Political Quotes

“Reserving the right to object, earlier this year, when we passed the PREVENT Pandemics Act out of our HELP Committee in an overwhelming bipartisan vote, we were able to include amendments from my colleague from Kansas and others to bolster oversight of the federally funded research involving pathogens of pandemic potential and make sure that we do have appropriate guardrails in place. I appreciate the leadership my colleague from Kansas has shown on this issue. I know it is important to him. However, I am concerned this new bill brought forward today is far less targeted than the provisions the Senator from Kansas and I worked on within PREVENT and would have significant and unintended consequences for U.S. biomedical research. Instead of passing this bill, I would respectfully ask my colleague from Kansas to keep working with me and Ranking Member Burr to get his related provision and the rest of our PREVENT Pandemics Act across the finish line. I thank the Senator from Kansas for his work and his focus on this issue. I really think we can continue to make bipartisan progress in the next few weeks on getting the PREVENT Pandemics Act and the Senator's provision he and I worked on into a good place and finally getting that much needed package signed into law. For those reasons, I object today. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard. The Senator from Kansas. Unanimous Consent Request--S. 4778”