Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I call up my amendment, No. 1205, and ask that it be reported by number.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. MURRAY. 1092 be considered an Appropriations Committee amendment for purposes of rule XVI, with no other rule XVI points of order waived by this agreement; that H.R. 4366, H.R. 4368, as reported in the House of Representatives on June 27, 2023, and H.R. 4820, as reported in the House of Representatives on July 24, 2023, serve as the basis for defense of germaneness under rule XVI for any floor amendments and that it be in order for floor amendments to amend the substitute in more than one place; further, that it be in order for the following amendments to be made pending and that, at a time to be determined by the majority leader in consultation with the Republican leader, the Senate vote on the following amendments to the Murray- Collins substitute amendment No. 1092, with 60 affirmative votes required for adoption and with no further amendments or motions in order to the amendments: Paul No. 1157, Vance No. 1125, Ernst No. 1123, Blackburn No. 1155, Lee No. 1121, Stabenow No. 1115, Peters-Cornyn No. 1122, Rosen No. 1117, Padilla No. 1139, and Schatz No. 1120.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, let's be clear. To all of my colleagues who told me and Senator Collins and the American people that we have to get back to regular order, that is exactly what we are working to do here. We have been working in good faith to set up amendment votes and to get the ball rolling on this bill. Now there are a few colleagues on the other side of the aisle who are dismissing all of this out of hand, any kind of reasonable agreement to move this process forward, and blocking all of the agreements we put together to move forward.

Listen to this. If we all want regular order, a key part of this is allowing Senators to come down, have amendments voted on, and moving forward with an amendment process so Senators can make their voices heard on our funding bills. So we can't move at a glacial pace, and we can't have Senators obstructing this process needlessly.

I do hope they reconsider and work with us on a timely, serious process so all Senators, especially those who do not serve on the Appropriations Committee, can come here and speak up for their values and their constituents.

I know colleagues are ready to bring forward amendments, some of which I don't agree with and will likely vote against, all of which I am prepared, with my colleague from Maine, to discuss and debate. But the Senate should be allowed to work its will and to debate these issues here on the floor, and the American public should be able to see for themselves where their elected leaders stand on those issues as we consider the legislation that will fund the U.S. Government.

That is regular order, but that cannot happen until everybody in this body gets serious about coming to this agreement about how we move this process forward, period.

Now, I want to be clear. While there are a few Senators who are determined now to derail this process--this bipartisan process--the vast majority of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle have put forward serious efforts into crafting these genuine bipartisan bills. I know that because the Senator from Maine and I took great pains to make sure everyone could weigh in here. We made extraordinary progress in the Senate Appropriations Committee. I have heard about it from so many of you, on both sides of the aisle, all week.

How did we do it? We agreed early on to have an open, bipartisan process for our funding bills--exactly what many Senators have been calling for. We said: Let's stick to the bipartisan debt limit deal, which we all passed in July, and let's keep out partisan poison pills, and let's give Members a chance to weigh in and make their constituents' voices heard. In other words, let's show the American people Congress can actually work.

Let's be clear. The bills we are considering aren't Democratic or Republican spending bills. They are bills both sides--Democrats and Republicans--wrote after a lot of negotiation and compromise. Together, this package that we have reflects input from Senators from across the country and across the political spectrum, working on behalf of the people who sent them here. That is exactly why all of these bills in this package passed our committee unanimously.

The American people are watching. They are wondering can Congress still work, if we can actually come together and reach common ground, even on something as fundamental as funding our government. They do not want to see grandstanding or chaos. They want to see results. The vast majority of this body wants to show them that we take this job seriously, that we take their problems seriously, which the Senator from Maine and I greatly appreciate.

I hope that the few holdouts who are now keeping us from moving forward and reaching an agreement so we can line up amendments and votes will see reason. Let us show the American people that Congress is still capable of working in good faith to help people and solve problems, just like they sent us here to do.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Boozman for being such a great partner and for his work on this bill and all the appropriations bills. I look forward to working with him as we continue to try to bring this up and get it rolling and moving on the floor. So I thank him very much.

Mr. President, as I said, we are working in good faith to set up amendment votes and get this ball rolling on the bipartisan appropriations package that the senior Senator from Maine and I assembled, along with all of our colleagues on the Appropriations Committee, so we can return the Senate to regular order for the first time in a long time, which many of our colleagues have called for.

In the meantime, today, I want to talk about the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies bill that is included in this funding package and why the investments in this bill are so important for our military readiness, for our military families, and especially for veterans across our Nation who have sacrificed so much for us.

As chair of the MILCON-VA Subcommittee, I worked closely with the senior Senator from Arkansas, who just spoke, to get input from our colleagues on both sides of the aisle and draft the strongest possible bill, even under tough top lines from the debt limit deal. I am very pleased that the bill we put together, which did pass our committee unanimously, makes crucial investments and gets our military and our veterans the support they need.

This bill provides $19.1 billion for military construction--that is an increase over the fiscal year 2023 level--and supports hundreds of construction projects at base installations so we can improve the quality of life for our servicemembers and families, modernize maintenance and training facilities, and make military installations more resilient against growing threats like climate disasters.

The $2.4 billion for quality-of-life improvements in this bill will support projects like building new barracks and housing and, just as critically, maintaining existing housing so that the homes military families are living in right now do not fall into disrepair. I am proud that our bill provides funding for eight new child development centers so we can expand childcare access for our military families. These types of quality-of-life investments are essential to our recruiting and retention and overall readiness. More importantly, they are what our troops deserve and what we owe them for the sacrifices they make.

This bill also funds other essential military construction projects like training and vehicle maintenance, improving energy resilience on bases, and making sure that our installations are better prepared to face severe weather events because, as our generals and admirals have made crystal clear, climate change is a national security threat, and we absolutely cannot afford to let it undermine our troops and our military readiness.

The bill we are considering also includes investments to strengthen our alliances and partnerships around the world, including by supporting NATO infrastructure projects and providing funding to strengthen our global presence, including over half a billion for this work in the Indo-Pacific.

I am also glad we were able to include funding to address PFAS and other toxins--forever chemicals--at former installations that could put our communities and military families especially in harm's way. PFAS are a serious health hazard, and they have been found in the water supply at hundreds of military bases across our country, including in my home State.

Then, of course, there is the VA funding in this bill, which is just as essential. I am someone who previously chaired the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee. I specifically asked to be assigned to that committee as soon as I came to Congress, and I am really honored to have been the first woman ever to serve on that committee because, as the daughter of a World War II veteran, I take our Nation's commitment to care for our veterans personally.

When my father was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which eventually forced him to stop working, his VA benefits were crucial to making sure he could get the care he needed. So I know firsthand how essential VA care is for veterans and their families, and I am constantly meeting with veterans in my State about their experiences too.

Living up to our obligation to those who served our country is simply nonnegotiable for me. I know many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle feel the exact same way, and that is especially true for my partner across the dais on our subcommittee, the senior Senator from Arkansas. We have worked closely together for many years on the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, so I knew when we started on this bill that he was someone who cares deeply about our men and women in the military and takes our obligations to our veterans seriously. In other words, he is exactly the kind of partner you want across the table to negotiate a bill like this with.

I am pleased to say we were able, together, to draft a bill that ensures that we keep our promises to servicemembers and veterans by fully funding the VA's budget request.

That means increasing funding for mental health and suicide prevention programs since we know, tragically, that suicide is the leading cause of death for veterans, especially our younger veterans.

It means increased funding for rural healthcare so veterans in every corner of the country can get the care they need, homelessness prevention programs that help with the challenges of returning to civilian life, and for the caregivers program, which I fought to expand along with so many of my colleagues last year.

Of course, it means increased funding for women veterans' care. Women are the fastest growing demographic of our veterans.

I am also especially pleased to say this bill includes funding to expand the childcare pilot program that I helped establish because, as I always remind my colleagues, we have a childcare crisis in this country, which is why I worked to include funding to expand childcare sites at our VA facilities so lack of childcare doesn't keep our veterans from getting the care they need.

In addition to the VA funding in here, let's not forget that last year we actually passed the largest expansion of VA care in decades by passing the bipartisan PACT Act, and earlier this year, Congress worked to live up to that expansion by passing more than $20 billion in funding for the Toxic Exposures Fund, as part of the Fiscal Responsibility Act. This is already making a difference for veterans who were exposed to burn pits and other toxins.

Another crucial investment in this bill is the funding increase for VA infrastructure because we cannot let veterans' healthcare be undermined by the challenges related to VA's aging medical facilities or, for that matter, jeopardized by botched rollouts like we saw with the electronic health record modernization program. I was glad to see that the VA did put a pause on the rollout of the EHR earlier this year--something I had been pushing them to do--and we made sure that pause was reflected in our funding bill because I was raising the alarm from day one about how the botched EHR rollout was hurting Washington State veterans. It is a challenging situation now with EHR. We can't just flip on a switch and fix it, much as I wish we could.

But I am watching closely to make sure we see changes that provide real results for our veterans and our VA providers because, at the end of the day, these investments are not just about programs and contracts; this is about our promise to get our veterans the benefits they earned and need to stay healthy--prescriptions, mental health care, cancer screenings, and so much more--and to make sure every woman and man who serves our country in uniform gets the support and the training and the equipment they need to be at their best.

Before I wrap up, I also want to say a little bit more about some of the items in this bill I fought hard for that are especially important in my State.

When it comes to military construction, there are several projects that I worked very hard to get funding for, like new barracks and a parachute rigging facility at Joint Base Lewis-McChord; bulk storage tanks at the fuel supply in Point Manchester; updated electrical infrastructure at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard to help prevent unexpected power outages; and funding to advance other projects across my home State, like equipment, maintenance, and platoon training facilities.

When it comes to support for our veterans and our VA facilities, I pushed to make sure this bill includes funding to help the American Lake VA Medical Center upgrade its facilities and provide quality care and funding for the Tahoma National Cemetery and its work to ensure we honor the veterans we have lost.

It is worth noting that while those are some of the projects I am most excited about in my State, we made sure that all Senators on both sides of the aisle could weigh in on this bill, and I know many other Members worked very hard to support similar projects and get funding that is important to their States.

So I urge my colleagues to come to the floor and talk about some of the projects you have in this bill and why this funding is so important to your families back home. I also invite them to talk to me and the Senator from Maine about amendments and ideas for how we can make these bills better. Our staffs are working around the clock, and so are we.

We do want to set up a managers' package. We do want to set up votes on amendments. We want to get this funding package passed in the Senate and passed into law because--let's be clear--this is a bill that can actually be passed into law, and that is because of all of the hard work and careful consideration and, in many cases, compromise that went into producing this bipartisan bill.

This is a responsible bill that we wrote together, Democrats and Republicans. How? By listening to our communities and listening to each other so we can help people solve problems. That is how this process should work. That is what we were all sent here to do.

So let's work together and show the American people that Congress can do its job, that it can actually give our communities the resources they need in a timely and responsible way and help people and solve problems.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source