Department of Homeland Security Funding

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to pass
a clean Homeland Security funding bill for fiscal year 2015. This is an
issue of national security, and we cannot allow politics to divert
attention from our responsibility as Senators.

The majority in the House sent the Senate a bill with five poison
pills that they know will prevent the passage of this legislation.
Yesterday and again today, my Senate colleagues and I sent a clear
message that these politically divisive immigration provisions have no
place in this bill.

I urge my colleagues to dispense with any further delays and allow
for an up-or-down vote on the bill as originally drafted.

The Department of Homeland Security funding bill--created in the wake
of 9/11, as Senator Durbin reminded us earlier--is not the place to
litigate immigration policy; rather, those issues are appropriately
addressed in a comprehensive immigration bill, and I hope
the House will draft and vote on that type of legislation soon.

The recent executions of the Japanese and Jordanian hostages by the
terrorist group ISIL and the attacks in Paris, Ottawa, and Australia
serve as reminders of the very real threat we face.

Each day we delay in providing adequate, reliable resources to the
Department of Homeland Security, we undermine the Department's efforts
to defend the home front. That is why I am calling on my colleagues to
take up and pass a clean bill.

My colleagues on the Appropriations Committee Senator Shaheen and
Vice Chairwoman Mikulski have introduced a clean DHS funding bill that
reflects the bipartisan agreement reached between the House and Senate
appropriators. This bill funds a wide range of programs that keep
Americans safe and secure.

For example, the clean version of this bill funds a host of
counterterrorism, intelligence, and security functions; investments in
cyber security defense technologies and personnel, investments to
detect and protect against biological threats, research and development
of nuclear detection technologies, TSA and Coast Guard operations to
keep our skies and our waters safe. The clean version also funds $6
billion in disaster funds to help States, localities, businesses, and
individuals rebuild after a natural disaster, staffing nearly 24,000
Customs and Border Protection officers who ensure legitimate travel of
individuals who seek to enter the country, and staffing 20,000 Border
Patrol agents who protect the 6,000 miles of our land border and 2,000
miles of coastal waters.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Johnson has been clear that
while the Department operates under the current CR, it cannot fund key
homeland security initiatives.

A short-term CR would prevent the Department from awarding new
disaster preparedness grants that support our local emergency
responders. It would delay the hiring of more investigators for cases
related to human trafficking and smuggling. It would also prevent the
Secret Service from training for the next Presidential election, and
the list goes on.

We cannot expect DHS to do long-term strategic planning with short-
term funding measures. The Department needs reliable funding to operate
efficiently and effectively.

The House majority is unfortunately playing politics with our
homeland security because the President has taken an action that every
President since the 1950s has taken: He has provided commonsense
direction to our immigration enforcement efforts.

The President's Executive actions on immigration are fundamentally
aimed at keeping families together, making our communities safer, and
using our resources efficiently. It is hard to understand how someone
could oppose that.

The President's actions will ensure that our immigration enforcement
efforts are used to secure the border, prevent threats to national
security, and protect public safety. These should be our top
priorities, and I support those efforts, but if Members of the House
take issue with them, they should draft and adopt immigration reform,
just as the Senate did on a bipartisan basis 18 months ago.

Our path forward is simple: Pass a clean funding bill. If my
colleagues want to fix our broken immigration system, then let's take
up a bill, but let's not use this critical funding bill to play
partisan politics.

The dedicated men and women of the Department of Homeland Security
deserve better. The American people deserve better. Let's put aside
politics and let's pass a clean Department of Homeland Security funding
bill.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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