Senate HELP Committee clears insulin cap, biosimilar bills in bipartisan burst

The INSULIN Act of 2026 passed the Senate HELP Committee with bipartisan support Wednesday, capping out-of-pocket insulin costs at $35 per month for private insurance holders and establishing a pathway for uninsured diabetics to access insulin at the same price. The bill is co-led by Sens. Shaheen, Kennedy, and Collins.

On the biosimilar front, the committee unanimously advanced Sen. Paul's Expedited Access to Biosimilars Act, which would eliminate what Paul called "costly and redundant clinical study requirements." "The FDA in previous administrations has forced companies to jump through bureaucratic hoops and produce redundant clinical studies that offer no new meaningful scientific information for the approval process," Paul said.

Separately, Sen. Moody's biosimilar bill — which would consolidate duplicative FDA review processes — also cleared HELP. "One of my top priorities in the Senate is getting control of runaway costs for Florida families, and that includes the cost of prescription drugs," Moody said. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks joined as a cosponsor, noting the bill "allows the FDA to streamline its review process, increasing efficiency and incentivizing innovation."

The CLEAR LABELS Act, requiring country-of-origin labeling for prescription drugs and their active pharmaceutical ingredients, also passed HELP on a bipartisan 21-1 vote. The bill is led by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Aging Committee Chairman Rick Scott. "Americans deserve to know where their prescription drugs are manufactured so they can make informed health care decisions," Gillibrand said. Scott warned that "we cannot be dependent on an evil foreign adversary for medications that our seniors, our military, and millions of Americans rely on."

Sens. Patty Murray, Tammy Duckworth, Cory Booker, and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer reintroduced the Right to IVF Act Thursday, framing it explicitly against a two-year-old campaign pledge they say President Trump has not fulfilled. The bill would establish a nationwide right to IVF access, require employer-sponsored insurance to cover treatments, and expand coverage for military families.

"Republicans are not pro-family and they won't lift a finger to help families get IVF — the Texas Republican Party just recently made banning IVF a part of their official party platform," Murray said at a press conference. Duckworth was equally direct: "Almost two years after promising free IVF for all Americans if he were elected, Donald Trump has still failed to deliver."

Schumer tied the reintroduction to a broader reproductive rights argument. "Donald Trump ran on a promise that he would make IVF free, and yet he has done nothing but attack women's reproductive rights and undermine access to fertility care — another lie in his long list of broken promises to American families," he said.

Murray also addressed the Speaker of the House directly in her floor remarks, warning that "the Republican Speaker of the House believes an embryo should have the same rights as an adult woman with children who count on her."

Sen. Jeff Merkley introduced two wildfire-related bills Thursday and joined a third letter, making Oregon's junior senator the day's most active member on the issue. His Wildfire Insurance Affordability Act would create a federal grant program for home hardening and a voucher pilot to help low-income homeowners reduce insurance premiums in fire-prone areas. "The threat of wildfires is sending the dream of homeownership up in flames for millions of families in Oregon and across the nation," Merkley said.

Merkley and Sen. John Curtis also led the bipartisan Wildfire Emissions Prevention Act, which would remove Clean Air Act barriers to prescribed burns. EPW Committee Chair Shelley Moore Capito signed on as a cosponsor. "States should have the right to use known prevention practices, including prescribed fires, to mitigate potential catastrophes and care for their land," Capito said. Sen. Mark Kelly was also among the cosponsors.

From the northern plains, Sen. John Hoeven introduced a Senate resolution calling on the Canadian government to take responsibility for cross-border wildfire smoke affecting American communities. "Over the past several days, more than 100 million people nationwide have been under air quality alerts due to smoke from Canadian wildfires," Hoeven said. "This is not just an inconvenience. This smoke has impacts on the health and well-being of individuals and families."

Merkley, Wyden, Kelly, Gallego, Warnock, and four other Democrats also signed a separate letter to FEMA urging faster delivery of hazard mitigation funds to communities still waiting on post-fire grants from previous seasons.

In a floor statement, Sen. David McCormick argued the moment is ripe to increase economic pressure on Russia — but most of Thursday's Iran-focused action came from Republicans defending the administration's posture. Sen. Steve Daines, appearing on Fox Business, called a Democratic War Powers Resolution unconstitutional. "The Founding Fathers had very specific separation of powers. They gave Congress the purse, spending. That's our constitutional power. They gave the President an Article II Section II, the commander in chief responsibilities," Daines said. "I think it's unconstitutional, and I'll be voting against it."

Daines also addressed the path to ending the conflict: "Nobody wants to end this conflict more than President Trump. He's executing a war at the moment to protect our children and grandchildren, to ensure this dangerous ideology, this dangerous regime never has nuclear weapons and the ability to take the world to its knees."

McCormick, speaking on the Senate floor, made a case for sanctions as a strategic tool, citing battlefield momentum. "For the first time since 2023, Ukrainian forces have retaken more territory than Russia has gained," he said, calling on colleagues to "drive Putin's war machine into the ground."

Sen. Pete Ricketts published an op-ed in National Review making the case for his Stop Insider Trading Act, citing Vice President Vance's recent push to House Republicans and President Trump's stated support. The bill would bar members of Congress, their spouses, and dependent children from buying new stock and require seven-day advance public disclosure before any sale.

"Over 80 percent of Americans believe members of Congress do a bad job keeping their personal financial interests separate from their work in Congress," Ricketts wrote. He pushed back on forced-divestiture alternatives: "Forced divestiture would discourage Americans with successful private sector careers from serving in Congress."

The op-ed was published by National Review on July 22 and released through Ricketts' Senate office Thursday.

Two AI-focused bills dropped Thursday from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum and found common ground on substance. Sens. Adam Schiff and Jim Banks introduced the Collaboration on Adversarial Threats and Security Risks Act, targeting "distillation attacks" — systematic harvesting of U.S. AI model outputs by foreign labs. "We cannot allow China, or any foreign adversary, to steal American technological advancements in AI, and then weaponize those advances to undermine our own national security," Schiff said.

On the workforce side, Sens. Lisa Blunt Rochester and Tim Sheehy introduced the Expanding AI Voices Act, which would codify and expand the NSF's ExpandAI program to direct competitive grants toward minority-serving institutions, HBCUs, tribal colleges, and rural universities. "America's AI leadership depends on finding talent in every corner of the country," Sheehy said.

The two bills represent distinct but complementary threads: security against foreign adversaries and domestic workforce inclusion. Both cleared the Commerce Committee environment or are headed there.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren led 13 colleagues in a letter demanding IRS CEO Frank Bisignano explain whether he misled Congress about a staffing shortage after the Trump administration cut nearly 30,000 workers — more than a fourth of the agency's staff. The letter cites Bisignano's April statement on Fox News that there was "no staffing shortage" and his May testimony to Congress that he had "zero staffing concerns."

Warren's letter notes that the IRS's own chief human capital officer warned of a staff shortage in February 2026 — before Bisignano's congressional testimony — and that "the IRS ultimately requested, and received, special authority to hire 8,000 employees on an expedited basis." "This discrepancy requires an explanation," the lawmakers wrote. "Under federal law, persons who 'knowingly and willfully … make any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation' to Congress may be subject to penalties."

The coalition set an August 5 deadline for a response. Signatories included Sens. Angela Alsobrooks, Richard Blumenthal, Cory Booker, Ruben Gallego, John Hickenlooper, Mazie Hirono, Chris Van Hollen, Tim Kaine, Jeanne Shaheen, Raphael Warnock, Peter Welch, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Ron Wyden.

Sens. Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith, joined by Rep. Michael Guest, sent a letter to CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz urging caution before implementing a final rule that redefines how organ procurement organizations are evaluated. The letter centers on the Mississippi Organ Recovery Agency, which serves more than 1,300 Mississippians currently on transplant waiting lists.

The lawmakers argued the new metrics fail to account for chronic disease burdens in states like Mississippi. "This standard would disadvantage states like Mississippi, where heart disease is the leading cause of death, cancer is second, and chronic conditions like obesity, hypertension, and diabetes are widespread," the delegation wrote. "These factors mean our donor populations are often more medically complex, which directly affects donor eligibility, organ quality, and transplant center utilization."

They asked CMS to consider alternative metrics the OPO community is developing using the agency's own measurement framework. "These metrics are grounded in science and independently evaluated," the lawmakers continued.

Sen. Tim Sheehy introduced the End H-1B Abuse Act, which would pause new H-1B visas for three years, replace the random lottery with a wage-based selection system, and ban third-party staffing-agency models. "The H-1B program was created to address workforce shortages for specialized, difficult-to-fill positions — not to displace qualified, hardworking Americans with cheaper, foreign labor," Sheehy said.

On the Senate floor, Sen. Eric Schmitt blocked a Democratic attempt to extend Temporary Protected Status for more than 350,000 Haitians, invoking his objection after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to terminate Haitian TPS. "Washington has invented a new definition of 'temporary': Permanent," Schmitt said. "Sixteen-years later — 350,000 Haitians are still here."

Schmitt framed the block as a mandate from voters: "Those supporting this bill have a message for the American people: Your vote does not matter. Your community does not matter. Your livelihood does not matter."

Sen. Raphael Warnock used a Senate Finance Committee hearing to press U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on tariff-driven inflation, citing analyses he said showed American households paid more than $1,000 in 2025 from Trump tariff costs and face an additional $1,300 this year. "You and the president still seem to be in denial that tariffs have raised prices — a fact that study after study confirms and that is just basic common sense," Warnock told Greer.

Warnock asked Greer directly whether USTR had produced any peer-reviewed study refuting inflation data from tariffs. Greer cited Council on Economic Advisers analyses and noted that core goods inflation had reached 2.6 percent in the most recent month.

Warnock also cited a Federal Reserve Bank of New York finding that "90% of the costs from President Trump's tariffs have been paid by American consumers and businesses." The exchange came as President Trump has signaled new tariff actions.

Sens. Roger Marshall and Todd Young both took to the Senate floor Thursday to call for passage of anti-fraud legislation, representing a convergence around fiscal accountability messaging. Marshall backed the Protecting American Taxpayers Act, which he said is projected to save $240 billion. "Just two years ago, we were a land of open borders. Crime was surging across the country, and fraud was rampant. But today — today the borders are secure, crime and murder rates are at a 100-year low, and fraudsters are going to jail," Marshall said.

Young spoke in support of his Assisting Small Businesses, Not Fraudsters Act, which would bar people convicted of defrauding COVID-era SBA loan and grant programs from receiving future SBA assistance. "Honest, hard-working entrepreneurs and small business owners shouldn't have to compete with convicted fraudsters for federal opportunities," Young said. "Every taxpayer dollar lost to fraud is a dollar that cannot help legitimate small businesses expand, hire workers, or invest in their future."

The Accelerating Broadband Permits Act of 2026, led by Sens. Ben Ray Luján, John Thune, and John Barrasso, passed the Commerce Committee unanimously and now heads to the full Senate. The bill would require all federal agencies to implement controls ensuring broadband permit applications are processed within a 270-day deadline.

"More must be done to address the barriers that have long kept rural communities from accessing reliable broadband," Luján said. "I'm encouraged that our bipartisan legislation has advanced with the support of my colleagues."

Barrasso pointed to federal land ownership as a core driver of the problem in Wyoming. "In Wyoming, nearly half the land is owned by the federal government. Washington red tape makes it harder to expand broadband infrastructure on these lands," he said.

Signals

• volume53 releases logged against a Thursday average of 84.1, running 37 percent below baseline — the lowest Thursday volume in the tracked window.
• coordinatedMurray, Duckworth, Booker, and Schumer issued simultaneous IVF releases tied to a joint press conference, a four-senator coordinated rollout on a single bill.
• coordinatedWicker and Hyde-Smith each issued separate but substantively identical releases on the MORA organ donation letter — a dual-senator coordinated rollout targeting CMS Administrator Oz.
• coordinatedKelly and Curtis each issued separate releases on the identical PATH Act, a cross-party coordinated rollout pairing an Arizona Democrat and Utah Republican.
• volumeSen. Mike Lee issued four releases in a single day — Pioneer Day floor remarks, the PROTECT Act on online child exploitation, and the GRACE Act on vaccine religious exemptions — an unusually high single-senator volume.
• volumeSen. Elizabeth Warren issued four releases Thursday — IRS staffing investigation, Fair Seeds for Farmers Act, Tribal public health preparedness bill, and Big Tech USMCA inquiry — among the highest single-day outputs in today's set.
• voteNo votes scheduled today; Senate floor action was limited to floor speeches and objections, with the next recess 18 days out.