National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021--Conference

Floor Speech

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I would like to follow up on the comments you have just shared with your support for a women's history museum and also to the comments made by the Senator from New Jersey and also the Senator from Texas regarding the American-Latino museum.

I am privileged to serve as the chairman of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee. As part of that subcommittee, we have oversight of the Smithsonian, and it is an incredibly rewarding part of the job that I have to do with oversight. So I am very well aware of these national treasures, what they contribute to the education, to the dialogue, and to just the motivation that comes when we know and understand more about our own country and about the people who make up this extraordinary mosaic called America and how we recognize and how we celebrate those contributions, how we acknowledge the challenges that women have faced along the way, African Americans or Latinos, as they have truly been extraordinary participants in this American society.

I also recognize that our Smithsonians don't come free. They don't come cheap, as the Senator from Utah noted. The Smithsonians are funded with significant Federal taxpayer dollars, so we are required to show a level of--exercise with how we move forward. And we have been extraordinarily judicious.

I think, as the Presiding Officer noted in her comments, when the discussion of a women's history museum first came about, it was not just a flash-in-the-pan idea. It was something that had germinated a long period of time. It goes to a commission. There are a series of steps and approvals that they must go through along the way. So the path that we have taken has led us to the point today where there has been a request made to be able to advance both of these significant recognitions to American Latina and American women by way of additional Smithsonian facilities.

I support both of those, just as I have supported our Smithsonians as new ones have come online--the African-American museum most recently-- or the renovations that have been underway for a period.

I also recognize that the effort tonight made by both the Presiding Officer, as prime sponsor of the American women's history museum, and incorporating an amendment that I had requested that ensures that as we are looking to sites for these significant facilities, that we are doing so with a level of a cooperation. I don't think anybody wants to be in a situation where the Smithsonian would effectively be able to tell, whether it is the Department of Agriculture or the U.S. Forest Service, we want your building. That is not how the process works.

So the amendments that were incorporated in both of these measures that were before us today, I think, was an important one, I think was a significant one.

Some may have heard that Lisa Murkowski was not supporting these museums--far from it. What I wanted to ensure is that we have a good, sound process for where we site these extraordinarily--extraordinarily important facilities.

My hope is that we will resolve this impasse because the contributions, whether they be from women over the decades, the Latina community, Latino community, over the decades and the centuries, that there be facilities that appropriately recognize and celebrate them.

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