Warner Weekly Wrap-Up: Bills, Bills, Bills

Happy Friday and happy (early) Juneteenth from the Warner press office! It was another productive week for Sen. Warner – he kicked it off by celebrating Boeing’s relocation to Arlington, then introduced and passed critical bills in DC, and is now wrapping the weekend by meeting with international leaders in Finland as part of his role as chair of the Intel Committee. Legislatively, he took major action to provide relief to borrowers burdened by spousal consolidation loans, supported one of the largest-ever expansions of health benefits for veterans, and led a letter to the Google CEO to crack down on manipulative, anti-abortion search results.

As Taylor Swift would say, “not a lot going on at the moment.” Just kidding. Let’s get into it.

SENATE SAYS SURE TO SEPARATING SPOUSAL STUDENT LOANS

Since hearing from a constituent named Sara, a single mom, and teacher from McLean impacted by a legal loophole that left her liable for an ex-husband’s student loans, Sen. Warner has championed a piece of legislation that would solve this issue and provide relief to borrowers. After years of building a bipartisan, bicameral coalition, this bill passed the Senate unanimously this week.  

For many years, married couples could choose to consolidate their student loan debt under a program – but when Congress eliminated this program in 2006, it didn’t create a way to split the debt in the case of divorce or separation. This left many people – including survivors of domestic violence, those with unresponsive partners, and those suffering from economic abuse – liable for their partners’ debt. 

So Sen. Warner worked up a bill that would create a process to sever debt with a former spouse – freeing them from this economic burden. It would also enable borrowers to access student loan relief programs, such as the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which they were previously ineligible for due to the specific conditions of joint consolidation loans.
 

After the bill passed the Senate unanimously this week, Sen. Warner said,
 
“The Senate passage of this commonsense legislation is a huge step for survivors of domestic violence and financial abuse who have spent decades fighting for their financial freedom. By finally allowing individuals to sever their joint consolidation loans, this bill will provide needed respite to vulnerable individuals who are being unfairly held responsible for the debt of a former partner. I urge my House colleagues to act with urgency and send this bill to the President’s desk as soon as possible.”

Sen. Warner released several graphics explaining this legislation and videos talking about those affected. If you’re interested in reading more, NPR has done some great coverage of this bill.

VETS GO, GIRLS!

This week the Senate passed the critical Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act of 2022, legislation that will expand health care to veterans suffering from cancer and lung problems linked to toxic exposure and burn pits.

The bill, named after Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson, who died in 2020 from toxic exposure as a result of his military service in Kosovo and Iraq, will expand VA health care to more than 3.5 million toxic-exposed post-9/11 combat veterans, add 23 burn pit and toxic exposure-related conditions to VA’s list of service presumptions, including hypertension, strengthen federal research on toxic exposure and improve VA’s resources and training for toxic-exposed veterans. It will also authorize 31 major medical facility leases and allocate $5.5 billion to fund those facilities – including a new outpatient clinic in Hampton Roads.

Upon Senate passage, Sens. Warner and Kaine said,

“Our nation’s veterans have sacrificed so much while serving in the Armed Forces, and we owe it to them to ensure they have access to the benefits they’ve earned. We’re glad the Senate passed this bipartisan legislation to expand health care for millions of veterans across generations of service, who were exposed to toxins and burn pits. We’re also thrilled that this bill will authorize and provide funding for another outpatient clinic in Hampton Roads, helping reduce wait times and increase access to timely care for the region’s growing military community.”

Sen. Warner has long been an advocate for Virginia’s veterans. In 2015, confronted with wait times in Hampton Roads that were three times the national average, Warner successfully urged the VA to send down a team of experts to address the problem. In October 2020, Sen. Warner successfully saw through the signing of his legislation to expand veterans’ access to mental health services to reduce the alarming rate of veteran suicide.

ABORTION ADVOCACY

Sen. Warner, a longtime supporter of reproductive rights, has been eager to take action to protect access to abortion after a leaked Supreme Court case suggested that Roe v. Wade may soon be overturned. This week, he and Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) led bipartisan, bicameral colleagues in a letter to CEO of Google Sundar Pichai urging him to prevent misleading Google search results and ads that lead to anti-abortion clinics.

This follows research that 37% of Google Maps results and 11% of Google search results for abortion-related searches in states with “trigger laws” actually lead to “crisis pregnancy centers” – fake clinics that do not provide abortion care. They also found that many Google ads still point to these deceptive clinics as well.

Sen. Warner believes that women seeking accurate information about their private medical decision should be able to do so without deception, so he led 20 colleagues in a letter to push for a plan to limit these results and label these fake clinics. The lawmakers said,

“Directing women towards fake clinics that traffic in misinformation and don’t provide comprehensive health services is dangerous to women’s health and undermines the integrity of Google’s search results. Google should not be displaying anti-abortion fake clinics or crisis pregnancy centers in search results for users that are searching for an ‘abortion clinic’ or ‘abortion pill.’ If Google must continue showing these misleading results in search results and Google Maps, the results should, at the very least, be appropriately labeled.”

Sen. Warner is also a co-sponsor of the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would codify Roe. Unfortunately, Republican-led filibusters make it unlikely that this will pass this Congress. 

GRAB BAG

IF IT AIN’T BOEING: Sen. Warner joined VA elected officials at an event to celebrate the relocation of Boeing to Arlington and the expansion of their partnerships with Virginia Tech and local veterans. Sen. Warner has been pushing for this relocation for several years.

TGIF, CDFIs: Sen. Warner was joined by Sens. Roger Wicker (R-MS), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) in introducing bipartisan legislation to promote lasting economic prosperity in Black, Brown, and low-income communities. This bill would help unlock more equity and long-term financial capital for community development financial institutions (CDFIs).

DETOUR AHEAD: Sens. Warner (D-VA), Fischer (R-NE),  Klobuchar (D-MN), and Thune (R-SD) and Reps. Rochester (D-DE-AL) and Gonzalez (R-OH-16) announced their bipartisan, bicameral DETOUR Act – legislation that would prevent large online platforms from using deceptive user interfaces, known as “dark patterns,” to trick consumers into handing over their personal data – has picked up several new endorsements.

GUN VIOLENCE: Sen. Warner has announced his intent to support the bipartisan gun violence framework released over the weekend.

SERVING SENIORS: Sens. Warner and Scott (R-SC) re-introduced the Ensuring Seniors Access to Quality Care Act, which would provide nursing home operators with access to the National Practitioner Data Bank – a national criminal background check system. This move would give employers greater ability to screen and vet potential employees to ensure that caregivers do not have a history that would endanger the seniors they are employed to look after. 

AIDING AIR AMERICA: Sens. Warner and Rubio (R-FL) applauded the Senate passage of their Air America Act of 2021. The legislation, first introduced by Warner and Rubio in July 2020, would provide Air America employees with the federal retirement credit they earned.

CELEBRATING HUMAN CAPITAL: Sens. Warner and Brown (D-OH) encouraged the SEC to continue focusing on improving human capital disclosures and on reforms that would ensure shareholders can properly evaluate public companies’ human capital practices and investments in their workers.

SCHOOL LUNCHES: Sen. Warner joined Sen. Gillibrand (D-NY) and 30 of their Senate colleagues in a push to extend the child nutrition waivers that have kept many children from going hungry throughout the pandemic, both during the school year and in the summer.

THE WEEK AHEAD

The Senate will be in session next week and is expected to take up various legislative priorities, including important confirmations. Sen. Warner also hopes to host a remote media availability, so stay tuned for more information on that!