[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 19 (Wednesday, January 29, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S490-S493]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRUMP EXECUTIVE ORDERS
Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, in an overnight maneuver on Monday,
President Trump unlawfully and unilaterally blockaded much of the
Federal budget. Hitting ``send'' on a two-page memo, the Trump
administration triggered a chaotic 24 hours that has thrown every town,
county, Tribe, nonprofit, doctor's office, hospital, nursing home,
school, and preschool in my State into disarray. From New Mexico's
Roundhouse--our capitol--to the classroom, to the emergency room, there
were a thousand questions and zero answers.
Now the Trump administration has both withdrawn and not withdrawn
this blockade. In so-called clarifications, President Trump has made
things about as clear as mud, but here are three things that are
crystal clear: First, President Trump's funding blockade was blatantly
unconstitutional and illegal; secondly, it has caused real harm; and
third, this was a test run where chaos was actually the point.
If you are trying to follow the news and getting confused, it is not
you. If you heard that President Trump blocked all Federal Medicaid
reimbursements, you heard correctly. If you
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heard that the White House claimed Federal Medicaid reimbursements were
exempt from the blockade, you also heard correctly. If you heard that
despite being allegedly exempt, Medicaid reimbursement was still
blocked, you heard correctly. Same story for Head Start, same goes for
food assistance, or SNAP, and for school lunches, and that list goes on
and on and on.
Even today, after a Federal court ruled that the Trump administration
had to pause the pause, I am still getting reports of organizations
that cannot access Federal funding portals. In the midst of all of
that, there are very real consequences.
Let's just take Medicaid just for a start. Almost a quarter of my
State's budget moves through the Medicaid portal--the one that was shut
down yesterday. Eight billion dollars in Federal Medicaid funding comes
to New Mexico every single year. Millions and millions of dollars'
worth of Medicaid reimbursement happen on that portal in any given day.
Seven out of ten nursing home residents, 55 percent of newborn
births, more than 700,000 people in total in my State depend on
Medicaid for their healthcare. Because a Medicaid blockade would impact
over a third of New Mexico's population, it really impacts all of our
healthcare providers, from small, rural clinics to our largest
hospitals.
Shutting that down is a big deal, but it wasn't just that. I heard
from childcare and Head Start providers, rental assistance programs,
Tribal governments, local law enforcement, fire departments, and
nonprofit organizations that provide everything from support to our
veterans to healthy meals for seniors and families.
We need to call out Trump's brazen action for what it truly is. It is
a power grab and a test to see just how much he can get away with.
President Trump and his cronies are testing how far they can go to
dismantle and dismember our democracy in service of his strongman
impulses and his ideological agenda.
Our message to him: The stove is hot, Mr. President. You should
remember that.
The Constitution and Federal law are clear on who controls the
spending of our taxpayer dollars. The President cannot simply override
or delay or rescind Congress's appropriations bills once they are
signed into law--full stop.
This has been upheld time and again by the Supreme Court, by the
Justice Department, the Government Accountability Office, and it was
codified into law in the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. Under that
law, the President cannot unilaterally stop the disbursement of Federal
funds that Congress has appropriated and the President has signed into
law. Sound familiar? A President unilaterally stopping the disbursement
of Federal funds that Congress has appropriated? Yes. This is exactly
what President Trump just tried.
As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I know how much
work goes into writing and passing our bipartisan funding laws.
I am here now talking on the Senate floor because I will fight like
hell to stop this or any of Trump's brazen, illegal funding blockades,
and I am not alone. I am joined by my colleagues here in the Senate on
the Senate floor tonight, my colleagues in the New Mexico Federal
delegation, my State's attorney general, and countless of my
constituents.
Now, let me read just a few letters that I received from New Mexicans
over these last 2 days:
Tamborah from Deming, who depends on Social Security disability
benefits and Medicaid, was scared she would not be able to keep up with
rent or basic necessities during the pause.
Tamborah wrote to me:
I will not be able to pay full price rent. My heart is
filled with uncertainty. I am afraid for my neighbors with
children. It has saddened my heart to see so many people
including myself become unsure of the future.
Caitlin from Taos wrote to my office expressing concern for her
safety and security should DreamTree, a federally funded youth shelter
in northern New Mexico, shutter its services due to Trump's pause.
She wrote:
Without DreamTree, I wouldn't have a roof over my head,
which would cause a lot of worry and fear, being vulnerable
to sexual assault, which happened to me in the past.
DreamTree is not just a program: it's home, it's my safe
space.
Dolores from Albuquerque is fearful she won't be able to make ends
meet if she loses her job because of the freeze.
She wrote to me:
Please help! I am a senior citizen trying to make ends
meet. I am alone paying my own bills. I work in the Senior
Community Service Employment Program and President Trump's
administration is going to cut the funding. I won't be able
to pay my bills. I am so afraid.
Shelley from Albuquerque, a dietitian, nutritionist, is scared for
the very lives of her patients who depend on Medicaid to survive.
She wrote to me:
Those I serve on the Developmental Disabilities Waiver are
Medicaid recipients, and some rely 100 percent on the
specialized formula for tube feeding.
To reiterate, they get 100 percent of their nutrition from that
formula, primarily through a tube in their stomach. If they do not have
it, they will starve.
Louis from Las Cruces is concerned that his grandson won't be able to
support his family if President Trump's border eliminates NIH funding
and consequently his grandson's job.
Louis wrote to me:
My grandson graduated with honors from [New Mexico State
University]. He is the recipient of an NIH grant which has
been suspended. He has a wife and child. I don't think the
President understands his actions affect real people.
Joan from Santa Fe has already lost money due to Trump's funding
freeze. Joan wrote:
I've just lost a $5,000 contract, and this order is going
to have a negative ripple effect through the economy. Please
protect federal workers from the Trump administration's purge
and harassment.
Mara from Albuquerque, who is a biomedical student at the University
of New Mexico doing cancer research and is fearful of what this freeze
means for her job and ability to do this important work, wrote:
I am personally affected by this pause because of the NIH
grants that sustain my lab and pay the salaries of my staff
and students. These grants were applied for and awarded in
good faith and they pay for extremely important cancer
research.
Melissa from Albuquerque is a Head Start childcare provider and has a
son at Head Start. Melissa wrote to me:
I am employed by Head Start. My son is a student at Head
Start. I believe in what we do, I believe in the men and
women I work with. These teachers change children's lives. I
am so saddened and stressed. Can you please help?
Andra from Albuquerque is a researcher at the University of New
Mexico whose work is funded by the National Science Foundation. Andra
wrote to me:
I work at the University of New Mexico as part of a team
entirely funded from the National Science Foundation. We have
been notified that we may lose our funding. This will likely
result in the loss of my job, along with those of my
colleagues.
Eytan, a Forest Stewards Guild member in New Mexico, is worried about
how a Federal funding freeze could lead to more deadly and destructive
wildfires across our State.
Eytan wrote to me:
This disruption puts New Mexico at significant risk for a
catastrophic wildfire as we head into another high-risk fire
season.
Sienna from Taos is a behavioral healthcare provider concerned that
the loss of Federal funding could prevent her from meeting the needs of
toddlers and their families.
Sienna wrote to me:
This is a total assault on New Mexico's most vulnerable
populations. Our programs assist families everyday and this
funding is at risk. Halting federal grants will impact the
early childhood programs serving low-income kids.
These letters paint a painful picture of the chaos and uncertainty
that President Trump's actions have created in my State alone.
What do you say to those Americans, President Trump? How could you
possibly defend taking their taxpayer dollars, the work of their
elected leaders, the Constitution you swore to defend just a few days
ago and pushing that all aside?
What funding exactly was thrown aside with it? Let me read you a list
of funding impacted in just New Mexico, even as we still do not know
which programs are or are not on the chopping block.
I will start with the New Mexico High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area
Program. If you have one in your State, you probably know it as an
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HIDTA program. This program includes 17 counties that are coordinating
on drug intelligence, interdiction, investigation, and prosecution
efforts to reduce the impact of illicit drugs. These are the folks
coordinating to go after the cartels, who are going after the fentanyl
trafficking. How woke is that? Stopping fentanyl trafficking. They
received over $1 million last year for this work.
New Mexico's program to prevent and prosecute violence against
women--this program works to reduce domestic violence, dating violence,
sexual assault, and stalking by strengthening services to victims and
holding offenders accountable. New Mexico received over $1 million for
this program last year.
The New Mexico crisis intervention program was created through our
Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a bill that I helped to negotiate.
This program funds the enforcement of red flag mandates to combat and
prevent gun violence. Last year, Federal funding for New Mexico's
crisis intervention program totaled over $4 million.
New Mexico's crime victims funds. These programs help New Mexican
community organizations and public agencies provide services directly
to the victims of crime. Last year, the Crime Victims Reparation
Commission of New Mexico received $1.2 million in Federal funds.
Justice assistance grants for police departments. Last year, New
Mexico local law enforcement entities received about $1 million in
Federal justice assistance grant funding, and that funding is used for
personnel, equipment, training, and technical assistance for New
Mexico's police departments.
You heard from my colleague from Connecticut about fire grants,
assistance to firefighter grants and staffing for adequate fire and
emergency response. These programs fund equipment and resources for our
fire departments, including volunteer firefighters in rural areas and
emergency first responders.
Just last year, many of us in this body worked hard to get this
program reauthorized, and I can't tell you of another program that is
more popular at home than the fire grants.
Since 2015, fire departments across my State have received over $22
million through these programs.
New Mexico homeless support services. Last year New Mexico nonprofits
received $17 million to the Housing and Urban Development Department's
Continuum of Care Program to help put a roof over the heads of people
who have been living on the streets.
Road improvements to prevent traffic deaths. You heard me. Those woke
road improvements. In 2024, New Mexico local governments received
almost $2 million to make our roads safer. Local governments, from
Truth or Consequences to the Pueblo of Santo Domingo, rely on this
funding to make their streets safer.
Road construction for railroad crossings. Recently, New Mexico was
awarded $44 million for road construction in Gallup to build a safer
rail crossing.
New Mexico's community schools. New Mexico community schools rely on
the Community Schools Program for social support services for their
students and families. Last year, schools in Bernalillo County received
$2.4 million to support the work of their educators and their students.
Literacy programs. Comprehensive literacy development programs, $60
million to help kids read better.
The community health centers. Each year, 16 federally funded
community health center organizations in our State leverage, on
average, $76 million to serve over 300,000 patients, to provide them
with healthcare--17 percent of those patients are completely uninsured;
40 percent are covered by Medicaid.
How about essential air service for our rural airports? That is
something that gets incredible bipartisan support in this body because
it makes sure that rural communities have access to air service.
Carlsbad air terminal, Clovis Regional Airport, Grant County Airport--
all rely on this program to maintain their commercial air operations.
These three rural airports receive $15 million a year, more or less,
through this program.
New Mexico's housing trust fund. The housing trust fund money is used
for affordable housing for extremely low- and very low-income
households.
It is not like any of us have a housing problem in our States right
now, do we?
Small business loans. The Small Business Administration loan program
has supported 112 New Mexico small businesses with almost $50 million
in loans. And those loans help those businesses grow; they allow them
to purchase new facilities, equipment, supplies.
Let's not forget New Mexico's farmers. Last year, New Mexico received
funding to support our specialty crop farmers. Those are the farmers
who grow crops essential to the economy, as well as to the history, the
identity, of our State--crops like chili, onions, pecans, garlic, stone
fruit--just a few examples.
These programs that I have just read through are a fraction of the
list. They aren't even a quarter of it. So let's go a little deeper now
into more concrete examples of the disruptions and harm caused by
President Trump's blockade. And each of these were shared directly with
me or with one of my staff just in the last day and a half.
This one really pisses me off: Sexual Assault Services of Northwest
New Mexico. They provide lifesaving services to sexual assault
survivors in our State, and the freeze meant that this organization may
not make payroll because they were locked out of the Federal
reimbursement portal. They don't even know if their grant is still
coming through. They said that ``as a victims' service provider, this
memo directly threatens our ability to serve survivors of sexual
assault.''
Women's Economic Self-Sufficiency Team--we call them WESST in the
central part of the State. WESST serves around a thousand New Mexico
small businesses--2,000 people a year--with consulting and training,
incubation, microlending programs. They told me Federal funds directly
and indirectly provide the majority of their operating budget. They
planned to open a seventh Women's Business Center in Hobbs, NM, to
focus on growing childcare businesses. That expansion was put on hold
by the freeze.
They employ 34 staff and operate six Women's Business Centers
throughout New Mexico.
They are incredibly concerned about the continued survival of the SBA
Office of Women's Business Ownership and the Minority Business
Development Agency.
Here is another really woke one. Cannon Air Force Base and the
Ogalalla Land and Water Conservancy. They told me the readiness and
environmental protection integration program that is at risk is more
than a funding mechanism; it is a lifeline. This project addresses the
incredibly severe water scarcity challenge faced by the entire region
where groundwater from the Ogalalla Aquifer is now the sole source of
water for municipal, industrial, and agricultural needs.
But without this program, the Ogalalla Aquifer is projected to lose
its functional capacity as early as 2028. That would leave the region
without water that they need to survive, but it also cripples those
local communities, and it would jeopardize the very viability of Cannon
Air Force Base and the Melrose Air Force Range.
Albuquerque Public Schools. This is the largest school district in
New Mexico. It is actually the 31st largest in the entire Nation. It
serves almost 80,000 students across 143 schools, and one of
Albuquerque's largest employers with over 11,000 staff and well over
5,000 teachers.
Because of the freeze, APS was forced to halt all nonstaff-related
funding for grants from the Department of Education, Centers For
Disease Control and Prevention.
Here is what they told me: APS paused spending on its Federal
community school grant, magnet school grant, Centers For Disease
Control grant, and transportation funding for upcoming college field
trips.
Their community school grant provides essential support--including
counseling, tutoring, food assistance, and housing programs--for almost
2,000 students across three schools in Albuquerque. We have learned
that these community schools are vital to better outcomes in our public
schools.
The magnet school grant serves over 2,000 students across four more
schools, funding programs that keep students
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engaged and prepare them for the 21st century workforce.
The CDC Prevention grant supports students in all of our 141 APS
schools, providing critical health and wellness resources.
Finally, students at 13 schools who were looking forward to a college
field trip to New Mexico Tech next month just had their trip canceled
because the district could not access Federal grants to pay for their
transportation.
Silver Consolidated Schools, which serves over 2,500 students and
their families in Southwest New Mexico, they told me the Silver
Consolidated School District is 2 years into their 5-year, nearly $6-
million school-based mental health services grant. And this grant
created, once again, in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, has
allowed the school district to put mental health services in each
school in the district. These are services that the students,
especially those in crisis, have come to rely on in a four-county
region that lacks basic mental health services.
These programs I have just read through, they are not the whole list.
They aren't even a quarter of it. So let's go now--and some of you
watching are wondering, Why come to the Senate floor? Why decry an
action that the President has already supposedly reversed?
First, I think we have to ask: Has he reversed it? According to his
Press Secretary, the funding is still blocked. Again, these are laws,
not guidance. They are laws passed by Congress, signed into law by the
President of the United States.
And let me tell you about just a few of the projects under some of
these laws that President Trump is unilaterally blocking funding for:
projects from the Inflation Reduction Act, which is law, and the
Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, which is now law.
Over $9 million for the Eastern New Mexico Rural Water System
Project, which would continue fieldwork and design on a project that
will, eventually, bring drinking water to more than 75,000 people in
Clovis, Portales, Cannon Air Force Base, and other communities in
eastern New Mexico.
Another 5 million for the Jicarilla Apache Rural Water System
Project, which would contribute to final design and construction of the
water system serving the Jicarilla Apache Nation.
Just over 5 million for the city of Santa Fe from the infrastructure
law to complete the San Juan-Chama Return Flow Pipeline that will
return treated unconsumed San Juan-Chama water back to the Rio Grande.
This project was Santa Fe's primary strategy to mitigate the water
supply shortages that we struggle with and create a sustainable water
source.
I could go on and on and on. It is really remarkable how many people
in my State have just been thrown into chaos by all of this. Now,
before I finish, I want to be clear that this type of chaos and
uncertainty is not what Americans elected President Trump to deliver.
It is illegal. It is a type of action that puts our democracy--really,
the whole structure of our government--in jeopardy.
But if your focus is just on money, if the fate of our democracy
feels a little too abstract, then understand this: President Trump has
also blocked funding from going out under the infrastructure law and
the Inflation Reduction Act. Again, these laws are laws passed by
Congress and certainly not what New Mexicans sent me to Washington to
deliver. They want certainty.
Americans are calling on us--really, all of us--to work together on
policies that will bring down the cost of their groceries, their rent,
their internet, their healthcare. They want us to help get fentanyl off
of our streets or make our communities safer and support survivors of
sexual assault. They want us to put our veterans in safe housing.
And according to a number of New Mexicans, they still can't access
Federal funding.
They want us to help the small businesses and support the public
lands that are the beating heart of local rural economies. They want us
to create jobs that they can build a family around, jobs they can be
proud of, jobs that are in their own communities. They don't want all
this chaos.
I would hope that my Republican and my Democratic colleagues alike,
especially the appropriators--we work together every single year to try
to produce bipartisan bills. By nature, those bills have to be written
in a bipartisan way. I have written many of those bills since I joined
the Appropriations Committee with my Republican colleagues, some of
which got reported out of committee unanimously.
I hope we can all join together in calling on the President to just
get back to following the law that we all passed together. Let's get
back to creating certainty for our communities, for our small
businesses, for our democracy itself.
Benjamin Franklin put it years ago like this: We have a republic, if
we can keep it.
I will fight like hell to keep it. And I know that I am not alone.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Budd). The Senator from Wisconsin.
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