Translate Politics: Congress in plain language.

“The Senate passed our bill to keep funding ALS research and treatments. This law helps patients try new medicines and keeps scientists working on cures. We must keep this work going without delay, and we still need to pass two more bills to help ALS patients.”

“Mr. President, since I am here on the floor and since I have my friend and partner who has worked with me on other matters of great import and impact, I want to take this opportunity to celebrate something that happened last evening when we here in the Senate passed the reauthorization of the ACT for ALS bill. This bill has passed the House, it has now passed the Senate, and it can head to the President for his signature. The path on this one, again, should have been easy. It should have been easy, but it just hasn’t been. It has taken years of work here in the Congress and even more years of work and effort and heartfelt effort from the ALS community, who are amazing men and women--the people who live with ALS and their families, their caregivers, the researchers, the advocates who share their stories and kept pushing us to keep moving this forward. We passed the ACT for ALS in 2021. That was an enormous milestone, and, again, I appreciate my colleague here. But what it meant for those who have been diagnosed with ALS to know that for the first time, there would be this pathway for individuals who have an ALS diagnosis who are not eligible for clinical trials to be able to access these investigational treatments. So we have made good progress. We pushed funding to NIH and to FDA so that we can accelerate the research and we can help move more of these promising treatments from the laboratory to the people who need them. So we have been working with our partners in the House, Senator Coons and I along with Representatives Calvert and Quigley, on this reauthorization--good, strong bipartisan progress in both the House and the Senate. We thought we were cooking. We are going to make this thing happen. We are going to get it across before the September 30 deadline. And then we were literally running out of time. I think my colleague and I would both agree we respect the legislative process. There are times when slowing things down makes good sense, but when it comes to ALS, a slowdown, a lapse in authorization--this is not just a procedural issue; this is disruptive. It causes uncertainty. It causes so much anxiety for those who are already navigating such an unpredictable and such an uncertain disease. Families should simply not have to wonder about whether or not the research infrastructure and the treatment access pathways they are relying on are now going to disappear because a Federal authorization has expired. That is what this reauthorization does. It continues that continuity so that the work that has been built continues and it doesn’t have to stop and restart, because ALS is progressive and not in a positive way. Every day, it is harder and harder. People living with ALS and their families cannot put their lives on hold while they are waiting for the next breakthrough because every single day matters. So what this is about is to see the momentum that has been built over these past 5 years. The ALS community has helped build this momentum, and it is through the research networks, it is through the collaborations, the new pathways. But this reauthorization is about protecting the momentum that has been built. So it is not just about preserving a program; it is preserving the momentum, preserving the options, and preserving the hope because that is what these families are clinging to every day, is that when you are facing a disease that does not wait, that maybe today is going to be the day for that breakthrough. I am so honored to work alongside my colleague Senator Coons. He could not be a better advocate. I am so honored to work with so many ALS advocates and the broader ALS community. We have more work to do. We still have to get the Justice for ALS Act and the ALS Better Care Act. We are going to do that. But I am so enormously grateful for the persistence we have shown, the heart that has been here, and, again, the success that was achieved here in the Congress, and now, moving forward, the hope that will continue with the families and those who live with ALS. With that, I yield to my colleague and partner in all of this, Senator Coons.”

“The Senate passed a bill to renew funding for ALS research and care. My cousin's husband died from ALS, and my family worked hard for this. I will keep working until we find a cure.”

“Mr. President, I am so honored to work alongside colleagues like my friend from Delaware, who has so much heart and so much passion. But it is a reminder to me of how much we have to do on behalf of those who do feel that they do not have a path forward, and they look to us in Congress as they go through some of the most difficult and dark moments as families together. Like Senator Coons, I have been touched by ALS, and my family has. And, in fact, it was through my family that I came to this cause, and it is through my family that I will remain committed to this cause, until such time as we have a full treatment and a cure for this awful and dreaded disease. It was my cousin’s sister, as I call her--it was her husband Pat, who lived with ALS for 8 years. And for 8 years, as a family, we came to understand the impact of the disease, but more than the impact, what it meant to live day by day, hoping--just hoping--that tomorrow was going to bring something that was more positive. And so after Pat left us, my cousin Jenny stayed in the fight. It is pretty hard after you have fought alongside your spouse, and pretty hard when you have come to hate a disease so passionately, and you want to never utter those words, those letters, again. But when ACT for ALS reauthorization passed last night by voice vote, I sent a text to Jenny. And I said: And she sent a note back, late, late last night. And I am just going to share this as my final comments. She said: So, Mr. President, thank you. Thank you for helping us realize this today on behalf of all those who live with ALS and their families. I yield the floor.”

“Utah is growing, and we are facing a serious drought. Saving water is important, but saving water alone will not be enough for our future. We need to think big, just like Utah's early pioneers did. I want our leaders and experts to plan 50 to 100 years ahead and look into bold ideas to bring new water to our state.”

“Mr. President, when Utah’s pioneers first arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, they had almost nothing. They had no reservoirs, no pipelines, no pumps, no Federal grants, and no municipal bonds. Their most sophisticated earth-moving equipment ate hay. What they did have was a problem. There was not enough water where they needed it, so they moved it. Even before Brigham Young entered the valley in July of 1847, members of the advance company diverted City Creek to soften the dry ground and irrigate crops. Within a year, thousands of acres were under irrigation. As settlements grew, Utahns did not simply accept the limits of the streams flowing conveniently past them. They built ditches and canals. They diverted mountain streams. They constructed the Jordan and Salt Lake City Canal that stretched, roughly, 28 miles across the valley. Eventually, they developed water exchanges, providing farmers with water from Utah Lake and the Jordan River in exchange for higher quality canyon water that could serve a growing community. There is something important in that history lesson for us today. These were people with picks, shovels, horses, and oxen. They had almost no capital; yet they were willing to undertake enormous projects because they understood that the limited water available to them at that moment did not have to define the territory’s future. The pioneers were bold. They thought big. We need some of that thinking again. Utah is growing. The West is getting more crowded. We are in a pattern of drought. The Colorado River is under extraordinary pressure, and the Great Salt Lake reminds us that every gallon has competing demands. Conservation has to be part of the answer. Agriculture needs to become increasingly efficient. Cities should reuse water and eliminate unnecessary consumption. We need to be better stewards of the water we already have. But I don’t believe conservation alone is a long-term water strategy for a rapidly growing State. We should also be asking: Where is the next water, and how do we get it? I recently met with a group of experts who were working on water in the Great Salt Lake, and I challenged them to think like pioneers. What are the big ideas? What are the ideas that sound a little crazy today but that might not sound so crazy 50 years from now? For purposes of the discussion, I asked them to temporarily take money and even engineering implementations off the table. Before telling me why something couldn’t be done, I wanted to hear what might be possible. The list quickly became long. What about desalination plants? What about bringing water from wetter parts of the country? What about ground water beneath the Great Salt Lake? Can we recover water that is currently stranded from the lake? Can we reduce evaporation? Can we develop crops that produce more with less water? Can better forest management help more winter snow actually reach the ground? Some of these ideas may not work. Some will be too expensive. Others may fail because of engineering, environmental, or legal problems. That is fine, but we should know they don’t work because we took them seriously enough to find out. Utah has done big things before. The Central Utah Project moves Colorado River Basin water across the Wasatch Mountains through a remarkable system of reservoirs, tunnels, aqueducts, and pipelines. It took generations to conceive, finance, and build. Before that came the canals, and before the canals came a ditch from City Creek. We have a tendency to look back at what the pioneers did and accomplished and romanticize it. We celebrate their courage, put their pictures in museums, and tell their stories every July. I wonder if one of the best ways to honor them is to simply think and act more like they did. Imagine telling a Utah pioneer that constructing a 28-mile canal with picks, shovels, and horse-drawn equipment was too ambitious. Imagine telling them the valley could support only as many people as the existing water streams happened to accommodate. They looked at what Utah had and started building the Utah they wanted their children to inherit. Our challenge is different, but I think our responsibility is much the same. None of this means we should build every project someone can draw on a map. We need good engineering, honest accounting, environmental responsibility, and respect for our neighboring States. We should conserve aggressively before spending enormous amounts of money to create or transport additional water, but we should not assume that today’s water supply is all Utah will ever have. The answer probably isn’t one enormous project but, more likely, a combination of conservation, agricultural efficiency, reuse, watershed restoration, desalination, better storage, new technology, and perhaps, someday, bringing additional water into the Colorado River system. And there are probably good ideas we haven’t thought of yet. Utah has an extraordinary collection of engineers, entrepreneurs, capital providers, universities, lawmakers, and technology companies. I would like to see more of us working on this problem. We need our best minds to help us figure out water. Most importantly, we need to think beyond the next legislative session or election cycle. Water projects can take decades. We ought to be thinking 50 and even 100 years ahead. The pioneers who diverted City Creek in 1847 could not have imagined millions of people living along the Wasatch Front or a modern Utah economy built around technology, manufacturing, and innovation. Fortunately, they built more for Utah than they could see, and we should too. Our ancestors came to one of the driest places in America and built thriving communities because they were willing to move water where it was needed. Nearly two centuries later, we have resources and technology they could not have even imagined. We could use a little more of their ambition and dreaming. When Utahns look back at us 100 years from now, I hope they will say that we didn’t just manage the water problems we inherited but that we started building the solutions they need. I yield the floor.”