Strengthening America's Security in the Middle East Act of 2019--Motion

Floor Speech

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I think it is good that we are standing here on the Senate floor and acknowledging the news the President has just announced--that the government will reopen as early as today and that those good, dedicated, and hard-working Federal employees who have either been furloughed or who have been working without pay for 35 days now will be able to get back to work and will be able to receive just compensation for their work. This is important news. This is good news. This is long-awaited news.

In fairness, this never should have happened. I concur with my colleague from Maine that there is never a good reason to have a government shutdown in the first place. We have demonstrated that we can do it, but it sure isn't something that should be done.

I think the men and women who have been so directly and immediately impacted are not only relieved this afternoon, but they are saying: For heaven's sake, Congress, make sure you don't put us through this again.

Count me in that camp of working to make sure we don't put these men and women and their families through this again.

I have been holding Skype sessions with the spouses of our active Coast Guard in Alaska. Last evening, I had an opportunity to connect with the spouses from Sitka. It is absolutely gut-wrenching to hear a young wife, who has a baby who is now less than 1 year old, and her husband, who has been out at sea for 5 months--he has just come home-- relay the conversation of the two of them crying in bed as they are discussing whether she should leave Sitka with their baby to go back and live with either his parents or her parents because they cannot afford to stay in the Coast Guard community that they are in.

I am scheduled to have yet another Skype session with the spouses of our Coast Guard men and women from Cordova and Petersburg just 40 minutes from now. I think it is going to be a much better conversation with them than with the spouses from Sitka yesterday because we will be able to share the good news.

It was interesting to see, as I have visited with them and have heard their very direct stories, that they are pretty selfless. They are pretty selfless in saying: As hard as this is on us and as much as we want to be paid, we want to make sure that others who serve as public servants--our Federal employees, whether they are air traffic controllers, whether they are FAA, whether they are TSA, whether they are NOAA, whether they are NIMS--will also get paid because they, too, are our friends and our neighbors, and they, too, are hurting. Again, we need to make sure we are doing right by all of those who serve our country, who serve all of us through the good work they do through the Agencies.

This has been a harsh and a difficult time, and it has been particularly painful for me, coming from a State where we are feeling the direct impacts of this partial shutdown, perhaps more so than any other State out there. I am told that, per capita, there are more Federal employees in Alaska who are directly impacted by this partial shutdown than in any other State, so I hear the urgency. It is not just from our Coast Guard men and women; again, it is from so many Agencies that have a presence.

I got a readout just yesterday from those in the fishing industry who are concerned that because permits can't get issued, because comments can't be published in the Federal Register, the impact to their fisheries and being able to move forward with the black cod fishery or to move forward with the pot cod--they are not going to be able to do it. So today's news allows everyone to breathe a sigh of relief. But I don't want them--whether they are fishermen or whether they are that Coast Guard wife--thinking, am I going to be able to breathe now for only 3 weeks? What happens after that?

We owe it not only to our Federal workers, but we also owe it to all of America to take the anxiety out of this process.

I have supported my colleague the Senator from Ohio in his legislation that would permanently end government shutdowns. As an appropriator, I am not convinced, the way it is drafted, that it is something I am entirely good with, but I want us to take this off the table. In fact, I believe it was the Presiding Officer who used the terminology that a shutdown is like the chemical warfare agent when it comes to political weapons.

At the end of the day, these are people's lives we are dealing with. These are people's lives we are messing with when we say that we are going to shut down the government for this period of time while we try to advance priorities. We cannot mess with people's lives this way.

We have our work cut out for us, and I believe we will rise to this occasion. We must rise to this occasion. I look forward to doing that.

I thank the President for his announcement today. I thank him for giving us the 3 weeks that we requested. I thank the majority leader and the minority leader for coming together to help advance this.

It is going to take all of us--it is going to take the President; it is going to take the leadership--working together.

As a member of the Appropriations Committee, I look forward to my continuing role in this, but know that we owe it to the country. We owe it to the country to get this right and get it right quickly.

This is a good start today, and I look forward to working with my colleagues.

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