STRENGTHENING AMERICA'S SECURITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST ACT OF 2019--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise to follow my colleague from Washington and talk about the effects of the shutdown. If I am really fast on a given day, I kind of have a mind-meld with her. I kind of have a little bit of a mind-meld now because I want to talk about the effects on America's national security.

I was on the floor last week talking about the effects on Federal employees, so many of whom live in Virginia. I had a roundtable on Friday in Alexandria, where they came out and talked about having to reschedule medical appointments, worrying about missing their mortgage payments, and withdrawing monies from their IRA and having to pay a penalty to do it to cover their bills. These Federal employees all share how passionate they are about serving the public. That is all they want to do. They shared the hardships that are visited upon them and their families by not getting a paycheck.

I heard another, different story today that is not about a Federal employee but a dentist in Alexandria who shared with our office how many of her patients are canceling their appointments. People don't have copays--people are worried about whether they will have copays, so they are canceling and postponing. So now it is not just the Federal employees, but it is also this small business woman who runs a medical practice who is seeing the effect of it.

I want to talk about something different tonight. I want to talk about national security. I want to do that because the President tweeted something interesting on Saturday. He said his whole motive for the shutdown was because ``I promised safety and security for the American people.'' That was the quote--``I promised safety and security for the American people.'' I want to take the floor to say that this shutdown is actually hurting the safety and security of the American people, and I want to go over this in some detail.

Of the 450,000 Federal employees who are working without pay, more than 150,000 of them are in charge of keeping America safe. So, arguably, the most punished group of Federal employees in this shutdown are those charged with keeping us safe.

I say to the Presiding Officer, you are a veteran. You served in the military. A third of Federal employees are veterans. So it is not just people whose current job is keeping America safe, but one-third of Federal employees are veterans. Veterans are very affected by this.

Just to kind of run through some examples, of the 450,000 Americans working without pay--and we had representation from a number of these Agencies before us at the roundtable last week--41,000 of those working without pay now deep into the third week are Federal law enforcement and correctional officers, 2,600 are ATF agents, nearly 17,000 are Bureau of Prisons correctional officers, more than 13,000 are FBI agents, 3,600 are marshals, and 4,400 are DEA agents.

I had an experience last year that was very vivid to me. I visited a Federal prison in Petersburg, VA, and I had a chance to really eyeball the challenges our prison guards deal with. The staffing ratios are such that one guard--especially on an evening shift--is responsible for a wing of the prison where there may be 100 to 150 inmates. It is a very tough situation from a security standpoint because if there were to be a problem in one of the rooms and if a guard went into the room and there were 25 people in the room--and that was not uncommon--while tending to a problem, others could overpower that one guard. And on the entire wing, there is just one.

This is a very, very difficult job, and the notion that these correctional officers are now deep into week 3 and that they are not being paid is just shocking. I have a letter sitting on my desk from Federal prison guards at a Federal prison facility in southwest Virginia imploring us to reopen the government because their job is so difficult that it just compounds when they are not being paid.

When the President gave his speech last week, he talked a lot about how the challenges at the border are largely challenges with drugs and the interdiction of drugs.

If that is your worry, Mr. President, why would you not be paying ATF, DEA, U.S. Marshals, and FBI agents? If that is your worry--the safety and security of the American people--why are these people the ones you want to punish? You make us less safe by doing so.

All of these people are hard-working public safety professionals, but they are human. When they are on the job, they are focused on keeping us safe, but they are human. There are going to be issues rattling around in their brains, just like all of us have issues rattling around in our brains during the day. Do you really want our DEA agents, the AFT, and the U.S. Marshals having about 10 percent of their mind mad that they are not getting paid and the other 20 percent of their mind worried about making the mortgage payment or rescheduling the kids' orthodontist appointment? It would be unrealistic to expect these people to wall that off completely even when they are at work. Why are we subjecting them to this, which makes us less safe?

Fourteen thousand of those who are working without pay are air traffic controllers. Many of them are not just working, but because of other job shortages in the profession, they are working tremendous amounts of overtime.

If you were to ask me ``Who would be a public safety professional you would most like not to be mad, most like not to be distracted, most like not to be diverted and thinking about something else?'' it would have to be an air traffic controller.

The last thing I would want is for somebody who flies a lot--and so many Americans do--to think that their air traffic controllers are sitting in the tower--last Friday, I came back, and I tendered about 100 pay stubs from air traffic controllers, most of which had zeroes on them. They had just gotten these pay stubs. One was for one penny, and one was for $41.75. You get that in the mail as a hard-working professional. You are in the tower trying to do your job, and that is going to be working on you, thinking about what that means for the tuition check that gets written in the middle of January for your kid who is going to school for the spring semester, or the Visa bill that is the biggest one in the year because Christmas purchases are on it, or the heating bill that is the biggest one of the year because this is the coldest time of the year. I don't want air traffic controllers' minds filled with anxiety and anger because they got a pay stub that said ``one penny'' on it.

Eighty-eight percent of DHS security employees are furloughed. That is 54,000 Customs and Border Protection agents, 42,000 Coast Guard employees who interdict drugs, DHS's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. If the issue is security at the border, what possibly would be the reason why we wouldn't take up the bill that is at the Senate desk to fund that function at least through February 8 so we could find a legitimate compromise on border security and immigration reform? If the President is really worried, as he said, about the safety and security of the American people, why would you punish the very people who are at the frontlines providing that safety and security on our border?

The FDA is having to recall furloughed employees to ensure public health because of the prolonged state of the shutdown in its third week. It has forced the FDA to suspend a large portion of food safety inspections. Again, with flus and viruses and all kinds of challenges and recalls of lettuce or recalls of other unhealthy foods, this is an important part of keeping America safe and secure. What possibly can be gained first from furloughing and sending them home or then bringing them back and not paying them?

The Transportation Security Administration. There was news about this today: Because of the pain of having to work without pay, there has been a spike in people calling in ill. That is leading to longer lines at Dulles, longer lines at Hartsfield in Atlanta, and longer lines at the Miami International Airport, and that is likely to continue. We all know the hassle of any line at the TSA. We don't like it, but we also want the TSA to do their job and stop people from getting on the planes if they have weapons or some other issue.

There was a story about somebody being able to get through a TSA line carrying a weapon that could be attributed to the staffing shortages and the challenges we are putting them under. Again, if this President wants to care about the safety and security of American personnel, why punish TSA agents?

Today, there was an announcement that TSA will reallocate screening officers on a national basis to meet staffing shortages that cannot be addressed locally. So now not only will Federal workers be unpaid--not only will they be unpaid--but they will be forced to relocate to do work to cover staffing shortages elsewhere.

My colleague from Virginia is here, and I want to cede the time to him, but the Presiding Officer understands the point I make. The first job of any of us in public life, at whatever level, is to protect the safety and security of the American people. There is absolutely no reason, if that is our goal, to take so many dedicated public safety professionals and mess up their lives so badly by not paying them and putting them in a situation where they have to call in sick and they have to worry about medical appointments for their kids. That is not conducive to American security and safety. We should reopen government and get these folks back to work.

Now that the Senate has passed the backpay bill, I would also point out, we will pay these people. Wouldn't we rather pay them to serve citizens rather than pay them and lock them out? We do not allow Federal workers to strike, but there should be an equivalent. We should not lock them out. We are now locking them out, even though we will still strike a backpay check to them. Wouldn't we rather they be providing safety and security services to their fellow citizens?

With that, I appreciate the opportunity to address the issue, and I yield the floor to my colleague.

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