapy, we continued to e-mail me and my staff about passing this legislation, passing the research act is a real opportunity

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Harry Reid: for congress to step up for women and breast cancer, but for her now it's too laivment but she didn't want others to have a -- late. but she didn't want others to have a similar fate. one person, one

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Harry Reid: senator is holding up this legislation, mr. president. that's why i'm asking unanimous consent, and i'm not going to do it now. we don't have a republican on the floor. i told staff i'm going to

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Harry Reid: come back here 3:30 or thereafter, and the republicans have had adequate notice, i can't have the entire senate schedule make it convenient for one senator who is objecting, causing this problem

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Harry Reid: for all of the senate. it's time to offer more than words of encouragement to those affected by breast cancer, our wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, friends, have waited far too long. ly come back, maybe

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Harry Reid: 3 -- i will come back, 3:30, 3:00 p.m. 45rbgs but i will ask consent to take this bill up. republicans will have to object to it if they're going to follow the lead of one person holding up this legislation.

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Harry Reid: why, mr. president? why can't we take up this bill? why would the minority go along with this? that's my concern. in a similar vain, mr. president, nine months ago, august of last year, the senate

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Harry Reid: veterans' affairs committee reported the veterans benefit enhancement act on the senate floor. today there is about 150,000 young americans serving, sacrificing and suffering in iraq. this legislation, which

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Harry Reid: is on the senate floor today, trying to get it so we can debate this bill, would provide much-needed and long due -- long overdue benefits for veterans young and old. this legislation that we had

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to file cloture on, mr. president, here it is, republican filibuster, 66, and still counting. going up it seems a couple of times a week. we've had to -- it's hard to comprehend this, but we had to file

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cloture on allowing the senate to proceed to debate an issue of this importance. we should have gone to it thursday night. no, we had to file cloture on it, we're going to go to it tomorrow. and

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then, mr. president, if we get cloture, they'll make us use the 30 hours, waste the 30 hours. just eat up time. this bill has 38 provisions, eight titles, all extremely important. expands eligibility

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for traumatic injury insurance, extends ability for adapted housing benefits to veterans who have been burned severely, those i.e.d.'s cause inpersonos an people are -- infernos and people are burned

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often. pursues benefits for veterans for apprenticeshipships and restores fillo preeno stat us to those who served in rld war ii. as i mentioned last friday, all one needs to do is watch the tom

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hanks world war ii series, and there you can see what the filipinos did for us in fighting side side by side the japanese during world war ii. and we want them to have the benefit that they are -- that

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Harry Reid: are so long overdue. we have had to file cloture and break filibusters 66 times, mr. president. a prior record was 57 or 58 in a single congress that. is two years. they broke that before christmas last

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Harry Reid: year. they did it in far less than a year. they broke the two-year record. america's commitment to the men and women who served in uniform must never waver, at a time when one in five women returning

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Harry Reid: from iraq have psychological problems, post-traumatic stress disorder, this legislation should have come to senate floor with no delay at a time when tens of thousands of our troops are returning from

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Harry Reid: war with wounds, many of them grievous, this legislation should have passed overwhelmingly, if not unanimously. mr. president, on many, many days there is a tour guide here in the capitol that when

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Harry Reid: he spots in one of the tours, a veteran, he talks to them and he has a little thing that we sign and many times he brings them by my office, and i have seen walter reed in my office, what this war

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Harry Reid: has done to our troops'~ i've had a chance to visit with these young men and women and after they've been to war and come back and are out at walter reed, sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently,

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Harry Reid: they're still teenagers. i've seen their scars. i've heard how their lives have been changed. i asked them. i talked to them in detail: "how'd you get hurt?" the last one that was in, i said, how long

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Harry Reid: were in the vehicle? he said, 20 seconds. went from a house, jumped in the vehicle, it blew up almost immediately. and he's hurt, lost his leg above his knee. scars that you could see. pulled up his

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Harry Reid: -- the one where he has a whole leg and showed me the scars on that. he said it cause him more trouble than the one that's missing. no matter what position we take on the war in iraq, we should all agree

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Harry Reid: providing for these veterans and those who wore the uniform before them, that's among a solemn responsibility that we have. this act that is on the floor now trying -- trying to get on the floor is

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Harry Reid: -- helps fulfill that responsibility that we have as senators. mr. president, every senator has a right to oppose this legislation or try to change it. and my time -- in my time as majority leader,

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Harry Reid: i've tried to work with the republican leader to reach consensus on legislation to which members of the minority have objections. i've made repeated efforts to do so on the veterans benefit enhancement

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Harry Reid: act. i've told my republican counterpart, if the republican side of the aisle doesn't like parts of this bill, let us legislate and take parts of it out. unfortunately, the republican leader has not

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Harry Reid: responded positively to my offer. as a result, i was forced thursday night to file cloture on a motion to proceed simple some we could finally start debating this legislation. with i would have preferred

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Harry Reid: not to have had to file cloture. i wish we could just move forward on it as we have wanted to do 65 other times. but when legislation that would honor and care for our veterans languishes for nine months

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Harry Reid: because republicans are unwilling to work with us or just simple legislate, i have no other choice. as dedicated government watchers and c-span watchers, they know this is far from the first time the

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Harry Reid: republican minority has rejected our good-faith efforts on reaching compromise. time and time again they've chosen object construction over negotiation. it seems to me, mr. president, that what the republicans

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Harry Reid: want is a graveyard of no progress. well, we're going to it to ton fight. we're going to do everything we can to get in legislation passed. we believe there should be progress. filing cloture, as

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Harry Reid: we've had to do, is going to help us get progress. it's going to be slow but we're going to continue doing it. it seems at times like to that our republican friends would rather we accomplished

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Harry Reid: nothing. maybe they see political advantage in slow-walking. but the american people are left to suffer from their actions. some may not like provisions in the veterans benefits enhancement act.

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Harry Reid: let them move to change it. some say, well, if it weren't for the filipino veterans, we would move -- allow to you move to this. filipino veterans, they fought alongside united states troops during world

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Harry Reid: war ii. the valor of these filipino troops i don't think is -- shoulde questioned. these troops may have been born on foreign soil but they served shoulder to shoulder under one flag. it was our flag,

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Harry Reid: the american flag. it's our moral obligation to recognize the reward that they're due. it's long past time that we do so. it's time for our republican colleagues to choose: will they stand in lock step

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Harry Reid: with an obstinate few intent on dragging their heels on the care and support of our veterans? i hope not. we need just nine republicans to join with us. there, mr. president, there are 51 of us. we need

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Harry Reid: nine of ghoaz tote go 60. i would -- those to get to 60. i would hope there are surely at least nine republicans willing to stand on the side of our veterans, our troops. nine months is long enough

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Harry Reid: to wait. tomorrow our republicans will have a chance to join democrats to pass the veterans benefits enhancement act. i extend my hand once again to the republican leader and all the colleagues in the

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Harry Reid: minority f. thee choose to end their obstruction, we could get on the legislation today. we can deliver an important victory to the men and women who have served us and who will serve us today with

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Harry Reid: courage, valor and distinction. mr. president, i neat there are some of my republican friends on the -- note that there are some of my republican friends on the s floor so i'm going to ask consent