Floor Statements

Mr. President, now on nominations, today the Senate will continue our work to confirm President Biden's nominees. We will begin by confirming Ronald Keohane, a proud Buffalo, NY, native, as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, and I am proud to support this great New Yorker.

Mr. Keohane is exceptionally qualified for this position, having served in various support roles for our servicemembers and their families during his 30-year career. He served in the Obama administration in a similar role as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Military Community and Family Policy.

So Mr. Keohane is the right man for the job because he understands the value of caring for our servicemembers and their families.

Mr. President, off the floor, the Senate is also moving forward with more of President Biden's judicial nominees.

I just returned from the Judiciary Committee, where I had the honor of introducing Judge Sanket Bulsara, whom I recommended to President Biden to serve as a district judge for the Eastern District of New York.

Judge Bulsara made history in 2017 as the first South Asian-American judge to serve in any court within the Second Circuit when appointed as a magistrate judge for the Eastern District of New York.

New York's South Asian population, I am proud to say, is one of the very fastest growing in New York. We have the largest South Asian community in a metropolitan area in the country, and these folks are hard-working. They raise good families. They make sure they do everything they can to see their children have better lives than they do, often through education and study and hard work.

They are law-abiding, and they are just great Americans, part of the American dream. And so I feel proud when they are elevated to an exalted position like Federal judge.

Judge Bulsara is the epitome of the American dream, just like so many in the South Asian community. He is the proud son of hard-working immigrant parents from Kenya and India, and a graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Law School. He has considerable experience in both the public and private sectors. If confirmed, Judge Bulsara would make an exceptional addition to the Eastern District, and I am very proud to champion his nomination.

I move that the Senate concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment.

Cloture Motion

Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.

I move to concur in the House amendment with an amendment numbered 1618, which is at the desk.

I ask that further reading be dispensed with.

I ask for the yeas and nays on the motion to concur with the amendment.

I have an amendment to amendment No. 1618, which is at the desk.

I ask that further reading be dispensed with.

I move to refer the House message to the Committee on Appropriations with instructions to report back forthwith with an amendment numbered 1620.

I ask that further reading be waived.

I ask for the yeas and nays on my motion.

I have an amendment to the instructions, which is at the desk.

I ask that further reading be waived.

I ask for the yeas and nays on my amendment.

I have an amendment to amendment No. 1621, which is at the desk.

I ask that further reading of the amendment be waived.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, in this criminal case pending in Federal district court in the District of Columbia and arising out of the events of January 6, 2021, the prosecution has requested testimony from a Senate witness.

In this case, brought against Jay Matthew Kenyon, trial is expected to commence on March 11, 2024, and the prosecution has requested testimony from Daniel Schwager, formerly counsel to the Secretary of the Senate, concerning his knowledge and observations of the process and constitutional and legal bases for Congress' counting of the Electoral College votes. Senate Secretary Berry would like to cooperate with this request by providing relevant testimony in this trial from Mr. Schwager.

In keeping with the rules and practices of the Senate, this resolution would authorize the production of relevant testimony from Mr. Schwager, with representation by the Senate legal counsel.

Mr. President, I understand there is a bill at the desk due for a second reading.

In order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I would object to further proceeding.

Mr. President, today I come to the floor with good news. HHS and CMS has heeded my call from last Friday to provide hospitals and providers immediate relief in the aftermath of the devastating cyber attack asking for ransom. The announcement by CMS today will get cash flowing to providers while our healthcare system works to get fully back online after this attack.

It is an extremely encouraging first step, but the systems of many of the providers are complicated and they are varied, so I urge CMS to be persistent and patient as they work to get all the providers on board; and I will work with CMS to make sure that happens.

As you know, across New York and across America, tens of thousands of hospitals, pharmacies, doctors' offices, and other healthcare providers are still reeling from one of the worst cyber attacks ever launched on our healthcare system.

The February 21 attack against Change Healthcare, which is responsible for processing billions of insurance and payment claims annually for healthcare providers, has thrown providers, including hospitals and pharmacies, into a crisis. For nearly 2 weeks, they have been unable to submit medical claims; and many providers are facing imminent insolvency as cash reserves are drying up.

Yesterday, I was in Ithaca and met with Rome Health and Cayuga Health who told me they are losing hundreds of thousands of dollars every single day with stacks of claims nearly two feet high that they can't file.

Americans, meanwhile, are struggling to refill prescriptions, having their care delayed or denied and are unable to use patient assistance programs they need to stay healthy. Our hospitals, particularly our smaller ones without a cushion of cash reserve, could have ended up laying off people and not providing services had CMS not stepped up to the plate. I am so glad they did.

Probably even worse, our small pharmacies who have no financial cushion

could have ended up shutting down and would have told millions of patients, millions of customers that they can't provide the medicines these customers need because they were not getting reimbursed.

This was a crisis, so last Friday, I called upon HHS and CMS to use their authority to accelerate payments to our hospitals and impacted providers. Hospitals and providers need help from the Federal Government so they can focus on their main mission as much as possible, which is providing care for their patients. I warned that the longer this crisis persists, the harder it will be for hospitals and other providers to stay open.

Today, I am pleased to see that HHS and CMS are heeding my call. This is a huge shot in the arm and will provide immediate relief to hospitals and providers, just like we saw during COVID. CMS had the ability to do this; and during COVID, when providers also were not being reimbursed, they filled the void. And I am glad they are doing it again.

What CMS has done is an encouraging first step, but the work cannot stop until every affected provider has the financial stability to weather this storm. We need CMS to cut through the redtape to make sure these advanced payments are done right. The systems of the different providers are varied. Some are very complicated. We need CMS to be both persistent and flexible.

And, of course, we have asked the FBI and other Justice Department Agencies to find out who these awful perpetrators of this ransomware were to put them out of business and see if they can seek punishment, depending on the country that these providers came from.

I thank the administration for its swift action, and I encourage it to do more. I will work daily with the administration and providers alike until the situation is resolved.

Mr. President, now on government funding, well, it is the start of a busy and consequential week in Congress. Thursday evening, President Biden will deliver his annual State of the Union Address to the American people, where he will share the immense progress we have made as a country to bring down costs, strengthen our economy, and protect our country from threats around the world.

On Friday, Congress will face another funding deadline, whereupon the government will start shutting down unless both Chambers work quickly, decisively, and with bipartisan cooperation. On that front, we are, thankfully, off to a very, very good start. Sunday evening, negotiators reached a long-sought, bipartisan and bicameral funding deal on the first six appropriations bills. And we did it--we passed these bills-- without devastating cuts or poison pill riders pushed by the MAGA right.

It has not been easy to complete the appropriations process in a divided government, but after a lot of persistence, we now have six bills that will preserve significant investments for American families, for moms and children, for America's clean energy, for America's veterans, and more.

It took a lot of work to make it happen. Appropriators worked through the entire weekend, so did my staff--so did I, in fact--and we have been working on this every day for months.

The important thing now is for both Chambers to move quickly. The House is set to take up these appropriations bills tomorrow, where, hopefully, they will pass. And as soon as the House sends the appropriations bills over to the Senate, I will put these bills on the floor so we can have them on President Biden's desk before Friday's deadline.

But the clock is ticking, and because of the State of the Union on Thursday, we need to cooperate to move extra fast to get these bills through. Between now and Friday, the watchwords for the Senate will be ``cooperation'' and ``speed.''

Now, let me take a moment to highlight some of the ways these appropriations bills will make a difference for the American people. This appropriations process--or this appropriations agreement--is a success in at least two ways: One, we protected almost all of the good investments for the American people and, two, we resisted practically all of the nasty riders from the MAGA right.

To moms and kids who rely on nutrition programs, you will be taken care of. Despite immense opposition from the other side, this agreement fully funds the WIC Program, meaning no mom or kid will be denied the nutrition assistance they qualify for. It is exceedingly good news that, in divided government, we were able to keep WIC whole, and I thank Senator Murray for her good, hard work on this issue, as well as Congress Member DeLauro.

Through this agreement, we will also protect funding to help Americans, especially rural Americans, to keep a roof over their head and afford the rent. We will increase funding for programs that support our veterans' health and wellbeing.

Child nutrition, including school lunch programs, school breakfast programs, and summer EBT programs remain fully funded. That means we will be able to provide nearly 5 billion school lunches and 2\1/2\ billion breakfasts to kids across America next year.

America's roads, bridges, and highways will get the funds they need for repairs and updates. We will be able to hire more air traffic controllers, food inspectors, and rail safety inspectors to keep Americans safe.

We will preserve pay raises for our Federal firefighters, and we will strengthen funding for cutting-edge scientific research.

I am also happy that we prevented the hard right from tainting these appropriations bills with devastating cuts and highly partisan policy riders.

Again, we fought hard to protect funding to build more affordable housing and provide nutrition assistance to low-income Americans, and we defeated the hard right's attempts to add even more restrictions to women's healthcare.

And even though the hard right tried repeatedly to undermine Democrats' clean energy agenda, we preserved practically all the progress we have made to fight climate change, while protecting critical jobs at the EPA.

So I am very glad and proud we have been able to reach such a strong agreement under divided government.

I thank Speaker Johnson, Leader Jeffries, Leader McConnell, Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray and Vice Chair Susan Collins, and all the staff who have dedicated so much work to get us to this point.

This agreement gives us much needed momentum to finish the next package of spending bills by the March 22 deadline. Once again, it will only be bipartisanship--only bipartisanship--that will get us across the finish line, as has proven in the past. We will keep working--keep working--until we finish the job.

Mr. President, now on over-the-counter birth control, as hard-right Republicans continue their all-out assault on reproductive rights, the American people just received some very big news: The first-ever over-the-counter birth control pill is headed to stores later this month.

The introduction of a safe, effective, over-the-counter birth control pill is a promising step toward improving access to contraception. The pill, Opill, will be available very soon at major stores and pharmacies and online, for anyone to buy without needing a prescription. It will be a new avenue for Americans to access reproductive care, so critical today as reproductive care comes under greater attack by the hard right.

Hard-right Republicans have shown they have no restraint when it comes to ripping away reproductive rights after the disastrous Dobbs decision. Whether it is pushing for a national abortion ban, as the hard right has been doing for decades; or blocking promotions of hundreds of military officers in protest of women in the military getting access to reproductive care, as one Republican Senator did repeatedly last year; or even threatening access to in vitro fertilization, as the Republican majority Alabama Supreme Court did, followed by Senate Republicans blocking legislation to protect IVF last week, Republicans have made it beyond clear they have not yielded one bit in their radical anti-women, anti-choice agenda.

That is why this historic announcement of an over-the-counter birth control pill is so important. It lands a blow against those who are trying so desperately to limit access to reproductive care.

Democrats, meanwhile, will continue fighting to make sure everyone who needs birth control can get it and to improve women's healthcare, women's access to healthcare, and the affordability of healthcare.

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.

I would note that that is Buffalo, NY, of which we are proud.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to legislative session.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 506.

Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.

I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call for the cloture motion filed today, March 5, be waived.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, now on the border, today, President Biden will visit the

U.S. border at Brownsville, TX, where he will meet with local leaders and border enforcement agents. Three hundred miles up the Rio Grande, Donald Trump is expected to visit the border at Eagle Pass, TX.

When President Biden and Donald Trump visit the border today, Americans will see a glaring contrast between the sitting President who negotiated the strongest border bill we have seen in years and a former President exploiting the border for political gain and making sure nothing gets done.

President Biden knows the border is a serious problem. So look at what he has done: He sat down with Republicans to draft the strongest, most comprehensive border security bill America has seen in decades. And we worked with him here in the Senate to make that happen.

Let me say that again: President Biden knows the border is a serious problem, and that is why he sat down with Republicans to draft the strongest, most comprehensive border bill America has seen in decades.

But what did Donald Trump do? Donald Trump deliberately sabotaged the very same border reforms he spent years calling for because he wants to exploit the border for the campaign trail. He explicitly took credit for the bill going down. ``Please, blame it on me''--those were his words.

It was Donald Trump who sabotaged the bill with dramatic updates to asylum. It was Donald Trump who sabotaged a bill that reformed parole authority. It was Donald Trump who sabotaged the bill that provided new resources to Border Patrol agents. And it was Donald Trump who sabotaged the bill endorsed by the Border Patrol union, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and the Chamber of Commerce--hardly liberal groups.

So when Donald Trump goes in front of the cameras to lament the mess at the border, he should look in the mirror--he should look in the mirror--because he is the one who tanked the best chance we have seen in ages to fix it. Until Donald Trump said ``oppose it,'' it would have passed here in the Senate and even in the House. And when Republicans in Congress say they will shut the government down or bring this legislative process to a halt unless we fund the border, that is bull, because they are the ones who blocked the deal.

Republicans are the ones exacerbating the border by pushing things like H.R. 2, which not only did not get a single Democratic vote, it wouldn't even solve the problem--it wouldn't even solve the problem.

And, again, as I have reminded Speaker Johnson over and over again, he can't do anything without bipartisanship when we have divided government. So to simply write what you want and put it for a vote when it gets no Democratic votes is a path to not solving the problem but, in a sense, doing the same thing Donald Trump did: use it for political purposes, say the problem isn't solved for political purposes when you are the ones who prevented the problem from being solved.

Republicans cannot--cannot--claim to be serious about fixing the border while voting against the very same border policies they have spent years calling for. Republicans can't can be serious about fixing the border when they say it is an emergency, and then when they have a chance to stop it, they refuse for crass political purposes.

That is what happened in the last few weeks, and Democrats will make sure the American people know it.

Mr. President, yesterday, congressional leaders announced that we have come to an agreement to avoid a shutdown this weekend. So we can finish our work to fund the Federal Government for the rest of the year.

The House is set to vote today on extension of government funding until March 8 and March 22.

Once the House acts, I hope the Senate can pass the short-term CR as soon as tonight, but that will require all of us working together. There is certainly no reason this should take a very long time. So let's cooperate and get it done quickly.

I am very glad we got this done before Friday's deadline. I worked very hard with Chair Murray, Vice Chair Collins, and all the appropriators to reach this agreement. It is consistent with the top- line agreement I reached with the Speaker back in January, without the unacceptable poison pill riders that we said would not fly.

As I said directly to the Speaker over and over and over again, the only way to get things done here is with bipartisanship, and this agreement is another proof point.

This agreement is proof that when the four leaders work together, when bipartisanship is prioritized, when getting things done for the American people takes a high priority, good things can happen even in divided government. And I hope this sets the stage for Congress to finish the appropriations process in a bipartisan way very soon.

On top of all that, I am very glad the American people won't have to deal with the pain of a government shutdown. Even a partial shutdown would have threatened services for moms and children, would have hurt our veterans, would have hurt farmers, home buyers, law enforcement, and so much more. Thankfully, we are on track to avoiding all of that.

If there is anything that this appropriations process has made abundantly clear, it is this: When serious-minded Democrats and serious-minded Republicans engage each other with a desire to get things done, good things happen even in divided government. We avoid shutdowns. We invest in the American people. And we make our country stronger.

Mr. President, now, on Ukraine, in the meeting with President Biden and congressional leaders earlier this week, I relayed what President Zelenskyy told me when I visited Ukraine: If Ukraine gets the aid they need, they will win the war. If they don't get those armaments, they will almost certainly lose.

Russia's recent advancements haven't been because of a lack of a Ukrainian plan or lack of a will to fight or a lack of courage or strength or dedication on behalf of the Ukrainian President and the Ukrainian people. I can assure you that after meeting with President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people, their resolve to win the war is stronger than ever. Russia's advancements have come simply because the Ukrainians are running out of ammunition.

If we don't provide this aid ASAP, not only will Ukraine lose the war but the United States will lose out to the Putins, the Xis, and the other autocratic heads of state. We will lose out. The American people will lose out over the next decades economically, militarily, diplomatically, and politically.

So I say to Speaker Johnson, this is a true turning point for America--for our strength, for our credibility on the world stage, for our national security. Speaker Johnson, please don't shrink from this moment. Let the supplemental bill, which passed with 70 votes here in the Senate, move forward. History--history--is watching you.

(The remarks of Mr. Schumer pertaining to the introduction of S. 4 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')