During a Senate Appropriations Committee markup on Thursday, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) spoke about the Fiscal Year 2025 Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Thank you, Chair Murray and Vice Chair Collins
00:04for your leadership in ushering bipartisan appropriations bills
00:08through the committee again this year.
00:10And I also want to thank Senator Capito for your approach
00:16and collaboration in developing this bill before us.
00:19The labor HHS bill includes a modest increase over last year
00:24that allows us to address bipartisan priorities
00:28and pressing needs facing families
00:30and the communities across our country.
00:33Our bill addresses kitchen table issues
00:35I hear about every day from Wisconsinites.
00:38It increases investments in child care for working families,
00:42research to discover life-saving cures for deadly diseases,
00:47prevention and treatment efforts to curb the fentanyl
00:50and substance use epidemic, mental health care,
00:54helping people get the skills and tools
00:56that they need to land family-supporting jobs
01:01and support for students and educators among others.
01:06These are bipartisan priorities
01:08that this committee has consistently supported.
01:11These investments help address the issues
01:15that all of our constituents are grappling with.
01:18Everywhere I travel in my state,
01:21I hear constant concerns about the high cost of
01:25and lack of access to child care.
01:28We can and must do more for families, businesses,
01:32and child care providers.
01:34Our bill includes a combined $2.3 billion increase
01:39for early learning programs,
01:40including a $1.6 billion increase for the Child Care
01:44and Development Block Grant
01:46and a $700 million increase for Head Start.
01:51When parents cannot find quality, affordable child care,
01:55it hurts families, businesses, and our economy.
01:59It deprives kids of consistent early learning opportunities.
02:05It means parents have to miss work
02:07or drop out of the labor force altogether.
02:10It means businesses can't find the skilled workforce they need.
02:15More needs to be done to fix our broken child care system,
02:18but this bill will help states ensure more working families
02:23have access to quality child care,
02:25including by supporting providers
02:27operating on razor-thin margins,
02:30particularly those in rural and underserved areas.
02:34Our bill also includes an increase
02:36of more than $2 billion for NIH to support life-saving research.
02:42Every American is affected by disease in their lifetimes,
02:46either themselves, personally, or a loved one.
02:50This bipartisan bill bolsters research
02:53to deliver the treatments and cures to help them.
02:56It includes $958 million to fully restore funding
03:01for the Cancer Moonshot, the BRAIN Initiative,
03:05and All of Us research programs.
03:08This will support research with the goal of cutting
03:11the cancer death rate by at least 50 percent
03:15over the next 25 years,
03:17accelerating our understanding of the human brain
03:20and the development of neurotechnologies
03:23to help treat diseases of the brain,
03:26and advancing precision medicine.
03:29It includes $275 million increase
03:33for mental health research,
03:35a $275 million increase for Alzheimer's disease research,
03:40a $266 million increase for cancer research,
03:45and a $130 million increase for the National Institute
03:49of Allergy and Infectious Diseases,
03:52and a $76 million increase
03:55for the Office of Research on Women's Health,
03:59a $20 million increase for research on maternal mortality,
04:03and a $10 million increase for opioid research.
04:08While our country continues to grapple with deadly poisonings
04:12and overdoses from fentanyl,
04:14we boosted our investment in programs
04:17that are helping our communities save lives.
04:20The bill includes a $215 million increase for substance use
04:25and mental health service programs
04:27that provide critical support for those struggling
04:30with substance use disorders and mental health challenges.
04:35In the first two years of operation,
04:37the 988 Suicide Prevention Lifeline
04:41has answered 10 million calls, chats, and texts.
04:45As the co-author of the bill to establish 988,
04:50that is both encouraging as well as a distressing sign
04:54of the number of individuals,
04:56especially youth, seeking crisis care.
04:59The bill includes an increase of $20 million for 988
05:04to ensure someone is on the other end of that call,
05:07and additional funding
05:08to increase our behavioral health workforce
05:11and expand access to mental health care,
05:14including a $10 million increase
05:17for the mental health crisis response grants.
05:20I'm also proud that our bill invests
05:22in our students and workers.
05:25With an ever-changing economy, getting the skills and tools
05:28to meet the job market looks different as well.
05:32Our bill includes targeted increases to career
05:35and technical education and apprenticeships
05:39that provide pathways to good-paying jobs and careers.
05:43Our legislation also invests in foundational elementary
05:47and secondary education programs,
05:49such as the Title I-A and IDEA formula grants,
05:55and boosts the maximum Pell Grant Award
05:58to help support students in post-secondary education.
06:02Given the breadth of issues important to both Democrats
06:06and Republicans that are covered in this bill,
06:09I could really go on and on.
06:11It strengthens our pandemic preparedness
06:14and biodefense programs,
06:16including helping ensure critical elements
06:18in our public health supply chain are made in America.
06:23It allows for more frequent nursing home inspections
06:26and will mean that Social Security can provide better
06:30service for the tens of millions of Americans that rely on it
06:34and have earned their benefits.
06:37I am proud of the investments
06:38that we are able to make in this bill.
06:41These investments will make the lives of our constituents better
06:45so that they can live healthy, fulfilling lives.
06:49But to be clear, I'm disappointed
06:51that we weren't able to do more.
06:53Women's health and reproductive rights
06:55are under attack in this country.
06:57Women are being denied the right to control their bodies,
07:00families, and future,
07:02while putting their health and well-being at risk.
07:07This will not be fixed in an appropriations bill,
07:10but we should do more, including increasing funding
07:13for family planning and other critical programs.
07:17This bill is very much a compromise
07:19that was developed in a fully bipartisan manner.
07:22It is in stark contrast to the House Labor
07:27HHS bill.
07:28The partisan approach of the House
07:31leads to constant threats of government shutdown
07:34that do nothing but waste time and resources.
07:37That's a disservice to Wisconsinites
07:40and communities across the country
07:42that rely on services funded in this bill.
07:46This is a bill that we can —
07:49this is a bill that can and should be passed by the Senate,
07:53passed by the House, and signed by the President.
07:57Finally, I want to thank the staff
08:00who helped put this bill together.
08:02Even before pencils went down on fiscal year 2024
08:06appropriations in March,
08:08these staff members were already hard at work on this bill.
08:12That includes my staff on the majority,
08:15Amanda Beaumont, Erin Dugan, Janie Delaney,
08:20Mike Gentile, Mark Leisch, Claire Montero,
08:25Megan Mott, Catherine Tumajan,
08:28and Senator Capito's staff on the minority,
08:31Ashley Palmer, Tom Pfeiffer,
08:34Lindsey Seidman, and Emily Slack.
08:37I also want to thank all of the other staff on the committee
08:41and at GPO and CBO
08:44who really worked around the clock to get us to this point.
08:48This is a good bill,
08:50and I'm proud to have my colleagues' support for it.