[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 142 (Tuesday, September 5, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3869-S3870]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Business Before the Senate

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, welcome back to you and our great staff, 
and it is good to be back.
  Leader McConnell will speak after me here on the floor, and I am glad 
to see him back and doing well.
  Mr. President, let me begin by welcoming back all of our Senators 
from the August work period. August was a busy month for all of us back 
home, a time to listen to constituents about what is on their minds, 
like lowering costs and increasing paychecks.
  It was also a time for ribbon cuttings and groundbreakings as the 
historic investments that Democrats made come to fruition; and, of 
course, it was a time to prepare for the very busy month in front of 
us.
  On the implementation side, August was a month of action, of 
groundbreakings, celebrating new factories and new good-paying jobs 
that will stick around for a long, long time. When a parent sees his or 
her son or daughter get these jobs, they know they are going to be 
around for a long time; they are not going to be gone in 2 or 3 years. 
It is a great thing for optimism and the future of America.
  And it was even nice to see Speaker McCarthy in my home State of New 
York, celebrating the new jobs secured by Democrats, when he visited 
JMA Wireless last month. I have been there many times too. In fact, it 
was from my own visits there and to other companies across New York 
that I saw firsthand the opportunity to invest in companies like JMA by 
buy-in-America provisions that we added to the legislation, and it 
helped us shape the Inflation Reduction Act.
  As the Speaker saw with his own eyes, Democrats' investments are 
already bearing fruit. In just one year alone, the Inflation Reduction 
Act alone has resulted in over 200 new clean energy jobs and created 
170,000 new good-paying jobs, and it is projected to create another 1.5 
million jobs over the next decade. Pick any region of the country, and 
you will have no trouble seeing Democrats' agenda in action.
  One of the amazing visits I went to was in Allegany County in Upstate 
New York. It is in Appalachia. By income levels, it is one of the 
poorest counties

[[Page S3870]]

in our State. And there, the Inflation Reduction Act is blowing new 
life into Ljungstrom. This is a company that used to make coal 
technology equipment and has transitioned to making parts for wind 
turbines and is hiring 150 new workers, all in a place where people 
thought they didn't have much of a history, because they knew the coal 
industry was declining.
  It has happened all over America. In Georgia, Hyundai and LG 
announced they are increasing their multibillion dollar investment 
towards a major EV and battery manufacturing plant, one that will be 
the State's largest project ever, creating thousands of good-paying 
jobs in years to come. And in New Mexico, Arcosa broke ground on a new 
wind tower production facility expected to create 250 new jobs. These 
jobs will help fill the over $1 billion worth of wind tower orders they 
have received since President Biden signed the IRA into law. These 
investments, and many others, are supporting the whole of America, red 
and blue States, rural and urban, everyone, everywhere. And you can be 
sure the best is yet to come.
  Last month, we saw other examples of implementation, too. Over the 
past few weeks, President Biden made groundbreaking announcements on 
lowering the cost of prescription drugs, on prevailing wage, and more. 
Many of these are a direct result of the work that we have done in the 
Congress.
  So Democrats are very proud of the agenda now taking hold across 
America, and we intend to keep going.
  Now the Senate gavels back into session with a lot to do, but there 
is one clear place to begin: Keep the government open. As we all know, 
government funding is set to expire on September 30. By the end of this 
month, the House and Senate--Democrats and Republicans--all must get on 
the same page about keeping the government open and avoiding a 
pointless shutdown--a shutdown that will hurt just about every single 
American; a shutdown that, of course, shouldn't happen.
  To accomplish that, the answer is very simple: All sides must work 
together in good faith, without engaging in extremism or all-or-nothing 
tactics.
  Look no further than the example we have set here in a bipartisan way 
in the Senate: Democrats working with Republicans on a bipartisan 
basis; chairs, Democratic chairs, engaging fruitfully with Republican 
vice chairs and ranking members. All 12 appropriations bills have been 
reported out of committee with bipartisan support, some of them 
unanimously--unanimously. Both sides avoided dragging the process down 
with unseemly tactics. It sets a very good template for how things 
should work in Congress.

  I want to thank all my colleagues, but especially Appropriations 
Chair Patty Murray and Vice Chair Susan Collins, for their tremendous 
work thus far on the appropriations process. They truly deserve a lot 
of credit.
  When the House returns next week, I hope House Republicans--I implore 
House Republicans to recognize that time is short to keep the 
government open and that the only way--the only way--we will finish the 
appropriations process is through bipartisanship, the idea of both 
parties working together, not one party, particularly if it is a party 
governed by an extreme 30 or 40 Members filling out a wish list that 
they know can't pass. They can't do that.
  So let me repeat. Let me say it again. The only way to avoid a 
shutdown is through bipartisanship. So I urge--I plead--with House 
Republican leadership to follow the Senate's lead and pass bipartisan 
Democrat and Republican appropriations bills supported by both parties.
  As we work to fund the government, there are plenty of other things 
we must do, too, both on and off the floor. We will, for one, continue 
laying a foundation for bipartisan congressional action on AI. Next 
Wednesday, along with Senators Rounds, Heinrich, and Young, I will host 
the Senate's inaugural AI Insight Forum, a first-ever convening of the 
top minds in AI here in the Congress. Voices from business and the 
civil rights community, researchers, worker advocates, and many more, 
all in one room having an open discussion about how Congress can act on 
AI: where to start, what questions to ask, and how to build a 
foundation for safe AI innovation.
  These AI forums are vital. Artificial intelligence is unlike any 
topic we have undertaken in Congress. It moves faster; it is more 
complex; and there is little precedent for this kind of work.
  This is not going to be easy. In fact, it will be one of the most 
difficult things we undertake, but in the 21st century, as technology 
moves forward with or without us, we can't behave like ostriches with 
heads in the sand when it comes to AI. We must treat AI with the same 
level of seriousness as national security, job creation, and our civil 
liberties.
  Now, ultimately, of course, the real legislative work will come in 
committees, but the AI forums will give us the nutrient agar, the facts 
and the challenges, that we need to understand in order to reach this 
goal.
  Of course, next week's forum is just the start. The Senate will 
continue hosting AI forums throughout the fall on a variety of topics, 
including finding ways to promote AI innovation, IP issues, workforce 
issues, privacy, security, alignment, and many more.
  We will also move the ball forward on other items on our agenda 
wherever we can, but of course they will need Republican help to reach 
the necessary 60 votes to move forward, like lowering the cost of 
insulin and prescription drugs, something Members on both sides of the 
aisle are hard at work on. We did it in the IRA for insulin for 
Medicare for people over 65. We should do it for everybody else. 
Insulin is too vital and becoming too expensive for too many Americans. 
And making progress on cannabis through the SAFE Banking Act, as well 
as commonsense rail safety, which I said in July would be a big 
priority.
  We also must build on the work we did during the NDAA to outcompete 
the Chinese Government, to keep the American people safe, to protect 
American businesses, and ensure that American innovation and technology 
leads the way this century.
  We also must continue standing with our friends in Ukraine, now more 
than ever, as the counteroffensive against Putin's forces is in full 
swing.
  And we must stand with our fellow Americans in places like Hawaii, 
Florida, Vermont, and other regions battered by storms and fires and 
flooding.
  The topics continue: from advancing a farm bill to kids' online 
privacy, to reauthorizing the FAA, and to holding bank executives 
accountable for irresponsible behavior.
  Our committees have done excellent work to move all of these issues 
along, but we are under no illusion that we can make progress on the 
Senate floor unless we get bipartisan cooperation. None of this will be 
easy either. The bills will require a lot of work and compromise, but 
if we can progress on these items, we will greatly improve the lives of 
average Americans.
  Finding bipartisan compromise on issues like these is never easy, but 
that is what it will take to get things done, and our efforts to do 
precisely that have already led to significant accomplishments under 
this majority. As we gavel back in, we will keep going to reward the 
trust the American people have placed in us.