[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 87 (Thursday, May 23, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3085-S3086]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            DISASTER RELIEF

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, all week, Chairman Shelby and a number 
of our colleagues worked tirelessly to get a supplemental funding 
agreement for disaster relief over the finish line. He has prepared one 
thoughtful, good-faith compromise after another.
  In fact, this has been going on for months now: compromise offer 
after compromise offer from Republicans--constant engagement and good-
faith work. So I am pleased that, today, all of this hard work has at 
long last paid off. Thanks to the efforts from a number of our 
colleagues and thanks to the leadership of President Trump and his 
administration--and, I might add, the occupant of the Chair, who has 
been extremely persistent in this effort over the last weeks and 
months--the Senate has now passed a compromise solution

[[Page S3086]]

for disaster funding, and we have sent it over to the House.
  Regretfully, they are gone.
  The President has indicated he supports it. So the Senate's 
bipartisan vote is a big step toward making law and actually delivering 
the relief that communities across our Nation sorely need.
  I am sorry that our House Democratic colleagues blocked commonsense 
efforts to include funding in this legislation for the ongoing 
humanitarian crisis down on the southern border. Despite days of 
negotiations, House Democrats insisted that we could not provide more 
funding for our overwhelmed agencies, which are running on fumes, 
without including other poison-pill policy riders. As a result, today's 
agreement omits those needed resources.
  This wasn't money for the wall or even law enforcement. It was money 
so that the Federal Government can continue to house, feed, and care 
for the men, women, and children showing up along our southern border--
money for agencies that are currently, literally, running on fumes.
  This is money that is so uncontroversial--so uncontroversial--that 
even the New York Times published an editorial titled, ``Congress, Give 
Trump His Border Money.''
  Even the New York Times blasted the ``political gamesmanship [that] 
threatens to hold up desperately needed resources.'' That is what they 
called it--political gamesmanship.
  Well, I am sorry to say their political gamesmanship did hold up 
these resources. Apparently, our House Democratic colleagues heard 
``President Trump'' and the word ``border'' in the same sentence and 
decided they preferred no action at all to the sensible compromise that 
even the New York Times had called for.
  It is too bad that partisan spite has infected even such blindingly 
obvious priorities as the humanitarian efforts on our own southern 
border. I am sorry that our Democratic friends have become so committed 
to ``the resistance'' that they are now to the left of the New York 
Times editorial board.
  Nevertheless, we should celebrate the progress we are making today. 
The Senate passage of this legislation marks a huge step forward for 
communities across the United States that have gone far too long 
without receiving this Federal assistance to help them get back on 
their feet.
  Finally, the millions of Americans who have grappled with nature's 
worst are closer to receiving the supplemental aid they urgently need 
for the western communities that are still sorting through the ashes of 
last year's record-breaking wildfires; our coastal states in the 
Southeast and Puerto Rico, where hurricane damage punched holes in 
homes, businesses, and critical infrastructure; the Deep South 
communities victimized by tornadoes; and for those still grappling with 
the floodwaters that have surged over farms and towns across the 
Midwest and in my own State of Kentucky.
  So I am grateful and relieved that Chairman Shelby, Senator Leahy, 
and colleagues of ours, including Senators Perdue, Isakson, Rick Scott, 
Rubio, Ernst, Thune, Blunt, Sasse, and others have brought us to this 
point with their tireless work on this subject.
  I am grateful to the President for his leadership and focus on 
getting an outcome. I am glad we passed this legislation and sent it to 
the House. I urge our colleagues over in the House to support it.

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