[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 152 (Wednesday, September 12, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6148-S6149]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             APPROPRIATIONS

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, Boy Scouts shouldn't get a merit badge 
for telling the truth, and Senators shouldn't get an award for passing 
an appropriations bill, because that is what we are supposed to do. But 
it is worth noting that for the first time in at least 10 years, these 
appropriations bills that we just passed are on time and within the 
budget Congress has set.
  With this vote today, we are moving toward restoring the practice of 
regular order in the Senate from start to finish. This is what the 
right way means: hearings--we held three. Mark up the bills--all 12 
bills are completed before the Fourth of July recess. Consult with 
other Senators--in the case of the Energy and Water appropriations 
bills, 87 Senators, we believe, had their wishes reflected in our bill. 
Floor debate, amendment votes, then a conference committee, and then we 
had the vote today.

[[Page S6149]]

  I look forward to President Trump signing these appropriations bills 
into law. They will help to keep our country first in science, 
technology, and supercomputing, and they will build the ports and 
waterways that create jobs.
  This bill supports funding for several important agencies, including 
the Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National 
Nuclear Security Administration, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the 
Bureau of Reclamation, and regional commissions, including the 
Appalachian Regional Commission and the Delta Regional Authority.
  The amount of funding in the bill is also consistent with spending 
caps agreed to as part of the bipartisan budget agreement. It sets 
priorities while reducing unnecessary spending.

  Let me start with the Army Corps of Engineers, which affects the 
lives of almost every American. Based upon the appropriations request 
we received, this is the most popular agency in the budget. The Corps 
maintains our inland waterways; it deepens and keeps our ports open; it 
looks after our recreational waters and lands; it manages our rivers to 
prevent flooding; its dams provide emission-free, renewable 
hydroelectric energy. The bill restores $2.3 billion that was cut from 
the President's budget request, bringing the Corps' budget up to $6.999 
billion--a new record level of funding in a regular appropriations 
bill.
  For the fifth consecutive year, the bill makes full use of the Inland 
Waterways Trust Fund revenues for water infrastructure projects, 
including up to $117.7 million to continue construction of Chickamauga 
Lock in Chattanooga and $2.125 million for dredging at Memphis Harbor 
McKellar Lake.
  The bill also provides funding that exceeds the Harbor Maintenance 
Trust Fund, a spending target established by the Water Resources and 
Development Act of 2014. This is the fifth consecutive year that the 
bill has met or exceeded the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund spending 
targets, which is necessary to adequately fund our Nation's harbors, 
including Mobile Harbor in Alabama, Savannah Harbor in Georgia, Long 
Beach Harbor in California, and many others across the country.
  For the Department of Energy, for the fourth consecutive year, we 
have included record funding levels in a regular appropriations bill 
for the following activities: No. 1, for the Department's Office of 
Science. This is the Nation's largest support of research in the 
physical sciences. It is funded at $6.5 billion, a new record funding 
level. The Office of Science provides funding for our 17 national 
laboratories--I call them our secret weapons--including the Oak Ridge 
National Laboratory. No other country has anything like them.
  Let's take supercomputing. The bill provides a total of $1.6 billion 
for high performance computing, including $935 million within the 
Office of Science and $723 million within the National Nuclear Security 
Administration. This includes $6.76 million to deliver at least one 
exascale machine in 2021 to reassert U.S. leadership in the critical 
area of supercomputing.
  This accomplishment is not the result of 1 year of funding, but of 10 
years of bipartisan effort through three different administrations, 
Democrat and Republican, to try to make sure that the United States is 
first in the world in supercomputing. We continue to do that in this 
appropriations bill.
  Nuclear power is our best source of inexpensive, carbon-free baseload 
power. It is important for national security and competitiveness. 
Nuclear power provides 20 percent of our Nation's electricity and more 
than half of our carbon-free electricity. The Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, which oversees our 99 nuclear power reactors, is also 
funded in this bill. We wanted to make sure it is prepared to review 
applications for new reactors, particularly small modular reactors and 
advanced reactors, and to extend the licenses of existing nuclear 
reactors, if it is the safe thing to do.
  The bill also provides $47 million for research and development at 
the Department of Energy to support existing reactors, $27 million for 
the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors, and $30 
million for the Transformational Challenge Reactor.
  It advances efforts to clean up hazardous materials at Cold War-era 
sites. The bill provides $7.2 billion to support cleanup efforts, which 
is $578 million above the President's budget request.
  A key pillar of our national defense is a strong nuclear deterrent. 
That is in this appropriations bill, as well, including $11.1 billion 
for weapons activities within the NNSA, including nearly $2 billion for 
six life extension programs, which fix or replace components in weapons 
systems to make sure they are safe and reliable. Congress must maintain 
a safe and effective nuclear weapons stockpile and keep big 
construction projects on time and on budget.
  I want to compliment Senator Feinstein, of California, my partner on 
the Energy and Water Subcommittee. We worked hard together on all 
aspects of this bill, but especially on keeping those big construction 
projects on time and on budget.
  A principal reason the United States produces 24 percent of all the 
money in the world for just 5 percent of the people in the world is the 
extraordinary concentration of brain power in the United States 
supported by Federal dollars through our National Laboratories, the 
National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and 
other agencies. It is important that the American people know that the 
Republican majority in Congress worked together with Democrats to 
provide record levels of funding for science, research, and technology.
  I would state to all of those who might not have noticed this quiet 
new development that Congress is funding science and research at record 
levels, and if we continue to do so, we will make America more 
competitive and help spur innovation and create good-paying jobs.
  A lot of hard work went into these negotiations over the last several 
months. Our staff members have worked over weekends and over vacations 
to make that happen, including the last few days. On my staff were 
Tyler Owens, Adam DeMella, Meyer Seligman, Jen Armstrong, Molly Marsh, 
and Rachel Littleton; on Senator Feinstein's staff, Doug Clapp, Chris 
Hanson, Samantha Nelson; and on Senator Shelby's staff, Shannon Hines, 
Jonathan Graffeo, and David Adkins. I am deeply grateful to them for 
their professionalism and their bipartisan work.

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