[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 21558-21559]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


                          OMNIBUS LEGISLATION

  Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I rise to speak on the Consolidated 
Appropriations Act of 2016, otherwise known as the omnibus bill.
  I wish to report to my colleagues in the Senate that the House has 
passed the bill this morning with a robust vote of 316 to 113. Three 
months ago it was unclear if we would be at this positive point. We 
were uncertain if we could get a budget deal that would lift the caps 
for defense and nondefense spending, it was unclear if we could cancel 
sequester, and it was unclear if we could avoid a government shutdown.
  I am happy to say today that we have completed our work, and we have 
done it in the traditional style of this institution and also of the 
Appropriations Committee and by working on a bipartisan basis. The 
chairman of the committee, the Senator from Mississippi, Mr. Cochran, 
and I worked across the aisle to get the job done. I thank him for the 
leadership he provided the committee, for his professionalism, and for 
the ability and the fact that we could work, both he and I, together. I 
thank both of our staffs for working with civility and candor.
  For the third year in a row, we left no appropriations bill behind. 
We negotiated and we compromised. We compromised without capitulation 
of our principles, which has always been a strong tradition of the 
Appropriations Committee.
  As we bring this bill to the floor, I urge all of my colleagues to 
vote for this bill. I want to do it on the basis of content and on the 
basis of merit.
  Now, I will tell you what this bill does. First of all, it does a lot 
to protect the United States of America. We know that right now America 
feels on edge. We know our leadership needs to provide clarity, 
consistency, and specificity, but most of all, we need to provide the 
resources that our institutions need so they can protect our country.
  This bill provides $606 billion for the national defense of the 
United States of America and to support, train, and equip our troops; 
to deal with the new threats of biosecurity and the rising efforts of 
ISIL so we can follow through with our vow to defeat and destroy them.
  We have a must-do list to make sure our troops have the best weapons 
and know that the troops and families are supported. We looked out for 
their health care and Tricare, and we looked out for the food that they 
need to buy in their commissaries.
  We know that protecting America is not only accomplished in the 
Defense Department. It also lies in the important agencies that do the 
tough work. We have adequately capitalized the State Department and 
provided money for embassy security so we can protect our embassies and 
those who work with them abroad. We have also funded Homeland Security. 
We have approved close to $11 billion so that the Coast Guard can 
protect our ports and waterways, and we have added $50 million in new 
grants to counter violent extremism. We also made sure that we have 
given TSA, or the Transportation Security Administration, the equipment 
and people it needs to protect travelers with all of the airport 
screeners that have been requested. At the same time, we have funded 
the FBI, which is doing such an able job of rooting out the terrorists, 
including the lone wolf threats that are emerging in our own country.
  I want to particularly do a shout-out to the FBI in the Baltimore 
district for uncovering a plot in our own home State of Maryland where 
someone was organizing and planning a lone wolf effort.
  I also wish to thank my colleagues for what we did in the budget 
deal. This bill provides $65 billion more to meet our national security 
needs, support compelling human needs, and promote the middle class. We 
made sure we kept our promises to our veterans. We have a $1.3 billion 
increase for veterans health care to meet their health needs, the 
educational needs we promised them, and to deal with this backlog of 
disability benefits.
  We are not only looking to the past, we are looking to the future. We 
have made robust funds available in our innovation area, whether it was 
the Department of Energy or the National Institutes of Health, which is 
in my home State. On our committee and across the aisle--Senator Patty 
Murray, the ranking member, and Senator Roy Blunt, the chairman of the 
HHS committee--we renamed the National Institutes of Health the 
``National Institutes of Hope'' because of what it does to find the 
cures and the breakthroughs for Alzheimer's, on which we have almost 
doubled the research in order to break the code on how we can find a 
cure or a cognitive stretch-out. We have added $2 billion because we 
worked together, because we know that when we want to find the cure for 
cancer, Alzheimer's, autism, we need to be able to do that.
  We looked also at working out other compelling needs, such as Head 
Start, child care and development grants in which we have added more 
money, and we make the first payment to fund the programs for 
elementary, middle, and high school.
  We also meet the physical infrastructure needs, where we have 
increased our funding in the T-HUD bill for Transit New Starts to $2.2 
billion.
  We increased the funding for the HOME Program. Instead of cutting it 
by 90 percent, we increased it by $50 million, to $950 million.
  We have also looked out for our ports, creating jobs by keeping goods 
moving through the full funding of the harbor maintenance trust fund 
and the Army Corps of Engineers.
  This is about jobs. This isn't about money; this is about jobs. In my 
own home State of Maryland, the Port of Baltimore is an incubator for 
jobs. It keeps people going, whether it is the people who work to bring 
the ships in, whether it is the longshoremen, the tugboat operators, or 
those who benefit from the goods and services coming into our port or 
leaving our port. It is the ports that create our jobs, and we in 
Maryland are ready for the new ships coming through the newly built 
Panama Canal. We know this is a big deal that could help our 
communities all over America if we invest in our ports.
  I know many of our colleagues also want to know about riders. We 
faced hundreds of policy riders, some of which were highly 
controversial. We did the best we could with them. But while everybody 
talks about one item or this item, I want to talk about some of the 
ones we were able to deal with.
  We prevented double-trailer trucks from taking over our highways. We 
protected women's health against devastating riders. We also made sure 
those who regulate our financial institutions so that we never have 
another meltdown like we had 8 years ago are taken care of, and we 
looked out for the environment.
  The appropriations bills are good bills, and I could go over more 
items, but I see that the chairman of the committee is on the floor. I 
again reiterate my appreciation to Senator Cochran and his very able 
staff.
  I also want to comment about the other side of the dome. Working with 
Congressman Hal Rogers, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, 
and Ranking Member Nita Lowey has indeed been a very professional 
relationship. I wish that now, with new leadership in the House, they 
could function like the Appropriations Committee. Do we disagree? Yes. 
The Presiding Officer is a member of that committee, and she knows we 
are ready to duke it out when we have to. But we put it all out on the 
table. We discuss it. We debate it.
  We had an open process with amendments in our committee. We have 
worked to resolve conflict by actually

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meeting and discussing with each other. We need the same thing with our 
colleagues on the other side of the dome. That is what we mean when we 
say we want to get back to regular order.
  Thanks to the budget deal we have now, I do hope that next year we 
can bring bills up one at a time for debate, discussion, and amendment. 
I hope we can do that. But I also hope the tone of the Appropriations 
Committee is adopted. We can make sure we advocate for our States and 
for our viewpoints, but we can do it in a way that it gets done.
  I want to conclude by thanking my entire staff, Chuck Kieffer and 
Jean Toal Eisen, the staff on the other side of the dome, and all of 
those who worked for me. I want to recognize Shannon Kula and Rachel 
MacKnight, as well as Brigid Houton and Mara Stark Alcala and Jean 
Kwon.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Madam President, I am pleased to recommend approval of 
the Omnibus appropriations and tax relief bill that will soon be 
considered by the Senate. This bill is consistent with the Budget Act 
that was enacted in November. It funds the operations of the Federal 
Government for the remainder of this fiscal year. It provides funding 
for the Department of Defense and the State Department, along with the 
FBI, Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. immigration enforcement 
provisions. It provides a $2 billion increase for the National 
Institutes of Health. It also funds improvements to our Nation's water 
and surface transportation infrastructure.
  I deeply appreciate the good work and active leadership of our 
committee's vice chairwoman, the distinguished Senator from Maryland. 
She has been a pleasure to work with. She has been very helpful in 
producing this bill.
  I also thank the very able staff members of the committee who have 
been very diligent and professional throughout this process. They are a 
credit to the Senate.
  Madam President, I urge approval of the bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.

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