Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 61 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall), pending which time I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 61, providing for consideration of H.R. 648, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2019, under a closed rule.

The rule provides 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations. It also provides for consideration of H.J. Res. 31, which makes further continuing appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security for fiscal year 2019 under a closed rule. The rule provides 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Appropriations Committee.

Additionally, it extends same-day authority for appropriations measures through January 30 and suspension authority through February 1.

Mr. Speaker, we are on day 33 of the Trump shutdown, the longest government shutdown in American history. Hundreds of thousands of Federal workers will miss a paycheck for the second time since the President plunged us into this mess.

The very people who keep our Nation safe are struggling to put food on the table, people like men and women in the Coast Guard, FBI agents, Border Patrol officers, and TSA agents.

Makeshift food banks are being opened across the country to help these workers and their families get by. Right outside our Nation's Capital, in Northern Virginia, some Federal workers waited more than an hour recently at a local food bank. Demand was so high that a tenth of the food was gone in the first 5 minutes.

Because of the President's shutdown, 15 million households could see a gap in their monthly SNAP benefits that lasts more than 40 days. Four million low-income households could see a gap that lasts more than 50 days.

This program is their lifeline, Mr. Speaker. These families don't have a plan B.

I have given weekly end-hunger-now speeches on this floor since February of 2013, and I have made it clear time and time again that hunger is not only unacceptable in this country, the richest country in the history of the world, but it is a political condition.

We have the resources. We have what it takes. What we need to muster is the political will to do something about it. But here we are, and as I said, it is embarrassing enough that the wealthiest nation on the planet has an ongoing hunger crisis, but I never, ever imagined that a President of the United States would exacerbate it like this.

This is disgusting. This is unacceptable. This is unconscionable.

Let us be clear: It is the President's bruised ego that keeps a quarter of our government closed today.

Now, his latest so-called compromise proposal isn't really a compromise at all. In fact, it brings new meaning to the word ``cruel.''

Not only does it fail to provide a permanent solution for the Dreamers or TPS recipients, it only covers a fraction of eligible Dreamers, it excludes TPS holders from Asia and Africa, and it rewrites the law for future DACA recipients, TPS holders, and asylum seekers that will make it all but impossible for anyone to qualify.

These are the same old, tired, and extremist ideas the President and his advisers floated last year. They were rejected by both the Republican-controlled House and the Republican-controlled Senate. This is not a compromise. This is called backwards.

Now, if this administration wants to target refugees, people fleeing persecution, people fleeing for their life, if that is what he wants to do, then at least he should have the guts to do it in an open hearing for the world to see.

Now, President Trump is treating this like some reality show. He doesn't want to look bad in the right-wing press despite the fact that Members of both parties are refusing to fund his ineffective wall. If the President really wants to reach a real compromise, then he should log off Twitter and actually sit down with us and be willing to actually negotiate; no more storming out of the Situation Room and no more of his my-way-or-the-highway approach. Work with us for a change.

For whatever reason, Mr. Speaker, he has been unwilling to do that. President Trump may not have the fortitude to get us out of this mess that he created, but this majority does. So instead of following the President who got us into this mess, we have an opportunity to lead. Passing these bipartisan, bicameral bills is what leadership looks like.

Now, many of my Republican friends have asked to consider a plan that doesn't cede the House's will by considering a Senate bill. Well, today is their day because we are considering a bipartisan, bicameral compromise. This six-bill package is the result of real negotiations between the Appropriations Committees in the House and Senate. It is a true compromise that would reopen the entire government apart from the Department of Homeland Security. In fact, these negotiated bills are exactly what my good friends on the other side of the aisle have been asking us over the past week to take up. Again, this is all last year's work in the last session.

I recognize that we don't have a similar agreement on the Homeland Security measure included here, but this short-term CR will get our TSA agents paid while all other parties get back to the negotiating table.

The minibus includes $328 million in new dollars for border security that we know will actually work. The funding will increase infrastructure investments at our ports of entry; install new technology that will scan for drugs, weapons, and contraband; put in place technology to detect unauthorized crossings; and fund more immigration judges. This is what smart security looks like in the 21st century, Mr. Speaker, not some medieval wall.

Now, these details have already been agreed to by Democrats and Republicans on both sides of the Capitol. The majority is standing by our word. I urge my Republican friends: Take yes for an answer.

The President may be proud to have shut down this government, but this is nothing to be proud of.

How can anybody be proud that 800,000 Federal workers are about to miss a second paycheck, that our TSA workers are calling in sick so they can work another job that actually helps them pay the bills, or the economy is losing growth at twice the speed originally estimated?

I could go on and on and on and on, Mr. Speaker, but I know each of us has heard from people in our districts. Our offices are getting these calls every day, in fact, every hour and every minute now. We are all hearing from struggling constituents. Their message is the same: End this shutdown. End this shutdown.

This doesn't seem, unfortunately, to be a priority for President Trump. He is out there tweeting about which player should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Give me a break. Maybe he doesn't know what it is like in the real world. After all, the President got his start through what he has called a small loan from his dad that reports now estimate could have totaled more than $60 million. That is the world he lives in.

But families are struggling and left to wonder how they are going to afford to put food on the table or how they are going to pay for medicine without a paycheck.

Enough of the games. Congress has the power to end this shutdown.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this rule and give the underlying legislation the strong veto-proof vote it deserves. Let's finally turn the lights back on. Listen to your constituents, I say to my friends on the other side of the aisle. Listen to what they are saying. Turn the lights back on.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let me just remind my colleague that the bills that we are taking up here today were the result of a robust amendment process and robust debate in the last Congress. This is all last year's work.

I also remind the gentleman he is right about one thing, that we haven't sent the President a bill from both Chambers, but we almost did. If he remembers correctly, in December, when the Republicans controlled the House and the Republicans controlled the Senate and they, obviously, controlled the White House, we actually came together and the Senate passed a bill that would keep the government running and open, unanimously.

I even supported the gentleman's martial law rule to be able to bring up that legislation expeditiously so we could do our work and so that nobody would have to be anxious over the holidays as to whether or not they were going to get paid.

We were about to vote on it, and it was agreed on by Democrats and Republicans. There was no controversy. And then the President turned on rightwing TV or was listening to rightwing radio, and Ann Coulter and some of these other rightwing extremists said: No, you can't do that.

And he changed his mind, and everything came to a standstill. So all this bipartisan work was for naught.

What we are bringing up here today is all the bipartisan work that many of my Republican colleagues on the Appropriations Committee, Democrats and Republicans, worked hard on to come up with a compromise that is good. It is good. Yet my friends say: Well, no. Let's start all over again.

The bottom line is the other side left us with a mess. When they controlled everything, they weren't able to get the job done.

Let me just say, here are some facts:

This is the longest shutdown in history, but it is historic for another reason. This is the first time in history that a Congress has ended in a government shutdown. Never before has a Congress left it to the next Congress to reopen the government. With all due respect to my friends, that is what my friends left us with.

On top of that, Republicans had control of the White House, the Senate, and the House last year, and they couldn't keep the lights on. Then Republicans went home for Christmas and New Year's and every day in between. I know because I was on the floor multiple times begging to be recognized to offer solutions, and I was denied even the ability to offer a solution.

Since we took charge, we have nonstop offered options. Now some Members want to complain about how we are cleaning up the mess that was left to us.

Imagine this. Imagine if someone dumped a bunch of garbage on your lawn and then started complaining about how you weren't cleaning it up. That is what is happening here.

I would suggest that my friends kind of save their criticisms for a time when we aren't cleaning up after all of them.

I just want to make one other point. The gentleman said that we have martial law, same-day authority in this rule to bring up anything we want. No, that is not the case.

When my friends were in charge, they did. They had martial law to bring up anything they wanted to, and they were trying to bring up a cheese bill, if I remember correctly, instead of a bill to keep the government open in the last days of December.

No. We limit it to appropriations matters, and we want to be able to, if we can come to a deal, if we come to some sort of solution, to be able to bring something up immediately to be able to get everybody the paychecks to which they are entitled.

I know the gentleman was home over the holiday weekend, and I was, too. My constituents asked me the question over and over: I get it that there is a disagreement over the President's border wall, but why do you have to shut the entire government down over that issue? Why can't you just continue in negotiation? Why do you have to deny TSA workers a paycheck? Why is that okay? Why is that acceptable? Why are they pawns in this? Or men and women who serve in our Coast Guard, why is that okay to say: You don't get paid because the President is having a temper tantrum and he is not getting his way? All of a sudden, we have to deny them a paycheck?

People don't understand why my Republican friends think this is acceptable. The gentleman from Georgia knows that the reason why a bill is not on the President's desk is because the Senate majority leader, Mr. McConnell, is basically doing the President's bidding. He said: I am not going to bring anything to the floor that the President doesn't want to sign.

We have another option here, too: We can actually pass bipartisan bills that should win overwhelming support. We should pass them with veto-proof margins and basically say to the President: We don't believe in government by blackmail. That is not the way we do things around here. That is not the way this government is supposed to work.

We ought to reopen the government, and we ought to engage in serious discussions about how we improve our border security. We have some great ideas on how to do that. We have some ideas that I mentioned in my opening speech on ways we can improve our border security.

We think a border wall is a ridiculous idea. But if you want to talk about a wall, fine, but don't--don't--hold hundreds of thousands of workers hostage.

We have an opportunity now to set these hostages that the President has taken free. Let's do it.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let me say, I think we have agreement here. We all want to open the government. We all want to reopen the government. I think the difference here is that we have no preconditions on reopening the government. My Republican friends do have preconditions, and it is whatever the President decides he wants to tack on at the last minute.

So there is a difference here. We have no preconditions. Open the government up, start paying all of our Federal workers, let's get our country back to normal here in terms of the Federal workforce, but my Republican friends have all these strings that they want to attach to it.

The gentleman from Michigan said, you know, he refers to one of the ``gotcha'' amendments that the Republicans offered on backpay for Federal workers. I should remind him that we actually passed a law here, S. 24, which created an entitlement to backpay for

Federal workers who aren't getting paid during the shutdown. So we actually dealt with that here. We actually passed a law, and, that, he may not have known that.

I should also say to my Republican friends, understand that the American people are not on your side on this. There is a recent ``CBS News'' poll--7 in 10 Americans do not think the issue of a border wall is worth a government shutdown--7 in 10.

Now, I know there is this--you know, the President is worried about that 25, 30 percent of his base, but the vast majority of the people in this country aren't with him on this. They are not with you on this by not stepping up and saying we ought to reopen our government.

You want to have a negotiation on border security, we have lots of ideas to enhance border security, and that is based on conversations with people on the border who talk about increased technology, who talk about better infrastructure, who talk about more personnel, you know, more asylum judges. I can go on and on and on. We are all for that. Let's continue that conversation.

But why in the world does this President insist on shutting the government down until he gets his way on this border wall? This is not the way you do a negotiation. And, again, if you want to reopen the government, and we do, we have no conditions. Reopen the government. It is that simple.

And the bills--the gentleman from Michigan talked about bills that the Senate would pass. Some of the bills that we are sending over to the Senate passed unanimously. Boy, I mean, if that is not a signal that they overwhelmingly agree with the substance of these bills, I don't know what is, but they did. They voted unanimously, in some cases, for some of these bills we are sending over here.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record an article from ``The Washington Post'' titled: ``Unacceptable: Coast Guard's top officer criticizes lack of payment in government shutdown.''

[From the Washington Post, Jan. 22, 2019]

`Unacceptable': Coast Guard's Top Officer Criticizes Lack of Payment in

Government Shutdown

(By Dan Lamothe)

The Coast Guard's top admiral said Tuesday that members of

the armed forces should not be expected to shoulder the

burden of the partial government shutdown, citing the

``anxiety and stress'' it is causing military families as

their pay is withheld.

Adm. Karl Schultz, the Coast Guard commandant, said he is

heartened by the outpouring of support Coast Guard personnel

have received across the country but expects more.

``Ultimately, I find it unacceptable that Coast Guard men

and women have to rely on food pantries and donations to get

through day-to-day life as service members,'' he said,

speaking on a video posted to his Twitter account.

The comments marked the admiral's most forceful remarks

about the shutdown since it began 32 days ago amid a dispute

over President Trump's demands for funding for a southern

border wall. While the majority of the U.S. military is part

of the Defense Department and has funding, the Department of

Homeland Security and is agencies, including the Coast Guard,

are affected by the shutdown.

About 41,000 active-duty service members and 2,100

civilians who are considered ``essential personnel'' are

working without a paycheck under the promise they will get

back pay when the shutdown is resolved, said Lt. Cmdr. Scott

McBride, a service spokesman. That situation grew more urgent

Jan. 15, when service members missed a paycheck. An

additional 6,000 civilians working for the service are

furloughed.

Overall, about 800,000 federal workers are not receiving

paychecks amid the shutdown, with nearly half furloughed.

Schultz, appearing alongside the service's top enlisted

man, Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard Jason M.

Vanderhaden, noted that civilian employees will miss another

paycheck Friday and called it a 'sobering'' situation.

Senior Coast Guard officials and the American public, he

said, ``stand in awe'' of the affected service members'

'continued dedication to duty and resilience'' and that of

their families.

The admiral, in keeping with the military's tradition of

not commenting directly on politics, did not blame anyone

specific for the shutdown. He and Homeland Security Secretary

Kirstjen Nielsen are making their case for the service on

Capitol Hill, Schultz said.

The Coast Guard has continued to carry out operations

across the globe during the shutdown.

On Sunday, the Coast Guard Cutter Bertholf departed from

Alameda, Calif., with about 170 people aboard for a

deployment to the Pacific that will last up to six months.

The Defense Department will reimburse the service for the

deployment, but Coast Guard personnel still will not be paid

until the shutdown is resolved.

``The crew, like all other [Coast Guard] members, are

affected by the lapse of appropriations, and are not being

paid,'' said Lt. Cmdr. Steve Brickey, a service spokesman.

``It is always difficult to deploy for months and leave

behind family and loved ones. That stress is of course

magnified when you add on the uncertainly of the shutdown.''

Admiral Schultz, the Coast Guard's commandant said: ``Ultimately, I find it unacceptable that Coast Guard men and women have to rely on food pantries and donations to get through day-to-day life as servicemembers.''

In total, 41,000 Active Duty servicemembers and 2,100 civilians are essential personnel and working without pay and have been for 33 days now. An additional 6,000 are furloughed. As of this Friday, these brave men and women will have missed two paychecks. That is unacceptable.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record an article titled: ``America's veterans said to be disproportionately affected by government shutdown.''

[From ABC News, Jan. 9, 2019]

America's Veterans Said To Be Disproportionately Affected by Government

Shutdown

(By Elizabeth McLaughlin)

As the partial government shutdown continues for a third

week, veterans groups are sounding the alarm because of what

they say is the disproportionate impact on America's veterans

and a growing fear that financial uncertainty could lead to

self-harm.

An estimated one-third of the federal workforce is made up

of veterans, according to the Office of Personnel Management,

meaning that more than 250,000 veterans are not currently

receiving paychecks.

``This shutdown has consequences that go beyond loss of

pay,'' the Union Veterans Council said in a statement this

week. ``Financial instability is one of the main cause of

suicides among the veterans' community. These hard-working

men and women who sacrificed so much for their country should

not have their families held hostage by lawmakers that cannot

relate to living paycheck to paycheck.''

Edward M. Canales is a local union president with the

American Federation of Government Employees and a veteran

liaison officer who serves as a resource to veterans working

in the U.S. Bureau of Prisons west of the Mississippi River.

He told ABC News that he's received numerous calls from

veterans who aren't able to support their families during the

shutdown and express ``no positive outlook on the future.''

``If this shutdown does not stop, we are going to have

fatalities. We're going to have suicides,'' he said.

Canales, a U.S. Army veteran himself who deployed to Iraq

during Operation Desert Storm, said he is referring calls to

the Department of Veterans Affairs hotline out of concern

that a veteran will self-harm.

He called the shutdown ``shameful,'' saying its ``slapping

every veteran in the face who has served their country.''

As a special investigative service technician who worked in

the federal prison system for 26 years, Canales is currently

not receiving his retirement pay.

Toby Hauck, a six-year Air Force veteran, is an air traffic

controller in Aurora, Illinois, who has gone without a

paycheck since Dec. 31. He told ABC News that his father and

grandfather served in the U.S. military and now his son and

daughter-in-law are deploying overseas at the end of the

month.

Hauck and his wife, a neonatal intensive care unit nurse,

will be looking after their two-and-a-half-year-old

granddaughter during the ten-month deployment, and the

continued lack of pay causes added stress to their already

hectic jobs, he said.

``We are hardworking, proud American employees doing a job

for the American public that is essential as an air traffic

controller,'' said Hauck, who is also a representative for

the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. ``It's not

acceptable as a veteran, as a federal employee, as an air

traffic controller to use my profession and my livelihood as

a political football.''

``[Veterans] are very proud of our heritage and what we've

done for the country. And those of us who continue to serve

the federal government as a federal employee continue that

pride throughout their careers,'' he added.

The Union Veterans Council said in a statement this week, ``Financial instability is one of the main causes of suicide among the veterans' community. These hardworking men and women who sacrificed so much for their country should not have their families held hostage by lawmakers that cannot relate to living paycheck to paycheck.''

According to the Office of Personnel Management, one-third of the Federal workforce is made up of veterans. That means 250,000 veterans are not receiving paychecks right now during this

Trump shutdown. That is an absolute disgrace.

Mr. Speaker, as the Trump shutdown continues, hundreds of Internal Revenue Service employees have received permission to skip work due to financial hardships, and absences are only expected to grow.

I would like to share a story about Marissa Scott, an IRS employee who is gravely affected by this Trump shutdown. Ms. Scott lives outside of Kansas City, Missouri. She drives 98 miles roundtrip to work each day. Right now, she cannot afford to fill her gas tank and has stopped going to work.

She shared that she typically helps 50 people a day with their tax returns and fears that this shutdown may cause delays in tax refunds for months as more employees like her are unable to continue working without a paycheck. These are tax refunds that Americans rely on and are eagerly waiting to be processed.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record an article from ``The Washington Post'' titled: ``Hundreds of IRS employees are skipping work. That could delay tax refunds.'' It also details Ms. Scott's story.

[From the Washington Post, Jan. 22, 2019]

Hundreds of IRS Employees Are Skipping Work. That Could Delay Tax

Refunds

(By Danielle Paquette, Lisa Rein, Jeff Stein and Kimberly Kindy)

Hundreds of Internal Revenue Service employees have

received permission to skip work during the partial

government shutdown due to financial hardship, and union

leaders said Tuesday that they expected absences to surge as

part of a coordinated protest that could hamper the

government's ability to process taxpayer refunds on time.

The Trump administration last week ordered at least 30,000

IRS workers back to their offices, where they have been

working to process refunds without pay. It was one of the

biggest steps the government has taken to mitigate the

shutdown's impact on Americans' lives.

But IRS employees across the country--some in coordinated

protest, others out of financial necessity--won't be clocking

in, according to Tony Reardon, president of the National

Treasury Employees Union, and several local union officials.

The work action is widespread and includes employees from a

processing center in Ogden, Utah, to the Brookhaven campus on

New York's Long Island.

The move is the leading edge of pushback from within the

IRS, and it signals the potential for civil servants to take

actions that could slow or cripple government functions as

the shutdown's political stalemate continues in Washington.

U.S. Department of Agriculture meat inspectors have begun to

call in sick, Transportation Security Administration sickouts

at airports have been rising, and federal law enforcement

agencies say the shutdown is increasing stress among agents

and affecting investigations.

``They are definitely angry that they're not getting paid,

and maybe some of them are angry enough to express their

anger this way,'' said Reardon, whose union represents

150,000 employees at 33 federal agencies and departments.

``But these employees live paycheck to paycheck, and they

can't scrape up the dollars to get to work or pay for child

care.''

Not receiving pay for more than a month has taken a toll on

employees across the government, but especially on those who

are not in high-salary jobs. The employees summoned back from

furlough to process tax refunds are paid between $25,800 and

$51,000 a year, depending on their seniority. IRS employees

will miss a second paycheck Monday if the government does not

reopen this week.

``I'm at the point where I cannot afford to go to work,''

said Marissa Scott, 31, an IRS customer service

representative who is out on hardship leave. Scott lives

outside Kansas City, Mo., and drives 98 miles round trip to

work each day. ``I cannot afford to fill my gas tank.''

Scott, who has worked at the IRS for four years, says she

typically helps as many as 50 people a day with their returns

during tax season, including U.S. troops stationed overseas.

She said the shutdown could delay refunds for months, and

without employees like her on the job, ``it's going to be a

disaster all around.''

Many of the IRS employees who are choosing not to come to

work despite getting called back are taking advantage of a

provision in the union contract that allows them to miss work

if they suffer a ``hardship'' during a shutdown, according to

the labor groups.

That could mean a blown car tire, an empty gas tank or a

child-care bill.

``I have fielded no less than 30 to 40 calls, emails or

text messages about hardship requests from employees daily

since Thursday,'' said Shannon Ellis, president of the NTEU's

Chapter 66 in Kansas City.

In Andover, Mass., more than 100 customer service

representatives, electronic filing workers and other IRS

employees plan to use the hardship exemption and won't report

to work, said Gary Karibian, chapter president of a local

union.

``I would say a majority of employees are calling out under

hardship,'' Karibian said. ``I'm getting reports whole teams

are requesting out. One person told me, `I'm the only one on

my team here.' ''

The union lacks an official head count of absent workers--

the IRS declined to share data on hardship exemptions--but

staffers in Fresno, Calif.; Austin; Andover; Kansas City and

Atlanta, among other locations, say they won't be showing up

for work, Reardon said.

Duncan Giles, who has worked for 24 years at an IRS call

center in Indianapolis, said more workers are requesting

hardship leave as they learn it exists.

``The more this goes on and the tougher it is to get to

work--they simply cannot afford it,'' said Giles, president

of NTEU Chapter 49, noting that about 30 of the 170 employees

who have been called back to work in Indianapolis have

requested the exemption. ``Every single person wants to be at

work. They want to help the American taxpayer. But we have to

pay for gas and child care.''

The hardship exemption allows IRS employees not to have to

use sick days to be absent from work, and managers must

approve the exemptions.

Lawmakers also have heard reports of IRS staffers intending

to miss work and are planning to ask Treasury, Secretary

Steven Mnuchin for details when he testifies on Capitol Hill

this Thursday, a House aide said.

The IRS declined to say how many workers are on hardship

leave, and spokesman Matt Leas said the IRS is continuing its

work to prepare for the beginning of filing season next week.

``We are continuing our recall operations, and we continue

to assess the situation at this time,'' Leas said.

The IRS employees' moves come amid broad uncertainty about

the Trump administration's attempts to minimize the impact of

the shutdown. On Sunday, the number of TSA agents who failed

to show up for work hit a record 10 percent, resulting in

long wait times. Guards at federal prisons also are calling

out at high rates, with union officials at 10 prisons

contacted by The Washington Post this month saying the number

of employees skipping work has doubled.

As a result, officers who report for duty often are working

16-hour shifts, and prison secretaries and janitors are being

forced to patrol the halls and yards.

``All I have is pepper spray and a radio to call for

help,'' said 52-year-old Opal Brown, who works as a secretary

at Hazelton Federal Correctional Institution in West

Virginia.

The FBI Agents Association said in a report Tuesday that

the shutdown is hampering the ability of agents to perform

their ``duties and fund necessary operations and

investigations.''

USDA meat inspectors also have begun calling in sick--in

numbers large enough to trigger an agency crackdown. The

inspectors were told Jan. 11 to bring in a doctor's note,

even if they were ill for a single day, records show.

Six days later, after protests from union leaders, agency

officials reverted to existing policy, which calls for a

doctor's note after three days.

Some front-line managers at the IRS have threatened their

employees and said they could lose their jobs if they put in

for the exemption, but Reardon, the union leader, said most

have been instructed by senior management to approve the

requests.

IRS employees are some of the most impactful federal

workers caught in the middle of the shutdown, as the tax

filing season begins and millions of Americans are expected

to seek tax refunds in February. Last year, more than $140

billion in tax refunds was paid out through early March,

according to IRS data.

Trump has expressed an interest in making sure that tax

refunds are paid out next month, believing that if they are

delayed he could face major public backlash. His budget

office took the unprecedented step this month of ordering

thousands of unpaid IRS workers back to the office, saying

that processing refunds was an ``essential'' government

function even if the workers weren't paid.

As much as 75 percent of the roughly 4,000 furloughed IRS

employees in Kansas City could qualify for hardship leave,

said Christina Bennett, executive vice president of the local

National Treasury Employees Union chapter.``Right now,

they're being lenient,'' Bennett said.

Employees who process tax refunds, she said, are among the

lowest-paid IRS workers. Some are worried about losing their

cars.

Bennett, 63, who has worked nearly four decades at the IRS,

most recently as an accountant, said she, too, can no longer

afford her commute. She plans to request hardship leave if

the government calls her back to work.

``I just don't have it,'' she said. ``I'd have to walk a

half-hour to get to a bus stop. And it's so cold. We've got

rain, snow, rain, snow.''

Sakeya Cooks, 24, another IRS worker who guides taxpayers

through the refund process, said she might never report back

to work. She already has applied for a new job at a Kansas

City bank.

``How am I supposed to live like this?'' she said. ``I'm

worried about losing my apartment.''

John Koskinen, a former IRS commissioner, said federal

employees are dedicated to the agency's mission but might be

reaching their breaking point.

``As you put more and more pressure on the system, you

increase the risk of a significant glitch,'' Koskinen said.

``If I were the

administration, I'd be troubled. The pressure is going to

mount.''

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let me just say, at the outset here, that if we all agree that the government should be reopened, then what is there to negotiate about? We should just open up the government.

We have no preconditions about opening up the government. We have none. The gentleman from Georgia apparently has a precondition: whatever the President's whim is on a particular day. Yeah, the President did campaign on building a wall, but he didn't get up there and say: We want to build a wall and you pay for it, American taxpayers. What he campaigned on was saying: I want to build a wall, and Mexico is going to pay for it.

Well, he has had 2 years, and, obviously, he can't get Mexico to pay for it, so he wants to saddle the American taxpayers with that bill.

So, look, the bottom line is, we believe that border security is an important issue, and we, on this side, have been more than willing to invest in border security, and we are going to continue to do that.

As I mentioned before to the gentleman, President Trump's shutdown has put a strain on local and Federal law enforcement, undermining cooperation between them that helps keep our communities safe. While he is having his temper tantrum, you know, our local law enforcement officials are feeling the strain. That is why local law enforcement leaders across the country, including those serving in border States, are calling for an end to the shutdown.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter to President Trump and Members of Congress.

[From the Law Enforcement Immigration Task Force, Jan. 22, 2019]

Law Enforcement Leaders Call for an End to Shutdown

Dear President Trump and Members of Congress: As law

enforcement leaders who support commonsense immigration

reforms consistent with public safety, we write to express

our deep concern with the partial shutdown of the federal

government.

State and local law enforcement work constructively with

federal law enforcement to combat drug trafficking, gangs,

organized crime, and other threats. In addition, the federal

government provides needed training, equipment, and funding

to state and local law enforcement agencies--support that is

now threatened by the ongoing shutdown. A prolonged shutdown

threatens this cooperation and strains local resources. It

also negatively impacts our colleagues in federal law

enforcement, forcing essential law enforcement personnel to

work without pay. These circumstances threaten public safety

and cannot continue.

Instead, we call on Congress and the Trump administration

to reopen the federal government without delay and work

together on bipartisan solutions to improve our immigration

system. We believe there is room for compromise.

While there are partisan disagreements over the need for a

border wall across our entire southern border, there is

widespread agreement over commonsense steps that can improve

border security. A bipartisan deal can build on these areas

of agreement, improving border security by focusing on ports

of entry, strategically deploying and using technology and

ensuring that CBP has clear sight lines all along the Rio

Grande. With nearly 700 miles of physical barriers already in

place along the southern border, these targeted investments

in border security can contribute to improving public safety

and reassuring the American people that the border is a

priority.

Similarly, bipartisan immigration reform will benefit the

United States as a whole. We believe that immigrants should

feel safe in their communities and comfortable calling upon

law enforcement to report crimes, serving as witnesses, and

calling for help in

emergencies. By reforming our immigration system to bring

undocumented immigrants into the legal immigration system,

immigrants are incentivized to become constructive partners

with local police in public safety initiatives. Bipartisan

immigration reform can provide undocumented immigrants with

an opportunity to earn citizenship, requiring them to pay a

fine and back taxes and pass a background check, encouraging

further civic responsibility. This would improve community

policing and safety for everyone.

The current impasse is an opportunity for Congress and the

Trump administration to strike a bipartisan agreement to end

the shutdown and fix our immigration system. The shutdown

prevents state and local law enforcement agencies from having

access to needed federal resources, strains federal law

enforcement personnel, and undermines cooperation between

state, federal, and local law enforcement.

We urge Congress and the Trump administration to break this

deadlock and improve public safety by reopening the

government without delay and working to reach a bipartisan

compromise that includes commonsense border security as part

of a comprehensive reform of the immigration system.

Thank you,

Chief Art Acevedo, LEITF Co-Chair, Houston, TX; Chief J.

Thomas Manger, LEITF Co-Chair, Montgomery County, MD;

Executive Director Dwayne Crawford, National Organization of

Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE); Executive Director

Chuck Wexler, Police Executive Research Forum (PERF); Chief

Ramon Batista, Mesa, AZ; Chief Roy Bermudez, Nogales, AZ;

Sheriff Tony Estrada, Santa Cruz County, AZ; Chief Chris

Magnus, Tucson, AZ; Chief Steve Stahl, Maricopa, AZ; Chief

Roberto Villasenor, Retired, Tucson, AZ; Chief David

Valentin, Santa Ana, CA; Sheriff Joe DiSalvo, Pitkin County,

CO; Chief Dwight Henninger, Vail, CO; Chief Peter Newsham,

Washington, DC; Chief Orlando Rolon, Orlando, FL; Sheriff

Paul H. Fitzgerald, Story County, IA; Chief Wayne Jerman,

Cedar Rapids, IA; Director of Public Safety Mark Prosser,

Storm Lake, IA; Chief Mike Tupper, Marshalltown, IA; Sheriff

John Idleburg, Lake County, IL.

Chief Michael Diekhoff, Bloomington, IN; Chief Scott

Ruszkowski, South Bend, IN; Chief Ron Teachman, Retired,

South Bend, IN; Chief James Hawkins, Retired, Garden City,

KS; Commissioner William Gross, Boston, MA; Chief Brian Kyes,

Chelsea, MA; Sheriff Kevin Joyce, Cumberland County, ME;

Sheriff Jerry Clayton, Washtenaw County, MI; Chief Ron

Haddad, Dearborn, MI; Chief Todd Axtell, Saint Paul, MN;

Sheriff Mike Haley, Retired, Washoe County, NV; Chief Cel

Rivera, Lorain, OH; Public Safety Commissioner Steven Pare,

Providence, RI; Chief Fred Fletcher, Retired, Chattanooga,

TN; Chief Frank Dixon, Denton, TX; Sheriff Ed Gonzalez,

Harris County, TX; Chief Andy Harvey, Palestine, TX; Sheriff

Sally Hernandez, Travis County, TX; Chief Mike Markle, Corpus

Christi, TX; Sheriff Lupe Valdez, Retired, Dallas County, TX.

Chief Mike Brown, Salt Lake City, UT; Chief Chris Burbank,

Retired/FBI National Executive Institute Associates

President, Salt Lake City, UT; Sheriff Dana Lawhorne,

Alexandria, VA; Chief Carmen Best, Seattle, WA; Sheriff Mitzi

Johanknecht, King County, WA; Sheriff David J. Mahoney, Dane

County, WI.

``The New York Times'' reported yesterday that the Trump shutdown has also impacted the FBI's efforts to crack down on child trafficking, violent crime, and terrorism, needlessly putting our communities and constituents at risk. I say to my friends: Look at what you are doing here. Look what is happening. This has to end.

For example, a long-term MS-13 investigation that has resulted in 23 gang indictments has been constrained because of the inability--get this--the inability to pay for interpreters needed to communicate with informants. That is insane, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I include that article from The New York Times in the Record.

[From the New York Times, Jan. 22, 2019]

Report Says Shutdown Is Impeding F.B.I.'s Law Enforcement Efforts

(By Katie Benner)

Washington.--As the partial government shutdown enters its

fifth week, the funding freeze has impeded F.B.I. efforts to

crack down on child trafficking, violent crime and terrorism,

according to a report issued Tuesday by the group that

represents the bureau's 13,000 special agents.

``The resources available to support the work of F.B.I.

agents are currently stretched to the breaking point and are

dwindling day by day,'' said Thomas O'Connor, the president

of the group, the F.B.I. Agents Association.

The report reflected the scope and seriousness of the

shutdown's effects, and came as President Trump and the

leaders of the two parties on Capitol Hill maneuvered to find

a path out of the impasse. The Senate scheduled procedural

votes for Thursday on competing Republican and Democratic

proposals, although neither appears likely to win sufficient

support to pass.

The Justice Department, which oversees the F.B.I., is one

of the government agencies affected by the partial shutdown,

along with the State Department, Transportation Department,

Agriculture Department, Interior Department and others.

Mr. O'Connor said that national security was directly

related to the bureau's financial security. ``It is critical

to fund the F.B.I. immediately,'' he said.

Because of the shutdown, the F.B.I. has been unable to

issue grand jury subpoenas and indictments in several cases

cited in the report.

An agent working on an MS-13 investigation that has gone on

for more than three years and resulted in 23 gang indictments

for racketeering, murder and money laundering has been

hamstrung by his inability to pay for an interpreter who can

communicate with his Spanish-speaking informants, the report

said.

The bureau has also not been able to pay its informants, an

important source of intelligence in terrorism, narcotics,

gang, illegal firearm and other national security cases. The

F.B.I. could lose those informants.

``It is not a switch that we can turn on and off,'' the

report said.

The 72-page report described how field offices in some

cases have run out of basic supplies like tires for vehicles,

copy paper and forensic supplies like DNA swab kits, and do

not have the funds to buy replacements.

The F.B.I. is not the only part of the Justice Department

struggling during the funding lapse. The department has had

to ask the federal courts to postpone some major civil

litigation, including a lawsuit over the lawfulness of the

Affordable Care Act, which the department no longer defends

in court.

The federal courts that hear Justice Department cases are

also running out of money. The nation's legal system could

soon be hobbled if Congress and the Trump administration

cannot come to an agreement to reopen the portions of

government that have been closed since last month. The

federal courts will run out of money by around Feb. 1,

requiring them to cut back to essential services at that

point and furlough some workers.

The F.B.I. Agents Association has been warning of the

negative effects of the shutdown for nearly two weeks.

On Jan. 10, the association and representatives from all of

the F.B.I. field offices signed a petition that said the

shutdown could create financial issues for agents that would

make it hard for them to pass the routine financial

background checks necessary for them to obtain certain

security clearances. They also said the pay freeze would make

it hard to retain and attract agents.

The latest report from the association, which is based on

the accounts of scores of agents, outlines more dire

consequences. The group allowed the agents to speak

anonymously to protect them from retaliation and other

negative repercussions.

Correction: Jan. 22, 2019--An earlier version of this

article incorrectly described the F.B.I. Agents Association.

It is a professional association, not a union.

Mr. Speaker, 40 million Americans struggle with hunger and food insecurity, and the Trump shutdown has needlessly made this terrible problem worse. Without funding for USDA in place, access to SNAP benefits for hungry families is threatened. Millions and millions of people will be affected.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities titled ``Many SNAP Households Will Experience Long Gap Between Monthly Benefits Even If Shutdown Ends.''

[From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Jan. 22, 2019]

Many SNAP Households Will Experience Long Gap Between Monthly Benefits

Even if Shutdown Ends

(By Dorothy Rosenbaum)

The Administration and states' efforts to issue February

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food

stamp) benefits early to avoid deep benefit cuts in that

month that might otherwise have occurred as a result of the

partial government shutdown have created a new problem: a

lengthy delay between February benefits (which most

beneficiaries received by January 20) and March benefits.

In turn, this will place additional strain on the emergency

food network and other community resources, which already are

stretched.

Most Households Receiving February SNAP Benefits in January; March SNAP

Benefits Remain Uncertain and at Risk

The Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced on January 8

that it would work with states to pay the vast majority of

February SNAP benefits early, by January 20, to ensure that

SNAP has the funding to stay open through February 2019.

Despite the operational challenges of this approach, it

appears that every state was able to issue benefits early,

and in combination with SNAP's contingency reserve, there

will be sufficient federal funding to cover all February SNAP

benefits as a result.

These recent actions that USDA and states have taken

protect millions of low-income households--including millions

of poor children, parents, elderly people, and people with

disabilities--from having their basic food assistance cut

back substantially in February. With a continuing shutdown,

USDA would have to issue additional guidance to states

explaining whether it has other options available to cover

all of March benefits, or if not, how deep a benefit cut will

be required in March and how states should implement it.

Ending the shutdown, and funding and reopening the

Agriculture Department and other parts of the government that

now are shuttered, would be the best way to avoid cutting

millions of households' SNAP food assistance. For the

remainder of this paper, we assume that SNAP will receive

funding so that full SNAP benefits can continue in March and

subsequent months--an assumption that is far from assured.

Many Households Will Have a Long SNAP Benefit Gap Even if the Shutdown

Ends

Some states may be able to adjust their March issuance

schedules to partly address this issue, but if all states

paid February SNAP benefits on January 20 and don't make

changes to their March issuance schedules, we estimate that

about 90 percent of SNAP households that receive ongoing SNAP

benefits--about 15 million low-income households--will

experience a more than 40-day gap between issuances. Almost

60 percent will experience a gap of more than 45 days, and 25

percent will experience more than a 50-day gap.

States have long had the option to pay SNAP benefits to

different SNAP households on different days of the month.

Spreading payments across multiple days evens state workloads

across the month and helps to ensure that retailers that

participate in SNAP do not face a severe increase in demand

for food and staffing on the day that SNAP benefits become

available. Any given household, however, must receive its

SNAP benefits on or about the same day of the month, usually

resulting in only 28 to 31 days between SNAP issuance dates.

Only seven states issue SNAP to all households in the state

on the first day of the month. Most others spread issuance

out, often over ten or 20 days, and usually based on

households' Social Security or case numbers or the first

letter of the head of household's last name.

In fact, SNAP law requires that ``no household experience

an interval between issuances of more than 40 days. It is not

clear whether USDA will waive this requirement in response to

the unusual circumstances resulting from the shutdown--as

seems likely--or whether the agency will require states to

develop an alternative issuance schedule to avoid gaps of

longer than 40 days One possibility would be for states to

change March issuance to occur on March 1, and to stagger the

adjustment back to households' normal issuance cycle over

several months, as needed to stay within the 40-day maximum

interval between issuances.

Households in Almost All States Will See Gaps Longer Than 40 Days

The length of the gaps between February and March issuances

will vary by state, but the vast majority will be longer than

40 days.

States where all households will have 40 days between SNAP

issuances: Seven states, accounting for about 2 percent of

SNAP issuances nationally, issue SNAP benefits to all

households on the first day of the month. In these states,

the gap for ongoing SNAP households that received the early

February issuance on January 20 would be exactly 40 days, as

households would receive their March benefits on March 1.

Those states are: Alaska, Guam, Nevada, North Dakota, Rhode

Island, Vermont, and Virgin Islands.

States where households will have 40-49 days between SNAP

issuances: Another 21 states issue all (or almost all) of

their ongoing SNAP benefits within the first ten days of the

month. In these states, SNAP households will experience a 40-

to 49-day gap in benefits. Those states are: California,

Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho,

Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New

Jersey, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota,

Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

States where some households will have 50 days or more

between SNAP issuances: About half the states have some

households that will have more than 50 days between SNAP

issuances if the states do not change their issuance

schedules. In states that issue some SNAP benefits for

ongoing SNAP households after the 10th day of the month,

those households will have at least a 50-day gap; households

that typically receive their benefits after the 15th day of

the month will have a gap of 55 days or more. These

households account for much of these states' ongoing SNAP

benefits: in 17 states, 50 percent or more of benefits will

be issued with at least a 50-day gap.

Long Period Between SNAP Issuances Will Cause Hardship for Some SNAP

Households

Assuming SNAP has full funding to continue in March, SNAP

households should have available the same total amount of

SNAP benefits over the three-month period (January through

March) that they otherwise would have. However, the change in

the timing of February's issuance and the long interval

between January 20 and a March SNAP issuance is likely to

cause hardship for some households and, as a result, increase

the demands for emergency food assistance and other community

services.

It's well documented that SNAP benefits normally run out

for most households before the end of the month. Within a

week of receiving SNAP, households redeem over half of their

SNAP allotments. By the end of the second week, SNAP

households have redeemed over three-quarters of their

benefits, and by the end of the third week they have redeemed

90 percent.

SNAP benefits are not intended to cover the entire month

for most households. The SNAP benefit formula assumes that

families will spend 30 percent of their available cash income

for food. Many households spend their SNAP benefits quickly

because they can only be spent on food. Cash income from

other sources is needed to pay for other expenses, such as

rent or mortgage, utilities, essential non-food items,

clothing, gasoline, and car repairs. As a result, families

use their SNAP benefits first to make food purchases, saving

cash for other needed expenses.

Moreover, SNAP benefits are low. SNAP is intended to

provide additional benefits to meet the cost of the Thrifty

Food Plan (TFP), the Agriculture Department's estimate of a

bare-bones, nutritionally adequate diet. But substantial

research has found that the TFP, which currently provides at

most $1.85 per person per meal for a family of three (the

average benefit is about $1.40 per person per meal), is not

sufficient to meet the needs of most low-income households.

Because SNAP benefits often fall short of meeting basic

monthly food needs, and because struggling households have to

use available cash to meet non-food expenses, families can

find themselves at the end of their 30-day SNAP benefit

payment cycle without enough food or the resources available

to buy more food. Research has found that food spending, food

consumption, and diet quality fall and that food insecurity,

hospital admissions, and school disciplinary problems rise

after households have exhausted their monthly SNAP benefits.

SNAP families often have to turn to social networks, food

pantries, and others to get through the month.

Given the experience of the strain on low-income

households' budgets and community resources under normal SNAP

issuance patterns--when the gap between SNAP issuances is no

more than 31 days--stretching that gap to 40 to 50 days or

longer could create substantial hardship and hunger and

sharply increase demand for local emergency food providers

and other community social services providers.

Many SNAP households may find ways to weather this

disruption. In general, households that participate in SNAP

demonstrate a capacity to manage limited budgets. But

extending the time between monthly benefit payments for the

vast majority of SNAP households will certainly cause

difficulty for some substantial number of poor families. Many

families may not be able to budget the advance food-

assistance benefit over an extended period of time for

several reasons, including:

Lack of information. USDA, state officials, retailers, and

state and local nonprofit groups and charities are working to

educate SNAP households about the early issuance of February

benefits and the fact that those households will not receive

another issuance in February. States are urging households to

factor the early payment and the delay until a March payment

into their February food budget. But USDA did not require

states to send SNAP households individual notices about the

change in February benefits. Instead, states are trying to

use newspaper stories, posts on their websites, fliers in

local welfare offices, and their partners' networks to spread

the news about the changes in the timing of SNAP benefit

delivery. Many households likely won't understand that the

benefits they received around January 20 are an early

issuance of their February benefit and that a lengthy gap

will ensue before they receive their next benefit insurance.

Confusion and misinformation. Reports are emerging that

there is considerable confusion about why households are

receiving early SNAP benefits for February and what to expect

in the future, especially given the uncertainty resulting

from the government shutdown. The confusion may result in

some SNAP households spending their SNAP benefits relatively

quickly, exacerbating their food shortages in the latter part

of February and the first part of March.

Household income fluctuations or unexpected expenses.

Households living with very low incomes experience shocks to

their monthly income on a routine basis. Workers can see

their hours and pay reduced with little warning. Individuals

with monthly income below the poverty line rarely have

savings to manage unexpected expenses. If their income drops

or expenses spike unexpectedly during this timeframe, perhaps

because of a high winter heating bill, households generally

will use available cash to manage their non-food needs,

leaving less money to buy food at the end of the SNAP payment

cycle.

Differing abilities among SNAP participants. Even with

advance warning and robust information, some SNAP households

can struggle to manage a significant shift in their budget,

particularly those with cognitive limitations. Managing a

major monthly budget shift like this could be difficult for

some individuals with mental impairments who do not receive

assistance to manage their benefits.

Conclusion

Even if the government shutdown is resolved quickly, the

disruption in the timing

of February SNAP benefits is likely to make it hard for many

SNAP households to meet their basic food needs as they wait

for their March SNAP benefit payment. Some 30 million people

in about 15 million households--the vast majority of SNAP

households--will not get their March benefit until at least

40 days after they received their February payment. Of these,

8 million people in more than 4 million households will need

to wait more than 50 days. This benefit disruption will

likely cause hardship for a substantial number of these

households. We expect more households to try to turn to

emergency food networks and other social services for help as

they seek to stretch their benefits across more days.

The crisis already has started. Access to food for SNAP beneficiaries also is being threatened by the shutdown, as reports indicate that 2,500 retailers around the country are unable to take any form of SNAP EBT payments.

As PBS reported over the weekend, the licenses for these retailers are on hold due to the shutdown.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the transcript of the PBS story.

PBS News Hour: Why Many Stores Can't Accept Food Stamps During the

Shutdown

(Jan 17, 2019)

While so far there have been no major lapses in benefits

for the nearly 39 million people who depend on food stamps

amid the partial government shutdown, 2,500 retailers around

the country are unable to take any form of SNAP EBT payments.

Judy Woodruff:

With the government shutdown now in its 27th day, many

federal programs have been affected, including food stamps.

So far, there is no major lapse in benefits used by nearly

39 million people each month. That's because of the U.S.

Department of Agriculture. It found a way to pay SNAP

benefits, as they are called, earlier than normal.

February benefits, awarded through a debit-style card used

at stores, are being paid out this week. Several states,

including California and Florida, are warning users to be

careful and make sure they manage to make the money last

longer.

For 2,500 retailers, the problem is already here. That's

because those stores needed to renew a license for the

Electronic Benefit Transfer, or EBT debit card program, and

they failed to meet a deadline before the shutdown. Those

renewals, required every five years, are on hold.

Sarah Jackson is an employee at one store in Northern

Arkansas.

Sarah Jackson:

We have been completely unable to take any form of SNAP EBT

payments. Grocery stores need a license to process EBT

payments, and ours expired and was unable to be renewed on

schedule because of the government shutdown.

Because of an argument about a wall, I have to look people

in the eyes every day and tell them they can't pay for their

food, for their children's food.

Judy Woodruff:

Sarah Jackson in Arkansas.

We reached out to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a

response. A spokesperson wrote back--quote--``Over 99 percent

of SNAP retailers are able to accept benefits as usual. There

is a small percentage of stores that failed to complete a

required reauthorization process that was due on December 21.

These stores can take steps to update their status once

funding is restored''--end quote.

Mr. Speaker, I could go on and on and on about the impacts here. If we all agree we should end the shutdown, let's just end the shutdown.

Maybe my Republican friends should be calling Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to say, you know, let's come together and pass a bill to reopen the government without any conditions. That is what the American people overwhelmingly want.

Mr. Speaker, I have heard my friends on the other side of the aisle rushing to congratulate the President for his so-called compromise plan over the weekend. Let me repeat: This is no compromise at all. Just read the fine print.

The Washington Post said simply: ``The proposal on the Dreamers was whittled down to the point where it only undoes the disaster Trump himself is orchestrating.''

That would be like an arsonist offering you a fire extinguisher to put out the wildfire that they created. That is a compromise? Are you kidding me?

I have an idea. Mr. President, stop causing disasters. Congress should be more than a cleanup crew for your messes and failed policies.

Let me close with this, Mr. Speaker. When I think of the best of the United States, I think of the Statue of Liberty. It wasn't built from within our borders. It was gifted to us by friends from abroad, the French, to represent the freedom that we stand for, to welcome all those immigrants who come to this country, not to transport drugs or crime, as the President portrays, but to live a better life that they can find only here in the United States.

When President Trump thinks of the best of America, he dreams about a concrete wall, something to prevent immigrants from coming here, something that offends our allies, that would make our country, a global leader, turn away from the rest of the world at a time when American leadership is badly needed.

On top of all of that, a wall will not work. It would be ineffective. If we built a 50-foot wall, someone would build a 51-foot ladder.

As I said, it is a medieval idea when we have better solutions here in the 21st century: cameras, sensors, radar, and drones. If anyone doubts that they work, go visit the border, as I have.

Democrats are for border security. The minibus includes $328 million in new funding to help secure the border. This is what professionals are asking us for. A concrete wall is being discussed as a viable option only at the President's rallies and in the right-wing media.

Here in the real world, hundreds of thousands of people are struggling. They need us to reopen the government today, right now, not years from now, as the President has suggested.

These bipartisan, bicameral bills will get us there. This continuing resolution to fund the Department of Homeland Security will get us there. Let's end this shutdown and reopen this government.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on this rule and the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

The previous question was ordered.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam President, first, I thank my colleague from Maryland, Senator Cardin, for his steadfast efforts to bring this shameful shutdown to an end. He and I have met with Federal employees all over the State of Maryland to bring their stories here to the floor of the Senate.

While they are under incredible hardship and incredible duress, the first thing they tell us at every meeting is that they want to get back to work for the American people, to do their job for the American people. These are civil servants; these are public servants; and they want to get back to helping the country.

To my friend and partner and colleague, Senator Cardin, I thank him for all of his efforts in this shameful episode of our history.

President Trump often falsely boasts that he has accomplished what no other President in American history has been able to do. This time, he has succeeded. This time, he has succeeded in closing down the Federal Government for a longer period than any other President in United States history--24 days and counting.

President Trump said just a few weeks ago that he would be proud-- proud to shut down the government if he didn't get his way. But President Trump should know that reaching this historic milestone is nothing to be proud of. It is unnecessary, and it is shameful. Every day that goes by, we see mounting harm around the country both in terms of members of the public who are denied important services and denied important health protections and, of course, Federal employees and Federal contractors who are either going without pay--all of the Federal employees who are going without pay, and Federal contractors have been laid off in many cases.

Every day that this shameful shutdown goes on, our colleagues on the Republican side and the Republican leader have to own up to their share of the responsibility. Every day that goes on where we do not have a chance to vote on the two House bills that are on the Senate calendar, which we could take up this afternoon--every day that we do not vote on those bills, which have had bipartisan support here in the U.S. Senate, the Senate is an accomplice in the shutdown, and those who prevent us from turning the keys to reopen the government are complicit in the harm that is increasing every day around the country.

On Friday, 800,000 Federal employees began to get pay stubs that showed zero pay. I have one in my hand from somebody who is an air traffic controller. If you look at the area that says net pay, it has a big goose egg--zero. Among these 800,000 Federal employees, of course, are hundreds of thousands of people--like the folks at TSA, like the folks along the border--who are working every day, but in the mail or in their electronic pay stub they get zero for their pay.

Of course, there are hundreds of thousands more who are being furloughed, who want to get out and do their work for the American people, and they are being locked out of their jobs.

I have been talking with many of my constituents over the last several weeks, and I have shared many of their stories here on the floor of the Senate. They talk passionately and personally about how they want to get back to work and also about how they worry about their ability to provide for their families.

I met with Edward last week. He works at the Census Bureau. He is the only person in his family to have gone to college. He is very proud to be a civil servant and wants to do his job. He owns a home, and his mortgage payments are coming due every month, like those of millions of Americans. While those mortgage payments are coming in, his paycheck is not. He told me he is very worried that he will soon miss a payment.

It is important to understand that the harm from this shutdown is not just felt in the Washington metropolitan area. Of course, Americans around the country are losing access to services, and it is a fact that 80 percent of the people who work for the Federal Government live outside the Washington metropolitan area. TSA officials at airports throughout the country are just one example.

It is also important to recognize that about 30 percent of the Federal workforce are people who previously served our country in uniform. They were in the military. That means that as a result of this shutdown, 250,000 Americans--in fact, a little more than that--who served our country in the military are also suffering and going without pay.

One of those veterans is somebody I spoke to last week, an Air Force veteran who works at the Office of Personnel Management. He told me he was worried that he wasn't going to be able to pay his electric bill on time. He told me he had contacted the electric company and said: Look, I am not going to be able to pay you this month because I am not going to get a check. Can you just hold off? Can you defer my bill?

They told him: Sorry, that really isn't our responsibility.

It really is our responsibility here in the U.S. Senate--and, of course, the President of the United States, who said that he was proud to shut down the government. I would like the President to visit Maryland and look at that Air Force vet who now works as a civil servant and tell that Air Force vet that he is proud to be shutting down the government.

There are other veterans around the country. As I said, the harm from this is not confined to the Washington metropolitan area. Toby Hauck served our country in the Air Force and continues

to serve as an air traffic controller in Illinois. His son and daughter-in-law are about to deploy overseas, and Toby and his wife are going to care for their 2\1/2\-year-old daughter--their granddaughter-- during this deployment. Toby says that the continued lack of pay adds stress to their already hectic jobs. This is something I have heard from other veterans, air traffic controllers, and others going without pay throughout the State of Maryland.

In fact, we know from a lot of the Federal employees who work in law enforcement that the impact on their jobs is hurting our national security. Just reading from an article in the Washington Post, ``Shutdown threatens national security, FBI agents group warns,'' it goes on to say: ``A group representing FBI agents warned Thursday that the partial government shutdown is threatening national security as thousands of federal law enforcement professionals, working without pay, grow anxious that personal financial hardships may jeopardize their security clearances and as furloughs of their support staffs slow investigations.''

I spoke to a Federal law enforcement officer just last week. He made exactly the point made by others in this article, which is that his entire support team has been furloughed. These are the folks who track down DNA analysis; these are the people who do the investigations. When they are furloughed and when they are not on the job, it puts their colleagues who are on the job--in the FBI or other Federal law enforcement missions--at greater risk, and it puts the public at risk to the extent that those FBI agents are not able to fully do their job.

The harm is spreading. We know that a lot of Federal contractors, including a lot of small business folks who do work with the Federal Government, have had to lay off people. I know that because, in my State of Maryland, a small outfit that contracts with the Federal Government to help seniors find work just had to lay off 173 employees last week. Senior Service America is the name of the organization. They do great work, but they just had to send pink slips to 173 people saying: At least for now, you are out of work, and you are out of a paycheck.

Again, this is something we are seeing and witnessing around the country. A business in Denver, CO--Sky Blue Builders--had to stop work on several Federal contractor jobs for Federal construction projects they were doing. The GSA--General Services Administration--put their projects on hold, and a 50-person company had to lay off 8 carpenters and a superintendent because of the shutdown. They will need to lay off more in the days ahead if the shutdown continues.

Every day that goes on, we see a mushrooming effect in terms of the damage and harm being done throughout the country. A lot of the folks who work for these small business Federal Government contractors are already getting low-wage paychecks; now, they are out of income altogether.

One of those workers is Lila Johnson. She is a janitor at the Department of Agriculture. She works for a company, and that company contracts with the Department of Agriculture to provide janitorial services.

Lila is 71 years old. She has bills coming due for her rent, her credit card, and her car. Here is how she has described the impact of the shutdown:

I don't have enough from my retirement and my Social

Security to make ends meet. Everything is piling up on me,

and I don't know how I'm going to have the money to pay these

bills.

I don't know how many of my colleagues saw President Trump the other day. He sort of waved off reporters when they asked him a question about the harm being done as a result of the shutdown. The President said he can relate to these people who are just one paycheck away from not being able to make a mortgage or not being able to make a medical copayment. He said:

I can relate. I'm sure the people that are on the receiving

end will make adjustments. They always do.

Give me a break. The President clearly doesn't realize that 40 percent of our fellow Americans cannot pull together even $400 for an emergency. They do live paycheck to paycheck.

When you have grown up with a background of privilege, as the President has, you really have not experienced that kind of hardship. Between Trump Tower, the White House, and Mar-a-Lago, it is pretty clear the President doesn't have a clue about what our fellow Americans are experiencing in this shutdown.

Because all of these Federal employees are unable to do their jobs-- in many cases, for the country--and because the small business contractors are not able to do theirs, every day you are seeing the growing, harmful impact of the shutdown in terms of denial of important services and protections for the American people.

We know now the FDA is no longer conducting their routine food safety inspections. We know the EPA has halted inspections of major polluters, including chemical factories. We know 1,000 affordable housing contracts have expired because of the shutdown, which can delay critical repairs and place families at risk of eviction. We have seen trash and waste piling up at our national parks.

Despite the efforts of the administration to hide a lot of these impacts, the result has been a disaster. At Joshua Tree National Park, we saw motorists cut down several of the iconic Joshua trees so they could drive in areas of the park where vehicles are banned, and vandals have sprayed graffiti in the park. That is just one example among many.

Why is this happening? It is because the President says, if he doesn't get his way entirely, he is going to be ``proud''--that is his word, not mine--to shut down the government.

I can tell you what it is not about. It is not about the need for strong border security. We need secure borders. I think Senators on both sides of the aisle know that over the years, we have worked on a bipartisan basis to do that. We certainly can continue to work on a bipartisan basis to do it going forward.

I know Senators on both sides of the aisle recognize that wasting taxpayer dollars on a 2,000-mile-long wall is not the answer. For goodness' sake, the President's own Acting Chief of Staff--a former colleague of mine in the House of Representatives--Mick Mulvaney said a couple of years ago that it was childlike to believe that building that 2,000-mile wall was going to actually provide the kind of security we need.

We need a multilayered approach. Yes, there are areas along the border where we need barriers, fences, walls. Call them what you want. They are already there. They were there before President Trump was ever elected President.

What was the President's budget request this year for this part of the Homeland Security budget? What was his request in the official document he sent for this fiscal year? He asked for $1.6 billion. That is what the Senate Appropriations Committee voted for on a bipartisan basis, $1.6 billion.

It was only in December, when all of a sudden you have the rightwing talk show hosts going 24/7, spinning the President up, that all of a sudden, oh, boy, I guess I didn't really mean what I asked for; I need something else.

Then, to justify the $5.7 billion, he did this national address the other night. What was the very first example he gave for why we needed this border wall? The very first example he gave was to interdict and stop the flow of drugs across the southern border. That was the first item he mentioned in the speech. He focused on it. By focusing on that, he demonstrated the argument against spending all this money on a 2,000-mile border wall.

As everybody knows, including his Department of Homeland Security, to the extent we have drugs coming across the southern border--and this is a big issue--they are actually coming through the legal points of entry, so building a wall on all sides of the legal points of entry will not do a thing. We all know that on a bipartisan basis, we have looked for new technologies and new investments to better detect drugs that are flowing through those legal ports of entry.

My goodness, we can certainly talk about further steps that can be taken, but the leadoff point in the President's speech showed his ignorance about the overall issue on how we need effective border security.

We should not be spending what will ultimately be $30 billion on a 2,000-mile wall the President said Mexico was

going to pay for. Make no mistake. We are talking about $30 billion because the President may ask for one amount this year. It started at $1.6 billion. That was his official request. Then, in December, it was $5.7 billion. Now he is going to threaten to shut down the government every year if he doesn't get his $30 billion, which Mexico was going to pay for.

I know he is doing all sorts of dances, saying that is not quite what I meant, but that is what he told the country.

Since we are talking about border security, let's talk about some of the men and women who, right now, today, as we gather here, are defending that border, providing border protection. I will tell you what, the folks at Customs and Border Protection have had enough. The Customs and Border Protection officers are suing the United States. They are suing the President because of this shutdown and demanding that they get paid for the work they are doing.

I know the President likes to talk about the good work a lot of those men and women do at Customs and Border Protection, and they do, do good work. They are now suing the President of the United States and the U.S. Government because they are out there providing border security, and they are now getting big goose eggs, big zeros for net pay for the work they are doing.

I know Members of this body are not ``proud'' of this shutdown, as the President of the United States is. He said he was proud. He hasn't said otherwise, although he started pointing fingers now at everybody else. He said he was going to take responsibility; that he would be proud to if he didn't get his way.

Every day that goes by in this Senate that we don't take action, which is within our power to take, this Senate becomes an accomplice in President Trump's government shutdown. That is why, together with my colleagues, we are going to continue to press the Senate and the Senate Republican leader to take up the two House bills that are on the Senate calendar, which are the keys to reopening the government.

The House of Representatives, on their very first day of the new Congress, said their priority is reopening the government, and they did. They passed those two bills.

I have had them on the floor before. I am going to show them again because they are still on the calendar. They haven't disappeared. They are still right there. One is H.J. Res. 1. It is a very simple bill. It is a bill that would reopen the Department of Homeland Security through February 8. It is identical, with respect to the Department of Homeland Security, as to what this Senate did by a voice vote before Christmas-- identical. It says: Let's reopen the Department of Homeland Security at current funding levels while we discuss the best and most effective way to provide border security.

That bill was on the Senate calendar. Last week, standing right here, I asked for unanimous consent to take it up and vote on it right away. The Senate Republican leader denied that request.

Just last week, standing right over there, Senator Cardin brought up the other bill that is on the Senate calendar that was passed by the House to reopen eight of the nine Departments of the U.S. Government that are closed and have nothing to do with Homeland Security or the wall--nothing to do with it. That bill is right here, H.R. 21. Senator Cardin asked for the Senate to vote on it. Again, it was blocked by the Republican leader on behalf of the caucus.

As many of us have discussed, the great irony is, these are pieces of legislation that have bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate.

As I said, the bill to reopen the Department of Homeland Security through February 8 while we work on the best and most effective way to provide border security is something we passed by voice vote. Republican colleagues thought it was a good idea about 5 weeks ago. I don't know why it is not a good idea to do the same thing today.

The other bill, which contains the funding levels through the remainder of this fiscal year for the other eight of the nine Federal Departments that are currently closed, also had broad bipartisan support. One of the parts of that bill dealing with the Department of Agriculture, the Treasury Department, the Interior Department, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development passed this Senate by a vote of 92 to 6.

The House of Representatives said: Do you know what? We like the funding levels the House put together, but let's send the Senate a bill that was already supported by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in the U.S. Senate, 92 to 6.

This bill, H.R. 21, contains those Senate funding levels voted on 92 to 6 to reopen all those Departments. This bill also includes measures that were overwhelmingly passed in the Senate Appropriations Committee. One measure was adopted in the Senate Appropriations Committee by a vote of 31 to 0--Republicans and Democrats voting for it. That is in the bill the House sent over.

The other bills relating to the Department of Commerce and the Department of Justice passed the Senate Appropriations Committee vote 30 to 1. In this package the House sent us, you have bills that passed the Senate Appropriations Committee by 30 to 0, 30 to 1, and the floor of the U.S. Senate by a vote of 92 to 6.

It is a very simple question: Why is it that the Republican leader refuses to allow this body to vote on measures that have already had overwhelming support in this body and would reopen the government today?

The answer we get is, well, you know what, the President of the United States says he will not support it.

Do you know what? We are an independent branch of government. We are a coequal branch of government, although these days I begin to wonder if we relegated ourselves to the very bottom of the totem pole here.

There is no excuse not to vote. Ninety-two to six? That is a veto- proof majority. Let the President veto it. It has to come back here? Ninety-two to six. I will tell you, the fact the others passed 30 to 0 and 30 to 1 in the Senate Appropriations Committee--that is a pretty good indicator of their strong, bipartisan support. So let's not go hide out. Let's not go hide out. Let's do our job in the Senate, and if the President wants to veto it, let him do it. That is how the system works. But nobody here should be hiding from accountability to their constituents because the Republican leader refuses to hold a vote today on what the Senate supported overwhelmingly in weeks past.

I do want to thank my colleagues for a measure that we passed last week, passed it on Thursday or Friday. The Senate passed a provision that was introduced by Senator Cardin and me and many other Senators and that had some bipartisan support and cosponsorship and strong bipartisanship here on the floor. We said that Federal employees should not, at the end of the day, be the ones who have to bear the entire burden of this shutdown they had nothing to do with. So we passed legislation to make sure that when this shutdown is over, Federal employees will be made whole in terms of their pay. That then passed the House, and it is on the way to the President. It was on the way to the President before the weekend. The Republican Senate leader said that the President said he was going to sign it. Of course, that is what the President said about the bill that passed the U.S. Senate before Christmas to provide stopgap funding, so we will see. I hope that is the case because Federal employees, at the end of the day, should not be the ones who are penalized and never made whole.

But it doesn't address the problem before us right now, which is that while those Federal employees--hundreds of thousands of them--are not working, they are not there to provide important services for the American people, and the harm done from the denial of those services is growing every day. And of course it doesn't help those hundreds of thousands of Federal employees--in fact, 800,000 Federal employees--who are not getting paid now but have their bills coming through the door every day. That creates great harm because when they can't pay the bills, their creditors come after them. Even though, whenever this shutdown ends, whenever it may be, they may get back pay, it is going to be very hard for them to get back their credit rating. It is going to be very hard to undo the damage that is being done to them by their inability to pay their bills because of our inability to vote on two House measures that the Senate

has already supported on a bipartisan basis. So it doesn't solve that very, very real problem, which is growing every day.

I know my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are hearing more and more from their constituents--hearing from their Federal employees who are going without pay, hearing from small business contractors who have had their contracts cut and are at risk of going belly-up, from those small contract employees who live paycheck to paycheck--and from the American people who are being denied services on a growing basis.

So let's open the government. Let's vote on these two bills that would accomplish that. We could do it tonight. Do it right now, as soon as the Republican leader comes in.

I can assure you that my colleagues and I will continue to ask consent to bring up those bills. We are going to continue to move to bring up those bills because they are the one thing before the Senate right now that we could vote on that would at least demonstrate that we in the Senate are doing our job. It is the President's job to decide whether he thinks it is a good idea, and if he thinks it is a bad idea, he can veto it, and then it comes back to us.

Let's do our job here. Let's not contract to the President of the United States our constitutional responsibilities. That is not how it is supposed to work. And we need to do our job. Let's end the shutdown. Let's reopen the government. We can have a conversation on the most effective way to provide border security, but for goodness' sake, let's release the hostages here. Let's release eight of the nine Federal Departments that have nothing to do with homeland security or the wall. Let's release the 800,000 Federal employees who are not getting paid. Let's release all of the small businesses that do contract work for the Federal Government, many of which are at risk of going belly-up. Let's release the Federal contract employees who are now being told not to come to work because the contract is not in effect during the shutdown. Let's release all those hostages who have nothing to do with the political dispute here.

Nobody should be proud of this shutdown, and so I say to the President of the United States: Let's not take pride in being the President of the United States who is now overseeing the longest shutdown in American history. That is not a first that any President should be proud of, and it is not something this Senate should be complicit in.

Let's reopen the government. Let's vote on the House bills.

I yield my time.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise to talk about the significance of today, January 11, the 21st day of the partial government shutdown.

Today, we tie for the longest shutdown in the history of the U.S. Government. Tomorrow, we will set a record for the longest shutdown.

Today is the first paycheck day where 800,000-plus Federal employees will not be paid. In fact, some have already started to get their paychecks because even when there is no pay, the process of producing the check and the stub continues. So people get paychecks, but there is a zero on the line, which is sort of like pouring salt in the wound or adding insult to injury. It is one thing not to be paid, but it is another thing to be working and then get the stub and have there be a zero there. People have already reported--some of our air traffic controllers and TSA professionals and others--that they are starting to receive those checks.

January 11 is also a time when--I know what it is like in my family. My wife and I kind of load up on both the charitable contributions and buying gifts for our family in December, and then that credit card bill in January is the biggest one we pay all year. Families are receiving those.

January tends to be among the coldest months of the year, and heating bills are the highest. We are going to have a cold snap and maybe a snowstorm in Washington this weekend, and those bills will be high.

January 11 is a time when a lot of families sit around kitchen tables and write tuition checks for the spring semester for their kids.

It is precisely the worst time to have a shutdown of this kind that affects more than 800,000 people and jeopardizes their livelihood.

I stand on the floor today to repeat what I said Tuesday night when many of us stood here and said it is really time to end this shutdown. The House wants to end it. An increasing number of Senators want to end it by passing bills that are right here in the Senate, available for consideration, to reopen the government and to engage with the President in a meaningful, short-term, and prompt dialogue about border security and immigration reform.

I wanted to share some of the stories that are flooding into my office. I will be back on the floor later because at 11 o'clock, Senator Warner and I will

meet with Federal employees at a community center in Alexandria, and I will be bringing more stories back to the floor before we adjourn at 1 o'clock today.

Before I share stories, I do want to express appreciation to the majority leader, to the Republicans, and to the Democrats who joined together with us yesterday to pass an important bill, S. 24. It is not as good as getting a paycheck, but it is a bill to tell those who have lost paychecks or are losing paychecks during this time that when we reopen, they will be paid.

We have done that in the past. Once we reopened, we figured out a way to do that. But I felt it was important that on the day people are not being paid, for them to at least get the signal from Congress, some certainty, something that they might be able to show to a landlord or to a bank saying: I am going to get paid.

The Senate majority leader and minority leader worked at the end of the day to make sure that a UC to pass S. 24 was successful. It was, and at about 5 o'clock last night, we sent that bill to the House. My understanding is the House is taking up the bill this morning. I also applaud Senator McConnell for reaching out to the White House and speaking directly with the President about the bill. The President indicated he would sign it when the bill gets to him.

Again, it is not as good as a paycheck, but it adds a little something on a tough day to tell people that they can rest assured that when we figure this out, they will be made whole. I do want to express my appreciation to all for working on that yesterday, but, again, that is not a cessation of the pain.

I am going to read stories from Federal employees, but I do want to acknowledge that this is not about just 800,000 employees; it also affects millions of Americans.

I told a story on the floor Tuesday night about just coincidentally two Saturdays ago going to four different units of the National Park System under the Department of the Interior and the National Forest System under the Department of Agriculture and being turned away by a gate closed and a sign saying: We are shut down.

That I was turned away was of no moment, but I was interested to watch other families pull up in their vehicles on a Saturday, spending time with their kids. Time with the family is precious. You often don't get a lot of it. Sometimes driving with kids a long way to get to a national park or something--they are squabbling in the back seat, and you are really hoping to get there. Watching families pull up and looking at their faces as they saw that what they hoped to do that day they couldn't do because it was closed--that made an impression on me.

People were trying to visit the museums here in Washington, and they couldn't.

Citizens who are falling into hunger, who want to apply for food stamps--95 percent of the workforce that processes food stamp applications has been furloughed during this time.

Air traffic controllers are working because they are essential, but it has to make you a little cranky to get a paycheck with a zero on it. I can't imagine a Federal employee I would less like to be cranky than an air traffic controller. I mean, this is very important stuff. You don't want an air traffic controller sitting in that tower thinking about anything other than air safety.

If 5 percent of their brain is sort of mad at this shutdown and 20 percent of their brain is focused on ``How am I going to pay the bills?''--air traffic controllers have shared that they need security clearances to do their jobs. Do you know that if your credit is impaired and you start to get hits on your credit report, that could endanger your security clearance? In some circumstances, it could lead to your security clearance being taken away. If you are under a court order to pay alimony or child support, and you can't, regardless of whether you have a good reason, and there is a court order forcing you to, that could lead to your losing your security clearance.

You don't want an air traffic controller in the tower worrying about anything other than the safety of the passengers. If they are mad at the government for shutting down, and they are anxious about not getting a paycheck, and they are wondering about how long it will go on and what the consequences might be, that is not something that makes me feel comfortable.

This is an issue about Federal workers, certainly, but it is also an issue about the effect on Americans who need all kinds of services.

Like every office here, my office has been flooded with expressions of concern. They are saying: Senator, why can't you do something? What is going on? How long is this going to go on? And I don't have a good answer for them.

Let me read some stories. I read seven or eight Tuesday night. These are stories that have come in since Tuesday.

Shane from Alexandria wrote:

I am a veteran and furloughed government employee working

for the Peace Corps. My wife is a disabled veteran, and we

live paycheck to paycheck. I lost my job during the housing

crisis, and we lost our home and then relocated to the DC

area for work. We have worked hard to build our lives back up

and again own a home. Now, that is all in jeopardy again! If

I don't get paid, we can't pay the mortgage, and we will lose

our home. I relocated my family from Florida for a secure job

here and to provide financial stability to my family. Now,

because of a dysfunctional government, I may have to find new

work again, but it may not be in time to save our home.

Please, Please, Please, do what you can to open the

government back up.

Terry from Fairfax wrote:

I am writing you, along with my two other elected

officials, seeking your help in bringing this government

shutdown to an immediate end. Today is day 19--

This was sent to us on Wednesday--

and counting, with no end in sight. The information put out

by the media saying the number of those affected by this

(partial) government shutdown is 800,000; I submit to you it

is much higher than that--especially in the Commonwealth of

Virginia.

Currently, I work for the Department of Homeland Security,

the Transportation Security Administration at Washington

Dulles International Airport. I have the compliance

department at Washington Dulles, enforcing the Code of

Federal Regulations, and have 15 people working for me. We

make sure the nation's transportation system at Washington

Dulles is secure and safe and are exempt from furlough.

Of the 15 people that work for me, most all live paycheck

to paycheck. As you can imagine, with the outlook of no

paycheck coming this Saturday, the morale is starting to go

down and Maslow's hierarchy of needs--

I hope I am saying that right--

is kicking in--that of self-preservation. Their focus is

switching from their work--keeping things secure and safe--to

their family and how they are going to provide for them

(survive).

As for me, I served honorably in the United States Coast

Guard and retired after 26 years. I started working at

Washington Dulles when TSA first stood up and have been here

over 16 years. I am 63 years old. My Coast Guard retired

paycheck is my financial security, something to fall back on,

something I can plan on . . . up until now. I just learned

yesterday there won't be a retired paycheck for Coast Guard

retirees because of the shutdown. The financial security we

worked for is no longer there. This is a breach of trust

between the U.S. Government and every Coast Guard retiree,

and it's wrong!

I have proudly served the American People for more than 42

years, and I have been through every government shutdown

since 1976. This particular one is getting old in a hurry, it

may be the worst, and it needs to stop. For my people at

work, my family at home, and my fellow Coast Guard retirees,

we need your help in ending this shutdown.

Garrett, a Virginian working as a contractor at NASA:

I am a contractor for NASA, I am shut down, and I am not

very happy. This is having a negative financial effect on my

life. I am ok today, but soon in the very next few days when

I have exhausted my vacation, then take leave without pay,

then have to pay for overpriced health insurance; then I will

be in a big pinch. As a contractor we are not guaranteed to

be re-reimbursed for our leave. The last shutdown I lost a

paycheck I never got back, that was like a 2% pay cut. I

won't be able to take sick leave or vacation this year.

SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE, and I am relying on you to make it

happen. We all are. Just think of all the good government

employees that will be forced to leave the government because

it is such a negative place to work.

Just a comment, government employees are being forced to leave the government.

Today in Fairfax, the Fairfax public school system is having a hiring fair just for Federal employees. They need substitute teachers, they need bus drivers, and they need cafeteria workers. So they are doing the hiring fair to try

to play upon the unhappiness of Federal employees who are out for the shutdown and don't think they are going to come back to work.

Phil from Chesterfield:

Through no fault of my own I am not being paid [my] bi-

weekly salary . . . tomorrow. This will cause a significant

strain on my family, my church contributions, my shared

health care cost, my retirement contributions. Having a

college age student attend Virginia Commonwealth University,

with winter semester fees for tuition and room and board

totaling [thousands in] out of pocket expenses is extremely

frustrating. I really cannot [go a long time] without a

salary.

Long term policy disagreements (among both parties of our

elected Senators) using federal government employees'

salaries as a token to rally off is not Democracy. This is

not fair to You . . . or a career professional like myself

who works for the United States Government.

I ask you . . . to consider a CR which would fund our

government through a short-term solution until you and your

bi-partisan colleagues can fix a long-term problem. . . .

Nonetheless, my family and I are out of funding Now! I ask

that you publicly announce [what you will do] and help lead

the bi-partisan CHANGE TO HELP Virginians.

A family from Loudoun County--one, a 20-year government employee:

I am scared not knowing when he will get paid. Our 2 young

children should be signing up for spring sports this week,

but we are cutting optional spending. We are eating out of

the pantry instead of going to the grocery store. Real people

are hurting, working and not being paid. It is 800,000 but

the broader fear and economic impact is tremendous.

Opel from Hampton:

My name is Opel and my husband Kenny is an inspector with

the FDA. As you know, he has been unable to go to work for

the past few weeks. I am writing to you to keep our story and

our situation at the forefront of your agenda. Please

continue to push for our Congressional leaders to get the

government open. It is very difficult to try to explain to

our 9 year old son why Daddy isn't going to work, why Mom and

Dad are having trouble paying our bills. This shutdown is

wrong and I feel that it's also wrong for federal employees

to not be able to go to work because a person some people

elected President wants an extreme form of ``security.''

Please Sir, reopen the government. Many people's lives are at

stake.

Daniel from Arlington:

I am a furloughed employee in the Department of Commerce.

My income has stopped. I have become aware that I will soon

be responsible to make payments for my family's healthcare,

my life insurance, and other benefits that are normal

paycheck deductions. So now I have no income, plus unbudgeted

expenses.

I have hard decisions now with regard to paying my rent,

paying for my family's healthcare, and paying for care for my

elderly parents. I have applied for unemployment assistance.

I am trying to find work to survive throughout the shutdown.

I have 5 years of federal service, and I have experienced

furloughs before. Until now, I have not needed to take

resources away from the unemployment system. Until now, I

haven't had to compete in the job market to take a position

away from someone who has no job at all.

I have personally shut down; I am using as little gasoline

as I can, I am only shopping for necessities. I'm cutting

back in every money-saving way I can. This is a disheartening

way to just try to survive.

PLEASE support legislation that will return furloughed

Federal employees to paid work status.

A final story, Joie from Warrenton:

My husband is a highly experienced Ph.D. Economist with the

SEC. I am a disabled (thanks to cancer) Episcopal priest. We

are in free fall not knowing if my husband will have his job

again, and our health insurance we need for my [cancer]. We

need every penny he earns and no job could replace his

compensation. We spent most of our savings paying off my $40K

in cancer and cancer related bills last year. Still, we live

MODESTLY in a 1700 sq foot old farmhouse with no central air/

heat, drive one 13 year old car and . . . [another old] used

Subaru. It's early Thursday morning 1/10 and I'm having a

panic attack wondering if I will lose my dogs if we get

evicted in case this runs a few months and we run out of

savings to pay our mortgage. We have no family support or

back up and a son with anxiety and ADHD issues for which we

spend thousands out of pocket because mental health services

for youth are either unavailable or do not accept insurance.

Please continue to pressure . . . [all your colleagues] to

bring opening the government to a vote. WORKING AMERICANS

need protection!

This is just a sample of the letters we have received. When I come back from the session Senator Warner and I are doing in Alexandria, I will bring back more stories. I know that other offices are receiving these same kinds of inquiries. Even with a guarantee of backpay, for so many people who live paycheck to paycheck or who have modest savings, the timing of even missing one paycheck is very, very critical.

The House has already taken action by a strong majority to reopen government. By my count, just based on what folks have said in this Chamber, there are at least 52 members of this Chamber who have already gone on record and said we should take up the House bill and vote to reopen government. My hope is that when people listen to stories like this about lost paychecks and the effect on families and when people in this body understand the magnitude of tomorrow's recordbreaking day, when we establish the longest shutdown in the history of the country, as our colleagues are back in their home States over the weekend chatting with folks, that number of Senators--52--who want to take up these bills and vote on them will increase and we can end this suffering that is so unnecessary.

I will say this. I definitely get that there is an important controversy that needs resolution--talking about border security, talking about immigration reform. We have been talking about these issues since I got here. Regardless of your position on how we should solve them, I think everybody in the body knows--with no immigration reform done since 1986 and border security funding a perennial topic-- that there is an important issue to resolving this: How much should we spend for border security? What is the right way to spend the money? What is the right place to get the money? Can it be done by executive fiat, or must it be done via congressional appropriations? What are the immigration reforms that we need, having not done an immigration reform bill since 1986?

When the President says these are important issues, he is not wrong. He is right. But as for the idea that even with an issue of importance on the table that we need to grapple with, people who are unconnected to that issue have to be victims, have to suffer as we are trying to resolve that issue, I just don't get it. As for some of those who are suffering, it is kind of even counter to the national emergency or crisis that the President is talking about.

For example, the Coast Guard--as was indicated by one of my stories, from Terry--is one of the Agencies, because it is under the Department of Commerce, I believe, that is shuttered. They are not a DOD Agency. So they are not funded. There are 42,000, I believe, Coast Guard employees. Most are essential and are working without pay, but some are furloughed. If there is a crisis at the border--and as the President described that crisis, a significant portion of the crisis is illegal drugs coming across the border, and we need folks to interdict illegal drugs--why would we shutter the Coast Guard? The Coast Guard has many missions, but one of their important missions--and they work very well on this, in tandem with other Agencies in this country and in other countries--is the interdiction of illegal drugs. How does it make sense, if there is a crisis at the border dealing with drug importation, for the Coast Guard to be shuttered?

So the President's statement that this is an issue that needs a resolution is correct, but punishing people who are unconnected to the issue or even punishing some of the very people whom we need to solve the issue is just the wrong approach. That is why I believe the right approach is the approach taken by the House--bringing up bills that were bipartisan bills, that were worked on and voted on either by Senate committees or on the Senate floor, and saying: Let's just do these. Let's reach an agreement for the nonaffected Agencies, the nonimmigration-related agencies, but between now and September 30 reopen government. And let's provide short-term funding, a month or 3- weeks of funding for the immigration and homeland security Agencies, and let's just make the whole next chunk of time in this body a discussion, a resolution, and a compromise that will enable us to meet some of what the President wants and some of what we want--and that is possible.

I think sometimes the word that goes out from a shutdown or the word that goes out from some of the news stories, as well, is this: There is not going to be a compromise that is possible. The sides are dug in. We can't find an accord.

I just want to remind the body--and the President knows this--that it was

just last February when 8 Democrats and 8 Republicans worked and introduced a bill that coupled borders security with protection for Dreamers. The President now is asking for $5.7 billion, essentially, in border security. The bill we had in February was $25 billion, over 10 years--$25 billion--which was exactly to the penny what the President had asked for. It was $25 billion, borders done right. We wanted to exercise traditional congressional oversight in the then-two Republican House Congress over how the money would be spent, but the amount the President asked for wasn't the problem. It wasn't a problem at all--$25 billion in exchange for something else that the President had asked for.

He had said: We shouldn't protect Dreamers by Executive order; it should be done by Congress. There should be a statutory congressional fix.

He is right about that. That is a better thing--to fix it via statute, rather than to rely on an Executive action that can change with the whim of each new Executive. He is right about that.

We basically went to him with a proposal, 16 of us, and introduced the bill: $25 billion, Mr. President, that is what you asked for; protection for Dreamers, Mr. President, that is what you asked for.

The response from the White House was not to say: ``I don't like that deal; let me give you a counter,'' or ``Could you add to it?''

Within less than 24 hours, the White House put out a press release attacking those who put the bill together--even the Republicans--as proponents of open borders who wanted to end immigration enforcement as we know it. It was a press release from the DHS that read like it was somebody's campaign literature rather than the response that you would expect from a White House or a Cabinet-level official.

But what that offer showed is that there is great willingness in this body to invest in border security. In fact, even after the President poured cold water on it, we put that bill on the floor for a vote. Forty-six out of 49 Democrats voted for it. Forty-six out of 49 Democrats voted for $25 billion in border security, just like more than 50 Democrats in 2013--and I was part of this, as well--voted for more than $40 billion in border security.

So for folks at the White House wondering whether in a 3-week or monthlong intense discussion we could find a path forward on border security and immigration reform, the evidence is out there that, yes, we can. We can find that path forward, but we ought to open up government and let those unconnected with the dispute at least go back to work, at least go back to work and start getting paid. Then, in this body--which is a great deliberative body, with 100 people who are very savvy and smart and who could find a deal moving forward--we could find an answer to this that would enable the President to say he got significant investments in borders, and it would also enable those of us who have promoted commonsense immigration reforms to feel like there was something in there as well.

With that, I am going to yield the floor. I am going to meet with Federal employees and then return to share some of their stories. My ask is a simple one: We need to reopen government. We need to lift the burden of this anxiety over people.

The last thing I will say is, if this backpay bill passes and the President signs it--and we are going pay people, we are going to guarantee their pay--why wouldn't we want them to be serving? If they are going to be paid, wouldn't we want to have them serving Americans rather than not serving Americans during this time?

With that I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, today marks the 21st day of the government shutdown, an unnecessary and shameful government shutdown. We are now tied with the longest shutdown in American history.

A few weeks ago, the President of the United States, President Trump, said he would be ``proud'' to shut down the government if he didn't get his way. This is nothing to be proud of, and the harmful impacts of the shutdown are growing by the day, growing on people throughout this country who are being denied important government services, impacting every American.

We just heard the other day from the Food and Drug Administration that they are no longer going to carry out some of their food safety inspections, putting at risk the American food supply for every American. We heard from the EPA that they are going to be suspending their monitoring of some toxic pollutants, also having a growing harmful impact every day on the country and putting the health of American citizens at risk. So that is nothing to be proud of, nor should any of us be proud of the fact that today marks the first full pay period in this shutdown where Federal employees are going to get no pay. These are civil servants who go to work, when they are allowed to, for the good of our country in all sorts of Agencies, providing fundamental services.

Today--I know you can't read this document from there--they are getting pay stubs, and on the pay stubs in the place where their normal pay period salary should be, there are zeros--zeros.

I just arrived on the Senate floor from a meeting that Senator Cardin, my fellow partner representing the State of Maryland, held in Howard County, MD. We met with 16 Federal employees, most of whom have been locked out of work and all of whom are not getting any paychecks. We wanted to bring them together to hear about the impact this shutdown was having on their lives and on their families.

The first thing they wanted to talk about was that they wanted to get back to work to do the business of the American people. When they are out of work, so many Americans who rely on their efforts are denied the benefit of their work. So they emphasized the fact that their No. 1 priority was to get back to work on behalf of the American people.

We also wanted to hear from them directly about what the impact was on them as individuals and their families because they are now getting a big zero on their pay stubs.

One of the people we heard from was Freda McDonald. She works at FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Administration. She has a chronic medical condition that requires her to get treatments every week. She said she has pretty good insurance to cover most of her health condition, but the insurance doesn't cover the cost of her medication fully, and she needs to get that on a weekly basis. Then, on a weekly basis, the copays amount to hundreds of dollars. So she is going to be squeezed right away on getting access to the medication to treat her medical condition because she got a pay stub with a big zero on it.

We heard from Kerri Woodridge. He works at the Office of Personnel Management. A lot of Americans don't know what that Agency does, but they are the Agency that has to oversee Federal employees throughout the system. If they are not at work, the whole system begins to break down. The first thing he emphasized was the total waste of dollars to the American taxpayer in keeping them out of work because that just creates even more inefficiencies throughout the entire Federal Government when the Office of Personnel Management can't be on the job. He also talked about the fact that he is not going to be able to make his mortgage payments.

There are a lot of Federal employees--thousands and thousands of Federal employees, GS-2s and GS-3s, who are literally one payment from not being able to make their bills. Now their pay is not coming in, but I can tell you their bills are still coming in. Their mortgage payments are coming in, their rent payments are coming in, their medical bills are coming in--all of those bills are coming in, even though their paycheck is not.

Mr. Woodridge talked about the fact that with the upcoming mortgage payment, he didn't think he would be able to make it. He has electric bills. He spoke very passionately about his children because he has a son who has some special needs, and in order to make sure his son can perform well at school, the family has hired a tutor for that child, and he doesn't think he is going to be able to make the payments to the tutor in the coming weeks. He said: Well, the Agency said you should get a lawyer to protect you from the creditors who are coming after you when you can't pay your bills. Mr. Woodridge had a pretty simple question: If I can't afford to pay my bills, how can I afford to hire a lawyer to protect me from the people who are demanding I pay my bills on time?

Eric Bryant, another Federal employee there, an Air Force vet, is someone who served his country in uniform

before serving his country in a civilian capacity for our Federal Government. Thirty percent of our Federal employees are veterans. They served their country in the military, and now they are serving their country in a different way as civil servants in the Federal Government. He said that he had called the electric company to let them know that because he wasn't getting paid, he wasn't sure if he would be able to pay his electric bill on time. Could they take it easy on him? The electric company said: We want our money. Sorry, go find the money to pay the bill on time.

I don't know if they threatened to turn the lights off or not, but people aren't going to be able to pay their mortgages or rents or electric bills or other bills.

There was another Federal employee who took a moment out of work. He is actually not furloughed. He is working because he is part of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, and he has been deemed essential for the public safety. But he came there to let us know that when his colleagues, many of them in the analytics part of Federal law enforcement--the folks who collect DNA, the folks who are tracking suspects, people who are tracking fugitives--when that whole part of Federal law enforcement is furloughed and can't do their job, that puts those who are on the job and in the line of duty at greater risk. He said that it puts their lives at greater risk.

Of course, to the extent that we are compromising and weakening Federal law enforcement in general, we are also putting the public at greater and unnecessary risk every day.

We heard similar accounts from other Federal employees who were there. We also heard from a small Federal contractor. I am sure that all of us are hearing not just from Federal employees but so many small businesses that provide services to the Federal Government in places around the country, and in many cases, they are in danger of going belly-up.

In order to deal with the shutdown and the fact that they may not get paid as a small business by the Federal Government for their services, they also are laying off their employees. Many of these are low-wage employees or median-wage employees. Think about contractors who provide food services to different government agencies or janitorial services. Those employees are also living paycheck to paycheck. They have been told not to come into work. We heard from one that is a nonprofit called Senior Service America that actually helps put seniors to work in jobs around the country. Just a few days ago, this particular Federal contractor in Maryland furloughed--laid off--176 of their employees. These aren't Federal employees being laid off.

In addition to that, these are Federal contractor employees who work for small businesses that contract with the Federal Government. The negative impacts of this are mushrooming by the day, harming families, harming communities, and harming all of the others that also require the economic activity from either Federal employees or small business contractors who help at their restaurants, and that is on top of what I talked about earlier, which is the negative impact of the denial of important services and health protections for the entire American public.

A lot of the concerns expressed this morning by Federal employees also include the long-term impact. If you don't make a mortgage payment on time, that is going to hurt your credit rating. In some cases, for Federal employees who work for National Security Agencies, their ability to keep their security clearance is tied to their credit rating. When you start having your credit rating downgraded, it is going to mean, No. 1, you don't get credit, can't pay your bills, and it also means, in some cases, that you risk your entire livelihood, at least in those Federal Government jobs that require good credit ratings.

None of this is anything that the President of the United States or anybody should be proud of. I do want to say a word with respect to the contract employees. Yesterday, Senator Cardin, Senator Smith, Senator Brown, Senator Kaine, and many Senators--about 30 Senators--wrote to the Office of Management and Budget, wrote to the Trump administration, and asked them to use their contract authority to hold harmless those Federal service contract employees who are being locked out of work through no fault of their own.

I was pleased that just yesterday in this body, on a unanimous basis or by unanimous consent, we passed legislation that would ensure that Federal employees were made whole at the end of the day because they should not be the ones who are punished for a shutdown they had nothing to do with.

Senator Cardin and I and others proposed legislation to ensure that innocent Federal employees should not be the victims of a political fight they had nothing to do with. I am hopeful that later today, the House of Representatives will pass that legislation and the President will sign it. That, of course, would remove a big cloud of uncertainty that hangs over the head of Federal employees who are either working without pay or furloughed and locked out without pay.

It, of course, doesn't deal with the fact that while Federal employees are denied a paycheck, they are not going to be able to make their payments on time on mortgages and rent, and they will have a snowballing, harmful effect from loss of credit rating. There is other legislation that has been introduced by Senator Schatz and I and others to make sure that Federal employees aren't hurt because of their credit impact or by people collecting bills, just as we protect servicemen and women who are deployed overseas to make sure people can't come after them when they are not here and not able to pay their bills. I hope we will pass that legislation.

All of this just goes to show that while Federal employees and the small business service contractors and a growing number of communities that depend on that economic livelihood are being hit by the day, the big losers are also, of course, the American people, both because of the lack of health protections and services and because, at the end of the day, taxpayers want to make sure they are getting services for their tax dollars.

What are we accomplishing with a government shutdown? I must say that when the President of the United States says he can ``relate'' to what is happening, it is pretty clear he can't, right?

I don't know if my colleagues saw the Coast Guard statement the other day on how you are supposed to help make do during the government shutdown. Here is a recommendation that they provide. This is step 4 to supplement your income. They suggest that finding supplemental income during your furlough period might be challenging, but here are a few ideas for adding income:

Have a garage sale--clean out your attic, basement and

closets at the same time.

Sell unwanted larger ticket items through the newspaper or

online.

Give me a break. When the President of the United States says he can relate, I want to see the President of the United States hold a garage sale. This is somebody who goes from Trump Tower to Mar-a-Lago and back to the White House. He can't relate to these fellow Americans, Federal civil servants who, when they miss a paycheck, can't pay their mortgage.

This is why, just yesterday, Senator Cardin and I asked unanimous consent for the Senate to act immediately on two bills that came over from the House to reopen the government because, yes, this is the shutdown that President Trump said that he would be proud to have if he didn't get his way. He is certainly the initiator; he is certainly the protagonist of the shutdown. But every day that goes by when this Senate doesn't do what it can that is within its power to end the shutdown, the Senate is an accomplice in President Trump's shutdown. If we have it within our power to do our job as a separate branch of government, then we should do it. It is not an excuse not to act because the President doesn't like what we propose. Under article I of the Constitution, we are a separate, independent, and coequal branch of government.

Last Thursday, as their very first order of business, the House of Representatives passed two bills. The first bill was H.J. Res. 1. I have a copy of it right here in my hand. What this bill does is reopen the Department of Homeland Security at current funding levels through February 8, to give us all an opportunity to debate the best

and most effective way to provide border security in our country. The dispute here is not about whether we need border security; of course, we need secure borders. We don't want open borders. We need secure borders.

The question is, What is the most effective and smart way to accomplish that? The Presiding Officer is an expert on this. I respect the input he has provided to this body and others. We need a multilayered approach. But the purpose of H.J. Res. 1 was to say: OK, we have some differences over the best way to do that, but let's not shut down the Department of Homeland Security while we debate that. Let's keep it open at least until February 8 at current funding levels and work that out. That is what the House sent to the Senate.

Guess what. With respect to the Department of Homeland Security, it is identical--word for word--to what this Senate passed just before Christmas. We passed it on a voice vote--a big, overwhelming bipartisan vote. That vote was to keep the Department of Homeland Security and other Departments open until February 8.

What is the justification for not having a vote in the Senate on the same thing that we passed by voice vote just a few weeks ago? The answer we get is: Well, the President of the United States doesn't agree with it.

Well, that is too bad. We are a separate branch of government. If the President wants to veto that, let him veto it. Then it comes back here. Under the Constitution, we would have a veto override vote. But we shouldn't be contracting out our responsibilities under the Constitution to the President. Yet the Republican leader, the majority leader, objected to letting us vote again on the same measure that we voted on just before Christmas.

Senator Cardin then offered the other unanimous consent request yesterday. That was to pass legislation to open up the other eight of the nine Federal Departments that are closed--Departments that have nothing to do with Homeland Security, nothing to do with border security.

This legislation was also passed by the House of Representatives on its opening day a week ago Thursday. Here is the kicker. The House didn't take the numbers that the House of Representatives was proposing in the appropriations bills for these Departments; it took the funding levels the Senate had proposed on a bipartisan basis, and the Senate did that on a bipartisan basis in two ways.

First of all, the full Senate voted overwhelmingly--certainly, by a veto-proof margin--to fund eight of those Federal Departments through the remainder of this fiscal year--so through September 30--at levels we agreed to, first, on the Senate Appropriations Committee and then by an overwhelming vote on the Senate floor. The other measures in the bill the House passed were measures the Senate Appropriations Committee, on a bipartisan basis, overwhelmingly supported.

The House said to the Senate: We are going to send you a bunch of bills to open up the government at levels the Senate has already agreed to, in a bipartisan way, one way or another.

Yet the Republican leader, Senator McConnell, on behalf of the caucus, said: No, we are not going to allow a vote to reopen eight of those nine Departments because the President doesn't want it, because the President wants to hold all of those Departments that have nothing to do with homeland security hostage until he gets his wall--a 2,000- mile-long wall.

The irony, of course--and the Presiding Officer knows this--is that the President's own budget for this year was $1.6 billion. That was the President's budget for this year.

I am happy to sit down--and I know all of our colleagues are--to work out the best way to provide border security. As part of an overall approach, we had barriers along parts of our border long before President Trump was in office, but we don't want to be wasting taxpayer dollars. As I said, even the President's budget for this year was not requesting what the President says he now needs.

Let's be straight with the American people. It is not just $5.7 billion--or whatever it is--to build a wall. You are talking about a 2,000-mile-long wall, so you are talking about $30 billion. What the President wants to do is to come back every year and shut down the government until he gets his next installment on a 2,000-mile-long wall that the experts tell us is not the smartest way to provide border security and is certainly not the most cost-effective way.

Let us remember that the President said this was something Mexico was going to have to pay for, not the American taxpayer. I saw him on TV yesterday, when he was down at the border and was trying to explain away that campaign promise: Oh, I didn't really mean Mexico was going to pay for it directly; it was going to be indirectly.

That is just not happening. We know Mexico is not paying for this wall like the President said. That is why, as its first order of business, it is important for the Senate to pass the legislation that is before us that we have already supported on a bipartisan basis. Literally, we have the keys today, if we want to, to pass the bills that would reopen the government and send them to the President. If he doesn't want to sign them, at least we will have done our work as the Senate. We would then face the question of overriding the President's veto to reopen the government.

This is where we are now. As I said, as each day goes by, we have Americans who are being denied more and more services. In addition to the ones I have already mentioned, I have spoken to a lot of small businesses that rely on the Small Business Administration for their small loans in order to get up and running, and I have spoken to a lot of folks in farm country who really rely on farm service credit and farm center services. They are being squeezed very badly.

This is impacting people throughout the country as 80 percent of Federal employees actually live and work outside of the national capital area, and 80 percent of them are folks like the folks along the border. There are TSA officials who are all over the country at airports, and all of them are being asked to go to work every day without pay. They are getting zeros on their pay stubs like the other hundreds of thousands of Federal employees.

It seems to me this is the time for us to act. That is why I have joined with so many of my colleagues to say to the Republican leader, to the majority leader: Let's do our job under the Constitution. Yes, we know what the President's position is, but what is our position? Why are we unwilling to vote on two bills that are before us that reflect the position this Senate has taken on a bipartisan basis already? How can we justify to our constituents and to the people around the country that we are unwilling to take a vote on measures that we know have overwhelming support in the U.S. Senate because we want to somehow reinforce the President in his own political fight?

I am very hopeful that as the days go by, the Republican leader will decide to make sure this body--the U.S. Senate--does its job as a separate branch of government and will take up the bills that will reopen the Federal Government, put people back to work for the American people, make sure Federal employees who are working get paid and that those who have been furloughed will have a chance to go back to work on behalf of the American people.

We have it within our power to do it today. We have it within our power to do it any day now. I hope we will do our part to end this shameful shutdown. By tomorrow, it will be the longest shutdown in American history. The President of the United States may say he is proud of it, but I hope not a single Senator in this body--Republican or Democratic--will be proud to be here on the day in history when we will have broken the record for the longest government shutdown. In my view, that is a dereliction of duty, and it is certainly a dereliction of duty for us not to do our part and use the power we have to take a vote on the bills that are at the desk in the U.S. Senate to reopen the government for the American people.

I see my friend, the Senator from Maine, is now on the floor. I thank him for his leadership in this battle.

Let's do the right thing.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am delighted to follow on the floor the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, who is now hastening for the exit before I can say nice things about him. I want to say he represents Wyoming. We have a place called Wyoming in Delaware just south of Dover--Camden Wyoming--and I go there every week, just as he goes home to Wyoming every week.

His colleague from Wyoming is Mike Enzi, whom our new Presiding Officer, a former Governor, is well familiar with. Mike Enzi had something called the 80-20 rule, and the 80-20 rule goes something like this. I used to ask him: How do you get so much done with Ted Kennedy on the HELP Committee, that you now serve on, Mr. President, and he said: Ted and I agree on 80 percent of the stuff. We disagree on 20 percent of the stuff. He said: Ted and I focus on the 80 percent where we agree and we set aside the other 20 percent to another day.

So I want to just talk about the 80 percent Chairman Barrasso and I agree on and then maybe the 20 percent we can agree to disagree until another day. I appreciate your staying here, but you don't have to. I know you have better things to do than to listen to me.

Something that is being lost in this conversation is, at least to this point in time, there is a reason we have a policy that encourages people to buy electric-powered vehicles. There is a reason we have a tax policy and other policies to encourage people to buy fuel-celled powered vehicles that are fueled by hydrogen. The reason why is because we have way too much carbon dioxide in the air, and it is creating great challenges for these young pages who are sitting down here at your feet, Mr. President. They have a planet to worry about. I will be around for maybe 30 years or more, but I will not be here in the Senate, I assure you, for 30 years or more. They are going to be around here for, gosh, 70, 80, 90 years or more, and they have to worry about this planet, and we have to worry about this planet for them and for our own kids and, eventually, hopefully, for my wife and me, our grandchildren.

We want to make sure they have a planet to live on and to grow up on, and we have way too much carbon, and if we are not careful, it is going to continue to get worse rather than better.

Here recently, just in the last several months, we have had 13 Federal Agencies that have come together to say the situation is even more dire with respect to the threat of climate change, global warming, severe weather than we thought. A month or so before that, an arm, if you will, of the United Nations had a similar kind of report, and the forecast was equally daunting and really frightening.

So the reason we are trying to encourage people to buy electric- powered vehicles and to buy hydrogen-powered vehicles is to reduce carbon in the air.

Why do we care about cars, trucks, vans, and their emissions? The largest source of carbon emissions in this country today is not coal- fired utility plants. It is not cement plants. It is not our buildings. It is our vehicles, our mobile sources, and so that is why we focus on these issues.

The question of whether we need tax incentives forever, permanently, for electric vehicles, I think you can argue we probably don't. The battery technology in this country and this world is getting better and better.

I just want to say to the Presiding Officer who was from Massachusetts and was the Governor there for a number of years, there is a company there--and I think they are still in the Cambridge area-- A123 battery, and they are one of the earlier pioneers in battery technology for vehicles and others.

My son actually was offered an internship there when he was at MIT one summer. So we have been interested in this industry for quite some time.

I go to the Detroit Auto Show just about every year. People ask: Why do you go to the Detroit Auto Show? Up until about 6, 7, 8 years ago, Delaware built more cars, trucks, and vans per capita than any State in the Nation. Think about that. More cars, trucks, and vans per capita than any State in the Nation.

We had a Chrysler plant at one time--4,000 employees in Newark, DE, near the University of Delaware. We had a GM plant--4,000 employees at one time,--very close to Wilmington, DE. We lost them both, like that, at the bottom of the great recession when Chrysler and GM went into bankruptcy, which was a huge blow to the economy of a small State, as you can imagine.

The reason I used to go to the auto show all the time in Detroit was so I would know whoever was running GM, I would know who was running Chrysler, so that if they ever thought about closing our plants, we would have somebody to call and to go see and say: You don't want to do that. We lost them both at the bottom of the great recession.

The reason I tell that story is to explain why I have an interest in the Detroit Auto Show. Eleven years ago at the Detroit Auto Show, at the beginning of the auto show on Monday--it is about a 5-day event-- they have what they call the reveals, and they show all the new cars and the concept cars and everything, all the new technology. Eleven years ago, the car of the year was a Chevrolet Volt, V-o-l-t. The Chevrolet Volt is a classic hybrid. You get about 38 miles per gallon on a charge, and then it ran on gasoline for the rest of maybe 300 miles. That was the car of the year, and they sold a number of them but not huge numbers--not huge numbers.

Ten years later, about a year ago, the car of the year was the Chevrolet Bolt, B-o-l-t. The Chevrolet Bolt is a classic electric vehicle, and it gets about 140 miles--or it did at the time when it was debuted--about 140 miles on a charge, and now more than that, I think.

When I was at the Detroit Auto Show last month, we saw electric- powered vehicles from American car companies, Korean car companies, Chinese companies that get up to 250 miles per charge--250 miles per charge. That is encouraging. What it is going to do is encourage a lot of people who hadn't even thought about buying them to do that.

One of the reasons folks are still reluctant to buy them is because when you drive around the country and you have your electric vehicle or a hydrogen-powered vehicle for a fuel cell, when you are driving around, you need a place to refuel and to recharge, and you can't take the time--well, I have 6 hours to recharge my battery. People don't want to do that. They might be willing to spend 30 minutes to do that and grab something to eat, but they want to be able to recharge their batteries conveniently. They may want to refuel with hydrogen conveniently, but we don't have nearly enough places around the country. We are trying to create new corridors, densely populated corridors, places to recharge batteries and to refuel hydrogen tanks, but we have a lot of work left to do.

So you put that in sort of the mix. I think not just as Americans but as inhabitants of this planet we want to reduce carbon emissions from the largest source of carbon emissions on our planet--mobile sources.

Among the incentives for that right now--I am looking for a new car.

In my minivan, my Chrysler Town & Country, which I bought the year I stepped down as Governor, I just went over 498,000 miles this week. I promised my wife that I would buy a new vehicle when this one went over one-half million miles. I want it to be an electric vehicle, and I want it to have a great distance between charges. I want to make sure we have a lot of charging stations around, not just in Delaware but all over the country, so I can refuel that baby when I save enough money to buy it.

We have this tax credit in place for the first people who buy these cars, and then, basically, we need to make sure we have an investment tax credit around for a good while, and maybe phase it out over time, in order to encourage people and businesses and so forth--like Wawa, for example, and other gasoline stations--so they will be putting in their own money to put in those hydrogen fueling stations and the electric charging stations.

Why is this important? Here is why it is important. We used to measure our rainfall in the country by the inch; we now measure it by the foot. I was speaking with a farmer earlier today, and he told me that last year in Delaware we had twice as much rain as we normally have. They planted their crops in the spring. We raise a lot of soybeans and corn in Delaware. They planted a good crop in spring, and it was washed out. They came back after it dried out and planted a second crop again, and a couple weeks later, it got washed out from the rain, and again the third time. Finally, they just kind of gave up. They gave up, and that is not a good thing.

We had wildfires out in the great Northwest--Northern California, Oregon, Washington, Montana--this last year that were bigger than my State of Delaware.

Right here in Ellicott City, in Maryland, where they have--have you heard of the term ``100-year flood''? A 100-year flood is something that occurs about every 100 years. A 500-year flood is something you would expect to occur every 500 years. In Ellicott City, MD, in the last year or so, they had two 1,000-year floods. Think about that. These are floods that are supposed to occur every 1,000 years. They had two of them in 18 months. That is not good.

It is not just Ellicott City; it happens in other places as well. We have had more category 5 hurricanes than we have ever seen. I think the last 4 years have been the hottest 4 years on our planet. We know that climate change is happening, and this is real. We see the vestiges every day, and we need to do something about it and continue to do more about it going forward.

The good thing about it is, we can do more about it and create economic opportunity. We can reduce bad emissions from cars, trucks, and vans and create economic opportunities.

The auto industry in this country has basically let it be known that they would like to see the regulation put in place by the Obama administration about 3 years or so ago on fuel efficiency standards for cars, trucks, and vans. The auto industry says: You know, we would like to have some flexibility on those standards so that the monitor requirement gets more stringent going forward under the Obama regulation. Other companies have said they would like to have greater flexibility in the near term, maybe 2021 to 2025, and the Obama regulation was silent after the year 2025. They said: We would be willing to handle greater, more rigorous standards going forward after 2025, but give us flexibility in the near term.

I think that is not a bad idea. They say that if we will do that, they can avoid a lawsuit with California and 12 other States that want to make sure California and other States have the ability to set their own fuel efficiency mileage requirements.

The auto industry doesn't want to be involved in litigation with California or anybody else in the next 5 years. They ought to have certainty about the fuel efficiency standards their cars, trucks, and vans are going to have to meet in the years to come. The reason is that they need to make huge investments, and they need a long lead time for these investments. They are competing in an international marketplace against the rest of the world. The rest of the world is going to be willing to produce very efficient electric-powered and hydrogen-fueled cars, and they want to be able to compete with them.

So here is a situation where we can do good things for our planet-- clean our air with respect to climate change--and we can do good things for the auto companies.

(Mr. SCOTT of Florida assumed the Chair.)

I see our new Presiding Officer, who just slipped into his seat. He used to be a Governor, and he used to do a lot of customer calls in Florida. I have done a lot of customer calls in Delaware, asking my businesses three questions: How are you doing? How are we doing? What can we do to help?

When I ask the auto manufacturers what we can do to help, they say: Don't get rid of the electric vehicle credit. The idea of phasing it out over time might be OK--not overnight but over time

The other thing is to make sure we put in place investment tax credits for fueling stations for hydrogen and charging stations for electricity.

The current administration does not take the threat of climate change and severe weather as seriously as the rest of us. In my State we see it every day. Delaware--which, you know, may be 70,

80 miles to our east--is the second smallest State. I like to say it is the 49th largest State in America. But we are sinking, and the seas around us are rising. If you go down the east coast as far as Florida, you will find that in Florida, especially southern Florida, they have similar kinds of problems and concerns. This is real.

What should we do about it? Well, the current administration should not lead a fight, in my judgment, to get rid of the current regulations that I described earlier and put in its place a regulation that basically says there will be little to no increase in fuel efficiency standards as we go forward. I just don't think that is smart, and, in the auto industry, that is not what they are asking for. They are asking for near-term flexibility, longer term certainty, and more rigorous standards. They think that would be good for their bottom line, and they could sell more vehicles.

We had a committee hearing yesterday--actually a markup and business meeting in the Environment and Public Works Committee for the nomination of Andrew Wheeler to be the Administrator of the EPA. We haven't had a Senate-confirmed Administrator for just over--about 1 year, maybe a little more than 1 year.

Scott Pruitt was the first EPA Administrator for this administration--not a friend to the environment and someone who turned out, I think, to be ethically corrupt. He is gone, and Andrew Wheeler is the Acting Administrator; he was the assistant administrator. He has been nominated by the President to be the Administrator for the EPA.

I didn't realize this a couple months ago, but when somebody is in a position like this, when they are the assistant administrator--in this case the EPA--and the person who leaves as the Administrator leaves a vacancy, the President can appoint the assistant administrator as the Acting Administrator. It is kind of like a promotion but in an acting form. That is good for 210 days. Sometimes you may have a situation in which someone is not the assistant administrator of the EPA or an Agency but is just plucked out of the air by the President and plopped in as the Acting Administrator. That person doesn't have 210 days--a period in which they can stay there and do the job as Acting Administrator. Andrew Wheeler does. For all intents and purposes he will be the Administrator in an acting capacity for 210 days.

So we are saying to the administration, to our colleagues on the Environment and Public Works Committee, there is no real need to rush through the nomination until we resolve our differences in a couple of areas, and one of those areas deals with emissions from mobile sources, the greatest source of carbon in our air.

Another issue we have a lot of interest in--the automobile industry does; so does the utility industry; so does the Chamber of Commerce--is a regulation from the last administration that was actually promulgated in 2012. It is called MATS, mercury and air toxics standards. The mercury and toxics standards regulation, basically put in place in 2012, says to the utility industry: You have to reduce your emissions of mercury by 2050.

Why do we care about mercury emissions? Because if you are a pregnant woman and you ingest fish with large amounts of mercury, you may do serious damage to your unborn child. It can also do serious damage to the life of the woman, but the real concern is brain damage for unborn children because of high levels of ingestion of mercury by pregnant women of childbearing age.

We are not talking about something that affects 100 or 1,000 women a year. We are not talking about tens of thousands but literally hundreds of thousands of people who are at risk. So we have in place a MATS mercury and air toxics rule. It was adopted in 2012. The utility companies initially said: Well, we don't like that. We don't want to do that.

Guess what. They did--and at one-third of the cost they expected. It was implemented more quickly than they expected, and the health benefits are greater than they expected.

Now the utility industry, including the rural electric co-ops, including their trade association for utilities, chamber of commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, a whole host of environmental groups and clean air groups--everybody said: Well, we know this MATS rule, the mercury and air toxics rule we are familiar with, and we are complying with it. It is OK. Leave it alone.

The current administration wants to take some steps that would really undermine the ability to uphold that 2012 regulation in a court of law. They are saying they are not doing that, but actually that is the effect of what they are trying to do.

In order to move expeditiously on the nomination of Andrew Wheeler to be the Administrator of EPA, we want to make clear that the mercury and air toxics standards rule does not go away. We are going to comply with what the industry has asked us to do.

The third front I will mention is HFCs--we are really good with acronyms--hydrofluorocarbons. We have refrigerants, and we all have air conditioning in our cars and homes--most of us. We used to use perfluorocarbons in the cooling systems, in our refrigerator systems. They have created real problems for the environment and the atmosphere.

The follow-on product was called HFCs, hydrofluorocarbons. We found this was better for the atmosphere, better for the environment--but not great--and American companies, American technologies have come up with another product to replace HFC. That form of technology is American- owned, and American technology creates American jobs.

We need to adopt and pass a treaty in this country called the Kigali treaty, which makes it clear that the current HFCs, which are coolants for refrigerants, are still a problem, but they can be phased out, and this new technology by American companies can be phased in to take its place. This involves job creation in this country. We are not talking about a couple of hundred jobs; we are talking about thousands of jobs--good-paying jobs in this country, bringing economic value to American companies--not measured in millions of dollars but billions of dollars every year. It is there for us.

This is a situation in which American technology can do good things for our environment, for our atmosphere, for our air, and at the same time create jobs, American jobs using American technology.

I might mention one more, something called--and I just want to say that the EPA is standing in the way of the administration's submitting for our approval in the Senate this treaty called the Kigali treaty. Apparently, the State Department wants to submit the treaty for our consideration. The Commerce Department wants to submit the treaty for our administration, and the EPA is standing in the way. I don't really understand why, but before we move expeditiously on the nomination of Mr. Wheeler, the administration should say: OK, we are not messing with the treaty.

Most of the administration thinks they ought to submit it, and, frankly, so do the rest of us. It is one of those deals, again, that is good for environment, good for public health, creates jobs--win-win.

The last one I want to mention is PFOA. I wish I can tell you what it stands for, but it is a long name. One of the things we found out is that in places where we have military bases--where we have firefighting equipment for planes, air crashes and so forth, and we use that type of firefighting equipment--sometimes the water runs off the tarmac, off the runways and the parking areas, and it gets into groundwater and creates problems with our drinking water. These are substances that are known carcinogens, and we have seen in places around the country-- including places like West Virginia, where I was born, and North Carolina, where my wife is from--this is a real problem. We are not saying--nobody is saying, at least to my knowledge--that it ought to be completely banned. This family of elements, the PFAS and PFOA--we are not asking for a ban; we just want a clean water drinking standard established by the EPA. That is what we want in 2 years--not today, not tomorrow, but in 2 years, creating clean water so that people can be protected.

Those are four things we are asking for the administration to take action on and to make clear. To the extent it

does, we are then prepared to move forward on the nomination, right here, for Andrew Wheeler. My guess is, he will get confirmed, but I think it is important for us to address those particular issues.

At the end of the day, we will improve the quality of life for the people in our country. At the same time, we will create jobs. That is a great combination. It is a real win-win. We can seize the day and win on behalf of our young people and our not so young people. At the same time, we can create a lot of jobs and enhance economic activity. We ought to do that. If we do, the EPA will end up with an Administrator-- one who will be a lot better than the last one. Let's do that.

I thank the Presiding Officer.

I yield to my friend, the chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Grassley.