Interior, Environment, Financial Services, and General Government Appropriations Act, 2019
Floor Speech
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Mr. McCONNELL. 6147, the Senate proceed to the consideration of the conference report to accompany H.R. 5515; that the cloture motion on the conference report be withdrawn; that there be up to 1 hour of debate on the conference report, with 30 minutes under the control of Senator Rubio and 30 minutes under the control of the managers; and that following the use or yielding back of that time, the Senate vote on the adoption of the conference report without intervening action or debate.
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Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, very briefly, on another point, I want to take a moment, as we wrap up this appropriations package, to recognize the distinguished tenure and leadership of our chairman, Richard Shelby.
Earlier this year, Senator Shelby cast vote No. 10,000 right here on the Senate floor. Like so many of his accomplishments, that landmark seemed to slip by without a whole lot of fuss, but what a remarkable milepost in a very distinguished career.
I imagine this year's appropriations process holds special significance for our chairman. As he took the reins of the committee, he made clear that in working with Senator Leahy, regular order would be the name of the game. He set his sights on restoring the kind of collaborative process that has historically made our institutions so unique. As we all know, that is a little bit easier said than actually done. Yet, the committee completed a markup process that reported out all 12 spending bills faster than it had in any year since 1988. That was three decades ago. When we close out this package, the Senate will have passed a majority of its annual appropriations measures by the beginning of August for the first time since 2000--18 years ago.
I am sure my fellow members of the Appropriations Committee would agree with me that this productivity is due, in large part, to the leadership of our chairman, Richard Shelby.
So on behalf of the whole Senate, I want to thank him for the work he has done so far and for the accomplishments on behalf of the American people that are yet to come. I want to thank Senator Leahy, as well, and all of our other colleagues on the committee for their contributions.
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