We also had a shooting at Columbia Mall. We all have shootings. That is what is so terrible.

Do you feel that this rise in gun violence--not to interrupt--is related to the growing heroin epidemic?

I want to thank you for your continuing progress on holding hearings on the issue of mental health.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I congratulate you on holding a hearing so quickly in the opening session and taking up the topic or the issue of guns and their excessive availability in our society.

We look forward to really moving on this agenda to resource the agencies to enforce the laws we have on the books and to find common ground on the President's executive orders.

It is a crime, a shame that Americans literally in their going to church to worship, going to see movies, going to college classrooms, going to elementary school have been victims of gun violence.

I rise to speak on the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016, otherwise known as the omnibus bill. I wish to report to my colleagues in the Senate that the House has passed the bill this morning with a robust vote of 316 to 113. Three…

I urge a ``no'' vote on the motion to table. This is the time to avoid a shutdown or a slow time. It is time to pass the omnibus, protect America, help the middle class, and meet our constitutional responsibilities. Vote no on the motion…

this is a bill that protects America. It rebuilds it and invests in the future. I think it is a great bill, as a result of bipartisan effort. Let's vote for it, and may the force be with us.

I rise to speak on the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016, otherwise known as the omnibus. Three months ago, it was unclear if we would get a budget deal that would lift the caps for both defense and nondefense spending. It was…

I rise in support of the Every Child Succeeds Act. Today will be a great day for the Senate because we will actually pass a bill that is a result of a bipartisan effort led by two very able and dedicated leaders, Chairman Alexander and…

PHA has written to Senators Richard Durbin and Barbara Mikulski to thank them for their leadership on the American Cures Act.

today I wish to talk about the Every Student Succeeds Act. I want to thank Chairmen Kline and Alexander and Ranking Members Scott and Murray for their work in putting together a bipartisan, bicameral framework to reauthorize the Elementary…

This is a very real problem in every corner of my State.

Every day 46 Americans die from prescription opioid overdoses. That's two deaths an hour--17,000 annually.

More Americans now die from drug overdoses than from car accidents.

I wish we didn't have to be here today. I wish we didn't have a persistent and growing drug epidemic in this country--one that is ravaging our communities and killing our young people.

In Maryland, it is, indeed, a public health epidemic and a public health emergency.

Thank you for really working on a bipartisan basis to move this legislation.

I want to commend Senators Collins and Reed for their hard work on this bill. The Senators worked closely together, continuing a great tradition of the Appropriations Committee. The Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and…

today I received an announcement of a lifetime. At 4 p.m. today, the President of the United States informed me that I will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I want to thank him for this honor and to say that I am deeply, deeply…

He'd be eminently qualified and look forward to supporting his nomination proceeding.

I rise to speak as in morning business in terms of the bill we will be voting on at 11:20 a.m. today, the armed services authorization, as well as what we are going to be voting on this afternoon, which is veterans health care. They…

I wish to join my colleagues in support of the clean water rule issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers and in opposition to efforts to derail this critical rule. Clean water is the lifeblood of our…

I wish to recognize and commend the National Association of Social Workers, NASW, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. Today NASW is the largest membership organization of professional social workers in the world, with…