[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 199 (Thursday, December 12, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6999-S7000]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                           EXECUTIVE CALENDAR

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will proceed to executive session and resume consideration of 
the following nomination, which the clerk will report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read the nomination of Aurelia 
Skipwith, of Indiana, to be Director of the United States Fish and 
Wildlife Service.


                   recognition of the majority leader

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader is recognized.


                       senate legislative agenda

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I have spoken at length about the 
serious impact the Democrats' impeachment obsession has had on months' 
worth of important legislative priorities. For months, the Republicans 
have been calling for bipartisan solutions to the NDAA, to the 
appropriations process, and more, but only in the last couple of days, 
here in mid-December, have our Democratic colleagues gotten 
sufficiently serious about these must-pass bills.
  In the meantime, while we have waited on the House Democrats to act, 
the Senate has made good use of our floor time to complete the American 
people's business with respect to nominations. Last week alone, the 
Senate confirmed two executive branch nominations and put eight 
impressive jurists in seats on Federal district courts.
  This week, we have considered yet another slate of the President's 
well-qualified nominees. The Senate will consider today John Sullivan, 
of Maryland, to serve as Ambassador to the Russian Federation, Stephen 
Hahn, of Texas, to serve as Commissioner at the Food and Drug 
Administration, and Aurelia Skipwith, of Indiana, to be Director of the 
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
  Already this week, we have confirmed two more outstanding jurists to 
the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit--Patrick Bumatay, of 
California, and Lawrence VanDyke, of Nevada. Mr. Bumatay is a graduate 
of Yale and Harvard Law School. He clerked for the Eastern District of 
New York and the Tenth Circuit, practiced in the private sector, and 
served in a variety of roles with the Department of Justice. Mr. 
VanDyke graduated from Montana State University and Harvard Law School. 
His career has included a clerkship with the DC Circuit, time as a 
State solicitor general, and service as Deputy Assistant Attorney 
General at the Department of Justice. Both of these jurists are well 
qualified, and both have widespread respect from legal peers. Now they 
are the 49th and 50th circuit judges to have been nominated by 
President Trump and confirmed by the Senate in the last 3 years.
  As I have said before, these kinds of milestones are emphatically not 
partisan achievements. It is not one party or the other that benefits 
when our

[[Page S7000]]

Federal courts consist of men and women who understand that a judge's 
job is to follow the law, not to make the law. The entire country 
benefits from that. Our constitutional system benefits from that as 
well. If a judge's applying our laws and our Constitution as they are 
written strikes anybody as a threat to one's particular agenda, it is 
the agenda that needs to change, not the judiciary the Framers 
intended.
  On another matter, as I said, the Democrats' fixation with 
impeachment has pushed critical governing priorities right into the 
eleventh hour. Just yesterday, after months of delays and hostage-
taking, the House Democrats finally approved an NDAA conference report. 
Next week, the Senate will pass it and send this overdue legislation to 
President Trump. Yet, of course, we need to follow up Defense 
authorization with Defense appropriations so that we actually supply 
the funding our servicemembers need to carry out their missions and our 
commanders need to plan for the future.
  It is not just defense funding that has been hampered by the 
Democrats' impeachment obsession and reluctance to do anything 
bipartisan. All Federal funding has been jeopardized by the House's 
procrastination. That includes critical domestic programs with 
implications for every one of our colleagues and all of our 
constituents. Even today, at this late date, the Democratic leadership 
is continuing to delay a bipartisan agreement on appropriations. Even 
now, at the eleventh hour, the Democratic leadership is still 
threatening to potentially tank the whole process and force another 
continuing resolution.
  Look, the story is the same as it has been for months--partisan 
policy demands, poison pills. It is exactly the playbook the Speaker of 
the House and the Democratic leader had explicitly promised months ago, 
in writing, they would not use in order to sabotage appropriations.
  Let me say that again. Last summer, the Speaker of the House and the 
Senate Democratic leader explicitly promised in writing that they would 
not use poison pills or changes to Presidential transfer authorities to 
sabotage the appropriations process. Yet, even in mid-December, they 
are still using those tactics to jeopardize all of our progress.
  It doesn't have to end this way. I know earnest discussions are still 
underway as our colleagues in both Chambers work to fix this. I urge 
the Democratic leadership to let the committees do their work, to let 
the Congress do its work, and to let us pass legislation on a 
bipartisan basis next week.
  On a related matter, while we hold out hope for a breakthrough in 
appropriations, we also know there has been one major casualty of 
Speaker Pelosi's impeachment obsession--Congress's ability to pass the 
President's USMCA this year.
  It was more than a year ago that President Trump first signed the 
draft agreement with the leaders of Canada and Mexico--more than 12 
months ago. That is how long the House Democrats have dragged their 
heels on the USMCA and have kept 176,000 new American jobs on ice. Now, 
at the eleventh hour, Speaker Pelosi has finally realized it would be 
too cynical and too nakedly partisan to allow her conference's 
impeachment obsession to kill the USMCA entirely.
  So after a year of obstruction, she finally gave in to Republican 
pressure and struck a notional deal with the White House. But actions 
have consequences. That entire calendar year that House Democrats 
wasted has consequences. The Speaker's action was so belated that the 
administration is still--still--in the process of writing the actual 
bill. We don't have a bill yet. Once a bill is produced, the House has 
to take it up first, and then, under trade promotion authority that 
exists to protect the deals Presidents negotiate, after House passage, 
the bill spends up to 15 session days in the Senate Finance Committee. 
After that, there are up to 15 session days for the Senate to vote on 
the floor.
  So, unfortunately, the Speaker's 12 months of delay have made it 
literally impossible for the Senate to take up the agreement this year. 
And if House Democrats send us impeachment articles, those have to come 
first in January, so the USMCA will get pushed back yet again.
  Like I said, actions have consequences. There is just no way the 
Senate can make up for 12 months of House Democratic delays in just a 
couple of days. Governing is a question of priorities. Speaker Pelosi 
failed to make this trade deal a priority for the entire year, and we 
are now bound by the time requirements of TPA to protect the agreement 
here in the Senate.
  On one final matter, speaking of priorities, listen to what the House 
Democrats are prioritizing. Listen to what they are doing today while 
all of this crucial legislation goes unfinished: more Judiciary 
Committee hearings on impeaching the President and on the floor, a vote 
on yet another far-left messaging bill with literally no chance of 
becoming law.
  They are spending floor time on their socialist scheme to micromanage 
Americans' prescription drugs and put the Federal Government in charge 
of the medicines so many people rely on. The Speaker wants to take us 
down the road of nationalizing an entire industry and imposing 
Washington's stifling influence on the life sciences sector that 
produces lifesaving cures--never mind the fact that this far-left 
messaging bill has zero chance of passing the Senate and that President 
Trump has already threatened to veto it.
  We know by now that political performance art takes precedence over 
bipartisan legislation where this Democratic House has been concerned. 
I hope these stunts--stunts--come to an end soon. I hope the House 
finds time to finish negotiating the things we actually have to pass--
the funding of the government. I hope we can do that in good faith. I 
hope our Democratic colleagues join Republicans at the table, and let's 
get the American people's business that must be done accomplished.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.