Government Funding

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, as the government shutdown enters its fourth unfortunate week, its effects are widespread and worsening. As of Friday, 800,000 public servants were without pay. Tomorrow, roughly 41,000 Active-Duty Coast Guard members won't get their paychecks. By the end of the week, our Federal courts will start running out of operating funds. Farmers and small businesses remain unable to access loans and assistance. Some working families are unable to access home loans. Food safety inspections are curtailed. Airport terminals are closing amidst widespread staffing shortages at TSA. The Trump shutdown is even affecting the opioid crisis. The DEA is in charge of approving a critical daily medication used by doctors in the recovery and treatment of opioid addiction. As long as the DEA is shut down, that is not happening.

It is all the more shameful because the Trump shutdown is a completely manufactured crisis--manufactured by Donald Trump. The only reason the government is shut down right now is that President Trump reversed positions the day before the government funding ran out, bewildering Senate Democrats and Republicans who were assured he would sign a stop-gap bill to fund the government.

Leader McConnell is trying to blame the current Speaker of the House. He is way out to lunch on that one. We are here because the President reversed himself, and the last Speaker of the House failed to use his responsibility to put the Senate-passed bill on the floor. This House has voted to reopen the government. It is the Senate that hasn't done it because Leader McConnell won't bring the bill to the floor.

President Trump has stubbornly refused to negotiate or soften his position from the get-go. Democratic leaders and staff have been over to the White House over and over again to urge the President to open the government while we negotiate over border security. We are all for border security. There are different ways to do it. Everyone wants it. But why shut down the government while we are negotiating that? Every time we have asked that of the President, he has been intransigent and uncompromising. He refuses to back down from his position that the price to reopen the government is $5.7 billion of taxpayer money for a wall he promised Mexico would pay for.

I want to remind all my Republican colleagues and the American people that Democrats only want to reopen the government. We offered a proposal that would separate the government shutdown from our disagreements over border security.

The House has passed six bills to reopen the government, each of which was drafted and approved by Senate Republicans. Let me emphasize that point. The Democratic proposal to reopen the government is to pass the Republicans' government funding bills. Democrats are not demanding any added policy changes, no Democratic agenda items, no nothing. These bills are noncontroversial. Leader McConnell has voted for each of them.

According to a Quinnipiac poll that just came out, the American people support our plan by an overwhelming majority--63 percent to 30 percent. A healthy minority of Republicans are for the plan. Thirty- nine percent are for the idea, while only 52 percent are opposed. So even Republicans are moving to the position: Open the government, and then debate border security.

President Trump started this shutdown. He is the person continuing it. It is irresponsible of him to do it. Make no mistake--Democrats are happy to negotiate about the best way to secure our border, but we need to open the government first.

The fact that President Trump refuses to consider our proposal means that he is holding the government and the American people hostage as a political tactic. To President Trump, innocent, hard-working Americans are no more than bargaining chips. He will bluster, mislead, and storm out of meetings until he gets what he wants. That is not how our system of government works. We don't--we can't--govern by temper tantrum. No President has done it. If we do not reject government by extortion now, what is to prevent the same thing from happening over and over again under this President? What will he do when the debt ceiling needs to be renewed?

Before the Christmas holiday, we had a solution in sight. We believed the President would support a true compromise to end the shutdown. At the last minute, he reversed himself and said no. And now he is continuing the shutdown.

It is clear that the President doesn't want to end the shutdown--at least not yet. He has flatly refused our proposal to reopen the government while we negotiate on border security. He has contradicted his own deputies--the Vice President, the Chief of Staff--after they made offers to Democrats. Just this morning, he refused to consider one of his closest allies, Senator Graham's proposal to open the government temporarily while we negotiate border security.

How many more reasonable offers can the President reject? How much more suffering must the President cause before Leader McConnell realizes it is time to move ahead without him? It seems clear to nearly everybody but Leader McConnell that Congress needs to move forward without the President. At every juncture, the President has been the obstacle to progress. We need intervention.

It is time for Congress to fulfill our constitutional duty to govern, even without the President. It is time for Leader McConnell to realize he has the power to break this impasse and pass the House legislation to reopen the government--legislation his party already supports and legislation Leader McConnell has voted for and bragged about. The President is unwilling to move the ball forward, so Congress must. I urge my friend Leader McConnell to allow a vote on the House-passed legislation to reopen the government. It seems to be the only way out right now.

Russia Sanctions

Madam President, on another matter--Russia sanctions--before the end of last year, the Trump administration moved to relax sanctions on three companies owned and controlled by sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

As a reminder, an overwhelming, bipartisan majority of the last Congress supported additional sanctions on Russia as a response to President Putin's malign activities, particularly in Ukraine. Oleg Deripaska and a number of companies he controlled were placed under U.S. sanctions because Mr. Deripaska was effectively acting as an agent of Putin's interests abroad, leveraging the wealth he had accrued through control of these companies.

In my view, the Trump administration's plan to provide sanctions relief to these companies is deeply flawed and wrong.

First, it fails to sufficiently limit Mr. Deripaska's control and influence of these companies. Even though this plan brings Deripaska's ownership interest in these companies down from 70 percent to 45 percent, the terms allow for other Russian shareholders with family and business ties to Deripaska to maintain shareholder interests. His ex- wife and father-in-law will still own a combined 7 percent in the company, and a sanctioned Russian bank is acquiring more shares. Even with the 45 percent, he would probably control it--many American companies are controlled with far less--but with these additional people owning shares, there is no doubt that Deripaska continues to control the company.

Second, it must not be forgotten that Mr. Deripaska is wrapped up in Special Counsel Mueller's investigation and has deep ties to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. There should not be sanctions relief for President Putin's trusted agent before the conclusion of Special Counsel Mueller's investigation. Just days ago, it was revealed that former campaign chairman Paul Manafort provided Trump campaign polling data to a close associate of Mr. Deripaska's. We don't know what Special Counsel Mueller knows. And the timing--at a time when these things are coming forward, to undue the sanctions on Rusal is very suspect.

Lastly, removing sanctions on these companies will benefit President Putin's government and economy since the export of metals, such as aluminum, is a key revenue generator for a country that needs revenues. At a time when Russia has failed to curtail its hostile action against our Nation and our allies--this is not the moment to give up a source of leverage over the Russian Government.

Tomorrow, the Senate will take up a motion to disapprove the Treasury Department's proposal. I strongly believe the Senate should vote to disapprove. And in a short time, I will be sending a letter to every single one of my Senate colleagues--Democratic, Republican, Independent--to urge them to block this misguided effort by the Trump administration and keep those much needed sanctions in place.

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Mr. SCHUMER. Duckworth) are necessarily absent.

The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 50, nays 43, as follows: [Rollcall Vote No. 3 Leg.] YEAS--50 Alexander Barrasso Blackburn Blunt Boozman Braun Capito Cassidy Collins Cornyn Cotton Cramer Cruz Daines Enzi Ernst Fischer Gardner Graham Grassley Hawley Hoeven Hyde-Smith Inhofe Johnson Jones Kennedy Lankford Lee Manchin McSally Murkowski Paul Portman Risch Roberts Romney Rounds Rubio Sasse Scott (FL) Scott (SC) Shelby Sinema Sullivan Thune Tillis Toomey Wicker Young NAYS--43 Baldwin Bennet Blumenthal Booker Brown Cantwell Cardin Carper Casey Coons Cortez Masto Feinstein Gillibrand Harris Hassan Heinrich Hirono Kaine King Klobuchar Leahy Markey McConnell Menendez Merkley Murphy Murray Peters Reed Rosen Sanders Schatz Schumer Shaheen Smith Stabenow Tester Udall Van Hollen Warner Warren Whitehouse Wyden NOT VOTING--7 Burr Crapo Duckworth Durbin Isakson Moran Perdue

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