[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 13217-13218]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, our great country has many friends in the 
world. We are proud of all the alliances we have, but certainly our 
deepest attachment is that which we have with Israel. The United States 
and Israel have stood by each other in good times, in bad times, in 
times of peace, and in times of war.
  Right now our friends in the State of Israel are under attack. Hamas 
continues to indiscriminately fire thousands of rockets into Israel 
with the sole objective of inflicting casualties on somebody--anybody.
  I was watching ``NewsHour.'' Every Friday they have a commentary, 
usually by Shields and Brooks. Shields is supposedly the Democrat and 
Brooks the Republican. David Brooks said so descriptively that he had 
never seen a conflict or read about a conflict in the past where one of 
the participants said: Kill some more of my people.
  That is what Hamas is saying. When Hamas fires these rockets, Hamas 
has no idea whether they will land at a military installation--they 
hope; a daycare center; they don't care or an empty parking lot; they 
don't care. They are firing these rockets indiscriminately.
  Israel doesn't have the luxury of not worrying about where these 
rockets land. It must respond swiftly in shooting down all rockets or 
else risk serious harm to its people. In thwarting these rocket 
attacks, Israel depends on what is termed and named the ``Iron Dome.'' 
It is a missile defense system. But as the number of rockets being 
launched from Gaza continues to surge, Israel's Iron Dome resources are 
necessarily being depleted.
  Last week U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel requested that 
Congress allocate $225 million of emergency funding to help Israel 
reinforce its defense system. After 3 weeks of fighting Israel needs 
these funds to replace the weaponry it has used to destroy Hamas's 
incoming rockets. But there is no guarantee that Israel won't need our 
help again if this conflict continues for weeks or months. What this 
funding does do for the time being is it provides Israel with the 
resources to continue defending its people against these terrorist 
attacks.
  Last Thursday the Republican leader urged the Senate to act quickly 
in approving the Defense Secretary's request. I agree with my friend 
the Republican leader. We must pass legislation providing Israel with 
this critical aid, but in my opinion the $225 million being requested 
is only temporary. If Hamas continues to escalate this conflict, 
Israel's resources--including the funding requested by the Secretary of 
Defense--will quickly be depleted.
  With its current number of batteries, Israel has to prioritize 
populated areas and strategically important locations. The Iron Dome is 
a mobile system.

[[Page 13218]]

They have to move it around. That means, unfortunately, there are some 
Israelis still susceptible to Hamas's rocket attacks.
  We should not give the Israeli people the minimum amount of aid and 
then cross our fingers and hope it all works out in the future. Each 
missile battery costs Israel about $50 million. Each missile Israel 
shoots to knock down one of those rockets from the Gaza Strip costs 
about $62,000. Hamas has already fired 2,500 of those rockets in just 3 
weeks. As we speak, they are going out and continuing to fire them. As 
we know, they are located in schools, in neighborhoods. They are hidden 
all over--in mosques.
  Taking into account what Israel actually needs to adequately protect 
its people, the United States and other allies should consider 
providing more aid to do more for the Iron Dome. Our Israeli friends 
shouldn't be in the position of picking and choosing which parts of the 
country to defend.
  The United States of America should live up to its commitments, 
particularly with our friend Israel, which happens to be the only true 
democracy in the Middle East. We can do better and we need to go 
further in protecting Israel.
  That being said, it is critical that we approve the money requested 
by Secretary Hagel now. Coming to the defense of Israel is not a 
partisan issue; it is an American principle. Both Democrats and 
Republicans should agree on this measure.
  Another issue we can all agree on is the emergency funding requested 
by the White House for what is going on in the western part of the 
United States. We should pass this immediately.
  Over the past month or 6 weeks the State of Oregon has been on fire. 
Hundreds of thousands of acres have burned. In one of the sparsely 
populated parts of the State of Washington, more than 500 homes have 
been destroyed. Wildfires are all over. They are in Nevada. They are in 
California. The base of the Sierras has a big fire going in California, 
and about 1,500 acres have burned already. There is a fire now going on 
in Idaho. Oregon is on fire. There are numerous fires in Oregon. Every 
day there are reports of more and more wildfires--lightning, negligence 
of somebody who threw out a cigarette. These fires are very oppressive. 
In the State of Nevada wide areas have been burned. The sad part is 
that once these fires are over, we will have many native species that 
will have been wiped out, and what will come back are invasive species, 
which is really not what nature intended.
  We should work in the Senate on quickly putting together this 
funding. We have the request. It is certainly a good request, and we 
should get this emergency funding to the States so they can be 
protected. When I say ``to the States,'' right now we have more than 
4,000 firefighters out there. There is an army out there fighting 
fires. It is very dangerous, as we know. Every year people are killed. 
We know what happened in Arizona just 1\1/2\ years ago where 21 people 
who were fighting fires were burned in a devastating fire. They were 
dead in a matter of a few minutes.
  Americans living in these areas are in dire need of the Federal 
Government's help. There is no reason to delay getting aid to our own 
people.
  So as we begin this week, I am hopeful the Senate will also move 
quickly to pass legislation to aid Israel, emergency funding for 
wildfires, and the border supplemental.
  The truth is, if the House of Representatives would vote on the 
Senate-passed comprehensive immigration reform bill, it would give 
Border Patrol the resources it needs to address this humanitarian 
crisis that is now on the border. That is true. But my Republican 
friends are slow-walking this, to say the least. The senior Senator 
from Texas proposed a solution to this crisis. Once again, the 
legislation is a short-term fix and does nothing to address the crisis 
at the border, while putting vulnerable children in harm's way.
  We should approve funding for these three very important measures, 
and we should do it immediately. We should do them--separately, 
together, we have to get this done. Leaving here with Israel being 
naked, as they are, with these wildfires raging, and the crisis at the 
border--it would be a shame if we did nothing.

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