[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 146 (Thursday, September 12, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5466-S5467]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           EMERGENCY FUNDING

  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I start by thanking my friend and 
colleague the Senator from Illinois, Ms. Duckworth, for her service to 
our country many years ago in the military, for her serving in Iraq, 
and now for her serving our country in a different capacity; that of 
standing up in the U.S. Senate to defend the Constitution and to defend 
this institution against what is clearly an unconstitutional power grab 
by the President of the United States.
  When I took my oath of office--when we took our oaths of office--we 
all swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. 
Back in March of this year, 59 Senators kept that promise when we stood 
together, on a bipartisan basis, to say no to a gross abuse of 
Executive power--to an unconstitutional power grab--when we said: No, 
Mr. President, you may not ignore the will of the Congress. You may not 
ignore the appropriations that were passed by both Houses of Congress 
and signed by you. You may not ignore them and rob critical military 
projects across the country to fund an unnecessary wall.
  Now, we can all debate--we have debated many times--the merits of 
this wall, but there really should be no debate about the fact that the 
way the President has gone about it undermines the Constitution and 
undermines the powers given in that Constitution to the Senate and to 
the House. We made that statement on a bipartisan basis back in March--
59 Senators.
  Mr. President, don't go robbing military construction accounts and 
defense accounts to finance the wall.
  Yet here we are, 6 months later, and the President is attempting to 
do exactly that. He is diverting important investments in our military 
in places across Maryland and around the country.
  As has been pointed out, the President said repeatedly that Mexico 
was going to pay for this wall. Instead, taxpayers are having to pay 
for this wall, and service men and women and the families of service 
men and women are bearing the brunt of the President's latest raid.
  I see the majority leader is on the floor. Just yesterday, the 
majority leader said he was going to fight the President's effort to 
take money away from a middle school in Kentucky to build the wall.
  I have a question for the majority leader and all of my colleagues 
who want to fight to protect the projects in their States. Are they 
willing to stand up for projects in every State that hurt military 
families?
  Here is what the Air Force wrote about a Maryland project. It is one 
that is not very far away from here--at Andrews Air Force Base. It is 
an air force base that, I dare say, every Member of this Senate has had 
the occasion and honor to visit from time to time. I have in my hand 
the budget request from the Air Force for a project at Andrews to help 
the service men and women who work there.
  Their article reads:

       Not providing this facility forces members to use more 
     expensive, less convenient and potentially lower quality off-
     base programs. These off-base child development centers 
     typically cost $9,400 more than on-base, creating a severe 
     financial strain on military personnel.

  That is what the Air Force writes--an additional $9,400 a year for 
military men and women who we know are not getting big paychecks.
  That is not all the Air Force wrote. It went on to write in its 
justification for this investment: ``Quality of life will be severely 
degraded, resulting in impacts to retention and readiness because 
Airmen and their families will not have a safe and nurturing 
environment for childcare.''
  That is from the U.S. Air Force.
  I invite all of our colleagues to visit that base and look at the 
current conditions there because here are the current conditions at the 
current childcare center that the Air Force is seeking to remedy with 
this investment.
  Again, this is a quote right from the Air Force:

       The existing facility has suffered from sewage backups, a 
     leaking roof, HVAC failures, along with mold and pest 
     management issues. Work orders continue to pile up . . . 
     making it more difficult to ensure accreditation each year. 
     The bathrooms are constantly flooding, and drainage issues in 
     the kitchen result in monthly backups.

  That is from the Air Force. Those are the conditions our men and 
women at Andrews are currently facing in the childcare center. That is 
why the Air Force asked for this money that the President is now trying 
to take away.
  It turns out that when you do the math and when you look at the cost, 
the money being taken away from this childcare center that would 
address these awful conditions that exist would build about a half a 
mile of a wall--a wall that is unnecessary. Yet, even if you believe we 
need to build this long wall, you should agree that we should not be 
robbing moneys out of the accounts that help the families of our 
service men and women.
  That was one of the projects in Maryland the President raided. He 
also raided two others, including one to address traffic congestion at 
Fort Meade, which is the home to many facilities, including, of course, 
the National Security Agency. In all, $66 million was robbed from 
service men and women in the State of Maryland.
  That was just Maryland. We have heard about other States. We have 
also heard about cuts around the world--cuts from a program that was 
originally known as the European Reassurance Initiative--funds that we 
were investing, along with our allies, to deter Russian aggression in 
places like Ukraine. We called it the European Reassurance Initiative. 
I don't know what is reassuring now about robbing those accounts. That 
will have a direct negative impact on our national security and the 
readiness of the U.S. forces and those of our allies.
  We are going to have a lot of opportunities in the coming weeks to 
address this issue. I hope we will address it on a bipartisan basis. I 
hope we will address it as U.S. Senators who recognize that the 
President's actions here are a direct assault on article I--that they 
are a direct assault on the spending powers given to Congress under 
article I.
  We have our differences. We had a markup in the Appropriations 
Committee today. Members had a chance to

[[Page S5467]]

offer their amendments. Some were accepted. Some were rejected. It was 
the democratic process at work, and that is the same democratic process 
we used to put these investments for our military families in place in 
the first place.
  The Senate acted. The House acted. In fact, the President signed the 
bill, and now he comes back to grab that money through this 
unconstitutional power grab.
  I will end with this, because I think all of us recognize the danger 
and the precedent that will be set here. We may agree or disagree with 
the President's decision to build a wall, but beware--beware, 
everybody--of a future President--a Republican or Democratic President 
or of some other party--using the same mechanism to undermine the 
Constitution and to undermine article I.
  Let's unite as U.S. Senators to stop that from happening.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

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