October 10, 2024

Warren Releases Report Highlighting Senate Record of Plans Passed Into Laws, Fights Won for Massachusetts

Senator Warren has beaten special interests, fought for workers and consumers, and worked across the aisle to lift up the middle class in Massachusetts and beyond

Senator Warren has passed 44 bills into law; 60% of passed bills are bipartisan

Text of Report (PDF)

Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released a new report detailing her record of fighting — and winning — for consumers and working families in Massachusetts and across the country. The report, titled “From Plans to Law: Senator Elizabeth Warren’s Record of Accomplishments from 2013 - 2024,” provides a comprehensive overview of Senator Warren’s record of success in the Senate, from taking on special interests, to fighting for workers and consumers, to working across the aisle to lift up the middle class. 

Senator Warren has passed 44 bills into law by both Democratic and Republican administrations. Over 60% of these bills passed into law were bipartisan. In addition to standalone legislation, Senator Warren secured 110 provisions in the annual National Defense Authorization Acts (NDAAs) signed into law by Presidents Obama, Trump, and Biden. Senator Warren has also secured more than $50 billion in federal investments for Massachusetts, including more than $20 billion during the Biden-Harris Administration.

Senator Warren has attended hundreds of hearings and served as the chair of three subcommittees: the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee’s Economic Policy subcommittee, the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Personnel subcommittee, and the Senate Finance Committee’s Fiscal Responsibility and Economic Growth subcommittee. She has chaired 28 subcommittee hearings over the last three and a half years — including three held in Massachusetts.

Senator Warren has also aggressively used the power of congressional oversight to fight for working families, writing thousands of oversight letters to government officials and private sector CEOs, and using the information she obtains to effect change by the private sector and by the executive branch, and to inform her legislative work. She has released over 40 investigative reports exposing issues from broken policies in U.S. trade agreements to the failure of big banks to rein in scams to the failure of the pharmaceutical industry to meet its promises to provide lower-cost insulin for patients.

Key accomplishments include:

  • Senator Warren made corporations pay a fairer share — and used the revenue to combat the climate crisis. Senator Warren introduced legislative proposals to make big corporations pay their fair share, and published a report showing how multi-billion-dollar corporations exploit loopholes to pay pennies on the dollar of what they should owe. Congress enacted Senator Warren’s 15 percent corporate alternative minimum tax (CAMT) as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, meaning the CAMT helped pay for the largest climate package in U.S. history. It was the first corporate tax increase in three decades.
  • This year, Senator Warren worked across the aisle to guarantee automatic cash refunds for canceled flights. Senator Warren worked with Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) to pass a bipartisan amendment to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Reauthorization Act, requiring airlines to guarantee automatic cash refunds for canceled or significantly delayed flights — defeating airline lobbyists’ efforts to block the provision.
  • Senator Warren pushed to get rid of junk pharma patents, paving the way for more generics to come to market. In response to Big Pharma’s abuse of the patent system, which keeps generic competitors from entering the market and lowering costs for consumers, Senator Warren pushed the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and FDA to strengthen their oversight of pharmaceutical companies and close regulatory loopholes that these companies exploit to limit competition. She also pushed the FTC to crack down on junk patents. The FTC’s subsequent enforcement caused multiple companies to remove junk patents from the FDA’s Orange Book and contributed to the overwhelming public pressure on inhaler manufacturers that led them to slash costs for patients from hundreds of dollars to just $35.

Read the full report here.

Senator Warren has used her legislative power to score major wins for working people, including:

  • Securing $50 billion in federal investment for Massachusetts through the American Rescue Plan Act, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Chips and Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act.
  • Preventing a collapse in child care infrastructure during the COVID-19 pandemic by rapidly developing a plan to inject $50 billion in emergency funding into the child care system and leading the Child Care is Essential Act.
  • Breaking the hearing aid monopoly in partnership with Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), lowering costs for people with hearing loss.
  • Securing $100 million to fight the opioid crisis and passing her slate of five bipartisan bills, as part of the SUPPORT Act.
  • Safeguarding abortion care for military veterans and servicemembers.
  • Protecting servicemembers from blast overpressure with a bipartisan bill (co-led with Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa)), many elements of which the Department of Defense later incorporated into its updated blast overpressure policies.
  • Defending servicemembers’ rights by requiring the Department of Defense to create the first-ever military housing complaint database and investigate sexual assault and harassment of students in the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corp (JROTC).
  • Securing investments in scientific research and development, and passed her bipartisan proposal to increase the inclusion of women participants in medical research, which was adopted as part of the 21st Century Cures Act.
  • Passing a bipartisan bill (co-led with Senator Steve Daines (R-Mont.)) to help workers and retirees keep track of their retirement accounts across jobs.
  • Cracking down on wealthy tax cheats by introducing a bill to increase funding for the IRS — a priority which was later included in the Inflation Reduction Act, which appropriated a historic $80 billion increase in IRS funding over ten years.
  • Lowering prescription drug costs by championing key provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act that directly reduced the cost of insulin, limited out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs for seniors, and allowed Medicare to negotiate drug prices with manufacturers for the first time.

Senator Warren’s oversight work has reined in corporate abuse, including:

  • Pressuring Wells Fargo CEOs John Stumpf and Tim Sloan, as well as members of the Wells Fargo Board of Directors, to resign after cheating consumers..
  • Pressuring Zelle to reimburse defrauded customers and change policies to protect consumers.
  • Helping to block powerful mergers that would have raised costs, including Jet Blue / Spirit, Choice Hotels / Wyndham Hotels, Aetna / Humana, and Lockheed Martin / Aerojet.
  • Securing relief for victims of Corinthian College and other predatory for-profit schools.
  • Holding student loan servicers accountable, leading to Navient exiting the federal student loan system.
  • Protecting renters by opening an investigation into RealPage, a software that helped corporate landlords engage in apparent price fixing.
  • Prompting the delisting of key sham patents in FDA’s Orange Book, paving the way for more generic competition for critical drugs.
  • Helping return $16.1 million of taxpayer money to the Department of Defense from military contractor TransDigm.
  • Securing ethics commitments from high-level nominees to avoid conflicts of interest and shut the revolving door.

Senator Warren has influenced executive actions and policy-making to advance key priorities, including:

  • Laying the groundwork for regulators to put money back in Americans’ pockets by curbing overdraft fees and credit card late fees.
  • Successfully encouraging the FDA to follow the science and reduce barriers to accessing mifepristone, one of two drugs used in medication abortion, including by allowing the medication to be dispensed at certified pharmacies and by mail.
  • Helping to ban non-competes, making wages and benefits more competitive for workers.
  • Helping establish a program for millions of Americans to file their taxes directly with the IRS, for free.
  • Protecting seniors by securing a minimum staffing requirement for nursing homes, which will save over 13,000 lives each year.
  • Protecting retirees from bad advice from investment brokers by leading an investigation into conflicts of interest.
  • Fighting against the FDA’s discriminatory blood donation ban for men who have sex with men, leading FDA to replace the policy with one that better reflects the most up-to-date science.
  • Working to stop Big Tech’s attempt to sneak unfair practices into digital trade agreements.
  • Leading the charge to cancel student loan debt for almost 5 million Americans.
  • Sounding the alarm about bank consolidation for years, contributing to President Biden’s action to strengthen DOJ bank merger guidelines.

Read the full report here.

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