[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 177 (Thursday, October 26, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5205-S5206]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     MILITARY CONSTRUCTION, VETERANS AFFAIRS AND RELATED AGENCIES 
                  APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2024--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Heinrich). The Senator from Indiana.


                           Amendment No. 1182

  Mr. BRAUN. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 1182 and ask 
that it be reported by number.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Indiana [Mr. Braun], for himself and 
     others, proposes an amendment numbered 1182 to amendment No. 
     1092.

  The amendment is as follows:

                    (Purpose: To prohibit earmarks)

       On page 2, after line 19, add the following:

     SEC. 4. PROHIBITION ON EARMARKS.

       (a) In General.--Notwithstanding any provision of any 
     division of this Act, none of the funds made available under 
     any division of this Act may be used to implement any 
     earmark, Community Project Funding, or Congressionally 
     Directed Spending specified in any provision of any division 
     of this Act or in any report described in section 3.
       (b) Rule of Construction.--Nothing in this section shall 
     prevent funds allocated for any earmark, Community Project 
     Funding, or Congressionally Directed Spending included in any 
     division of this Act or in a report described in section 3 of 
     the matter preceding division A in this Act from being 
     awarded under a merit-based process under existing law.

  Mr. BRAUN. Mr. President, Americans are hurting more than I think in 
any other time since I have been here for sure: high inflation--I 
calculate in the 5 years I have been here, we have added 15 trillion to 
our national debt--struggling to make ends meet and I think inflation, 
and all of this is DC's fault.
  Starting in 2021, Congress kept passing huge spending bills. We have 
never gone off of it since then. We now borrow a trillion dollars every 
6 months; it used to be annually. Massive spending packages sail 
through this place because they are packed with pet projects. We have 
even brought back earmarks. Earmarks give Representatives, give 
Senators, the incentive to be big spenders. We should cut every earmark 
out of this bill and ban them permanently and quit loading up our kids 
and grandkids with the debt to pay for all this.
  Shameful, in my mind.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.


                             Maine Shooting

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, before I speak, I just want to take a 
moment to speak to the gut-wrenching shooting that occurred in Maine 
last night. The situation, I know, is still developing, and I am sure 
there will be more to say about what the Lewiston community is going 
through and what steps we, as a nation, must take to prevent gun 
violence.
  But even as we get more information, it is painfully clear this was a 
horrific blow to a close-knit community, and I want my colleagues from 
Maine and everyone in Maine to know that my heart goes out to them, 
everyone who is affected by this tragedy, and I think I speak for all 
of us when I say the Senate stands with both of our colleagues from 
Maine.


                           Amendment No. 1182

  Mr. President, now to the task at hand. Last Congress, Senate and 
House Committees on Appropriations leaders reinstated the practice of 
congressionally directed spending--or CDS--with bipartisan support. CDS 
is an important way for Senators to advocate for their States and the 
communities they know best through their investments in projects to 
improve transportation and drinking water infrastructure, support 
workforce development programs, childcare centers, so much more.
  So at the beginning of this year, the Senator from Maine and I laid 
out a robust process to accept CDS requests for fiscal year 2024, and 
that process included extremely important guardrails: requiring each 
Senator who requested a CDS to certify neither they nor their immediate 
family members have any financial interest in the project, to ensure 
that each funded project is clearly identified in the reports with the 
requesting Senator's name and posted on our committee website, required 
Senators to publish their CDS requests on their own websites, 
established an audit process with the GAO, prohibited for-profit 
entities from receiving CDS funding, and established a total limit on 
the amount of funding that could be dedicated to CDS in our Senate 
bills.
  Across the three bills in this funding package, the committee 
received nearly 7,000 CDS requests from 66 Senators on both sides of 
the aisle. Then our staff worked diligently to review all of those 
requests to make sure they met Agency eligibility requirements and 
complied with Senate rules and the additional guidelines we had set--if 
the project met those requirements, eligible for funding.
  We respect the projects that Senators choose to request and their 
decisions on CDS priorities for their States and their constituents. 
And through the CDS process, Congress is exercising our constitutional 
power of the purse. After all, we all know better than anyone about the 
needs of our States and our constituents.
  So I oppose this amendment, and I urge my colleagues to do so as 
well.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.


                             Maine Shooting

  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, before I address the amendment offered by 
Senator Braun, let me thank the Senator from Washington State for her 
very kind comments expressing condolences to the people of Maine.
  Our hearts are so heavy today. This heinous attack, which has robbed 
the lives of at least 18 Mainers and injured so many more, is the worst 
mass shooting that we could ever imagine in our State. This is a dark 
day for our State.
  I am grateful for the expressions of support and offers of help and 
condolences that I have received from my colleagues and friends across 
the Nation as well as from the administration.
  I have had conversations both last night throughout the night and 
early

[[Page S5206]]

this morning with President Biden, Secretary Mayorkas, Attorney General 
Merrick Garland, and special advisor to the President Tom Perez, who 
has been particularly helpful in mobilizing resources for the State of 
Maine so that this killer can be captured.


                              S.J. Res. 44

  It is hard to transition from the terrible attack in Maine to talk 
about the Braun amendment, but that is what I must do.
  First, let me make a very important point. What we are talking about 
is whether the legislative branch of government should make decisions 
about government spending or whether that decisionmaking should be 
given entirely to the executive branch when it comes to specific 
projects.
  We are not talking about adding more money; we are talking about who 
makes the decision. And, indeed, in our Senate appropriations bills, 
less than one-half of 1 percent of the funding is allocated to 
congressionally directed spending projects.
  This process has provided opportunities for Members of Congress from 
both parties who understand the needs of their constituents far better 
than every Federal Agency to advocate for specific investments in their 
local communities.
  As Chair Murray has said, we have included safeguards to promote 
transparency and accountability. First, we prohibit for-profit entities 
from eligibility. Second, we require public disclosure to ensure that 
spending decisions are made in the light of day. For the appropriation 
measures before us today, each Member's CDS request has been posted 
online since April. There is no secrecy here. They also include a 
certification that neither the Member of Congress nor members of their 
immediate family have any financial interest in the CDS items that they 
have requested.
  Further, the disclosure tables for each bill list each Member who 
submitted a request for a particular project that was funded. These 
tables have been available online since this past summer when the bills 
were considered and approved in committee.
  The directed investments of these three bills that we are considering 
will make a difference to our constituents. They include funding to 
support agricultural research, local transportation and community 
development projects, as well as military construction projects that 
are on the service's unfunded priorities list.
  So I urge my colleagues to protect our constitutional power of the 
purse and support the Senate's ability to make substantive, tangible 
investments in our communities. I urge a ``no'' vote on Senator Braun's 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. BRAUN. First of all, I echo the comments of Senators Collins and 
Murray on the tragedy in Maine. We see it all too often.
  When it comes to this place, we don't do budgets anymore. We haven't 
done them--that we have adhered to--in over 20 years.
  We piled up--to give you a little taste of debt--$5 trillion in debt 
in 2000. We added another $6 trillion, I believe, or $5 trillion by 
2008. We added another 8 from 2008 to 2016. Where is it going to end?
  Yes, Congressional Directive Spending would be OK if it was in the 
context of actually doing budgets and not borrowing all this money from 
our kids and grandkids.
  This is symbolic mostly, but going back to earmarks just says we are 
putting a rubber stamp on the dysfunction that drives this place in the 
first place.
  I yield.


                       Vote on Amendment No. 1182

  Mr. BRAUN. And I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment.
  Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Maine (Mr. King) and the 
Senator from California (Mr. Padilla) are necessarily absent.
  Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from South Carolina (Mr. Scott).
  The result was announced--yeas 35, nays 62, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 271 Leg.]

                                YEAS--35

     Barrasso
     Blackburn
     Braun
     Budd
     Cassidy
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Grassley
     Hagerty
     Hawley
     Hoeven
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Lee
     Lummis
     Marshall
     Paul
     Ricketts
     Risch
     Romney
     Rubio
     Schmitt
     Scott (FL)
     Tester
     Thune
     Tuberville
     Vance
     Young

                                NAYS--62

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Boozman
     Britt
     Brown
     Butler
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Collins
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Fetterman
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hickenlooper
     Hirono
     Hyde-Smith
     Kaine
     Kelly
     Klobuchar
     Lujan
     Manchin
     Markey
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Moran
     Mullin
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Ossoff
     Peters
     Reed
     Rosen
     Rounds
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Sinema
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Sullivan
     Tillis
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warnock
     Warren
     Welch
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--3

     King
     Padilla
     Scott (SC)
  The amendment (No. 1182) was rejected.

                          ____________________