Climate Change

Floor Speech

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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, here we are again. It is late September, and the budget work has not been completed yet. It seems terribly familiar to this body, and it is frustrating. It is not as if no one knew September was coming; it was on the calendar. When I first looked at it in January this year, September already existed on the calendar.

It is not as if we didn't know what all the deadlines were. Everyone knew full well what all the deadlines were.

We can say it is the pandemic that slowed everything down, except for the fact that all of the appropriations work could have already been done, and much of the committee work could have been done. Some was done by the House but not completed. It can be done by the Senate, but it was not.

So here we are again, watching the countdown clock toward a government shutdown as we discuss what happens next.

Things have been tied up this week with what is called a continuing resolution. This body knows--others may not--that a continuing resolution is literally taking last year's appropriations bills, changing the dates, and moving them over to the new one. This particular continuing resolution stretches until December 11, when we would have to pick it up and pass more appropriations for another continuing resolution at that time.

The fight this week has been over whether we are going to support rural America and agriculture. The House originally drafted a continuing resolution that left out all of the agriculture projects that were in it. The Senate, obviously, threw a fit over that and asked: Why are we supporting everything, including benefits to Sri Lanka to get added to the House's proposal for the continuing resolution, but you won't do so for America's farmers?

So, in the back-and-forth conversation this week, the House had to extend. Then it went another day. Then the House finally put the agriculture projects back in--and still left in, by the way, benefit for Sri Lanka.

Our ongoing conversations continue, though, about airlines. On October 1, airlines across the country are going to lay off 100,000 people--100,000. We have asked for some engagement on the issue of these airlines. In the CARES Act, back in March, we gave an extension to those airline workers so that the airline workers and the airlines could still stay connected to each other even when we were in this downtime. We are getting very close to a vaccine. It is like we can see the light on the other end of the tunnel, but it is not a train this time; it is actually light. We are going to get through this pandemic, but for whatever reason, the House refuses to deal with the issue of how to help airline workers at all, not even to do half of what was done in the past, not even to do a portion of what was done in the CARES Act. It has been exceptionally frustrating.

It has been the same issue with the House in its not wanting to do anything on the Paycheck Protection Program. For the smallest businesses in America and for nonprofits, the House has put out a multitrillion-dollar proposal, and it doesn't even include anything for small businesses.

We have continued to ask how we can address the issue of small businesses here. How can we extend the Paycheck Protection Program and give a second round to the hardest hit businesses? We don't think it is that unreasonable. As we are nearing the end, we need to help them bridge the gap at this point, but for whatever reason, it is not included either as we work our way through this process.

Now, I don't know what will happen in the next few hours as we deal with the continuing resolution that will come from the House, but there is no reason we should be talking about a government shutdown again.

A year ago, I and Senator Hassan, the Democratic Senator from New Hampshire, sat down to talk through how we could end government shutdowns forever so that government workers across the DC region and across the country would not be living in fear of being furloughed and so that Americans who would want to be able to connect with different agencies would be able to do that at all times, but we would still be able to have the arguments that are needed to be able to resolve budget issues.

It may be surprising to some people across the country that Republicans and Democrats don't agree on everything in the budget. Shocking, I know. We should be able to have that fight, though, on the budget, but it should not lead to a government shutdown in the process. Government shutdowns cost us money every time it happens.

So my and Senator Hassan's simple resolution resolves the issue by just asking one question: Who needs pressure applied to them to deal with the issue, and what is the pressure that needs to be applied?

Our straightforward answer is this: Members of Congress and our staffs and the Office of Management and Budget and the White House should have the pressure applied to us to get it done. The easiest way to apply pressure to all of us is to take away our time. It is pretty straightforward.

Here is our proposal: If you get to the end of the budget year and the appropriations work is not done, we will have mandatory quorum calls in this body at 12 noon every single day, 7 days a week, until we get all of the appropriations work done. None of us could travel. We would all stay here in DC.

I will tell you that I really want to see my family on the weekends. I also have people back in my State with whom I have appointments whom I need to be able to see, and I have responsibilities there. I want to get back to my State of Oklahoma and be with those folks.

I am sure all of you would love to get back to Oklahoma, but you would probably head back to your States instead.

We want to be home. We want to be able to meet with our constituents. We want to take care of the practical needs that are there. The way to do that is to get our work done here.

I have had folks say: Well, just take away everyone's money. Say, ``No budget, no pay.'' It makes a great bumper sticker. The problem is, as many people in this body know, there are a lot of folks in this body who are multimillionaires, and if they were honest, they would say their congressional salaries are rounding errors to their investments every month.

Good for you, but it is not a pressure point. Taking away your congressional salary is not an emphasis to actually get the work done.

Taking away time is a way to be able to press people to actually get their work done.

Senator Hassan and I have worked it through the committee process; have passed it through the Homeland Security Committee; and have set it up. It has already been rule XIV'd, and it is on our Calendar now. At any moment, we in this body could determine to end government shutdowns. We will never have one again. If we get to the end of the fiscal year, a continuing resolution will kick in automatically, and we will all stay until we finish the negotiations for the appropriations work. However heated, however long that may take, we will stay and finish it until it is done.

It is the right thing for us to do, and it is the right way to handle it. It is not pressure on the Federal workers. The Federal workers don't have the ability to make the decision here.

Some people say: Well, those folks in DC can just tough it out anyway.

Well, it is not just those folks in DC, though there are a lot of folks in DC who are working very hard for Americans all over the country. Just in my State of Oklahoma, there are 4,300 Federal employees who work in agriculture, who work for Housing and Urban Development, who work for the FAA--who work for all kinds of entities that take care of families in Oklahoma. They also deserve the privilege of continuing their service to their neighbors, just as always, while we are resolving our differences here.

So my request is the same as it was last year: Why are we talking about the possibility of there being a government shutdown again when we could take that off the table forever with a straightforward, bipartisan proposal that says we will never again have a government shutdown?

We will work out our differences because we do have differences, but we will not hold Federal workers hostage in the process. We will just stay and work out our differences.

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