Theodore Roosevelt National Park Wild Horses Protection Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, what the Senator from Arkansas and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee just said is absolutely accurate: The Senator from Oregon has consistently tried to kill this program and has never believed in it, has never voted for it. And it is a program that makes Americans more safe. That is a proven fact.

You ask any intelligence expert, any military planner in this country, the intelligence derived from the 702 program is something that has saved American lives in theaters of conflict, preventing terrorist attacks, preventing drug runners from getting drugs into this country.

Mr. President, 90 percent--90 percent--of the fentanyl disruptions coming into this country were stopped because of this program. This is a program that saves American lives.

And I have to ask the question. I mean, I can't, for the life of me, figure out why the Democrats continue to support policies that make this country less safe. TSA agents, I think, this year have worked without pay for almost as much time as they have worked with pay because Democrats have wanted to shut the government down, shut TSA down.

More recently, Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, two Agencies that are critical to keeping this country safe--they don't want to provide a single dollar--zero--zero dollars for ICE and CBP, making this country less safe.

And so what did we have to do? We had to use reconciliation to do something that ought to be a no-brainer around here: protecting the American people, keeping our borders secure, protecting people in our communities in this country from criminal illegal aliens.

I just don't understand this. And now this, blocking something that was negotiated on a bipartisan, bicameral basis, House and Senate--the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, his Democrat counterpart; the same thing on the House side--with reforms, a lot of reforms. Something was negotiated in a bipartisan way to get a bill on the floor that we could use to extend this program and continue to keep Americans safe.

The ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee made some public statements earlier today, and one was that having this shutdown is ``obviously a high risk proposition.'' That is a quote. He went on to say that he believes it is ``dangerous''--``dangerous''--for section 702 to lapse.

And what this is all about is a temporary acting position at DNI. So Democrats have decided to block a vote against something that many in the past have supported, that is keeping this country safe, because they don't like the person that President Trump is putting into a temporary acting role. These aren't linked.

This is a program that works, and it works effectively to keep Americans safe. And the reforms that have been proposed, the legislation that has been agreed upon by Democrats and Republicans in the House and the Senate, ought to be able to pass the U.S. Senate.

Mr. President, 100 percent of the President's intelligence priorities are informed by the 702 collection--100 percent. I am just really--I don't get it. I just don't get it.

So what I am going to do is suggest, because this acting temporary person doesn't even get into the acting temporary position until a week from tomorrow, June 19, I am going to suggest that we do at least a 1- week extension to keep the lights on at this Agency, at a time when we are hosting the World Cup. We have got 250th anniversary celebrations going on around this country.

This is a time of risk for the American people, and Democrats here in the Senate said: Well, sorry. We don't like this guy in the acting temporary position, and so we are going to shut the lights off on this program and put at risk the American people. It is an untenable, irresponsible position.

But since he doesn't take that position until a week from Friday, I think we ought to at least extend this program through a week from Friday and allow for some more time for people to figure out the long- term solution, if there is one.

So, Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I am going to ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the bill at the desk. I will further ask that that bill be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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Mr. THUNE. Let me just, again, say for the record, because the Senator from Oregon's proposal is designed to kill the bill--and there was a vote in the House. And I want to say there were 190 Republicans in the House who voted for a 3-week extension. And there would have been a lot of Democrats if they hadn't been told by their leadership, like they have been told here, not to vote for an extension.

This is an extension. This is an extension of current law. We have a proposal that has been negotiated by both sides that would be a longer term extension.

So if you are rejecting the 3-week extension, what I am suggesting here, and what you just objected to, because my understanding is-- correct me if I am wrong--that the reason all the Democrats went south on this, in both the Senate and the House, was because of the nomination of a gentleman named Bill Pulte to be the acting temporary Director of the Office of National Intelligence.

If that is true and if he doesn't take office until a week from Friday, what objection could there possibly be--possibly be--to extending this program's authority until at least next Friday, so that we don't have a period where this program lapses, this program goes dark, at a time when there are literally hundreds of thousands of people coming into this country for the World Cup.

A 1-week extension, that is all we are saying. And the Democrats are going to object to that.

So, again, I will simply say this is, on its face, an irresponsible position that makes America and Americans less safe.

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