Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

Source: United States Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND)

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Kevin Cramer (R-ND), member of the Senate Banking Committee, and Bob Menendez (D-NJ) reintroduced the Payment Choice Act to ensure customers have the freedom to choose how to pay for goods and services. With the increased use of electronic and contactless methods of payment and many businesses refusing cash, consumers without access to financial services face a disproportionate burden. The bipartisan legislation would prohibit retail businesses from refusing to accept cash as a form of payment and charging a higher price for using cash than for other forms of payment.

“Prohibiting cash payments is an act of discrimination against the millions of Americans who do not have bank accounts or prefer cash. It also forces customers to exclusively use a less secure form of payment. The Payment Choice Act protects people’s right to participate in the economy using their preferred form of payment. If businesses unilaterally stop accepting cash, why do we print money? Is it really legal tender for all debts as it says?,” said Senator Cramer.

“While electronic payments are a convenient method for customers to pay for goods or services, completely refusing cash as a form of payment denies people, frequently in underserved populations, from having equal access to participate in our economy,” said Senator Menendez. “Our bipartisan, commonsense legislation would guarantee everyone who carries legal tender printed and backed by the U.S. Treasury, and especially those who are unbanked or underbanked, can continue to fully participate in the economy.”

While the majority of American households have access to all of some financial services, 5.4 percent of U.S. households are unbanked, meaning they don’t have a checking or savings account. 16 percent of Americans are underbanked, which means they rely on a variety of financial services, such as money orders, to make transactions. Unbanked and underbanked consumers are more likely to have lower incomes, less education, or be a member of a racial or ethnic minority group.

Despite a decline in cash payments during the past few years, they represent 19 percent of all payments in the U.S. economy according to a recent study.

The Consumer Choice in Payment Coalition (CCPC), a broad-based group of consumer advocates, businesses, and nonprofit organizations supports both bills.

“We believe it is critical to ensure that cash remains a universally available payment option for consumers throughout the nation,” said Linda Sherry, of Consumer Action national advocacy group, a member of the Coalition. “Noncash transactions generate vast amounts of data, recording the time, date, location, amount, and subject of each consumer’s purchase, which are available to digital marketers and advertisers who are engaged in developing and refining increasingly sophisticated techniques to identify and target potential customers.”

“We greatly appreciate Senators Menendez and Cramer work to protect cash as a vital ongoing payment option for consumers that will help us maintain the strength of our economy,” said Bruce W. Renard, Executive Director of the National ATM Council, and a Co-Chair of the Coalition. “Enactment of the Payment Choice Act will help keep the U.S. Dollar strong and stable here at home, and preserve its status abroad as the world’s leading fiat currency. Maintaining universal acceptance of cash provides all Americans with a low-cost, user-friendly, private, and reliable payment option of immense benefit to us all, individually and collectively. 

Click here to read the bill. 

Source: United States Senator for Florida Marco Rubio

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN), along with U.S. Representative Lee Zeldin (R-NY) and colleagues, released a joint statement calling on the Biden Administration to reverse course on its plan to erode the full and faithful implementation of the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995. The plan will move the Palestinian Affairs Unit (PAU) out of the U.S. Ambassador to Israel’s reporting chain of command and rename the PAU the “U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs,” effectively creating an unofficial U.S. consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem.
 
“It is alarming that the Biden Administration has opened what amounts to be a separate U.S. diplomatic office to the Palestinians in Israel’s capital. This decision is wholly inconsistent with the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 that Congress passed into law and has repeatedly reaffirmed with overwhelming bipartisan support over the years,” the lawmakers said. “We strongly supported the Trump Administration’s decision to fully and faithfully implement the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 by formally recognizing Jerusalem as the eternal and undivided capital of Israel, by moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and by closing the U.S. Consulate General for the Palestinians in Jerusalem and merging its functions into the U.S. Embassy’s ‘Palestinian Affairs Unit’ within one diplomatic mission under the authority of the U.S. Ambassador to Israel. The Biden Administration’s disregard for that law, however, undermines our nation’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and signals support for dividing Jerusalem.
 
“Let there be no misunderstanding: this unprecedented arrangement — to turn the Palestinian Affairs Unit into a ‘U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs’ that will no longer report to the U.S. Ambassador to Israel but instead report directly to the State Department in Washington, D.C., and to appoint a Special Envoy to the Palestinians — is an effort to open an unofficial and de facto U.S. consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem,” the lawmakers continued. “In fact, the Biden Administration admits this decision is one step closer to opening an official U.S. consulate, a plan it refuses to stop pushing despite the Government of Israel’s adamant opposition and Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Brian McKeon’s admission to Congress in October 2021 that the United States, under international law, would ‘need to get the consent of the host government to open any diplomatic facility.’
 
“The Biden Administration’s decision is wrong and not how America should treat Israel, one of our closest allies in the world,” the lawmakers concluded. “As sponsors of the Upholding the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Law Act of 2021 to withhold funding for a U.S. consulate to the Palestinians in Israel’s capital, we unequivocally oppose the Biden Administration’s decision and will use every tool at our disposal to stop it in the 117th Congress and afterward.”
 
Click here for a full list of cosigners. 

Source: United States Senator for Florida Marco Rubio

Washington, D.C.  — U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Josh Hawley (R-MO), James Lankford (R-OK), and Steve Daines (R-MT) introduced the Protecting Minors from Medical Malpractice Act. The legislation would allow individuals who suffered from an irreversible and potentially sterilizing gender-transition procedure as a minor to seek justice in court. U.S. Representative Jim Banks (R-IN) is leading companion legislation in the House of Representatives.
 
“Children and teens should not have to suffer the consequences of this radical, woke ideology,” Rubio said. “These procedures are dangerous, not approved by the FDA, and can cause permanent physical and psychological harm to the individuals. This bill would ensure that minors are protected and able to seek legal recourse.”
 
“Gender-transition procedures aren’t safe or appropriate for children,” Cotton said. “Unfortunately, radical doctors in the United States perform dangerous, experimental, and even sterilizing gender-transition procedures on young kids, who cannot even provide informed consent. Our bill allows children who grow up to regret these procedures to sue for damages. Any doctor who performs these irresponsible procedures on kids should pay.”
 
“The Biden administration released official guidance recommending irreversible and life-altering surgery for minors too young to apply for a learner’s permit,” Banks said. “These procedures lack any solid evidence and have been rejected by public health agencies around the world. Ten years from now, there will be hundreds of thousands of Americans who were permanently scarred by the radical left’s agenda before they reached adulthood. If Democrats truly supported gender-confused children, they’d support our effort to give them legal recourse.” 
 
The Protecting Minors from Medical Malpractice Act would:

• Create a private right of action allowing people who had gender-transition procedures performed on them as minors to sue the medical practitioner who performed the procedure.
  • Allows victims or their legal guardian to sue for declaratory or injunctive relief, compensatory damages, and attorney’s fees
  • Provides a 30-year statute of limitation after the age of majority
  • Applicable to procedures performed after the date of passage of this bill
  • Clarifies that federal law cannot be construed to force medical practitioners to offer such procedures.
  • Prohibits federal health funds from going to states that force medical practitioners to perform gender-transition procedures.
• Gender-transition procedures include puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical procedures that change an individual’s body in order to align with an identity at odds with an individual’s biological sex.

 
The legislation is supported by the American Principles Project, Heritage Action, Family Policy Alliance, Family Research Council, Independent Women’s Forum, Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee, Ethics and Public Policy Center, Alliance Defending Freedom, ForAmerica, Eagle Forum, CHANGED Movement.

Source: United States Senator for Florida Marco Rubio

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Joni Ernst (R-IA), and Rick Scott (R-FL) sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging his administration to work with our North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies to update NATO’s strategic concept to reflect the reality of great power competition with the Chinese Communist Party even as the alliance contends with Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. Next week, NATO members will meet in Madrid, where they are expected to release a new strategic concept that will guide NATO decision-making for the next several years. 
 
“First and foremost, the new Strategic Concept should embrace the fact that the alliance has two flanks,” the senators wrote. “Even as Putin continues to wage a bloody war against Ukraine near NATO’s eastern flank, the alliance must prepare to deter increasing aggression by the CCP that threatens U.S. allies and NATO territory in the Indo-Pacific. The Strategic Concept should make clear that while the alliance will continue to remain united and work together, the European states should take the lead in addressing the threat posed by Russian aggression by increasing their defense capabilities, so that the United States, Canada, and France can shore up the alliance’s defenses in the Indo-Pacific to deter Beijing.” 
 
“Secondly, the Strategic Concept should reflect the new modes of conflict pioneered by the CCP and the Kremlin.… From cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, to economic coercion, to isolation in international fora, there is no limit to what the CCP and the Kremlin will do to wage conflict against their enemies,” the senators continued. 
 
“Lastly, the Strategic Concept must recognize that the alliance’s enemies are increasingly working together,” the senators concluded. “It is no more a coincidence that Moscow and Beijing declared a ‘no limits partnership’ shortly before Putin’s invasion on February 24 as it is that Putin and the CCP have advocated for Iran in ongoing nuclear negotiations in Vienna…. We urge you to ensure that the Strategic Concept to be released in Madrid reflects these realities.” 
 
The full text of the letter is below. 
 
Dear Mr. President:
 
This year’s events have demonstrated the continued importance and relevance of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the largest and most successful military alliance in history. Later this month in Madrid, you and other alliance heads of state are expected to announce a new Strategic Concept to guide NATO operations for the next ten years. Even as we welcome Finland and Sweden into the alliance, it is imperative that this Strategic Concept reflects the realities of the world we live in, not the world we want. 
         
The 2010 NATO Strategic Concept is a product of a bygone era still ruled by the hubris of a supposed “end of history” where a U.S.-led order of democracy and free market would expand across the globe. The 2010 Strategic Concept viewed Russia as a “important strategic partner.” In the years since, when the U.S. was expecting to “reset” relations with Moscow, Vladimir Putin has sponsored cyberattacks against the U.S., intensified contacts with the Castro/Díaz-Canel regime in Cuba, briefly deployed nuclear capable bombers in Venezuela, threatened to provide troops to both the Cuban regime and the Maduro regime in Venezuela, assassinated dissidents in NATO states, and has waged a full-scale war against a European nation. It is only through strong U.S. leadership and the historic cohesion of NATO member states that the alliance has weathered the geopolitical storms of the last decade. We may not be so lucky in the future without a significant overhaul of the NATO Strategic Concept that reflects the acute threat posed by Russia. 
 
The 2010 NATO Strategic Concept also lacked any mention of the dangers posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to the alliance. It has been clear, for some time, the CCP desires nothing more than to overthrow the international order which NATO was formed to protect. Most recently, it has engaged in cyberattacks to assist Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, while in the past year it has tried to cripple the economy of Lithuania, a NATO member state, for making its own sovereign decisions on Taiwan. Right now, the CCP is attempting to form a security and economic bloc in the Indo-Pacific that threatens U.S. and French territories. NATO must be ready to address the many challenges the CCP will mount in the 21st century. 
 
First and foremost, the new Strategic Concept should embrace the fact that the alliance has two flanks. Even as Putin continues to wage a bloody war against Ukraine near NATO’s eastern flank, the alliance must prepare to deter increasing aggression by the CCP that threatens U.S. allies and NATO territory in the Indo-Pacific. The Strategic Concept should make clear that while the alliance will continue to remain united and work together, the European states should take the lead in addressing the threat posed by Russian aggression by increasing their defense capabilities, so that the United States, Canada, and France can shore up the alliance’s defenses in the Indo-Pacific to deter Beijing. We urge you to work with South Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, all expected in Madrid, to discuss how these countries can further work with NATO, including possibly using NATO’s Partnership for Peace as a model. 
 
Secondly, the Strategic Concept should reflect the new modes of conflict pioneered by the CCP and the Kremlin. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine raises serious questions on the need to reorient NATO’s force posture in Eastern Europe to better deter a Russian conventional attack on the alliance. This is especially timely as Sweden and Finland should figure greatly in those new plans. Just as important is the recognition that the outbreak of war in Ukraine is only the latest event in a long series of “hybrid warfare” events. From cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, to economic coercion, to isolation in international fora, there is no limit to what the CCP and the Kremlin will do to wage conflict against their enemies. Countries in both Eastern Europe and the Western Pacific know this first hand and there is much they can do to share expertise and knowledge on resisting these new modes of conflict. NATO should work to bring them together so that countries like Taiwan, Ukraine, Japan, Lithuania, and South Korea can collaborate on standing up to increased pressure from authoritarian states. 
 
Lastly, the Strategic Concept must recognize that the alliance’s enemies are increasingly working together. It is no more a coincidence that Moscow and Beijing declared a “no limits partnership” shortly before Putin’s invasion on February 24 as it is that Putin and the CCP have advocated for Iran in ongoing nuclear negotiations in Vienna. For too long, individual members of the alliance have sought to counter these threats separately or ignored them outright, while our adversaries have only strengthened their cooperation. We urge you to ensure that the Strategic Concept to be released in Madrid reflects these realities. 
 
We thank you in advance for your attention to this matter. 
 
Sincerely, 

Source: United States Senator for Florida Marco Rubio

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) sent a letter to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Acting Administrator Billy Nolen with regard to the threat posed by Russian aircraft, which are suffering from a lack of maintenance following Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. In the letter, Rubio asked the FAA to publish a comprehensive and direct safety review about Russian airlines, so the American public and international travelers are informed regarding the safety risks of Russian civilian aircraft.
 
“Multilateral sanctions in response to Russia’s illegal and unprovoked war in Ukraine have proven successful at depriving Vladimir Putin’s criminal regime of the resources it needs to maintain several integral technical systems,” Rubio wrote. “Russia’s airlines are no exception. At present, they face airspace bans over the bulk of Europe and North America and prohibitions on their ability to purchase new aircraft or parts, as well as procure technical assistance from Western entities. This presents extraordinary challenges to Russia’s air-fleet and companies such as Aeroflot, which are heavily reliant on American and European companies like Boeing and Airbus for planes.”
 
The full text of the letter is below. 
 
Dear Acting Administrator Nolen:
                                
I write to convey my deep concern about the airworthiness of aircraft operated by Russian airlines and the potential threat that they pose to travelers at home and abroad. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was correct to downgrade its air safety rating for the Russia Federation in April, but Russian-administered aircraft that remain active in international space may present a pressing danger to passengers and crew. Foreign sanctions and U.S. export controls prevent Russian airlines from providing proper maintenance for their planes, which continue to operate without necessary upkeep. As such, I request that the FAA conduct and publish a more comprehensive and direct safety review of Russian airlines, especially ones that remain operational in international airspace, to make travelers fully aware of the risks they present.
 
Multilateral sanctions in response to Russia’s illegal and unprovoked war in Ukraine have proven successful at depriving Vladimir Putin’s criminal regime of the resources it needs to maintain several integral technical systems. Russia’s airlines are no exception. At present, they face airspace bans over the bulk of Europe and North America and prohibitions on their ability to purchase new aircraft or parts, as well as procure technical assistance from Western entities. This presents extraordinary challenges to Russia’s air-fleet and companies such as Aeroflot, which are heavily reliant on American and European companies like Boeing and Airbus for planes.
 
In fact, Russia’s own aircraft manufacturers, like Sukhoi, tend to require Western parts, such as engines, auxiliary power units, or hydraulic systems, which are suddenly and rightfully inaccessible to them. As a response, several Russian airlines have seized billions of dollars’ worth of leased foreign jets and components and then are forced to jerry-rig the stolen aircraft to keep them in operation. Moreover, many Russian airlines have attempted to evade stringent U.S. export controls, continuing to operate flights to Beijing, Delhi, Dubai, and elsewhere even after being blacklisted.
 
So long as Russian airlines maintain such operations, they pose a potential threat to international travelers, as well as to Russians flying domestically. As such, I ask that the FAA initiate a prompt review of these companies that outlines the dangers of using them to fly and makes Americans fully aware of the risks of Russian-administered aircraft that continue to operate in international airspace. While the FAA is unable to conduct direct oversight on Russian-administered planes, further guidance from the agency about the nature of the possible risks incurred by traveling aboard aircraft lacking up-to-date parts is much needed. As the United States continues to deprive Moscow’s war machine of resources, agencies like the FAA can play a critical role in protecting travelers from the life-threatening consequences of Putin’s corruption and desperation.
 
Thank you for your attention to this critical issue, and I look forward to your response.
 
Sincerely,

Source: United States Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV)

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, U.S. Senators Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) announced that the Department of the Interior (DOI) awarded more than $29.1 million under the Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) program to rural counties in Nevada for Fiscal Year 2022.

“These PILT payments will allow many of Nevada’s rural communities to afford essential services, including those provided by first responders,” said Senator Rosen. “I’m glad to see that communities across Nevada will receive over $29 million in funds this year, and I will continue working to ensure Nevada receives its fair share of federal resources.”

“Rural counties across Nevada rely on PILT payments to support local law enforcement and first responders and to fund housing, education, and conservation projects that strengthen our communities,” said Senator Cortez Masto. “I’ve worked throughout my time in Congress to stabilize and support the PILT program because I’ve seen firsthand how vital it is for rural Nevadans.” 

PILT payments are federal payments to local governments that help offset losses in property taxes due to non-taxable federal lands within those governments’ boundaries. PILT payments help local governments carry out such vital services as firefighting and police protection, construction of public schools and roads, and search-and-rescue operations. The payments are made annually for tax-exempt federal lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (all agencies of the Department of the Interior), the U.S. Forest Service (part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture), and federal water projects and some military installations.

Senators Rosen and Cortez Masto have been champions of the PILT program, and they have repeatedly called for a long-term solution to secure the PILT program for the future. Both Senators also cosponsored the Small County PILT Parity Act, legislation that would modify the PILT formula so that counties with populations under 5,000 would receive increased PILT payments.

###

Source: United States Senator for Maryland Chris Van Hollen

June 23, 2022

Data shows diagnostic errors affect more than 12 million Americans annually, contribute to approximately 10 percent of patient deaths

Today, U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and Representatives Don Beyer (D-Va.) and Kim Schrier (D-Wash.) announced the introduction of the Improving Diagnosis in Medicine Act, legislation to reduce diagnostic errors in our healthcare system. Their legislation seeks to address the alarming rates of diagnostic error in our country and mitigate the devastating impacts these errors can have. According to the most recent report published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, diagnostic errors affect more than 12 million Americans each year and likely cause more harm to patients than all other medical errors combined. The study also found that most people will experience at least one diagnostic error in their lifetime, and postmortem examination research has shown that diagnostic errors contribute to approximately 10 percent of patient deaths. Estimates show that the waste associated with diagnostic errors costs our healthcare system over $100 billion annually. 

To tackle these issues, the Improving Diagnosis in Medicine Act would create a new Interagency Council on Improving Diagnosis in Health Care as well as a new grant program for the establishment and maintenance of Research Centers of Diagnostic Excellence – such as the Armstrong Institute Center for Diagnostic Excellence at Johns Hopkins – that advance research and progress in diagnostic quality, safety, and value in health care.

“When a patient is ill, a quick and accurate diagnosis can mean the difference between life and death. But far too many Americans face misdiagnoses – ending in tragic consequences. Not only does diagnostic error cost lives – it also costs our healthcare system and patients billions of dollars each year. Addressing these errors is crucial to improving results for patients and saving lives. This legislation tackles that challenge and will put the necessary funding behind efforts to reduce diagnostic error,” said Senator Van Hollen. 

“Diagnostic errors affect more than 12 million Americans each year and contribute to roughly 10 percent of patient deaths,” said Senator Luján. “That’s why I’m proud to have spearheaded the Improving Diagnosis in Medicine Act during my time in the House and to co-lead alongside Senator Van Hollen in the Senate. This legislation will invest in research and development to improve diagnostic quality and safety, while also requiring a report on the factors that cause these errors and how to prevent them.”

“Medical diagnostic errors affect millions of Americans and result in thousands of deaths each year. This is a problem our health care system can address and improve by funding better data collection and research sharing, which are two of the major objectives of our bill,” said Rep. Beyer. “Medical misdiagnosis is a problem that disproportionately impacts certain groups, including Black women, and our bill would take steps to address these disparities. Our bill would also establish the Research Centers of Diagnostic Excellence to advance research and facilitate better sharing of research on proven methodologies to prevent misdiagnosis. I thank my Senators Van Hollen and Lujan and Congresswoman Schrier for their leadership on this legislation, and will work with colleagues to build support for it in the House.” 

“Diagnostic errors cause up to 100,000 patient deaths each year. I’m proud to support this bill that will make health care safer and lower costs,” said Congresswoman Kim Schrier, M.D.

“Diagnostic error is the most common, the most costly, and the most catastrophic of serious medical errors. Much of the research to date has focused on defining the magnitude of the problem. This legislation moves us toward identifying solutions to equip clinicians, patients and their families with the tools needed to arrive at the right diagnosis timely. It will save lives. We commend Senators Van Hollen and Lujan for their leadership and willingness to take on difficult healthcare issues that others often overlook. They are joining forces with Rep. Don Beyer in the House. We look forward to this bill moving through the legislative process and into law,” said Jennie Ward-Robinson, Ph.D, CEO of the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM).

“Addressing diagnostic error is a major public health challenge that every American should care about— no one ever wants face the tragedy of watching a loved one suffer permanent disability or premature death from a missed or delayed medical diagnosis… yet this happens thousands of times a day. The Armstrong Institute Center for Diagnostic Excellence at Johns Hopkins works to prevent these harms through innovative diagnostic research, care transformation, and patient engagement. We are indebted to Senator Van Hollen for championing the landmark Improving Diagnosis in Medicine Act of 2022 that bolsters critical research efforts to prevent these patient harms and achieve health equity in diagnosis,” said David E. Newman-Toker, MD PhD, Director of the Armstrong Institute Center for Diagnostic Excellence, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. 

“Diagnostic errors in children and young adults have devastating life-altering and life-long consequences that affect the entire family. While fairly common, the full impact is unknown since research focuses on adults. This legislation ensures that young people will no longer be overlooked and have the right to an accurate timely diagnosis, the critical first step for the right care and treatment. This will prevent lost days and years during growth and development and allow millions of young people the opportunity to learn, work, grow and participate in society with their peers,” said Santi KM Bhagat, MD MPH, Founder and President, Physician-Parent Caregivers.

Diagnostic errors stem from a wide variety of causes, including inadequate communication between providers, patients, and their families; the absence of metrics to gauge performance limited feedback to clinicians about diagnostic performance; a lack of information for patients on navigating the diagnostic process; and a culture that discourages transparency and disclosure of diagnostic errors, which impedes attempts to learn from these events and improve diagnosis. The National Academies study concluded that: “Despite the pervasiveness of diagnostic errors and the risk for serious patient harm, diagnostic errors have been largely unappreciated within the quality and patient safety movements in health care.”  

The Improving Diagnosis in Medicine Act would:

• Authorize a federal grant program for the establishment and maintenance of Research Centers of Diagnostic Excellence that advance research and progress in diagnostic quality, safety, and value in health care
• Establish an Interagency Council on Improving Diagnosis in Health Care to:
• Enhance the quality, appropriateness, and effectiveness of diagnosis in health care;
• Identify and eliminate systemic barriers to supporting research in improving diagnosis in health care;
• Identify knowledge gaps, research needs, and policy and program deficiencies associated with the diagnostic process and in clinical and health system delivery;
• Create core diagnostic research services and interdisciplinary teams to facilitate diagnostic research;
• Build capacity by training and developing a highly-qualified diagnostic research workforce; and
• Establish valid operational measures of diagnostic error

 Text of the legislation can be found here.

Source: United States Senator for Colorado Michael Bennet

Washington, D.C. — Today, Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet urged his colleagues on the Senate floor to pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. This legislation will strengthen background checks for young people, close the boyfriend loophole, invest in mental and behavioral health, and improve school safety. Bennet’s speech comes after the Supreme Court ruled today to weaken gun safety laws for the first time in a decade, underscoring the urgent need for Congress to act.

“I think we need to show them, and the young people that are here today, the young people that are living all over America, that we aren’t so broken that we can’t respond to one more massacre of kids at a school,” said Bennet. “We need to show them when we have this opportunity to demonstrate that we’re not going to fail again, and that we can succeed in passing this bipartisan bill. And that after all these years, we can meet the American people’s reasonable expectation to begin to protect our communities against gun violence that happens in the United States of America – and only in the United States of America.”

In his remarks, Bennet also urged his colleagues to take additional steps after the Senate considers the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. He proposed raising the age for buying a semi-automatic weapon from 18 to 21, passing universal background checks, limiting the size of magazines, and banning bump stocks.

“If we can make progress in a Western state like Colorado, where people are demanding it — Democrats, Independents, and Republicans and most important of all our children are demanding it — we can do it here,” said Bennet in his speech.

“Today, our kids are growing up with a reasonable fear that they could get shot in their school, or in their temple, or in their church,” said Bennet. “I didn’t grow up in a country with more gun-related deaths than virtually any country in the industrialized world. That wasn’t the country I grew up in.”

Bennet continued: “Communities, once they’ve been savaged by something like the Aurora movie theater shooting or the Columbine shooting, they never move on. And I can tell you that there is a whole generation of Americans that’s grown up in this country savaged by gun violence and the prospect that it could happen to them when they go to school the next day or the next week.”

Bennet has advanced common-sense legislation to address gun violence and mental health. Recently, Bennet introduced the School Shooting Safety and Preparedness Act to help lawmakers gain a more accurate picture of gun violence in and around school campuses. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act also includes $150 million in one-time funding to strengthen the 9-8-8 National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (NSPL), a national network of crisis centers linked through a 24/7 toll-free number that connects callers to immediate crisis care with trained counselors. This aligns with Bennet’s Suicide and Crisis Outreach Prevention Enhancement Act, which he introduced with U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) in July 2021. Bennet was a co-sponsor of the National Suicide Hotline Designation Act to create the 9-8-8 NSPL, which was signed into law in 2020.

“We have nearly 200 times the rate of violent gun deaths as Japan or South Korea, and nearly 100 times what they experience in the United Kingdom. I can tell you speaking as a father, it’s not because we love our children any less, or because we’re uniquely violent, or that somehow we’ve got a mental health problem that other countries don’t have. It’s because we have a United States Senate that year after year after year has been paralyzed by the National Rifle Association, by the NRA,” said Bennet.

Bennet’s full speech is available HERE. A full transcript is available below. 

This morning, the Supreme Court weakened gun safety laws in America for the first time in over a decade. It gutted a century-old law to make sure that people carrying concealed weapons actually needed them.

And, the Court is taking us backward at a time when the American people are demanding that we do more — not less — to protect our communities. 

The shooting at Columbine High School happened the year before my oldest daughter was born. She’s now 22 years old. We’ve raised three daughters, and their entire generation has grown up in the shadow of gun violence.

Since Columbine, my state has endured one tragedy after another. 

In 2012, a gunman killed 12 people at a movie theater in Aurora.

In 2019, a shooter injured 8 students at STEM High School in Highlands Ranch.

And last March, a shooter killed 10 people at the King Soopers grocery store in Boulder. That was almost a year to the day, really, to the shootings in Buffalo that took another ten lives of people who had just gone to shop for their families.

Two months after that grocery store shooting in Colorado, a gunman killed 6 people at a birthday party in Colorado Springs.

You know, Mr. President, I remember back — it’s hard, over time you lose track of things — but I remember back in 2017, after a gunman in Las Vegas killed 58 Americans — shooting across the street from a hotel room — I came to work the following Monday, Mr. President, and I realized about three-quarters of the way through the day that nobody had talked to me about the shooting. 

I don’t know whether it was the shooting before that or two, or three, or four before that, when we became so desensitized that 58 people could be killed in Las Vegas and it wasn’t even mentioned the following Monday.  

We cannot allow this to become normal in this country. The people of Colorado refuse for this to become normal in this country. 

And it’s not just mass shootings. It’s the daily shootings that stalks our communities like the West Side of Chicago where I’ve spent time with my friend, Arne Duncan, who after being the Secretary of Education, has gone back to his hometown to try to keep young men from killing one another. 

They can’t afford for us to continue to just move on and forget that it ever happened. 

Communities, once they’ve been savaged by something like the Aurora movie theater shooting or the Columbine shooting, they never move on. 

And I can tell you — the pages here are a little bit younger than my daughters are — but I can tell you that there is a whole generation of Americans that’s grown up in this country savaged by gun violence and the prospect that it could happen to them when they go to school the next day or the next week. 

You can see it. You can see kids sitting on the couch cringing when they’re watching the television reports wondering whether that’s going to be me…whether that’s going to be them or their classmates.  

They have carried a burden that no generation of Americans has ever had to carry. No generation of humans living in the industrialized world has had to carry this particular burden.

Today, our kids are growing up with a reasonable fear that they could get shot in their school, or in their temple, or in their church. 

I didn’t grow up in a country with more gun-related deaths than virtually any country in the industrialized world. That wasn’t the country I grew up in. 

I grew up in a country with a Second Amendment, but not a country with more shootings than any place else in the industrialized world. 

Our attitude about this has changed — is different from what our parents and grandparents believed. No matter what party they were in. 

I heard somebody after a shooting on the radio, some well-known talk show host, say that this was just the price of freedom. That being victimized in a mass shooting or being worried that your family member could be killed in a mass shooting was just the price of freedom. That’s not what freedom meant to America when I was growing up. 

Partly what freedom means is being free from fear that you’re going to get gunned down. That’s a freedom.  And we’ve denied that freedom to the next generation of America. 

And what a shame that somebody would say something like that after a mass shooting. What a limited view of what freedom is. What a surrender that represents to our children and the victims of these crimes. 

Mr. President, in 2020, the leading cause of death for kids in America was guns. Guns. 

Not car accidents. Not drugs. But guns.

There was a study that looked at how many kids aged four or younger have been killed by guns across 29 industrialized countries. This is kids 4 and younger in 29 industrialized countries. The United States accounted for 97 percent of the deaths.

This country accounted for 97 percent of deaths of kids that were 4 years and under. What a disgrace. What an indictment. The entire rest of the industrialized world accounted for 3 percent. We accounted for 97 percent.

We have nearly 200 times the rate of violent gun deaths as Japan or South Korea, and nearly 100 times what they experience in the United Kingdom. 

I can tell you speaking as a father, it’s not because we love our children any less. Or because we’re uniquely violent or that somehow we’ve got a mental health problem that other countries don’t have. That we’re mentally more unwell, which I hear some say. 

It’s because we have a United States Senate that year after year after year has been paralyzed by the National Rifle Association, by the NRA.

A Senate that’s allowed our kids to get shot in schools, movie theaters, grocery stores, and concerts and offered nothing but thoughts and prayers.

A Senate that — until now — has failed to respond to the overwhelming demand of the American people to protect our communities. That’s what I hear when I go home. I live in a Western state. As you’ll hear, we’ve been able to enact meaningful gun reforms in my state. 

If we can make progress in a Western state like Colorado, where people are demanding it — Democrats, Independents, and Republicans, and most important of all, our children are demanding it, we can do it here. 

I’ve said it over and over again on this floor after we’ve had mass shooting after mass shooting across our country.

And finally, for the first time in a decade, we have the chance to make progress.

And I want to thank my colleagues, I really do. I don’t mean that in the usual way that people come out here and say. I want to thank my colleagues, Chris Murphy and John Cornyn, for leading this really important bipartisan effort.

And I strongly support what they’ve put forward, which would strengthen background checks for young people buying firearms, so we’re checking their mental health and juvenile records;

Helping states strengthen red flag laws, which would help keep guns out of the hands of people who are a threat to themselves or to others. We’ve passed a bill like that already in Colorado;

Make a historic investment in mental health and school security. 

I said a minute ago that sometimes you just hear people talk about how we have mental health, and I pointed out that we probably have about the same mental health as other countries in the world have. 

But that doesn’t mean it’s not an issue, and it is an issue. We’re having an epidemic of mental health on the backend — and behavioral health — on the backend of this pandemic, especially among adolescents, in this country and in the state of Colorado. 

There’s $15 billion in this bill for mental health, and I’m proud that that’s in there. That is a historic investment, and it’s both sides that are making it. 

We’re going to close the “boyfriend loophole,” which allows abusive partners to buy a gun; and

We’re going to crack down on “straw purchases” where people illegally buy guns on behalf of someone else. That’s a big problem that we’re gonna address in this bill.

And frankly, I don’t know how anybody on this floor could object to any of those ideas.

I don’t know how anyone could go home and say they opposed investing in mental health or making sure they’re not letting a troubled 18-year-old have access to an AR-15 or some other weapon.

But on that point, this can’t be the end of our work, Mr. President. There’s more for us to do. 

We should raise the age for buying a semi-automatic weapon from 18 to 21. 

We should pass universal background checks. In Colorado, after Columbine, we passed universal background checks. I said it over and over again on this floor. 

And every year somewhere around 3 percent of the people that try to buy a gun can’t buy a gun in Colorado. And you know why they can’t buy a gun? Because they’re convicted felons, because they’re murderers, because they’re domestic abusers. 

In the…12 years that I’ve been coming down here talking about this, I’ve challenged people, I’ve said come tell me why Colorado’s not safer with that law in place, and there’s nobody that ever comes here and says, “here’s why you’re not safer” because obviously we are safer. And the country would be safer and Colorado would be safer if we passed background checks at the national level. 

We should close the gun show loophole.

We should limit the size of magazines, which we also have done in my Western state of Colorado.

We should ban bump stocks.

People in Colorado and across the country overwhelmingly support these steps.

But in the meantime, Mr. President, let’s pass this bipartisan proposal.

A few weekends ago, it was actually over the Memorial Day weekend, I had high school kids, not in the same place and not just one, literally coming up to me in tears out of desperation that we were not responding to what had happened in Texas. And we hadn’t done anything in this country about guns.  

I think we need to show them, and the young people that are here today, the young people that are living all over America, that we aren’t so broken that we can’t respond to one more massacre of kids at a school.

We need to show them, Mr. President, when we have this opportunity to demonstrate that we’re not going to fail again. And that we can succeed in passing this bipartisan bill.

And that after all these years, we can meet the American people’s reasonable expectation to begin to protect our communities against gun violence that happens in the United States of America and only in the United States of America. 

With that Mr. President, I yield the floor.   

Source: United States Senator for Oklahoma James Inhofe

U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, today released the following statement after President Joe Biden announced an additional tranche of military aid to Ukraine — committing $450 million of just over $19 billion in military aid provided through the Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act:

“Over a month ago, Congress passed a robust supplemental bill that provided the administration nearly $20 billion to send additional military aid to the Ukrainian armed forces. Since then, as Russia’s ferocious war wages on, especially in eastern Ukraine, President Biden has sent the Ukrainian Armed Forces only 10 percent of that amount — just over $2 billion. Despite the higher tempo of operations as the war shifted to the east, the administration is actually providing aid slower today than at the onset of the war.

“I’m glad to see the United States is providing some of the weapons and equipment the Ukrainians desperately need like long-range rocket systems and ammunition — but we should have already been sending these, in much higher quantities, for weeks at this point. The amounts announced today still aren’t enough, and this administration needs to move faster.

“I also don’t understand why the administration isn’t pushing for new weapons systems, like longer-range drones and tanks, that will give the Ukrainians huge battlefield advantages. I certainly hope that they are not being held up because the White House has deemed them too ‘provocative’ — just like they did with Stingers, tube artillery, and multiple launch rocket systems at various stages of this war. The administration eventually listened to the Department of Defense and approved the delivery of all three, but only after weeks of unacceptable delay.

“We have to do everything we can to help Ukraine win this fight against Russia, and of course, we need to be responsible about it. As each day of this war passes, the casualties mount and more Ukrainian cities are destroyed — the Ukrainians cannot afford to lose time. President Biden should stop getting in the way and start listening to his military advisers before it’s too late.”

Source: United States Senator for Delaware Christopher Coons

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the bipartisan group of 20 senators that negotiated an agreement to address gun safety and mental health, released the following statement today after the Supreme Court issued its opinion on New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, finding that there is a constitutional right to carry a handgun outside the home for self-defense:

“On a day when the U.S. Senate is about to pass historic, bipartisan gun safety legislation that will save lives, the current Supreme Court has issued a decision that will likely put more lives at risk. Today’s decision is the product of a generations-long right-wing effort to alter the Court. Today’s court is led by conservative judicial activists who twist Constitutional analysis to substitute their own policy preferences for laws passed by Congress or the states.

“I am grateful that Democrats and Republicans are standing together to send a message that reasonable laws to prevent gun violence don’t threaten constitutional rights—they save lives. We must pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act as soon as we can.”   

 

###