House Democrats last week approved bipartisan legislation designed to reduce the cost of prescription drugs, opposed by most Republicans over a decision to combine it with a measure to bolster the Affordable Care Act.

On the other side of the Capitol, the Senate continued its steady march of confirming White House nominations, including Kenneth Lee to be a judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is the appeals court for Nevada courts. Lee came under scrutiny from Democrats over writings critical of affirmative action.

Passage of the health bill—234 to 183, with only five Republicans voting with all Democrats—was praised by Rep. Susie Lee.

“This comprehensive legislation is a package of seven bills that together will lower the skyrocketing price of prescription drugs, crack down on junk plans that discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions, and reverse the Administration’s sabotage on health care through their efforts to push Americans into more expensive, less comprehensive health care coverage,” Lee said in a release after the vote.

The prescription drug provisions in the measure were designed to remove barriers to getting generic drugs to market more quickly, including a prohibition on brand name drug manufacturers from paying generic drug manufacturers to delay the entry of a generic drug into the market.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy pointed to the fact the prescription drug bills had received bipartisan support in committee, and he lamented the addition of “partisan poison pills.”

Rep. Mark Amodei, who opposed the measure, questioned the need for the ACA provisions, which included language to provide $100 million to states for outreach and enrollment activities under the health law.

For plan year 2017, the ACA’s Navigator programs, which provide outreach, education, and enrollment assistance to consumers, received $62.5 million in grant money and only enrolled 81,426 individuals, which accounted for fewer than 1 percent of total enrollees, according to a statement from Amodei’s office: “Even with enrollment being less than one percent, this bill still seeks to funnel additional tax dollars into a failed government program.”

The House also approved a bill, 236 to 173, that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Amodei opposed the bill, in part, over concerns that the measure would threaten the law known as Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education, including school sports programs. Amodei said that his reading of the bill would allow a male student to say he identifies as female and compete on female school teams. 

In the Senate, with the confirmation of Lee, on a party-line 52-45 vote, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto took to Twitter to denounce the artion. Sen. Jacky Rosen also voted against Lee.

“It’s unconscionable that @senatemajldr is advancing an extreme nominee to sit for a lifetime appointment on the 9th Circuit who’s dismissed discrimination experienced by some Americans as “cries of racism” & doesn’t respect the right to vote. He isn’t fit for the federal bench,” she wrote.

Democrats had honed in on Lee’s controversial college-era writings, including on voting rights, race, and civil rights, which Judiciary Committee Democrats said he tried to hide from the panel.

At a committee hearing in March, he said his views had evolved since he wrote those opinions in his late teens through early twenties and that he had matured and become more empathetic.

Title X funding rule

Off the Senate floor, Cortez Masto and Lee wrote a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar asking him to reconsider a rule, which went into effect earlier this month, that prohibits medical facilities that receive Title X federal family planning funding from counseling and referring for abortion.

The rule allows exceptions for doctors, advanced practice registered nurses (APRN) and certain other medical professionals, but that exclusion does not apply to registered nurses. The senators argue that registered nurses provide a significant share of care in rural areas in Nevada and that those rural communities would be disproportionately affected by the rule.

“Among the state’s small, rural health departments, counseling services are conducted by registered nurses who would be barred from offering those services under the Final Rule,” the letter said. “In some cases, APRNs visit clinics only once a month. The rule would thus severely limit the window of availability for counseling services, and divert APRNs from performing more complicated services that they are uniquely qualified to deliver.”

Compounding the problem, Nevada suffers from some of the worst health care workforce shortages in the country. “Our state ranks 47th nationwide for active physicians and 48th for active primary care doctors per 100,000 residents,” the letter said. “These shortages extend to other types of providers as well – Nevada ranks 42nd among other states for Physician Assistants (PAs) with 25 PAs per 100,000 residents; just 42 Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs) per 100,000 residents are registered in the state.”

The letter also asked, among other questions, for the rationale for not excluding registered nurses.

Energy and Natural Resources

Last week, Cortez Masto took part in a two-part hearing convened by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, including one on Cortez Masto’s bill to prohibit oil and gas exploration in the Ruby Mountains. 

“The bill was created after the Forest Service received a request by an out-of-state member of the public develop the 54,000 acres of the land within the Ruby Mountains,” she said. “The prospect of oil and gas leasing in the Rubies sparked a public outcry from people of all walks of life and across the political spectrum.”

She took Frank Beum, acting associate deputy chief of the Forest Service, to task for opposing her bill, which she argued, would save money rather than having the service go through the process again upon a future drilling request.

Cortez Masto also took part in a hearing on increasing the mining of minerals, such as rare earths, which are required for the manufacturing of cell phones, medical equipment, and automobiles.

The hearing focused on two bills. One would allow for the development of technology capable of extracting rare earth elements from coal and coal byproducts in order to reestablish a U.S. based supply chain. The other included provisions to designate a list of critical minerals and require that list to be updated at least every three years, require nationwide resource assessments for every critical mineral, as well as implement several permitting reforms to reduce delays in the federal process.

One witness at the hearing, Jonathan Evans, president of Lithium Americas, testified about a project at Thacker Pass in northern Humboldt County, about 60 miles from Winnemucca, where they will extract lithium from sedimentary clay deposits close to the surface. The project is run by Lithium Nevada, a subsidiary of Lithium Americas.

Evans called for passage of the bills and called for help to attract investment into mineral mining in order to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign sources of minerals.

“The legislation that’s been introduced here is very, very helpful,” Evans said. “I think the other difficult thing here...is attracting capital to get these projects developed. The United States has cobalt and lithium and manganese and copper. We need to push for the development and get private funds involved and it might require some government support to help catalyze that."

Cortez Masto suggested, in addition to passing the bills, the creation of a loan guarantee program to help encourage private investment to increase mineral extraction projects.

Evans also talked about the need for a properly trained workforce to work in the growing mining industry.

“Although Thacker Pass jobs will pay an appealing $86,000/year compared to the state average of $55,000 a year, we will still struggle to fill our openings,” Evans said. “This problem is due to both the remote location of our project—the nearest Home Depot is more than 200 miles away--and also the historic under-investment in domestic critical mineral processing, which has limited the pool of technical professionals and skilled operators in this field.”

He said the company has worked with Great Basin College to help with training, as well as the local community college, school district and tribal communities.

Miscellany

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee approved legislation sponsored by Rosen that would direct National Science Foundation (NSF) to more equitably distribute funding for early childhood education in its Discovery Research PreK-12 program, which seeks to enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The Discovery Research PreK-12 program currently focuses the majority of its research on students in middle school and older.

“Access to STEM education gives our students, particularly young girls and minorities, access to opportunities and career fields they might not otherwise pursue,” Rosen said in a release.

Rep. Steven Horsford was on hand to introduce legislation unveiled by Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson of Florida to establish the Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys within the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to make a systematic study of the conditions affecting black men and boys.

“Black boys are entitled to the same rights as every American, but continue to face barriers to quality employment, education, and health care,” he said on Twitter. “I’m proud to co-sponsor of HR 1636 to examine ways to improve critical government programs”

Rep. Dina Titus had pointed words for President Donald Trump, who released his financial disclosure that showed he made at least $434 million last year, including more thsn $40 million dollars from his D.C. hotel.

“Donald Trump is profiting from his presidency in violation of the Constitution,” Titus said in a release. “Instead of separating himself from the Trump Organization’s business interests, the President is essentially accepting bribes from giant corporations and foreign governments looking for sweetheart deals. Donald Trump’s casual corruption helps him get richer at the expense of the American people.”

She pledged “to hold the Trump Administration accountable for this violation of the public trust.”

Titus is chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management Subcommittee and is investigating whether the General Services Administration (GSA), which oversees the federal government’s real estate, ran afoul of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause after Trump was elected president with regard to the lease for the Old Post Office Building in Washington, D.C. to the Trump Organization. The property was converted into a Trump hotel, which opened in 2016.

For a full rundown of the measures the delegates supported or opposed this week, check out The Nevada Independent’s congressional vote tracker and other information below.

SEN. CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO
Legislation sponsored:
S. 1513 – A bill to improve oversight of privatized military housing provided by the Department of Defense to members of the Armed Forces and their families, and for other purposes.
S. 1512 – A bill to require the Comptroller General of the United States to conduct a study on the designation by the Secretary of Defense and the Secretaries of the military departments of installations of the Department of Defense as "remote" or "isolated", and for other purposes.
S. 1511 – A bill to require a mechanism for the regular evaluation by the Air Force of justifications for the continuing maintenance of non-operational staff positions in the Air Force that require pilot expertise.
Legislation co-sponsored:
S. 1491 – A bill to prohibit forced arbitration in work disputes, and for other purposes.
S. 1481 – A bill to amend title XXVII of the Public Health Service Act to provide for a special enrollment period for pregnant women, and for other purposes
S. 1479 – A bill to further development of Next Generation 9-1-1 to enhance and upgrade the 9-1-1 systems of the United States, and for other purposes.
S. 1445 – A bill to provide a coordinated regional response to manage effectively the endemic violence and humanitarian crisis in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
SEN. JACKY ROSEN
Legislation sponsored:
S. 1466 – A bill to establish a grant program within the Department of Labor to support the creation, implementation, and expansion of registered apprenticeship programs in cybersecurity.
Legislation co-sponsored:
S. 1540 – A bill to protect elections for public office by providing financial support and enhanced security for the infrastructure used to carry out such elections, and for other purposes.
S. 1529 – A bill to make additional financial assets of the Government of Iran available to pay compensatory damages to the victims of terrorism sponsored by that Government, and for other purposes.
S. 1492 – A bill to prevent harassment at institutions of higher education, and for other purposes.
S. 1481 – A bill to amend title XXVII of the Public Health Service Act to provide for a special enrollment period for pregnant women, and for other purposes.
S. 1462 – A bill to prevent a person who has been convicted of a misdemeanor hate crime, or received an enhanced sentence for a misdemeanor because of hate or bias in the commission, from obtaining a firearm.
S. 1445 – A bill to provide a coordinated regional response to manage effectively the endemic violence and humanitarian crisis in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
S. 1438 – A bill to amend title 39, United States Code, to extend the authority of the United States Postal Service to issue a semipostal to raise funds for breast cancer research.
REP. DINA TITUS
Legislation co-sponsored:
H.R. 2747 – To prevent harassment at institutions of higher education, and for other purposes.
H.R. 2708 – To prevent a person who has been convicted of a misdemeanor hate crime, or received an enhanced sentence for a misdemeanor because of hate or bias in its commission, from obtaining a firearm.
REP. SUSIE LEE
Legislation sponsored:
H.R. 2721 – To establish a grant program within the Department of Labor to support the creation, implementation, and expansion of registered apprenticeship programs in cybersecurity.
REP. STEVEN HORSFORD
Legislation sponsored:
H.R. 2806 – To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to treat certain scholarships and fellowship grants as earned income for purposes of the kiddie tax.