Richard Blumenthal

A number of witnesses before this committee from the Department of Defense have characterized submarines as one of our chief asymmetric points of dominance.

Let me emphasize a couple of points. First of all, the bill that I have introduced applies to physician assistants and nurse practitioners.

I am not criticizing the use of pain killers properly by the group of doctors, and they are probably the vast majority, who are doing the right thing.

I have seen their destructive effect on families, on communities, on our society.

I hope we can have your continuing oversight here.

This line will create a huge number of jobs and make it easier for commuters to get across Connecticut and travel through New England.

I agree with you completely about fixing the Hudson, making sure that tunnel is workable, important not only to New York and its financial district but really to the whole Northeast Corridor.

It is a project that needs to be completed. It needs to be completed as soon as possible. There is simply no question about it.

Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Dan Coats (R-IN) introduced S. 2479, the Expanding Access to Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs Act.

These fishermen are throwing overboard tons of fish that are dead when they hit the water.

These decisions ought to be fact-based and founded in good science, but clearly in the real world what is happening is unacceptable because fishermen are losing livelihoods and people are losing food that otherwise could be extraordinarily…

And the fishing opportunities, to use your euphemism, which means to me there are fish to be caught, they are being thrown overboard, they are hitting the water dead, they are wasted, and fishermen are deprived of their livelihoods and…

But you would agree with me that the system right now has really run amuck and needs to be set right.

The system that gives primary say in determining the catch numbers permissible to the Mid-Atlantic Council and management organization is not only inequitable but ineffective.

This hearing is vitally important to Connecticut and our country, particularly so because the Magnuson-Stevens Act can be effective only if the latest science is brought to bear on decisions that are made and only if the people who are…

The goals of conserving and rebuilding fish populations and promoting the growth of the fishing industry are two goals that should be and are compatible, not mutually exclusive.

In other words, increase the catch quotas.

I advocated for a uniform formulary for improved transition from DOD care to the VA as servicemembers transition out of Active service.

I have sought to have those discharges reviewed.

As you know, Active Duty members of the military who may suffer emotional or mental diseases, some of them emanating from combat, post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury, sometimes are given bad conduct discharges or less than…

I think there has been progress, but you know, mental health care--the more we study it, the more we try and refine it, the more we find out about it.

On the issue of prescription drugs, particularly pain killers and opioids, is there an ongoing danger in the military as, frankly, there is in the civilian world of over-prescription and over-reliance on pain killers?

Thank you for your advocacy in this area.

I want to thank them for remaining here. It is not always the case, as you know, that the head of an agency stays to hear panels afterward.

The IB recommends for 2018, overall for medical care, our recommendation is about $77 billion for medical services alone.