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Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, welcome back to you and our great staff, and it is good to be back.

Leader McConnell will speak after me here on the floor, and I am glad to see him back and doing well.

Mr. President, let me begin by welcoming back all of our Senators from the August work period. August was a busy month for all of us back home, a time to listen to constituents about what is on their minds, like lowering costs and increasing paychecks.

It was also a time for ribbon cuttings and groundbreakings as the historic investments that Democrats made come to fruition; and, of course, it was a time to prepare for the very busy month in front of us.

On the implementation side, August was a month of action, of groundbreakings, celebrating new factories and new good-paying jobs that will stick around for a long, long time. When a parent sees his or her son or daughter get these jobs, they know they are going to be around for a long time; they are not going to be gone in 2 or 3 years. It is a great thing for optimism and the future of America.

And it was even nice to see Speaker McCarthy in my home State of New York, celebrating the new jobs secured by Democrats, when he visited JMA Wireless last month. I have been there many times too. In fact, it was from my own visits there and to other companies across New York that I saw firsthand the opportunity to invest in companies like JMA by buy-in-America provisions that we added to the legislation, and it helped us shape the Inflation Reduction Act.

As the Speaker saw with his own eyes, Democrats' investments are already bearing fruit. In just one year alone, the Inflation Reduction Act alone has resulted in over 200 new clean energy jobs and created 170,000 new good-paying jobs, and it is projected to create another 1.5 million jobs over the next decade. Pick any region of the country, and you will have no trouble seeing Democrats' agenda in action.

One of the amazing visits I went to was in Allegany County in Upstate New York. It is in Appalachia. By income levels, it is one of the poorest counties in our State. And there, the Inflation Reduction Act is blowing new life into Ljungstrom. This is a company that used to make coal technology equipment and has transitioned to making parts for wind turbines and is hiring 150 new workers, all in a place where people thought they didn't have much of a history, because they knew the coal industry was declining.

It has happened all over America. In Georgia, Hyundai and LG announced they are increasing their multibillion dollar investment towards a major EV and battery manufacturing plant, one that will be the State's largest project ever, creating thousands of good-paying jobs in years to come. And in New Mexico, Arcosa broke ground on a new wind tower production facility expected to create 250 new jobs. These jobs will help fill the over $1 billion worth of wind tower orders they have received since President Biden signed the IRA into law. These investments, and many others, are supporting the whole of America, red and blue States, rural and urban, everyone, everywhere. And you can be sure the best is yet to come.

Last month, we saw other examples of implementation, too. Over the past few weeks, President Biden made groundbreaking announcements on lowering the cost of prescription drugs, on prevailing wage, and more. Many of these are a direct result of the work that we have done in the Congress.

So Democrats are very proud of the agenda now taking hold across America, and we intend to keep going.

Now the Senate gavels back into session with a lot to do, but there is one clear place to begin: Keep the government open. As we all know, government funding is set to expire on September 30. By the end of this month, the House and Senate--Democrats and Republicans--all must get on the same page about keeping the government open and avoiding a pointless shutdown--a shutdown that will hurt just about every single American; a shutdown that, of course, shouldn't happen.

To accomplish that, the answer is very simple: All sides must work together in good faith, without engaging in extremism or all-or-nothing tactics.

Look no further than the example we have set here in a bipartisan way in the Senate: Democrats working with Republicans on a bipartisan basis; chairs, Democratic chairs, engaging fruitfully with Republican vice chairs and ranking members. All 12 appropriations bills have been reported out of committee with bipartisan support, some of them unanimously--unanimously. Both sides avoided dragging the process down with unseemly tactics. It sets a very good template for how things should work in Congress.

I want to thank all my colleagues, but especially Appropriations Chair Patty Murray and Vice Chair Susan Collins, for their tremendous work thus far on the appropriations process. They truly deserve a lot of credit.

When the House returns next week, I hope House Republicans--I implore House Republicans to recognize that time is short to keep the government open and that the only way--the only way--we will finish the appropriations process is through bipartisanship, the idea of both parties working together, not one party, particularly if it is a party governed by an extreme 30 or 40 Members filling out a wish list that they know can't pass. They can't do that.

So let me repeat. Let me say it again. The only way to avoid a shutdown is through bipartisanship. So I urge--I plead--with House Republican leadership to follow the Senate's lead and pass bipartisan Democrat and Republican appropriations bills supported by both parties.

As we work to fund the government, there are plenty of other things we must do, too, both on and off the floor. We will, for one, continue laying a foundation for bipartisan congressional action on AI. Next Wednesday, along with Senators Rounds, Heinrich, and Young, I will host the Senate's inaugural AI Insight Forum, a first-ever convening of the top minds in AI here in the Congress. Voices from business and the civil rights community, researchers, worker advocates, and many more, all in one room having an open discussion about how Congress can act on AI: where to start, what questions to ask, and how to build a foundation for safe AI innovation.

These AI forums are vital. Artificial intelligence is unlike any topic we have undertaken in Congress. It moves faster; it is more complex; and there is little precedent for this kind of work.

This is not going to be easy. In fact, it will be one of the most difficult things we undertake, but in the 21st century, as technology moves forward with or without us, we can't behave like ostriches with heads in the sand when it comes to AI. We must treat AI with the same level of seriousness as national security, job creation, and our civil liberties.

Now, ultimately, of course, the real legislative work will come in committees, but the AI forums will give us the nutrient agar, the facts and the challenges, that we need to understand in order to reach this goal.

Of course, next week's forum is just the start. The Senate will continue hosting AI forums throughout the fall on a variety of topics, including finding ways to promote AI innovation, IP issues, workforce issues, privacy, security, alignment, and many more.

We will also move the ball forward on other items on our agenda wherever we can, but of course they will need Republican help to reach the necessary 60 votes to move forward, like lowering the cost of insulin and prescription drugs, something Members on both sides of the aisle are hard at work on. We did it in the IRA for insulin for Medicare for people over 65. We should do it for everybody else. Insulin is too vital and becoming too expensive for too many Americans. And making progress on cannabis through the SAFE Banking Act, as well as commonsense rail safety, which I said in July would be a big priority.

We also must build on the work we did during the NDAA to outcompete the Chinese Government, to keep the American people safe, to protect American businesses, and ensure that American innovation and technology leads the way this century.

We also must continue standing with our friends in Ukraine, now more than ever, as the counteroffensive against Putin's forces is in full swing.

And we must stand with our fellow Americans in places like Hawaii, Florida, Vermont, and other regions battered by storms and fires and flooding.

The topics continue: from advancing a farm bill to kids' online privacy, to reauthorizing the FAA, and to holding bank executives accountable for irresponsible behavior.

Our committees have done excellent work to move all of these issues along, but we are under no illusion that we can make progress on the Senate floor unless we get bipartisan cooperation. None of this will be easy either. The bills will require a lot of work and compromise, but if we can progress on these items, we will greatly improve the lives of average Americans.

Finding bipartisan compromise on issues like these is never easy, but that is what it will take to get things done, and our efforts to do precisely that have already led to significant accomplishments under this majority. As we gavel back in, we will keep going to reward the trust the American people have placed in us.

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