[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 30 (Monday, February 23, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1034-S1036]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY FUNDING

  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I have come to the floor this evening to 
speak about the impending shutdown this week of the Federal Department 
of Homeland Security. At a time when the folks I hear from in Delaware, 
and I suspect what all of the Members in this Chamber are hearing, as 
we return from a week spent in our home States, are concerns about our 
national security.
  Whether it is the heinous acts of ISIS abroad, or the real threats of 
the weather and recent weather-related events here at home, a central 
concern all of us should share in the Senate here tonight is about 
keeping our country and our constituents safe. Yet shutting down the 
whole Department of Homeland Security later this week would show a 
reckless disregard for our national security by the Republican leader 
and some of the hard-line conservatives who are, sadly, setting this 
agenda.
  In my view, we do not need to be here. The Democrats and Republicans 
working together on the Appropriations Committee negotiated a strong 
bipartisan Homeland Security funding bill months ago. It is a bill that 
if it got a vote before the full Senate would absolutely pass. It makes 
wide, needed, broad investments in strengthening all sorts of different 
organs of our government at the Federal, State, and local level that 
strengthen our homeland security.
  Instead, the other party has insisted on attaching political 
provisions to the bill that would overturn the President's Executive 
action on immigration. I know I do not need to remind the Presiding 
Officer or any of our colleagues that we have already debated and 
passed comprehensive immigration reform in this Chamber which, if taken 
up by the House, would have made the President's action completely 
unnecessary.
  I think we all agree that congressional action is the preferred path 
toward fixing our broken immigration system. If that is what my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle are really concerned about, 
then I am eager to discuss how we can fix our badly broken immigration 
system in a bipartisan manner by the preferred path of congressional 
action rather than Executive action.
  But I think we should separate that debate over immigration and what 
is the right path toward a resolution of our broken system from a 
discussion about responsibly and sustainably funding our Department of 
Homeland Security. If we fail to fund Homeland

[[Page S1035]]

Security, it would have damaging consequences to our economy, to the 
security of our communities, and to our reputation around the world. At 
this time of heightened concern about our cohesion, about our unity, 
and about our security as a country, failing to fund the Federal 
Department of Homeland Security I think sends the worst possible 
message to our allies around the world about our capacity as a mature 
democracy of reaching responsible resolutions on difficult and divisive 
issues.
  If the Department of Homeland Security shuts down this week, tens of 
thousands of its staff would be furloughed without pay. They include 
the FEMA disaster and preparedness staff, the very personnel who check 
the immigration status of new employees through E-Verify, critical 
security intelligence analysts, and the folks who run the domestic 
nuclear detection offices, just to name a few.
  The list of these tens of thousands of Homeland Security employees 
and the vital functions they perform would take longer than the evening 
could take.
  My own State of Delaware has the lowest mean elevation in the 
country. That means we are a really low-lying State. We are incredibly 
vulnerable to storms and to flooding, and we simply can't afford to 
have FEMA's staff suspended, furloughed, laid off.

  Whether we shut down or just have a short-term funding bill, funding 
for Homeland Security grants can't go out. Some of the folks who watch 
this debate in the week ahead will have difficulty discerning between 
folks on my side who will advocate for a so-called clean bill and 
others who will advocate for a CR. This is where the difference really 
is: in the areas of grants for State and local emergency preparedness--
the difference between actually moving forward the bipartisan bill that 
was worked through the Appropriations Committee in the last Congress 
and simply continuing by continuing resolution the previous year's 
authorization. That difference is $1.5 billion for State and local 
emergency management all over this country.
  In my community, which is part of the Greater Philadelphia area, we 
are about to welcome the Pope. Something like 2 million people are 
expected in the Greater Philadelphia area as we welcome His Holiness to 
Philadelphia for the first time in a long time.
  I have heard from State and local law enforcement, first responders, 
emergency managers, and planners that they are counting on some of the 
grants from FEMA that are currently on hold, while they wait to 
discover the outcome of this week's debates, to prepare for that 
important, very large event. In my own home community, there are 
volunteer fire companies which even now are working on submitting 
grants. The SAFER Act and the fire grants act have become an important 
part of making sure that our local volunteer fire companies have the 
equipment they need, the training they need to keep our communities 
safe.
  In Delaware the overwhelming majority of the crash response, the fire 
education, and the fire suppression are done by volunteer fire 
companies, which often have badly outdated equipment and insufficient 
funding. To sustain their training and their personnel, they need the 
grants that have been made available through FEMA and through the 
Department of Homeland Security over the last decade to upgrade and 
update their equipment, their materials, and their training. They have 
been vitally important. They have made a big difference in the fire 
service in my home State. There are grants to police departments that 
help ensure they have the tools, the training, and the equipment to be 
part of emergency preparedness and to keep our communities safe.
  If we shut down the Department of Homeland Security, 130,000 other 
DHS workers will be compelled to remain at work but without pay. I 
think the idea that there are Americans who work to keep us safe at the 
border, at our airports, on our coasts and that we don't value them 
enough to ensure they will receive their pay for a hard day's work just 
goes against the grain of what we stand for as a country.
  So are my colleagues really willing to send a message to everyone at 
Homeland Security that their work isn't important enough to our Nation 
to ensure that they can provide for their family? That is the message 
if the Department of Homeland Security shuts down. It hurts families, 
it hurts morale, it hurts our preparedness, and it hurts our safety.
  I wish to say, as someone who is privileged to serve on the Foreign 
Relations Committee and regularly gets the chance to meet with and talk 
with leaders from around the world, it sends the message that our 
democracy isn't up to the task.
  I know this isn't what my Republican friends want to do, and I urge 
us to come together and work in a way that will end this era of 
politics by crisis once and for all--no more shutdowns, no more 
manufactured crises, and no more demonstrating that we are better at 
stopping progress than at enacting progress.
  Democrats are ready to work together with Republicans to pass a 
bipartisan, bicameral bill that we all know we can pass and that will 
fund the Department of Homeland Security and keep our country safe. I 
hope that after we--this afternoon--voted down for the fourth time a 
bill that seeks to repeal the President's actions on immigration, we 
can put aside that partisan issue and come together to find a 
bipartisan solution to fund the Department of Homeland Security.
  We already know what that solution looks like. We just need to come 
together and give it a vote. In my view, this is too important to 
trivialize as part of the ongoing posturing and partisan games that for 
so long have dominated this Chamber.
  I urge my colleagues to work with us. Fund Homeland Security and then 
let's talk meaningfully in this Congress about how we can fix our 
broken immigration system together.
  I know we are all eager to continue that conversation. First, we need 
to solve this challenge and make sure that our communities, our States, 
and our country are safe.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I rise tonight to urge Congress to quit 
playing political games with our national security. It is time to have 
a clean Homeland Security funding bill on the floor of the Senate to be 
debated.
  We are only days away from a potential shutdown of the Homeland 
Security Department, and it is very clear that the reason is that 
Members of the House on Capitol Hill have decided they want to make a 
clear statement about certain policy statements. They want to have a 
policy rider that says young children who came to this country and know 
no other country need to be prioritized for deportation. Why? Well, I 
think that is just wrong.
  But if Members of this body want to put that into a bill and want to 
put that on the floor of the House and want to put it on the floor of 
the Senate, I am quite ready to have that debate.
  Yet another policy rider says that the President must no longer 
prioritize the deportation of those with criminal backgrounds. Now, I 
happen to think we should prioritize deportation of any individuals who 
have conducted criminal acts. If some of my colleagues want to have 
that policy debate, I am fine with that. Put it in a bill, bring it to 
the floor of the Senate, and let us have that debate. A vote will then 
be very clearly on that specific policy and people can have some 
accountability. The American people will have some transparency about 
what is being voted on. But do not put these policy riders into the 
middle of the funding bill and work to shut down Homeland Security. 
That is no way to run a country.

  We live in a dangerous world. We lack for many things, but one thing 
we don't lack is security threats. It was less than 2 years ago that 
terrorists attacked us at the Boston Marathon. It was just weeks ago 
that we saw a horrific series of terrorist attacks on our friends in 
Paris. ISIL is a fierce and growing threat determined to wreak havoc. 
It is exactly at a time such as this that we should be working together 
on a bipartisan basis to fund and strengthen Homeland Security, not 
playing political games with the Nation's security, but here we are.

[[Page S1036]]

  Is it more important, I ask my colleagues, to have a debate about 
deporting DREAMers than it is to protect Americans against terrorist 
threats? If someone feels it is more important, not only do I feel they 
are wrong, but I invite them to have that debate. Put that into a 
separate policy bill and have the courage to put it on the floor of the 
Senate as a separate policy bill. Do not compromise our national 
security by trying to shut down Homeland Security.
  This is a misguided strategy, and the resulting fallout isn't just to 
national security. There are FEMA grants to disaster-stricken areas 
that will be stopped, local fire departments will be hampered, and 
thousands of essential public servants from Homeland Security to FEMA, 
to our terrific men and women in the Coast Guard will be forced to work 
without pay.
  Just last week I visited a Coast Guard installation in Newport, OR. 
It is an installation that has advanced rescue helicopters. They have 
five helicopters that work in rotation to make sure one is in the 
Newport area and a second ready to back it up if it has troubles.
  This is a port that has so much sea traffic. It is a deepwater port. 
It has commercial fishing, it has sports fishing, it has tourists who 
play on the rocks of the beach and get trapped by the tide, and it has 
recreational swimmers who get swept out by riptides. There is every 
kind of possible ocean-front disaster one could look for and so that 
rescue helicopter is very important.
  One of the young men I was speaking to is a rescue swimmer, an 
extraordinary individual who does some of the scariest, most courageous 
work in the world. These folks are not paid very much. They have bills 
to meet, similar to all the rest of us. Is this any way to run a 
country, to say you have to keep coming to work, but we are not going 
to send you a paycheck? To say to the thousands and thousands of young 
Americans who are working for our country in national security, ``you 
are so important that you have to come to work whether or not we pay 
you,'' is just wrong--wrong that we should be so disorganized, so 
partisan as to compromise our national security.
  Our folks who work in national security will be asked to continue 
working. They work in dangerous conditions that many of us could hardly 
imagine. They make sure our safety is improved. At a minimum, can't we 
just have a debate on the funding bill without these political games? 
They do their work and they feel a sense of duty. Let's have a sense of 
duty in doing our work. Let's put the Homeland Security appropriations 
bill on this floor and let's do so without partisan political riders. 
That game does no honor to our Nation nor to this institution. The 
public's opinion of this Chamber has fallen due to exactly these types 
of games. So let's end them.
  There is bipartisan support for ending these types of political 
theatrics. One of my colleagues from Arizona said, ``To attempt to use 
a spending bill in order to poke a finger in the President's eye is not 
a good move in my view.''
  My colleague from Illinois, who serves across the aisle in this 
Chamber, said:

       The American people are pretty alarmed, as they should be, 
     about security . . . the way to go forward is just fund the 
     DHS. We ought to strip the bill of extraneous issues and make 
     it about homeland security.

  That is a sentiment I think virtually every citizen feels at this 
moment. Let's make it about homeland security. Let's make it about us 
having the honor to do our duty. Our job on this floor is to consider 
this appropriations bill and not to load it down with favorite policy 
riders and political theatrics.
  Every day that goes by puts us closer to this shutdown. There is no 
logic in careening from crisis to crisis, but some crises come about 
due to uncontrollable factors. This one is entirely under our control. 
This one is entirely under the control of the leadership of the House 
and the leadership of the Senate.
  Earlier this evening I was on a phone call with many folks back home 
who serve in police departments and fire departments, in rural 
departments, rural emergency departments, and they were relaying the 
different types of grants they get that are so important to their 
communities. Some of them are search and rescue, some of them are 
disaster preparation, some are grants to fund the fire departments, and 
some for funding personnel. Nobody on the phone could understand why 
this Chamber is afraid to have a simple budget debate and an 
appropriations debate, a spending debate. They see no reason to load it 
down with politics that can be debated in separate policy bills.
  So I say to the leadership of this Chamber: Let's get our act 
together. Put policy into policy bills and let's put the spending bill 
before this body in a clean fashion and proceed to protect our Nation's 
security, as we are charged to do.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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