Energy and Water, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHATZ. Madam President, I want to thank Chairman Alexander as well as Vice Chair Leahy, Chairman Shelby, Chairman Boozman, and many other people who have made this minibus work. We are going to adopt it tonight. I hope that our work over the last week has set the tone for the Senate's consideration of the remaining appropriations bills.

We have opened debate and considered a number of amendments, and we have avoided controversial issues that have too often torpedoed our work in prior years. Between rollcall votes and the managers' package, we have adopted 40 amendments, including 14 to the MILCON-VA appropriations bill. This speaks volumes to the bipartisan cooperation that I expect will continue as we try to get back to some semblance of the regular order as it relates to the appropriations process.

I especially want to thank my colleague from Arkansas, Chairman Boozman, for managing a fair amendment process and for working to keep the bill bipartisan. I want to thank subcommittee staff Patrick Magnuson, Jennifer Bastin, and Joanne Hoff. And from my subcommittee staff, I thank Chad Schulken and Jason McMahon. They worked late nights reviewing hundreds of amendments.

I also want to thank our counterparts on the Energy and Water and Legislative Branch Subcommittees, and their staffs, for their great work over the past few months to put together bills that I believe will pass overwhelmingly today.

Lastly, it is important to thank Chairman Shelby and Vice Chairman Leahy for getting us to this point. By the end of the week, we will have reported out of the full committees all 12 government funding bills with 3 having passed the floor, and all before July 4. That is what is possible when there is a commitment to making this place work.

I will just call out one particular moment that actually impressed me. Things got a little wobbly when the rescissions package, which was a privileged matter, hit the floor. We had a couple of tough conversations, but we navigated our way through that. Then there was an amendment offered that was in order, but it was about waters of the United States. Without getting into great detail about this, there is probably nothing that causes people to go put on their partisan jerseys more than WOTUS--waters of the United States. Chairman Shelby and many Republicans, including Leader McConnell, said, essentially: Listen, I am with you, Senator Lee, in principle, but this is not the bill on which to do this. That is the kind of discipline that is going to be required of both parties if we are going to keep the appropriations process on track and allow it to be held harmless from some of our more partisan disputes.

Their strong leadership and that of their staffs--Shannon Hines, Jonathan Graffeo, and David Adkins from the majority and, of course, Chuck Kieffer, Chanda Betourney, and Jessica Berry from the minority-- have gotten us where we are today. I urge all of my colleagues to support the minibus package.

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