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Inflation
Mr. THUNE. Madam President, yesterday morning, June inflation numbers were released. And, as usual with this administration, the news was not good.
Inflation rose once again in June to 9.1 percent--the highest inflation since November of 1981. November of 1981. I was in college the last time inflation was this bad.
Americans are suffering. Everywhere Americans turn, they are being asked to pay more--more for cleaning supplies, more for gas, more for health insurance, more for groceries.
A new analysis yesterday from the Joint Economic Committee found that inflation will cost the average American household a staggering $718 a month over the next year--$718 per month. That will happen even if prices stop going up tomorrow--$718 per month, more than $8,600 for the year. No working family can afford that.
A major reason that we are in this crisis is because of Democrats' decision to flood the economy with unnecessary government money with their so-called American Rescue Plan Act. And, unfortunately, there is no easy solution to the crisis they helped create. But the first thing--the first thing--should be to do no more harm.
Incredibly, however, Democrats are currently attempting to double down on the strategy that helped create this crisis in the first place by passing a version of the Build Back Better tax-and-spending spree they tried to force through last year.
Apparently, Democrats think more government spending--like the government spending that helped get us into this mess--plus new taxes are a good solution for an inflation crisis and an economy teetering on the brink of recession.
Madam President, if Democrats want to help our country get out of this inflation crisis, more unnecessary government spending and new taxes are the exact wrong way to go about it. In fact, the biggest thing the Democrats can do to avoid making this crisis worse is by flooding the economy with more unnecessary government money.
After that, the biggest thing Democrats and the administration in particular can do to help alleviate this crisis is to unleash American energy production. I don't need to tell anyone that energy prices have been a major contributor to our inflation crisis. Gas prices are up nearly 60 percent--60 percent. The current cost of a gallon of regular gas is $4.60--almost double what it was when President Biden took office just 18 months ago--and the price of diesel is even worse, which is a big concern for farmers and ranchers back home in South Dakota and around the country, not to mention all of our truckers. Electricity--
that is up 13 percent. Utility gas service is up 38 percent. Americans everywhere are feeling the pinch.
Of course, high gas prices and utility prices don't just cause direct pain at the pump; they also contribute to higher prices across the economy, which means that lowering energy prices is one of the most important things we can do to help ease high prices on a variety of goods. The way to lower energy prices is to unleash American energy production, including and especially conventional energy production. Unfortunately, the President has shown and continues to show a clear hostility to conventional energy production despite the fact that our economy cannot function without conventional energy.
Now, I am a longtime supporter of alternative energy, from wind to biofuels, and I come from a State that derives a substantial portion of its electricity generation from wind. In fact, in 2021, over 50 percent of our State's power generation came from wind and 30 percent came from hydroelectric power on the Missouri River. But if it weren't for traditional fossil fuels backing up that generation, we would be left in the dark.
The fact is, no matter how much Democrats might wish it were otherwise, alternative energy technology has simply not advanced to the point where our country can rely exclusively on alternative energy. That means that, unless we want Americans to be permanently buried under the pain of high gas prices, we need to invest in responsible production of oil and natural gas.
We have tremendous natural resources here at home, and the ability to extract those resources is a far more environmentally responsible way than frequently happens in other countries. But unleashing American production is going to require action from the President, who, despite the current energy price crisis, continues to display hostility to domestic production. He touts the number of leases oil and gas companies have available, but he fails to mention that just 3 months ago his administration made it harder for oil and gas companies to actually make use of the leases in question by increasing the regulatory burden for environmental reviews. On top of this, thousands of drilling permits, which are required to actually begin drilling on oil and gas leases, are currently stuck in the approval process at the Department of the Interior.
At the beginning of this month, the administration released a new offshore drilling plan which includes an option to offer, at most, a paltry 11 new leases over the next 5 years. It also leaves the door open for zero new leases--zero. If this proposed 5-year plan doesn't make it clear that the President isn't interested in increasing our domestic energy production, I don't know what does.
Madam President, I could go on. I could mention the administration's proposed SEC climate-disclosure rules that are designed to discourage investment in conventional energy or the President's quest to increase taxes on domestic oil and gas production or Democrats' efforts to impose a new fee--or tax--on methane that could cost consumers an additional $35 billion to $69 billion annually, but I will leave it there.
Madam President, I hope--I really hope--that the President and his administration will take a good, hard look at their hostility to conventional energy production. Inflation is at 9.1 percent--9.1 percent. American families are paying nearly twice what they were paying in gas prices just 18 months ago, and utility gas prices have increased sharply.
Unless Democrats want Americans to be facing staggering prices at the pump and on store shelves for the long term, the administration needs to start encouraging domestic production of conventional energy. That means not just approving leases but making it easier for oil and gas companies to actually develop those leases and produce oil and natural gas. It means encouraging, not discouraging, investment in responsible conventional production and infrastructure like natural gas pipelines. It means giving up attempts to discourage domestic energy production with new and higher taxes or burdensome ESG regulations.
American families are struggling, Madam President. The President can actually do something to help them, and I sincerely hope that he will.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Minnesota.
Unanimous Consent Request--S. 4504
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I rise today in support of the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act--something that Senator Cortez Masto, our colleague from Nevada, is leading.
I do want to take a moment, however, to note that there are many things we need to do to reduce costs. I appreciated the words of my colleague from the neighboring State of South Dakota, and I think he is well aware that pharmaceutical prices are No. 1 on the minds of people in many of our States. I ask Republicans to join us in pushing Medicare to finally negotiate lifting the ban so we can negotiate less expensive drugs under Medicare Part D--something that every Democrat is committed to in our caucus and we hope to get done in the next month.
I also note that the President recently came out for E15--something Senator Thune and I have worked together on for years, and that is now in place as one competitive fuel that should help--not alleviate everything but be a major help--and the release of the oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and so many other areas where we are working together.
I don't think anyone thought we could emerge from a 2-year pandemic and everything was going to be the same. Obviously, there is work left together for the country to bring down costs, and that is on all of our minds.
Madam President, also on our minds is what has recently happened with the Supreme Court and the decision in the Dobbs case. Twenty days ago--
only 20 days ago, and you can see everything that has happened since that time--the Supreme Court issued a ruling shredding nearly five decades of precedent protecting a woman's right to make her own healthcare decisions. Now women are at the mercy of a patchwork of State laws governing their ability to access reproductive care, leaving them with fewer rights than their moms and their grandmas.
In just 20 days, over 20 States have laws in place that could be used to restrict access to abortion. Twenty-five States in total are expected to ban abortion in the days and the weeks ahead. But, colleagues, I am afraid the worst is yet to come.
Legislation was introduced in Missouri to allow private citizens to act as vigilantes and sue people who help women cross State lines for reproductive care--vigilantes, just like we saw in Texas. In Texas, legislators are working on a bill to criminalize businesses that provide resources simply to help their workers obtain abortion services in other States.
These proposals don't just hurt those in need of care; they are also creating an uncertain environment for doctors and straining resources at clinics in States like Minnesota where reproductive rights are protected, two major States in the Midwest--that is it--Illinois and Minnesota.
I spoke on the phone with the head of the Red River Women's Clinic out of Fargo, ND, who had to resort to a GoFundMe page to get the money she needs to move her clinic across the river to Minnesota to a safe place.
Planned Parenthood in Moorhead, MN--I met with them only a week ago about the services and the work they are doing right now.
In Montana, clinics have already begun requiring proof of residency from women seeking abortion pills because they are afraid they might be pursued by out-of-State prosecutors.
Of course, we should never settle for a situation where women in Minnesota have different rights than women in Missouri or where women in Illinois have different rights than women in Texas, but with so many extreme Republicans racing to State capitals to be the first to take away women's rights, it is clear we must explicitly protect the right to travel to other States to access reproductive care. We don't have to imagine why this might matter. We don't need to conjure up hypotheticals. We already know what has happened.
Think about the heartbreaking, enraging story about the 10-year-old girl in Ohio who had to go to Indiana to get an abortion after she was impregnated by her rapist. When that story came out last week, some people doubted it. Now, in clear print in the criminal complaint out of the State of Ohio, we saw yesterday that, yes, this happened. This man raped a 10-year-old girl, and she got pregnant, and then she couldn't even get the care she needed--at age 10--to get an abortion. She had to go across State lines to the State of Indiana just to get her care.
Should the next little 10-year-old's right or 12-year-old's right or 14-year-old's right to get the care that she desperately needs be put in jeopardy? What about her mom? What about her doctor? Where will this end?
That is why we must not just codify Roe v. Wade into law with the bill that we voted on just last month, but we must also pass the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act by unanimous consent right now. That is a bill that our great colleague Senator Cortez Masto is leading.
Our bill protects women and girls from being punished for traveling to another State to access abortion services. It also ensures doctors won't be punished for providing reproductive care outside their home States. As clinics across the country struggle to navigate this post-
Roe nightmare landscape, they should not have to add to their list of worries whether they will be criminally prosecuted for serving patients in a nearby State. This is an issue, as I noted, that hits close to home because of Minnesota being in the neighborhood that includes the States of North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Wisconsin, all of which have various issues with reproductive healthcare.
The freedom to travel cannot be an empty promise. That is why the bill gives the Department of Justice, as well as women and doctors, the power to sue people who infringe on the right to travel for healthcare. Women in States with abortion bans already face enough obstacles to care. We can't wait to see what anti-choice State legislators criminalize next. We have to act now.
All of this comes down to one question: Who should get to make the personal decisions for a woman or for a 10-year-old girl? Should it be her family? Should it be a woman herself? Or should it be politicians, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who supported these Justices, put them in place in the Supreme Court, and got us to where we are right now? I think the answer is clear.
Today, each and every one of my colleagues has the opportunity to show where they stand. Will we come together to protect this essential right to seek healthcare across State lines for the sake of the women and, yes, the young girls across this country? I hope we do.
I thank Senator Cortez Masto for her leadership.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I thank the senior Senator from Minnesota for her remarks and for what brings us to the floor today.
This is the first time in American history that a fundamental constitutional right has been stripped away from the American people--
and especially American women--by the Supreme Court of the United States.
In Dobbs, the U.S. Supreme Court demolished 50 years of precedent--
half a century of Democratic- and Republican-appointed Justices upholding a constitutional right to privacy that has now been obliterated by the U.S. Supreme Court, a fundamental right that has been upheld over and over again by Justices appointed, as I said, by Presidents of both sides of the aisle.
Madam President, if you had said to me when I was in law school in the early nineties that this day would ever come, that the U.S. Supreme Court, using a radical--a radical--method of constitutional interpretation called originalism that was invented basically when I was in law school--if you had told me that there would be a President of the United States who would appoint a majority of the Supreme Court with that radical interpretation, I would never have believed it. I would never have believed it. And that is what happened because of the Justices Donald Trump put on the Supreme Court.
I want people to hear me who are Republicans in this country and this Chamber. Look it up. I know it is called originalism, but it started in the 1980s and started in the 1990s. It is not the way our Constitution has been interpreted all these years.
This is radical. It is not conservative. In no sense is this a conservative decision. And it has happened, and now Americans no longer have a constitutional right to privacy to make their own health and reproductive choices.
I can tell you, I read every one of these opinions. In Justice Alito's opinion for the majority, he never even had the courage to grapple with the nature of this fundamental right, what stripping it away would mean for millions of Americans and especially millions of American women, like my three daughters. Instead, what he said was--
what he wrote was: If it wasn't a right in 1868, it is not a right today. That was the depth of his analysis--an opinion dripping with hostility and a cavalier attitude toward what he was stripping away from the American people.
I know. I live in a State where there are people who hold very sincere beliefs on both sides of this question. This is a question that is hard for many Americans. That is why I have always believed the right place for this decision to be made is by a woman with her doctor, not by the State, not by a State saying that you have to carry your pregnancy to term without any regard for the individual circumstances that you might face. Instead, as a result of this Court's decision, State laws to ban abortion that are literally from the 1800s are coming back into being. Politicians are writing new State laws to force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term, as I said, without exception. Think about that. Even for women and children who have been raped, like that 10-year-old girl in Ohio who had to travel to Indiana for an abortion--
she is living in a State where they are talking about passing a personhood bill.
Soldiers serving--and I have heard in my own State from women who have served in the Armed Forces who are worried about women who are serving in the Armed Forces today on U.S. military bases in States like Mississippi that have banned abortion. What is supposed to happen to them? What has happened to their right to privacy? Even if we paid for them to travel, everybody is going to know what is going on.
Pregnant women could easily find themselves in America today in an emergency room with life-threatening complications--it happens literally every single day, every day--with doctors unable to help because somebody has to go and consult a lawyer. Doctors are afraid to prescribe medications for their patients or even have a conversation about their reproductive health for fear of prosecution.
All over the country, there are elected leaders--so-called leaders--
politicians who are putting themselves between a woman and her right to choose.
Nothing I am saying here is fantastic. Everything I am saying here is being talked about, contemplated, legislated in America today all across this country as a result of what the Supreme Court has done.
A woman with cancer could learn she is pregnant--it happens every day, every day--and learn she can't get the treatment she needs for her cancer.
This is literally crazy--it is literally crazy--but, as you have heard on the floor today, this isn't even crazy enough for some of these elected politicians around the country. Now they are threatening to use the law to prevent women, American citizens, from exercising their right to travel across State lines to access reproductive healthcare in the United States of America. It wasn't enough to strip women of this fundamental right and have the State force them to bring a pregnancy to term. That is not enough. Now they want to use the law to prevent her from traveling from one State to another in the United States of America.
I see the pages sitting here today who are the age of my daughter--
one of them--who is 17 years old. I can't believe this is what we are handing over to the next generation of Americans. I can't believe it. I cannot believe it. This is despicable, especially coming from the same people who can never stop telling us how devoted they are to freedom and liberty. What a lie that is. What a lie that is.
I am coming to the end. I know that my colleague from Oregon is next. But I just want to say one last thing. I am so grateful to live in a State like Colorado, a western purple State, where we have already codified a woman's right to an abortion, a woman's right to choose. We understand and we have always as a State understood that protecting a woman's personal liberty to make these decisions is fundamental to her freedom to participate in our society.
If people from other States need to come to Colorado to access the care they need, Congress has the obligation to shield them from prosecution. We need to make sure that healthcare providers, no matter where they are--Colorado and other States--are safe from prosecution, to say nothing of the women themselves, to say nothing of teenage girls themselves.
I can't believe we are even having this conversation on the floor of the U.S. Senate. I can't believe it. But that is the America we live in now because of this Supreme Court, because of this radical ideology they have perpetrated.
That is why I strongly, strongly support this bill from my colleague from Nevada, Catherine Cortez Masto. On behalf of my three daughters, I want to thank her for her invaluable leadership on this issue.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Murphy). The Senator the Oregon.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, many colleagues want to speak, and I am going to be brief.
The name of Senator Cortez Masto's bill sums up what this is really all about. The Senator has proposed--and she is a former attorney general, a very skilled lawyer--she has proposed legislation, the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act. I just want us to take a second to think about the name of my colleague from Nevada's legislation.
I would submit to the Senate that you know something has gone horribly wrong in America when the Senate is forced to consider a proposal entitled the ``Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act.'' Colleagues, just look at those words, the ``freedom to travel for health care.'' My colleague has introduced a bill that is as basic as it gets--freedom.
The fact is, six Republicans on the Supreme Court have ripped that freedom out by the roots. Now State governments are moving toward criminalizing travel for healthcare. They are even moving towards criminalizing helping--helping--people travel for healthcare. That is unthinkable, in my view, except millions and millions of Americans are, in fact, thinking about it and being terrified every single day.
In my home State of Oregon, we are fortunate to live in a State that protects women's health and women's basic freedoms. My home State is going to be there for people to get the healthcare they need, including an abortion.
But the fight cannot be left up to the States. That is why I am so pleased to stand with my colleague from Nevada, Senator Cortez Masto, and my partner from the Pacific Northwest, Senator Murray, to call for the Senate to pass legislation with the name the ``Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act.'' What my colleague's legislation does is protect women and doctors, and she does it by protecting a constitutional right--the constitutional right to interstate travel.
Colleagues, even 3 weeks after the ruling that overturned Roe, it is shocking and appalling to see what has come next. We see States sprinting towards banning and criminalizing abortion outright. Are you a victim of rape or incest? No exceptions. Are you a child? You will still be forced to birth a child. Is your life in danger if you carry a pregnancy to term? You better get your affairs in order. That is the world millions and millions of American women are living in now that the Republicans on the Supreme Court have ripped away Roe v. Wade. More women's lives are in danger. More American freedoms are disappearing.
The legislation proposed by my colleague from Nevada is as basic as it gets. The Senate needs to act now, and it needs to act without any further delay.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. HICKENLOOPER. Mr. President, the Senate should absolutely support the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act.
Currently, abortion is banned in 10 States, with many more set to follow--now, not in Colorado, where we acted strongly to support access to reproductive care. Like other pro-choice States, we are seeing a large influx of patients. Yet we have heard tragic stories of women sleeping in their cars overnight outside of clinics, after traveling hundreds of miles, as they wait for appointments.
After the Texas abortion ban took effect, one woman had her water break at 19 weeks--actually, on her wedding day. She had moved up her wedding day. The doctors recommended terminating her pregnancy to protect her life, increase the possibility, the likelihood, she could have children in the future. But it wasn't allowed in Texas, so she flew to Colorado for emergency care. Her doctor had her make a plan for this travel, make a plan in case she went into labor on the flight. The plan was to sit near the bathroom.
That is what it will soon come to for women in half of America. Without this legislation, a woman could face prosecution for traveling across State lines. Let that sink in: Her choice would be possible jail or probable death.
This bill will protect every woman's right to travel to seek reproductive care--basic freedom. It would also protect doctors who would practice in States like Colorado and protect them from prosecution and lawsuits for helping out-of-State patients.
Fundamentally, as my fellow Senators have said, this is about freedom. In this new post-Roe era, women can be forced into government-
mandated pregnancies. States are stripping women of the freedom over their bodies and their future. The least we should do is protect every patient traveling to receive care that just a few weeks ago was permitted nationwide.
Threatening millions of women and doctors with jail time for seeking or providing reproductive healthcare would be a stain on this Nation. I hope we can find 60 Senators to support this bill.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am very glad to stand with Senator Cortez Masto to support this legislation and also recognize the leadership of Senator Murray on this issue as we fight to protect fundamental rights belonging to the women of America.
For nearly half a century, women relied on Roe's recognition that the Constitution protects their right to decide if and when to have children. A radical and captured Supreme Court has revoked this constitutional right, disrupting the reliance and trust of generations of women to make fundamental decisions about their own health and their own futures.
Overturning Roe is wildly unpopular, which is why extremists went to the captured Court to get a change that they could not get through the democratic process. Deep-pocketed extremist interests invested hundreds of millions of dollars over decades to build a Court where that kind of stuff could get done.
It is an outrage. Women across this country are angry. Democrats in Congress are angry, and we are fighting back in every way we can.
In addition to State abortion bans, emboldened legislatures are readying even more extreme restrictions on women, like proposals to investigate, prosecute, and sue women who travel out of State to get the care they need. You think I am kidding? Legislation to this effect has already been introduced in Missouri. The Constitution already protects the right to interstate travel, but as we have now seen, we can't rely on an increasingly extremist Supreme Court to protect our rights.
Remember, in a large number of pregnancies, abortion actually becomes medically necessary--medically necessary--for the health of the woman to bear children in the future, for the life of the woman to survive, the risk the pregnancy presents, for the risk to have other children.
So it is extremely important to make sure women can get that medical care. It is extremely important to protect their right to make this choice themselves. And it is extremely important to protect medical professionals in States like Rhode Island, my home State, from punishment for providing care to women from States where State legislatures have made abortions illegal.
I was proud to work with Senator Cortez Masto from the outset to help draft the Freedom to Travel for Healthcare Act. It will protect women's rights to cross State lines and seek medical services and protect providers in States that they are traveling to. I join my colleagues to urge swift passage of this bill. This is just one step. There is much more work to be done to stand against this continuing assault on women's constitutional rights.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, while other colleagues are joining us to speak on behalf of the Cortez Masto language, I wanted to thank the Senator from Nevada for her legislation and just emphasize how important this is to people all through the United States, including my State. It happens to be a border State, but even in Seattle, providers are worrying about a chilling effect.
I was wondering if the Senator from Nevada--while our colleagues have been talking about how this impacts individuals, people seeking healthcare in other States, what is happening now with the chilling effect to providers and their anxiety over people pursuing them for seeing patients from States in which Roe v. Wade is not fully protected?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague from Washington and the question posed because it is exactly part of the concern we have. I was home in Nevada just recently, and I am very proud Nevada is a pro-choice State.
Our providers are concerned. There is a chilling effect when they are hearing other States that are literally criminalizing--looking to pass laws to criminalize providers for providing healthcare and a woman traveling across State lines.
What I hear from my providers is we want to help women. We want them to come to our State, but if their State is going to pursue legislation or criminalize or penalize or prosecute us or a private citizen can come after us from that State, then we are having second thoughts about this because they do not want to be embroiled in some sort of litigation. That is part of this.
I think it is so important. Thank you for the question because that is exactly what their intent is.
These anti-choice States--individuals who are taking away the liberty and freedom of women are also utilizing this chilling effect, this threat, this scare tactic for providers, employers, and anyone else who wants to help women to get to States where they can seek this healthcare that they need. That is the challenge we see. That is why this law is so important because it is having an impact on our providers in these legitimate choice States like ours who want to provide this healthcare.
Ms. CANTWELL. I want to thank the Senator from Nevada. We were joined by the American Medical Association that also expressed this concern. They are speaking on behalf of the providers that want to provide reproductive choice in States that pass this law, and they are concerned. We need to get this legislation passed.
I thank the Senator from Nevada.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Cantwell for her leadership and especially Senator Cortez Masto for her legislation which I am about to address. I know that she is running to things today--was in the Banking, Housing Committee and is doing this on the floor. I am so appreciative of her time and efforts from housing to protecting women's health and protecting women's rights.
I want to comment on some of the things that she said and that Senator Cantwell said about this issue and then one specific thing that has happened in my State, which is outrageous and immoral.
The extreme decision a few weeks ago of five Justices took away women's freedom to make their own personal healthcare decisions and hand it over to politicians. We are also seeing how this put women's health at risk. Senator Cortez Masto and many others on the floor already said that.
My State is, unfortunately, worse in what has happened. Fewer than 10 hours after the Supreme Court's announcement, Ohio's 6-week abortion ban took effect. They even banned abortion in cases of rape and in cases of incest. That night, women across Ohio received calls from their doctors letting them know their appointments had been canceled. They need to travel to another State for necessary medical care. Ohio politicians are forcing Ohioans--those that can--to take extra time off work to find childcare, to spend resources that they may not have to travel to get the lifesaving care that they need.
One group at a roundtable I did--I do this job much by listening to roundtables of 10 or 15 or 20 Ohioans who talk to me about veterans' care or healthcare or, in this case, women's health or jobs or all the things that I learn and take back to Washington.
I did a roundtable recently where I was hearing from doctors that because Ohio's laws are so extreme--so extreme--that women and men--
especially women but men, too--young doctors who might do their residency at some of the best hospitals in the world, the Cleveland Clinic or University Hospital or Cincinnati Children's or Nationwide Children's--that doctors are having second thoughts about wanting to move to Ohio because these abortion laws are so radical and so immoral and so extreme.
I am also hearing that prestigious colleges or colleges of all kinds that we attract--Ohio has more small colleges and small universities, private 4-year schools, than almost any other State in the country. We have great State universities in Ohio and great community colleges. I am hearing from college Presidents that students who are considering coming to Ohio to go to school are having second thoughts, again, because of the extremism of this legislature on abortion and, as the Presiding Officer knows, the Senate's expert on this issue, the extremism on gun laws in Ohio.
One candidate was campaigning for Congress in Northwest Ohio, and he had a holster--under a new Ohio law, he had a holster with a gun in it as he was walking along the side of the street handing candy to children. It is just ludicrous.
Back to this issue that Senator Cortez Masto is leading on. Earlier this month, a 10-year-old girl--a child, a survivor of rape--was forced to travel to Indiana from Ohio to receive healthcare. She was past the 6 weeks. Republican politicians first tried to deny it. They mocked her. They mocked this--they didn't know who she was at this point. They mocked the story. They said it couldn't be true. Then the man who did it was arrested. There was no real apology from these well-known Republican politicians, Members of Congress, statewide officeholders.
They had mocked this story just saying it couldn't be true when it was true. Yet did they apologize? No. They should look into a camera--
they should stand in front of many of us and say: I am sorry. They should apologize to that little girl's family, that little girl's doctor, that little girl's support group that she has.
No 10-year-old--no American--should have to go through what she went through. Since May, 50 reports of rape or sexual abuse involving children under the age of 15 have been reported in Columbus alone. Fifty--5-0--reports of rape or sexual abuse involving children under 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10--10 years old--children who have been abused like that have been reported in Columbus alone.
I don't know. Are the rightwingers in the legislature who think abortion should have no protection--that no women should be protected, rape, incest, life and health of the mother, that they just deny any of this happened--are they going to do that again and continue to attack these families?
Now, because of the Ohio Legislature's fixation on controlling women's bodies, victims of rape in Ohio won't be able to access the care that they need.
Even in cases where it may technically be allowed, doctors will be afraid to provide it. I heard the fear in doctors' voices in that round table in Cleveland earlier this week. And I heard Senator Murray talk about this, who has joined us in the Chamber. I heard doctors talk about the fear that their colleagues have to even get near a pregnant patient who might have another healthcare issue.
Women and girls shouldn't have to travel around the country to receive care--in many cases, care that will save their health or their lives. Doctors shouldn't have to wait on lawyers to tell them if they can provide the care. Again, the fear of these doctors--these were brave women--two women and a man--who were talking to me, they were talking about the fear in others, other physicians, that they are afraid they are going to have to wait on lawyers to tell them if they can provide the care their patients need.
That is what happens when politicians insist on making medical decisions for women and for girls that doctors and the women and girls themselves in their family should be making.
Now, anti-choice politicians attacking Senator Cortez Masto's bill are trying to criminalize interstate travel. Politicians can't hold pregnant women and girls hostage. Politicians should not be able to decide who can travel where. This is America.
In my State, it is Ohio. You are allowed to travel wherever you want, whenever you want. As long as you are doing it legally, interstate travel is a constitutional right.
That is why the Senate must pass the Freedom to Travel for Healthcare Act to protect that right, to protect Ohio women and girls, to protect the healthcare professionals who serve them, all of them.
When, how, and whether to have a family is the most personal and meaningful decisions we make in life. The freedom to make those decisions for yourself free from political interference should be available to everyone--everyone. We can't accept a world where our daughters and our granddaughters have fewer rights and less freedom than their mothers.
As soon as I heard about that decision, about the Dobbs case and Roe v. Wade, first thing I thought about is my wife who will celebrate her 65th birthday in 2 weeks, and I thought that my mother--my deceased mother--and my wife have more rights than my daughters in their thirties and early forties and my granddaughters who are still too young to really understand what this is about.
What kind of world is that where people of my generation had more rights than we are bequeathing to our children and our grandchildren?
I won't stop. I know Senator Murray won't stop working to protect women's freedom--all Americans' freedoms to have life, to have families, and live their lives how they want, when they want, free from meddling politicians.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, yesterday, I chaired a hearing focused on driving home the devastating repercussions of the healthcare crisis Republicans caused by overturning Roe and ending the right to abortion.
At that hearing, doctors and patients and experts spoke directly to the chaos and harm Republicans are causing. Tens of millions of women across the country now live in States where abortion has been banned or is likely to be banned soon.
Republicans have ripped away every woman's ability to decide for herself whether or not to keep a pregnancy. And it forced them to be pregnant when they do not want to be. Republicans are denying women control over their own bodies, endangering their health and putting patients and providers in impossible, indefensible situations: doctors unsure if they can save their patients without being punished; pharmacists unsure if they can fulfill a prescription; people unsure if they will be able to get Plan B, unsure if they will be able to use IVF to start a family and afraid they could get reported or investigated or even arrested for having a miscarriage.
And so many women forced to travel across State lines to get the reproductive care they need. People forced to drive miles and miles just to get the care that could save their lives. Good God, this should be unthinkable. But as we saw at yesterday's hearing, that is exactly the sort of oppressive regime, exactly the sort of nightmare reality Republicans have chosen to champion.
My colleague, the junior Senator from Kansas, actually said the fall of Roe was ``a positive development.'' Leader McConnell even called it a ``gigantic leap forward.'' My colleagues really think the devastation, the harm playing out across this country is positive? That is despicable.
Of course, another thing we saw at that hearing is that Republicans will do anything they can to change the subject from the damage that we will see, to ignore the reality of how deadly their policies are.
News flash: When you force someone to be pregnant, they are going to notice; they are going to remember; and they are going to be painfully aware of the difference between their personal decision and the reality Republican politicians are forcing on them.
And the horrifying thing is Republicans aren't just trying to mislead about the real impact of this cruel agenda, they are pushing for a national abortion ban. And Republican lawmakers have already set their sights on ripping away the right to travel.
Let's be really clear what that means. They want to hold women captive in their own States. They want to punish women and anyone who might help them for exercising their constitutional right to travel within our country to get the services that they need in another State.
I hope everyone really absorbs how extreme and how radical and how un-American that is.
I mean, just imagine what bans like that would mean for people. In my home State of Washington, the city of Clarkston is separated from Lewiston, ID, by a river--just a bridge, that is it. People cross that bridge every single day, without a second thought. And they cross State borders just like it every day, by the millions.
Surely, we can all agree that crossing that bridge, crossing any State border to go to the doctor and get healthcare you need should not be a crime. Surely, that is common sense. Surely, every Republican who has railed against Big Government could agree with me about that.
I will be honest, based on the shameless hypocrisy I have seen this week, I doubt it. But we are about to find out because we are about to request we pass a bill that my colleague from Nevada, along with Senator Gillibrand, Senator Whitehouse, and I, introduced on Tuesday, the Freedom to Travel for Healthcare Act. It is telling that some Republicans are already saying that this is a solution in search of a problem.
Well, let's be clear about the problem because it is real and it is imminent. Conservative legal organizations are right now drafting legislation to ban travel for abortion. It was discussed at two anti-
abortion conferences already.
Republican Texas legislators are saying out loud they are working with the National Association of Christian Lawmakers to draft bills restricting travel modeled after their barbaric, vigilante abortion ban. And there is already legislation introduced in Missouri to ban abortion travel. Anyone telling you this is not a threat is not paying attention or they are just trying to mislead you.
So there is a problem. Now, here is the solution. What this bill does is simple, it protects every American's constitutional right to travel across State lines and to travel in order to get or provide a lawful abortion.
It prevents States from restricting or impeding Americans' right to travel to access care and ensures there is legal recourse if States attempt to restrict that right.
And it protects healthcare providers who are licensed to provide abortions in the States where they are practicing. This should not be controversial. We should all agree, Americans have a right to travel within the United States and get the reproductive care they need.
So I urge my colleagues to support this proposal and to work with us to make sure that Americans get access to the healthcare they need where they need it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, recently the Supreme Court righted a historic injustice, and it was clearly written in the opinion by Justice Alito. It said this is to return the power to the people, return the power to the people's elected representatives, instead of nine men back in 1973 in black robes to decide this very important issue.
It said the people should decide the right parameters to protect moms and their babies from the violence of abortion. And rather than use this opportunity to protect life, very soon, the Senate Democrats will try to pass a very extreme--extreme--abortion bill.
Remember how extreme our colleagues have become on the other side of the aisle on the issue of abortion. They want to codify the ability to abort babies up until the moment of birth.
In fact, we have seen my colleagues across the aisle reject trying to protect babies that are born alive as a result of an abortion. It is chilling. This bill that is going to be presented does nothing to help pregnant moms in crisis or their unborn babies.
This bill, just even looking at it, which has been hastily put together in the last 48 hours, this bill would give fly-in abortionists free rein to commit abortion on demand up to the moment of birth and even--it seems--to perform them within a State with strong pro-life laws.
This bill also protects the greed, frankly, of woke corporations, who see that it is cheaper to pay for an abortion and abortion tourism than maternity leave for their employees.
We must reject this radical legislation that will endanger pregnant mothers and endanger their babies.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes prior to the scheduled vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, I rise today, along with my colleagues, and I want to thank my colleagues, Senators Murray, Whitehouse, and Gillibrand, for their good work with me on the legislation we are talking about today, which is the Freedom to Travel for Healthcare Act.
As you have heard from my colleagues and as we know in the past few months, we have seen women's right to choose taken away in States around the country overnight.
Less than 3 weeks ago, the Supreme Court explicitly overturned Roe v. Wade, depriving women of a right they held for 50 years. When the Court decided Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, it repeatedly insisted that its holding would, ``return the issue of abortion to the people's elected representatives'' in the States. Forget women, forget women's rights, but let's give it to the politicians.
As a result, in 18 States, abortion is either effectively banned or will be within 30 days. Ultimately, around half of States are expected to get rid of most or all abortion services within their borders.
In the face of these profound restrictions on reproductive health services, American women, who are able to do so, have had to travel to States, like mine, that still protect the women's right to choose.
Thanks to a 1990 referendum, Nevada has enshrined the right to choose in statute in my State. That is why we are already seeing women make their way to Nevada to get the healthcare that they need and they deserve.
But radical anti-choice policymakers have been emboldened by the Supreme Court decision and its discord and its shocking disregard for precedent. Yet they are not satisfied with a country where abortion is only banned in half the States.
We know now they are working to introduce legislation in Congress to ban abortion nationwide. And until they can pass it, they want to stop women from traveling for critical care and to punish people who support these women.
Anti-choice State legislators in Missouri, Texas, and Arkansas have said they want to pass bills to fine or prosecute women who travel for healthcare and do the same to providers who offer abortion services and the many employers who have said they will support their employees who need to seek reproductive care in another State.
Let me be specific about this because this is devastating already to so many, including in my State.
In Missouri, a State legislator has repeatedly introduced legislation that would allow private citizens to sue those who help Missouri citizens receive out-of-State abortion services.
In Texas, State legislators have said they will introduce legislation to ban businesses that help employees travel to receive abortions. They have also written cease-and-desist letters to companies like Lyft, Citigroup, and even law firms to tell them to stop helping employees who seek abortion out of State.
In Arkansas, a State senator has called for a law targeting businesses helping employees travel for care.
Let's not forget South Dakota because the Governor of South Dakota refused in an interview to rule out laws that target women who travel for abortion.
But we are not done yet because we also know that some anti-choice groups are actively pushing for such bans. The Thomas More Society, an extremist anti-choice group, is working on draft legislation. Its vice president told the Washington Post:
Just because you jump across a state line doesn't mean your home state doesn't have jurisdiction. It's not a free abortion card when you drive across the state line.
The National Association of Christian Lawmakers, an anti-abortion organization led by Republican State legislators, is also reported to be working on similar legislation modeled after the Texas law.
There is no doubt in my mind that some States are going to continue to move forward with these kinds of legislation.
I want to note that, quite frankly, some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have tried to have it both ways for years, insisting that the right to choose was safe--in my State, they have done it--at the same time they supported increasingly extreme limits to it. We even heard nominees testify that they would follow Supreme Court precedent, including Roe and Casey. Yet now we all know those reassurances were all false. We have seen women's reproductive rights eroded steadily for decades, and we know that anti-choice activists won't stop. This is a form of gaslighting, to keep insisting that American women will be able to get care when we know that anti-choice legislators and groups are working to stop them from doing so.
What legislators are doing across the country to restrict women from traveling is just blatantly unconstitutional. They constrain the fundamental constitutional right to travel, they are anti-woman, they are anti-business, and they are anti-provider.
Let me just say, merely proposing this legislation, merely talking about civil action or prosecuting a woman or a provider or even an employer who helps a woman to travel, is having a chilling effect.
In my State, they are already seeing that these proposals are having a chilling effect on my providers, who are worried about offering quality abortion care in the face of potential lawsuits. In Montana, reproductive health clinics are even limiting care to instate residents only. Imagine traveling hundreds of miles for essential healthcare, only to be turned away for fear of a lawsuit.
That is why I and my colleagues have introduced this bill to make it crystal clear: States cannot and must not prosecute women who travel across State lines for critical reproductive care.
Our legislation also protects healthcare providers in destination States and anyone who helps women travel for the care they deserve, from businesses to taxi drivers, to doctors.
Today, we are calling to pass this legislation. If my colleagues on the other side of the aisle believe in States' rights and the liberty of freedom for women in this country, they should support this bill. If they believe in the fundamental right of all Americans to travel, they should support this bill. If they fail to protect women who travel for healthcare and those who support them, then they need to go on record for the American people to explain why.
I will tell you what. It is not enough to stand there and say that somehow this legislation is a fly-in abortionist legislation. My colleague from Montana failed to read this legislation. And fearmongering at this point in time when women's fundamental rights are being eroded in this country is not the answer that women and so many Americans in this country now need.
What we need is for people to recommend and support and identify with the freedoms that this country brings to all of us, whether you are a woman or a man in this country. This is about the right to choose and make those decisions for women. It is a fundamental right. It is an important right. It is our healthcare and our decision. We are 50 percent of this population, and we deserve to be treated equally.
With that, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 4504 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there an objection?
The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. LANKFORD. Reserving the right to object, this is my first time to be able to stand and speak since the Court made its decision in Dobbs. I have been on this floor I actually don't know how many times talking about the value of every single child.
The conversation today is not just about the right to travel and the right to healthcare. It is deeper than that. It is the right to live.
The conversation today is not just about women. There are two people in this conversation--a child with 10 fingers and 10 toes and a beating heart and DNA that is uniquely different than the mom's DNA or the dad's DNA. They have a nervous system. They feel pain. There is a child in this conversation as well.
In my conversation when I have come to the floor over and over again, it has been to say that at some point our Nation should look at basic science and to say when you have DNA and you have a functioning nervous system and you have cell division, in every health book everywhere in the country, they call that life, but for some reason, on this floor, it is just tissue.
I actually come to be able to thank millions of women and millions of men who for five decades have not written off children, who have walked out, who have marched, who have silently prayed, who have gathered in places and said: When are we going to recognize what is self-evident? That child in the womb is a child, and that child may be inconvenient, but that is a child. When are we going to recognize that basic thing?
For 50 years, that conversation has gone on with the simple statement of, at what point will we be able to speak out for the value of every person, and I do mean every person, including the mom?
It has been interesting to be able to hear all the misinformation in the past couple of weeks. I have read story after story and seen all these breathless news reports about how women with an ectopic pregnancy will not be able to get care; they will be doomed to die--except there is no State law that would prohibit someone getting treatment that is lifesaving for an ectopic pregnancy in any State. I have seen all these breathless reports about how there will be miscarriages and you won't be able to get care--except that is not true in a single place, not one. This over and over riling people up.
What I have seen are 50 churches that have been attacked. What I have seen are 57 crisis resource centers for pregnancy resource that have been attacked and firebombed. I have seen that. Now, we don't seem to discuss that here on the floor. No one is actually saying that all this conversation, all this misinformation, all this noise is actually leading to actual violence across the country. Everyone is like: Oh, no, no; that is not related. Oh really? So when a pregnancy resource center is firebombed and spray painted on the side of it ``If abortions aren't safe in America, neither are you''--we should probably just ignore that? Because that is what is actually going on across the country right now as well.
To be very clear, no State has banned interstate travel for adult women seeking to obtain an abortion. No State has done that. Now, am I confident there are some people who are out there talking? Yes. But there are also in this Senate 5,000 bills that have been filed. And how many of them are actually going to move--as it is in every legislature across the country, and everyone in this body knows it. Everyone knows it. But this seems to be just trying to inflame, to raise the what-ifs.
It has been interesting to me that there is another bill that is actually being discussed that would literally--if you are a pregnancy resource center dealing with crisis pregnancies, if you don't perform abortions, they would call that misinformation. In the other bill that is being discussed right now, they would fine you $100,000.
I can't even begin to explain my emotion when I think, if you take the life of a child, there is pressure to say: We want Federal funding to take the life of a child. If you protect the life of a child, we are going to fine you $100,000. Is that really where we are? Is that really what this debate has become?
This administration has quickly become the most pro-abortion administration in American history and has rapidly moved to accelerate abortions across the country, while millions of other Americans just ask a simple question: Does that child in the womb have the right to travel in their future? Do they get to live?
Some would say: No. They are terribly inconvenient. They need to die.
Others would say: Why don't we actually live by our values, including the right to life?
So while there is conversation about how to put a piece of legislation out that may very well protect individuals who are being trafficked to go to other States to get an abortion or all kinds of other issues that are there, I come back to the most basic thing: There is a child in this conversation, and maybe this body should pay attention to children as well and to wonder what their future could be to travel in the days ahead as well.
I look forward to the day when we are talking more about that little girl and less about misinformation.
I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Nevada.
Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, I would ask for 5 minutes to respond.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, I do appreciate my colleague from Oklahoma coming here to talk. I disagree with his argument, but I do appreciate his profound belief in what he is saying.
I think it is ironic that the issue here before us is really a States right issue. It is exactly what Justice Alito did in the Dobbs case and referred this issue to the States to make that decision, and all my legislation says is, respect my State. We are a choice State. We have made that decision as a State, and if women want to travel to my State to seek services and my providers want to provide those services and employers want to help women travel, then let the States do that. We shouldn't be impeding on those decisions.
So it is kind of ironic. I hear my colleagues talking about, in this case, let's take the emotion out of it, except when they want to put emotion into the issue, or let's take the emotion out of it when it is not convenient for the arguments they are making.
Let me also address a couple of things because now I have learned from some of my colleagues, really, the argument they are going to start making is that somehow this legislation is flying in abortions, which it absolutely is not. It is a States rights issue. And nobody is flying into my State to provide healthcare. The actual healthcare is already there.
The other thing I have heard, which is actually very offensive to me and I think to so many, is that somehow this is trafficking women. Well, let me tell you about trafficking. I know trafficking. I wrote the law to prevent sex trafficking and sexual exploitation in the State of Nevada for so many who were being sexually exploited across this country, to hold predators accountable, to make sure that they can become survivors. This is not trafficking. And for anyone to stand up and say that it is has a complete misunderstanding. And quite honestly, I will welcome you to the fight about human trafficking in this country and sexual exploitation of women and children across the country. That is so offensive. But I am not surprised because in this day and age, unfortunately, some of these radical ideas coming out of this Congress miss what is happening across this country.
A majority of Americans in this country support the right of women to choose because you know why? I don't know what it is like to step in their shoes and walk in their shoes and nor do you, nor does anyone here. I shouldn't impose my beliefs, my religion, my ideas on what they should do for their lives. None of us should. That is the freedom in this country. That is who we are when we stand for freedoms and liberties. It doesn't mean we get to pick and choose those freedoms and take away the rights of the very individual because we believe differently or our religion thinks that we should do differently. That is what we do when we come into this Congress and we all work together to the benefit of everyone and not erode their rights and their future and their opportunities. That is what this is about.
This legislation is very simple. Let's protect those freedoms. Let's make sure we protect those States rights and allow women, healthcare providers, and employers to actually support and help one another in this country. That is what this legislation does. To say otherwise is misconstruing, it is fearmongering, and a continuing erosion of the debate of the constitutional rights and the American rights in this country right now. And that is the problem with Congress.
I yield the floor.
SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 168, No. 116
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
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