[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 196 (Wednesday, November 29, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5654-S5655]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Appropriations

  Mr. MORAN. Madam President, today, I would like to discuss one of the 
many critical topics we face in the country, in the Congress, in the 
Senate--Federal spending. We are certainly focused upon the issues that 
we are trying to bring together in regard to an emergency supplemental, 
in regard to supporting Ukraine and Israel, combatting China in the 
South Pacific and around the globe, Iran terrorist activities, and, as 
the gentleman from my neighboring State of Nebraska indicated, issues 
involving our national security at our own borders.
  Today, I want to take just a step back and indicate that we were on a 
path and I wish we would get back on a path of making certain that the 
appropriations bills that the Senate Committee on Appropriations has 
considered, amended, and approved are brought to the Senate floor.
  There are 12 appropriations bills annually. The full committee has 
considered all 12 and passed all 12, but the Senate, this body, which 
is again using this week to consider nominations, still has all but 
three of those bills yet to consider. It is important that Federal 
spending is provided to keep our government open and functioning and 
functioning and open for the American people.
  This topic has dominated a lot of conversations nationally now for 
months. We are operating under a continuing resolution that funds the 
Federal Government at its current level until mid-January or early 
February, when that current continuing resolution then expires.
  I certainly support the efforts of Senator Collins and Senator 
Murray, the vice chairman and the chairman of the Committee on 
Appropriations. I support their work. It is my hope that Leader Schumer 
will allow those appropriations bills and that process to continue. 
Three out of twelve is insufficient, and the consequences of our 
failure to address the remaining bills are consequential.
  When considering appropriations bills, it is critical that, in my 
view, two core principles are established. First is that we must get 
our Federal spending under control. We borrow way too much money. The 
consequence will come to haunt us economically. Our ability to respond 
to national security issues is diminished when our spending is out of 
line with our revenues. Second, it is our duty to draft appropriations 
bills that are judicious, responsible, carefully tailored, and that we 
establish priorities and determine what the Nation's highest priorities 
are for the coming or current fiscal year.
  Congress must start this work immediately and not wait for the final 
moments, not wait until the middle of January or the beginning of 
February. Otherwise, we are on a path once again to another continuing 
resolution or, as we said we would not do again, a significant and huge 
omnibus in which these bills are all packaged together, reducing 
transparency, reducing the understanding of not only members of the 
American public but reducing the capability of U.S. Senators to fully 
understand the nature of the bill and not giving the opportunity for my 
colleagues who don't serve on the Appropriations Committee to amend and 
alter the bills that our committee has approved.
  A CR puts spending on auto pilot. It is the antithesis, it is the 
opposite of what these principles involve. The idea that the Federal 
Government should be funded next year at the same level as last year is 
wrong, and it is wrong that the same amount of funding ought to go to 
each program. Some things maybe ought to be eliminated. There are some 
things I know that should be eliminated. There are things that maybe 
are receiving the right amount of money. There may be things that are 
deserving, as the priorities change, of additional spending.
  The best hope to avoid another CR and to avoid a much criticized 
omnibus spending bill at the end is to continue the process--the 
process we started on fiscal year 2024 appropriations bills, to 
consider them on the Senate floor and to move them forward.

  Over the past 9 months, the Senator from New Hampshire, Senator 
Shaheen, and I have worked to craft the appropriations bill for the 
subcommittee that we lead called Commerce, Justice, Science and to 
balance those two core principles: fiscal responsibility with 
thoughtful allocation of scarce resources.
  The CJS bill, one of 12--one of those bills that have yet to be 
considered on the Senate floor, the Commerce-Justice-Science bill--
provides funding for a host of Federal Agencies that play a critical 
role in the lives of every single American and certainly every single 
Kansan: the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation, NASA, the National Weather Service, the National Science 
Foundation, and just a host of other activities which enjoy broad 
bipartisan support both here in Congress and among the American people.
  With respect to fiscal responsibility, this bill, Commerce-Justice-
Science for fiscal year 2024, cuts budget authority--actual Federal 
spending--by $1.3 billion compared to the amount of money that was 
enacted in the previous fiscal year, fiscal year 2023. That is about an 
amount equal to 1.5--1\1/2\ percent below the current level of 
spending. So we are cutting spending in our appropriations process.
  American families face painful cuts and challenges in their own 
budgets, and I think they can expect--or ``should expect'' is the way I 
guess I would say it--should expect government to prove that it can 
make the same kinds of difficult decisions. The fiscal year 2024 CJS 
bill crafted by Senator Shaheen and me delivers on that obligation, and 
I thank my colleagues on our Appropriations subcommittee, both 
Republicans and Democrats, for working together to accomplish that 
goal.
  In Congress, every once in a while, we have a vote on the penny plan, 
the seemingly impossible to achieve notion that we should at least be 
able to cut Federal spending by 1 percent, one penny out of a dollar. 
Senator Shaheen and I have found a way to make that a penny and a half, 
a little more than 1 percent--1.5 percent. That is a savings of more 
than $1.3 billion.
  The second core principle that I approach in the appropriations 
process is that Congress must make careful and deliberate decisions 
about how we allocate resources. Our opportunity to do that comes from 
certainly the assistance of our experts in our budget arena but also a 
significant number of hearings in front of the committee in which 
people have the opportunity to come highlight each Agency, each 
Department, their budget priorities, and give

[[Page S5655]]

us a chance to ask questions and to pursue what the right balance is. 
We owe that obligation--making the right decisions--to the American 
taxpayer.
  There are also areas that are vitally important where we from time to 
time include increases where appropriate to address new threats, new 
challenges, and new areas that are critical to the United States in our 
maintaining our competitive edge and our national security.
  For example, in the fiscal year 2024 CJS bill, we provide resources 
to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST--home to 
some of the world's best scientists--to ensure that we understand both 
the promise and the pitfalls of artificial intelligence.
  NASA stands on the verge of returning the first humans--perhaps, in 
this case, it sounds like the first woman--to the Moon in over 50 
years. It was vitally important that we provide NASA with the resources 
necessary to execute the Artemis mission. There may be those who would 
say that is not a priority, but the Chinese would like nothing more 
than to beat us back to the Moon and to become the world's preeminent 
space power. We will not--should not--allow that to be the case.
  The National Weather Service needs to recapitalize its weather 
satellites. These satellites are vital to people in Kansas as we 
predict the weather and determine the safety and economic well-being of 
our State. They are vital to determining new severe weather patterns, 
and they will save lives.
  These examples are just a few of why it is important that we have an 
annual appropriations process to make the changes to address things 
that Americans care about and to deal with the things that have changed 
in our lives across the country.
  America's needs and priorities are not static, they are not the same, 
nor should government's decisions on how to spend taxpayer dollars be, 
either.
  This bill, the fiscal year 2024 CJS bill, even in the context of its 
savings, still manages to make responsible investments to address the 
newest and most important challenges facing our country.
  I want to spend a moment longer on discussing the funding and 
oversight of the Department of Justice.
  Crime. Crime across the country is increasing. It is a problem for 
almost every American and certainly every American family, and it is 
deserving of being prioritized by the U.S. Senate, the Congress, and 
the administration.
  Like many Americans, I have serious concerns with many of the 
policies coming from the Biden Department of Justice. Many new 
regulations issued by ATF threaten to trample core constitutional 
rights and are often a solution in search of a problem. DOJ's 
investigative priorities are often designed to satisfy the loudest 
activist rather than the everyday American and their real concern, 
including skyrocketing violent crime across the country and in the 
State of Kansas. Crime is affecting even our safest communities, and 
Kansans and Americans are concerned about what Washington is doing to 
keep their families safe.
  Fentanyl is also a crisis--has been and continues to be and grows. It 
is a growing crisis in our country. This is not just an assertion; 
again, the numbers speak for themselves.
  After a year in which more than 100,000 Americans lost their lives to 
fentanyl and with the highest increase in deaths among infants over 1 
year old, President Biden's budget for DOJ requires hiring only four 
new DEA special agents, the Drug Enforcement Agency's agents. Yet the 
President's budget request indicates that the DOJ needs more than 
1,200--one thousand two hundred--new attorneys, primarily at the 
division that files civil lawsuits.

  The DOJ's priorities have been and are misguided. When I became the 
top Republican--the chairman--on the CJS subcommittee, I made it a 
priority to meet with countless DEA, FBI, and ATF special agents, 
deputy U.S. marshals, prison correctional officers, intelligence 
analysts, and prosecutors in the field. I am immensely impressed by 
their professionalism, their courage, and their dedication to keeping 
the American people safe. Indiscriminate, thoughtless budget cuts will 
result in fewer deputy marshals to apprehend violent fugitives, fewer 
FBI agents to investigate terrorists and intelligence threats from 
China, fewer DEA agents to combat the Mexican cartels, fewer Federal 
prosecutors not just to arrest violent criminals but to send them to 
prison.
  Instead of defunding Federal law enforcement, we should use the 
appropriations process to prioritize and to make deliberate and 
judicious decisions about the Department of Justice's priorities. This 
means providing funding for the core activities critical to public 
safety while rejecting these proposals that make less sense or no sense 
from the Biden administration.
  To that end, the CJS bill cuts funding for the Department of Justice 
by $817 million--a more than 2-percent cut. Within that amount, funding 
for the FBI's construction account is cut by $591 million. These are 
exactly the types of careful cuts we were able to achieve while 
maintaining the jobs of thousands of agents and intelligence analysts 
and others who help us combat violent crimes, child predators, Mexican 
cartels, and foreign intelligence agents.
  Additionally, in working with my Republican colleagues on the 
committee, we were able to address some of the worst errors and abuses 
by the DOJ in recent years. During the committee markup, I secured new 
legislative language to prohibit funding for the investigation of 
parents who peacefully protest school board meetings--a DOJ initiative 
epitomized by the outrageous school board memo. Senator Rubio, my 
colleague from Florida, secured new legislative language prohibiting 
the Department from targeting Americans for their religious beliefs.
  To my colleagues who have deep reservations about the policies of the 
Department of Justice, know that I share those concerns; yet I believe 
we have prepared a responsible bill that makes meaningful investments 
in the Department of Justice and its law enforcement mission. The CJS 
appropriations bill is a credible demonstration of fiscal 
responsibility while making judicious and careful investments in 
programs and services that Americans strongly support.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.