[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 153 (Thursday, September 21, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4647-S4648]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Government Funding

  Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, for the last week, we have seen chaos and 
dysfunction in the House of Representatives as they try to come up with 
a single bill to fund the government to avert a shutdown. We are now 9 
days away from a lapse in funding, and even though it is their 
responsibility under the Constitution to originate an appropriations 
bill, they have got nothing. They have no plan to pass a bill that can 
be signed into law.
  I want to be really clear about this because when we had this debt 
ceiling fight earlier in the year, the bar was lowered so much for the 
House of Representatives that passing anything was considered a 
legislative victory. All the political pundits and newsletters out 
there were lauding the House of Representatives for passing a 
legislative vehicle--not one that could pass, not one that was well 
thought through, not one that was bipartisan, not one that was on its 
way to the President's desk, but just like passing something is like a 
huge victory. I was irritated back then because if Chuck Schumer passed 
something on a partisan basis that couldn't be enacted by the House and 
wasn't going to be signed by the President of the United States, nobody 
would be giving him credit.
  The point here is to make a law. The point here is to make a law. But 
they haven't even cleared the bar that was so low in the spring that 
even if you pass something that is largely symbolic, you have united 
your caucus and you have shown you can legislate. They have not. They 
have not shown that they can legislate.
  But let's be clear. The consequences in the next 9 days are dire.
  A few of my colleagues on the Senate side stopped us from being the 
legislative body that we ought to be. So let's back up a second.
  Every year at the end of the year, we usually pass an appropriations 
bill. It is called an omnibus. It takes all 12 individual 
appropriations bills and piles them up into one, and everybody gets 
very irritated because it is so much, right, that it is difficult for a 
legislator to sort out what they like about a bill and what they don't 
like about a bill. It is hard to do amendments.
  So lots of Members--mostly on the Republican side--said: You know 
what. We need to do the regular order.
  What is the regular order? Well, it is a little bit in the eye of the 
beholder, but the basic idea is, we should have committee markups; we 
should vote on stuff; we should have amendments; we should behave like 
the legislative body we grew up learning about.
  The regular order. We demand it.
  So Patty Murray, the chair of Appropriations, and Susan Collins, the 
vice chair of Appropriations--Democrat and Republican--together said: 
Let's do the regular order.
  So we do a committee markup on Transportation, Housing, and Urban 
Development. It happens to be my subcommittee. Unanimous, bipartisan 
vote. Then we do MILCON and VA. Unanimous, bipartisan vote. Then we do 
ag approps. Unanimous, bipartisan vote. Because people--correctly, in 
my view--demanded no more omnibuses. So we are going to do this. We are 
going to do it old school, right? How we should.
  So we put together this process and, again, unanimous, bipartisan 
vote. So we tried to bunch these together, and then Republicans stopped 
us from pursuing the regular order. Three bills, each of which passed 
out of committee with unanimous, bipartisan support, 13 Republican 
votes--we couldn't even begin debate on the Senate floor.
  What are we doing here? Americans across the country are counting on 
the Federal Government to help them, and right now, Congress is not 
getting it done. I get that there is plenty to argue about between 
Democrats and Republicans, particularly during this time of year, but 
we have to do our jobs.
  Americans impacted by disasters are the ones that are most 
desperately in need. That includes the people on Maui who are just 
beginning the recovery process from last month's devastating wildfires, 
but also people in States across the country--in Vermont, in

[[Page S4648]]

Florida, in California, in Texas, and in many other States. In each 
case, the need for recovery is so big that the local county or State 
can't manage the recovery.
  That is what it means when the President declares a national 
disaster. It, sort of, just means it is a really big disaster. But at a 
technical level, what does it mean? It means that this thing is too big 
for county government. This thing is too big for State government.
  So the President declares the disaster, and then we fund the 
disasters. We put money in the Disaster Relief Fund, and then FEMA can 
access it on behalf of whomever needs the help.
  As it stands, without Congress providing additional funding to 
Federal Agencies that are working to respond to these disasters, aid to 
communities will dry up. For instance, FEMA just said that there is 
only $2.4 billion remaining in its Disaster Relief Fund, and, as a 
result, it is delaying funding for over 1,000 long-term projects, 
totaling $1.8 billion, in past disaster recovery zones in order to 
continue urgent work on Maui.
  What do they do? When they run low, they prioritize current 
disasters. So they are servicing the problem on Maui, as they should 
be.
  But anybody who had a disaster in the last couple of years--
Louisiana, Texas, New Jersey, New York, California, South Carolina, 
North Carolina, Florida--all of them have their disaster recovery money 
frozen. Why? Because the House of Representatives adjourned for the 
week without having passed a single appropriations bill, because the 
Senate--Senate Democrats are ready to roll and many Senate Republicans 
are ready to roll--and we have blocked our own request. We asked for 
the regular order. We did it in regular order, and then they said: 
Actually, no, let's not do that.
  I want us to all feel a collective sense of urgency, not just because 
the end of the Federal fiscal year is coming shortly and there does not 
appear to be a viable plan from the House of Representatives, but 
because there is special urgency as it relates to disaster response.
  I know the Presiding Officer is working so hard to get resources for 
his home State and the terrible floods that he experienced. Obviously, 
Mazie Hirono and I are working very hard with our colleagues to try to 
get the funding that we need for Maui. But this isn't just a Maui or 
Vermont problem. This is an across-the-country problem.
  By the way, the way the Disaster Relief Fund works, you prefund it. 
You don't fund individual disaster responses. You just put money in 
this pile--the Disaster Relief Fund--and then, wherever there is a 
disaster, you have access to it.
  I have never seen--I have only been here 11 years, but I have never 
seen us decide not to fund disaster relief.
  Let's fight about everything, except whether or not our fellow 
Americans get the help that they need from the Federal Government. This 
is one of the core responsibilities of the Federal legislature. This is 
one of the core things we have to do, not just as a matter of public 
policy but morally. What are we here for other than to help our fellow 
Americans when they are in desperate situations?
  In Hawaii, in West Maui, you have hundreds of kids still not in 
school. You have an elementary school that was destroyed. You have 
sewer and water treatment facilities that have been not destroyed but 
deeply damaged. You have Lahaina Harbor that is not operable. You have 
telecom services that are not operating at full capacity. You have 
roads that are trashed. And that is to say nothing of the 1,800 homes 
burnt to the ground, 2,200 structures--2,200 structures--and, very 
likely, between 100 and 200 dead.
  We have to stop messing around here.
  I have been known to be partisan sometimes. I have been known to get 
into it with my colleagues on the Republican side. But part of the 
beauty of the American system of government, when it works, is that you 
can fight about all the stuff that you are supposed to fight about and 
not fight about the stuff that you are not supposed to fight about. We 
are not supposed to fight about whether people on Maui or people in 
Vermont, or people in Florida or people in Texas or Louisiana or 
California get the help that they need.
  We have to get our act together and get this money out.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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