‘Couldn’t Resist’: Shelley Moore Capito Pokes Fun At John Kennedy Over His Age, Makes Room Laugh

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During a Senate Appropriations Committee markup on Thursday, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) spoke about the Fiscal Year 2025 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.

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Transcript

00:00Senator Capito.

00:03Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Vice Chair Collins.

00:07I know you all both have a great passion for the bill that we are under consideration.

00:12As we near the end of our subcommittee markups, I'd like to thank the leaders of this committee

00:17and all of my fellow committee members.

00:19Chair Murray and Vice Chair Collins have once again delivered on their promised commitment

00:23to regular order, and I hope that continues on the floor, and we've heard that echoed

00:27by several other members today.

00:31The Labor HHS Appropriations Bill is one of the most difficult appropriations bills to

00:35negotiate and is the largest non-defense discretionary bill.

00:40This is the second year that Senator Baldwin and I have been at the helm of the Labor HHS

00:46subcommittee, and I'm pleased to say that once again we present a bipartisan bill to

00:50the full committee.

00:51I want to thank her for her hands-on, dedicated passion that she brings to the table as the

00:57chair.

00:58The bill continues our bipartisan record from last year and maintains all longstanding riders

01:03and does not include any new controversial riders.

01:07The bill includes a number of bipartisan member priorities, such as, and the chair enumerated

01:13many of these, and I'm going to go through a few that are important to me, such as greater

01:16investments in America's biomedical research, child care, mental health, workforce, strengthening

01:22biodefense and continuing efforts to combat the opioid epidemic.

01:27Our bill provides an increase of $2 billion for the National Institutes of Health to still

01:33prioritize basic research in the United States.

01:36The bill does not provide funding for the Wuhan Institute of Virology or Echo Health.

01:43The NIH investment restores CURES funding for the Cancer Moonshot, Brain Initiative,

01:48and All of Us Research Program.

01:50We have also provided targeted increases for research in such areas as Alzheimer's, mental

01:55health, women's health, maternal health, and cancer, including a $20 million increase for

02:01the Childhood Cancer Star Act.

02:04As we provide a $25 million increase, we also provide a $25 million increase to the NIH

02:11IDEA program that provides funding to 23 of our states that historically had lower levels

02:17of NIH funding, including our state of West Virginia.

02:21This program has been so important for research at West Virginia institutions like WVU and

02:27Marshall Universities.

02:29Today's bill also builds on our efforts to fight the continued problem of substance abuse,

02:34particularly fentanyl, which remains a serious problem in the country and particularly in

02:39our state of West Virginia.

02:40The bill provides $4.6 billion for addiction treatment, prevention, research, and recovery

02:46programs.

02:47It continues a multipronged approach, including efforts to slow the addiction epidemic, $1.6

02:54billion for the state opioid research response grants to address the opioid epidemic ways

03:00and ways that suit individual state needs, $2 billion for the Substance Use Prevention

03:05and Treatment Block Grant, and $660 million for the NIH Helping to End Addiction Long-Term

03:12or NIH HEAL initiative.

03:15This bill also provides significant resources in our health workforce.

03:19I am sure everyone at this table and everybody in this room, anytime you visit a health facility,

03:25workforce challenges are rampant across the country in the health field.

03:30It helps to increase the number of counselors, social workers, peer support specialists,

03:34and clinical professionals to respond to the addiction crisis, which will help our providers.

03:40Health workforce training investments are also included to educate and retain nurses

03:45and to grow the number of geriatric providers to care for our aging population.

03:51That would be Senator Kennedy.

03:52Couldn't resist.

03:54Couldn't resist.

03:57The labor HH bill, again, prioritizes our children, starting with early childhood education

04:02all the way to college to make sure our students are prepared for the jobs today but also in

04:07the future.

04:08Specifically, $1.6 billion increase to the Child Care and Development Block Grant that

04:13many of us had asked for, a $700 million increase to Head Start to support our early childhood

04:19education, $280 million increase for Title I to support students in low-income schools,

04:25$300 million increase for IDEA grants to states, which provides special education services

04:31for students with disabilities, and the $100 increase to the Maximum Pell Award for a total

04:36of $7,495 for the 2025-2026 school year.

04:43I've just described several bipartisan programs we have included to improve the lives of Americans,

04:49and I encourage my colleagues to support this labor HHS bill.

04:53I am going to thank our staff again.

04:55Senator Baldwin did a good job, but I would like to start with her staff, Mike Gentile,

05:00Mark Leisch, Megan Mott, Catherine Tumujin, Erin Dugan, Amanda Beaumont, Claire Montero,

05:07and Janie Dulaney.

05:09On my labor HHS staff, who we were texting at 4 o'clock in the morning this morning,

05:15Lindsey Seidman, Ashley Palmer, and Emily Slack.

05:19In my personal office, my Chief JT Jizerski, James Mann, Thompson Moore, Dana Richter,

05:25and Mimi Vance.

05:26And the full committee staff that helps all of our subcommittees, Clint Trocchio and Ben

05:31Hammond and the wonderful GPO team.

05:34So thank you again to the Chair and to the Vice Chair.

‘Couldn’t Resist’: Shelley Moore Capito Pokes Fun At John Kennedy Over His Age, Makes Room Laugh

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