Bernie Sanders

Get your act together or else.

If you don't have data and metrics, you don't know how you're doing, you don't know how you compare to anyone else.

I think we need to expand the efforts of the CDC.

Thank you very much.

I want to thank you very much for stepping in, clearly unexpectedly, into a very important position in a very difficult moment in the history of the VA.

The issues that Senator Begich is raising are very important, and that has to do with how we not raid other facilities and steal doctors and psychiatrists, but develop more.

Is it fair to say that to the degree that we strengthen the VA, we become less dependent on expensive contract care? Is that a fair statement?

Well, Mr. Acting Secretary, thank you very much for not dealing with niceties, for dealing with realities.

I trust that every Member of this Committee understands that we have an immediate crisis, that we have hundreds of thousands of veterans on wait lists.

We want to hear from Mr. Gibson in terms of what he is doing to address those many problems.

Ensuring timely access to high-quality mental health care is critical for our veterans and their loved ones.

It is clear to all of us that the VA faces many, many challenges, and they are well documented.

Last week despite a very partisan environment here in Congress, 93 Senators put their differences aside to vote in favor of a significant piece of legislation.

The VA has got to be accountable. It has got to be efficient.

Millions of veterans are counting on us to do so. We can't afford to make them wait any longer for the care and services they have earned and deserve.

I am confident that my colleagues on the Conference Committee will also put their differences aside.

The veterans of this country, people who have suffered so much, deserve quality health care and they deserve it in a timely manner.

I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. Sanders pertaining to the introduction of S. 2548 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

I would also like to enter into the record the fact that the Koch Brothers representing the fossil fuel industry will spend hundreds of millions of dollars on this campaign trying to defeat Democrats.

We can respect science, we can respect the planet.

Somebody has got to lead. This Country leads.

We are now in a very strange moment and that is we have virtually an entire political party that is rejecting basic science.

Climate change is real, it is significantly caused by human activity, and it is already causing devastating problems in our Country and throughout the world.

We should not disagree on what scientists tell us.

I say this as somebody who may have the highest pro-labor voting record in the U.S. Congress.