Floor Statements

Mr. President, every single day, millions of hard- working Americans report to work to serve their communities and their country. They are known to our government as civil servants, but I want to be clear about who they really are.

These civil servants are the more than 300 air traffic controllers at the Albuquerque Sunport and airports across New Mexico who keep us safe in the air. They are the wildland firefighters battling catastrophic forest fires each year. They are the FBI agents who are working to get drug cartels out of our communities. They are the rangers taking care of our national parks and the civil engineers who manage and restore our watersheds. They are the Federal customs officers and border agents who enable trade at our southern border and stop fentanyl before it enters our country. They are the inspectors and scientists who ensure the safety of our food and our medicine, and they are the countless workers who ensure our elders receive their Social Security checks on time.

These are the unsung heroes in our Federal civil service. The impact of their work touches every single person in our State and our country. They deserve our respect and our gratitude, not an all-out attack against them. But while these civil servants have done the quiet work of keeping our government working, Donald Trump is singlehandedly forcing a partial government shutdown and throwing the lives of hard- working civil servants into chaos.

We are barely 3 weeks into this new Trump administration, and it is abundantly clear that Donald Trump and his team have taken his narrow victory as a license to run roughshod over all laws, norms, and even the Constitution. Trump and Elon Musk are attempting an unlawful, hostile takeover of the most basic Federal Government operations, functions that so many Americans depend on.

Over the course of the last 2 weeks, Trump has threatened mass layoffs of civil servants and closures of entire Federal Agencies. Trump and Elon Musk's DOGE minions have forced access to the Federal payments system. This system contains Americans' private data as well as classified information and processes government payments that make up more than one-fifth of the U.S. economy.

And I wish I were making this up, but it is true. According to a report in WIRED, a 25-year-old engineer from Musk's DOGE group has gained direct access to the Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly all payments made by the Federal Government. This is someone whose only other experience is working for Musk at other places--at SpaceX and Twitter. This unelected, unvetted member of Musk's DOGE team reportedly has administrator-level privileges. Normally, access privileges to this highly secure system are reserved for high-level professionals with years and years of experience at the Treasury Department.

This breach by Elon Musk's DOGE minions may expose the system to irreversible damage, undermining our individual privacy rights and our country's economic and national security. And many of us will simply not stand for it.

On top of this, Trump triggered a vast and ongoing blockade of congressionally appropriated Federal funds, the impacts of which are still reverberating across the Nation.

The ``masterminds'' behind this whole mess: Trump, Elon Musk, and-- yes--Russell Vought, Trump's nominee to lead the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Let's talk about Mr. Vought and his plans. Mr. Vought was the lead architect at the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, the blueprint for Trump's dismantling of the Federal Government. He has spent years crafting plans to circumvent Congress, our Constitution, and, of course, the law.

Let me read to you directly from Mr. Vought's statements in his own words. In a private speech last year, at his far-right Center for Renewing America think tank, Mr. Vought stated that he would like to put career civil servants ``in trauma.''

Mr. Vought said:

We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When

they wake up in the morning, we want them not to want to go

to work because they are increasingly viewed as villains. We

want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can't do

all of the rules against our energy industry because they

have no bandwidth financially to do so.

He laid out how he would do this in his chapter of the Heritage Foundation Project 2025 playbook for the incoming Trump administration White House. He wrote there:

The great challenge confronting a conservative President is

the existential need for aggressive use of the vast powers of

the executive branch.

He went on to say:

Success in meeting that challenge will require a . . .

boldness to bend or break the bureaucracy.

Meaning bending and breaking our career civil servants who carry out laws passed here by Congress.

As the OMB Director at the end of the last Trump administration, Mr. Vought was the lead architect of the President's fiscal year 2021 budget proposal that called for $500 billion cut from Medicare, $900 billion cut from Medicaid, $71 billion cut from Social Security--yes, Social Security--$76 billion cut from disability programs, zeroing out entire Federal programs, including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Legal Services Corporation, community development block grants, and community services block grants--all to pave the way for Trump to double down on his tax breaks for billionaires.

At his Center for Renewing America think tank, Mr. Vought drafted a 2023 budget plan entitled ``A Commitment to End Woke and Weaponized Government.'' This is the playbook that Trump and Musk are already running to freeze Federal funding, dismantle and dismember Federal Agencies, and seize the power of the purse from Congress, where the Constitution put it.

That plan called for extending Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy by slashing Medicaid by $2.1 trillion, SNAP by $400 billion, and eliminating the Affordable Care tax credits that help folks afford healthcare coverage. Mr. Vought has also openly admitted his intentions to challenge the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which enforces Congress's constitutional power of the purse.

During his confirmation hearing last month, Mr. Vought said he believes the President can just overrule Congress in deciding how to spend taxpayer dollars, despite constitutional authority and the law to the contrary. Mr. Vought said the President ran on the notion that the Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional. I agree with that. Last time I checked, that was up to the Supreme Court and our court systems.

Mr. Vought has already made clear how he would use his role--or I should say abuse his role--as OMB Director to politicize the Agency and bend it to the whims of the President. In Project 2025, Vought wrongly stated that OMB has the only statutory tools in the White House that are powerful enough to override implementing the Agency's bureaucracies. What this really means is overriding the law, duly enacted here in Congress and signed by the President.

Mr. Vought has also questioned the very ideas of independent Federal Agencies. In fact, in an interview last November with Tucker Carlson, Mr. Vought said:

Number one is going after the whole notion of independence.

There are no independent agencies. Congress may have viewed

them as such--the SEC or the FCC, the CFPB, the whole

alphabet soup. But the whole notion of an independent agency

should be thrown out. You can apply the concept of destroying

independence at every agency.

Mr. Vought has called OMB a President's air traffic control system with the ability and charge to ensure that all policy initiatives are flying in sync and with the authority to let planes take off and at times ground planes that are flying off course.

Do we really trust a man hell-bent on slashing Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, defying Congress, and destroying independent Federal Agencies to be an air traffic controller?

Let me be clear. My constituents in New Mexico did not vote for this. And my office has been fielding thousands of phone calls, letters, and emails from New Mexicans who are upset, angry, and frustrated that President Trump, Elon Musk, and Russell Vought are breaking laws and shredding the Constitution in a bid to upend the basic functions of our government.

Here is a little bit of a taste of what New Mexicans are telling me. Arthur from Rio Rancho called my office to tell me he is concerned about how Trump and Vought's plans to dismantle the Department of Education will impact his son and millions of other students with disabilities.

Arthur said:

I have a son who is autistic and nonverbal with an

individual education plan. Dismantling the Department of

Education will not only impact him, but it will devastate all

public schools and hurt students like my son who have

disabilities. This will strip away any rights and protections

for millions of students. Trump and Elon need to be sent a

clear message: Education is a fundamental right, not a

privilege for the wealthy.

A constituent from Albuquerque who requested anonymity is worried about his job as a Federal civil servant because of Vought's agenda. He wrote to me:

I am a U.S. Forest Service employee. Most of us are now

afraid of losing our jobs and of, among other things, the

demand for loyalty. This makes it difficult to work in the

manner that we wish to--efficiently, effectively, and to do

well for the land and all citizens.

Marissa from Santa Fe is hesitant to start a family because of the uncertainty caused by Musk, Trump, and Vought. Marissa wrote to me:

I am really terrified at the idea that so much of the

Federal Government is being dismantled by someone who was

never nominated to a position of power. I want to be able to

start a family, but how can I do that without fear of knowing

that this man and the GOP are destroying any chance of that

happening?

Holly from Albuquerque, a public school teacher, is also deeply worried about Trump and Vought's intentions to dismantle the Department of Education and what this could mean for her students, fellow teachers, and her financial security. She wrote:

As an educator for 22 years here in New Mexico, I know

firsthand the struggles that our families and students and

educators are facing in the classroom, and we really need

access to the Federal support that we get. Whether it is

title I, special education money, or grants, I don't know how

we're going to operate our schools effectively without that.

I am also worried about my pension as a public school

educator. I am supposed to be eligible for retirement in 3\1/

2\ years, and I have dedicated my life to the students of New

Mexico.

Today, I say to the thousands of New Mexicans who have asked me to oppose Mr. Vought's nomination: I agree with you. Mr. Vought is unfit to lead the OMB. We should reject this dangerously unfit nominee before he dismantles the services that New Mexicans rely on. We should reject him before he unilaterally overrides the laws that Americans' elected representatives have passed.

We cannot stand by and allow Mr. Vought, Elon Musk, or even this President to disregard the safety and security of the American people, and the law is on our side.

In the last week, two Federal courts have issued restraining orders on Trump's directives. I want to read a few short words from what the judges have said:

The Executive's action unilaterally suspends the payment of

federal funds to the States and others simply by choosing to

do so, no matter the authorizing or appropriating statute,

the regulatory regime, or the terms of the grant itself. The

Executive cites no legal authority allowing it to do so;

indeed, no federal law would authorize the Executive's

unilateral action here.

The court continued by dismissing Trump's arguments justifying the funding freeze, declaring:

The Executive Branch has a duty to align federal spending

and action with the will of the people as expressed through

congressional appropriations, not . . . ``Presidential

priorities.''

These court rulings represent battles won, but this war to defend the Constitution and stability in this Nation is far from over.

We won't stop until Trump, Musk, and Vought follow the law and abide by the Constitution. That means respecting Federal workers. It means ending the unilateral and unlawful freeze of appropriated funds for projects from the Eastern New Mexico Rural Water Project to the Red Top Water Development Project.

I have said it before and I will say it again: This is not a game. This is a nation of laws, and just like you, every one of us here in this body swore to defend the Constitution. Mass layoffs of Federal workers, working to disband the Department of Education or the EPA or the National Science Foundation, abusing the FBI, handing over access to more than one-fifth of our economy and the private data of every single American taxpayer without any regard for the risk that you are creating for our national security--that is not defending this Nation of laws; it is not following the Constitution; it is not putting public service or even America first. It looks a lot like tyranny. It needs to stop.

``We the People'' is the first phrase of the U.S. Constitution, and that is exactly who Republicans in charge of the Senate, the House, and the White House--the people who can stop this need to hear from you.

So to all Americans wondering what can be done right now, rise up your voice, call your Member of Congress, call your Senators, call the White House, call the Treasury Department, comment on your Republican representatives' social media channels, write op-eds in your local newspaper telling how you are impacted. Make sure that Republicans know that we the people are paying attention, that we will hold them accountable for following the law, upholding the Constitution. Make sure to let your lawmakers know when you support the work that they are doing so that they continue to do it. And let Federal civil servants know that you support them and that you want them to keep doing their jobs and doing them well.

I will continue to stand up to this chaos, to this lawlessness, and as part of that work, I will vote no on Russell Vought.

For our air traffic controllers, I vote no.

Mr. President, in an overnight maneuver on Monday, President Trump unlawfully and unilaterally blockaded much of the Federal budget. Hitting ``send'' on a two-page memo, the Trump administration triggered a chaotic 24 hours that has thrown every town, county, Tribe, nonprofit, doctor's office, hospital, nursing home, school, and preschool in my State into disarray. From New Mexico's Roundhouse--our capitol--to the classroom, to the emergency room, there were a thousand questions and zero answers.

Now the Trump administration has both withdrawn and not withdrawn this blockade. In so-called clarifications, President Trump has made things about as clear as mud, but here are three things that are crystal clear: First, President Trump's funding blockade was blatantly unconstitutional and illegal; secondly, it has caused real harm; and third, this was a test run where chaos was actually the point.

If you are trying to follow the news and getting confused, it is not you. If you heard that President Trump blocked all Federal Medicaid reimbursements, you heard correctly. If you

heard that the White House claimed Federal Medicaid reimbursements were exempt from the blockade, you also heard correctly. If you heard that despite being allegedly exempt, Medicaid reimbursement was still blocked, you heard correctly. Same story for Head Start, same goes for food assistance, or SNAP, and for school lunches, and that list goes on and on and on.

Even today, after a Federal court ruled that the Trump administration had to pause the pause, I am still getting reports of organizations that cannot access Federal funding portals. In the midst of all of that, there are very real consequences.

Let's just take Medicaid just for a start. Almost a quarter of my State's budget moves through the Medicaid portal--the one that was shut down yesterday. Eight billion dollars in Federal Medicaid funding comes to New Mexico every single year. Millions and millions of dollars' worth of Medicaid reimbursement happen on that portal in any given day.

Seven out of ten nursing home residents, 55 percent of newborn births, more than 700,000 people in total in my State depend on Medicaid for their healthcare. Because a Medicaid blockade would impact over a third of New Mexico's population, it really impacts all of our healthcare providers, from small, rural clinics to our largest hospitals.

Shutting that down is a big deal, but it wasn't just that. I heard from childcare and Head Start providers, rental assistance programs, Tribal governments, local law enforcement, fire departments, and nonprofit organizations that provide everything from support to our veterans to healthy meals for seniors and families.

We need to call out Trump's brazen action for what it truly is. It is a power grab and a test to see just how much he can get away with. President Trump and his cronies are testing how far they can go to dismantle and dismember our democracy in service of his strongman impulses and his ideological agenda.

Our message to him: The stove is hot, Mr. President. You should remember that.

The Constitution and Federal law are clear on who controls the spending of our taxpayer dollars. The President cannot simply override or delay or rescind Congress's appropriations bills once they are signed into law--full stop.

This has been upheld time and again by the Supreme Court, by the Justice Department, the Government Accountability Office, and it was codified into law in the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. Under that law, the President cannot unilaterally stop the disbursement of Federal funds that Congress has appropriated and the President has signed into law. Sound familiar? A President unilaterally stopping the disbursement of Federal funds that Congress has appropriated? Yes. This is exactly what President Trump just tried.

As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I know how much work goes into writing and passing our bipartisan funding laws.

I am here now talking on the Senate floor because I will fight like hell to stop this or any of Trump's brazen, illegal funding blockades, and I am not alone. I am joined by my colleagues here in the Senate on the Senate floor tonight, my colleagues in the New Mexico Federal delegation, my State's attorney general, and countless of my constituents.

Now, let me read just a few letters that I received from New Mexicans over these last 2 days:

Tamborah from Deming, who depends on Social Security disability benefits and Medicaid, was scared she would not be able to keep up with rent or basic necessities during the pause.

Tamborah wrote to me:

I will not be able to pay full price rent. My heart is

filled with uncertainty. I am afraid for my neighbors with

children. It has saddened my heart to see so many people

including myself become unsure of the future.

Caitlin from Taos wrote to my office expressing concern for her safety and security should DreamTree, a federally funded youth shelter in northern New Mexico, shutter its services due to Trump's pause.

She wrote:

Without DreamTree, I wouldn't have a roof over my head,

which would cause a lot of worry and fear, being vulnerable

to sexual assault, which happened to me in the past.

DreamTree is not just a program: it's home, it's my safe

space.

Dolores from Albuquerque is fearful she won't be able to make ends meet if she loses her job because of the freeze.

She wrote to me:

Please help! I am a senior citizen trying to make ends

meet. I am alone paying my own bills. I work in the Senior

Community Service Employment Program and President Trump's

administration is going to cut the funding. I won't be able

to pay my bills. I am so afraid.

Shelley from Albuquerque, a dietitian, nutritionist, is scared for the very lives of her patients who depend on Medicaid to survive.

She wrote to me:

Those I serve on the Developmental Disabilities Waiver are

Medicaid recipients, and some rely 100 percent on the

specialized formula for tube feeding.

To reiterate, they get 100 percent of their nutrition from that formula, primarily through a tube in their stomach. If they do not have it, they will starve.

Louis from Las Cruces is concerned that his grandson won't be able to support his family if President Trump's border eliminates NIH funding and consequently his grandson's job.

Louis wrote to me:

My grandson graduated with honors from [New Mexico State

University]. He is the recipient of an NIH grant which has

been suspended. He has a wife and child. I don't think the

President understands his actions affect real people.

Joan from Santa Fe has already lost money due to Trump's funding freeze. Joan wrote:

I've just lost a $5,000 contract, and this order is going

to have a negative ripple effect through the economy. Please

protect federal workers from the Trump administration's purge

and harassment.

Mara from Albuquerque, who is a biomedical student at the University of New Mexico doing cancer research and is fearful of what this freeze means for her job and ability to do this important work, wrote:

I am personally affected by this pause because of the NIH

grants that sustain my lab and pay the salaries of my staff

and students. These grants were applied for and awarded in

good faith and they pay for extremely important cancer

research.

Melissa from Albuquerque is a Head Start childcare provider and has a son at Head Start. Melissa wrote to me:

I am employed by Head Start. My son is a student at Head

Start. I believe in what we do, I believe in the men and

women I work with. These teachers change children's lives. I

am so saddened and stressed. Can you please help?

Andra from Albuquerque is a researcher at the University of New Mexico whose work is funded by the National Science Foundation. Andra wrote to me:

I work at the University of New Mexico as part of a team

entirely funded from the National Science Foundation. We have

been notified that we may lose our funding. This will likely

result in the loss of my job, along with those of my

colleagues.

Eytan, a Forest Stewards Guild member in New Mexico, is worried about how a Federal funding freeze could lead to more deadly and destructive wildfires across our State.

Eytan wrote to me:

This disruption puts New Mexico at significant risk for a

catastrophic wildfire as we head into another high-risk fire

season.

Sienna from Taos is a behavioral healthcare provider concerned that the loss of Federal funding could prevent her from meeting the needs of toddlers and their families.

Sienna wrote to me:

This is a total assault on New Mexico's most vulnerable

populations. Our programs assist families everyday and this

funding is at risk. Halting federal grants will impact the

early childhood programs serving low-income kids.

These letters paint a painful picture of the chaos and uncertainty that President Trump's actions have created in my State alone.

What do you say to those Americans, President Trump? How could you possibly defend taking their taxpayer dollars, the work of their elected leaders, the Constitution you swore to defend just a few days ago and pushing that all aside?

What funding exactly was thrown aside with it? Let me read you a list of funding impacted in just New Mexico, even as we still do not know which programs are or are not on the chopping block.

I will start with the New Mexico High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Program. If you have one in your State, you probably know it as an

HIDTA program. This program includes 17 counties that are coordinating on drug intelligence, interdiction, investigation, and prosecution efforts to reduce the impact of illicit drugs. These are the folks coordinating to go after the cartels, who are going after the fentanyl trafficking. How woke is that? Stopping fentanyl trafficking. They received over $1 million last year for this work.

New Mexico's program to prevent and prosecute violence against women--this program works to reduce domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking by strengthening services to victims and holding offenders accountable. New Mexico received over $1 million for this program last year.

The New Mexico crisis intervention program was created through our Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a bill that I helped to negotiate. This program funds the enforcement of red flag mandates to combat and prevent gun violence. Last year, Federal funding for New Mexico's crisis intervention program totaled over $4 million.

New Mexico's crime victims funds. These programs help New Mexican community organizations and public agencies provide services directly to the victims of crime. Last year, the Crime Victims Reparation Commission of New Mexico received $1.2 million in Federal funds.

Justice assistance grants for police departments. Last year, New Mexico local law enforcement entities received about $1 million in Federal justice assistance grant funding, and that funding is used for personnel, equipment, training, and technical assistance for New Mexico's police departments.

You heard from my colleague from Connecticut about fire grants, assistance to firefighter grants and staffing for adequate fire and emergency response. These programs fund equipment and resources for our fire departments, including volunteer firefighters in rural areas and emergency first responders.

Just last year, many of us in this body worked hard to get this program reauthorized, and I can't tell you of another program that is more popular at home than the fire grants.

Since 2015, fire departments across my State have received over $22 million through these programs.

New Mexico homeless support services. Last year New Mexico nonprofits received $17 million to the Housing and Urban Development Department's Continuum of Care Program to help put a roof over the heads of people who have been living on the streets.

Road improvements to prevent traffic deaths. You heard me. Those woke road improvements. In 2024, New Mexico local governments received almost $2 million to make our roads safer. Local governments, from Truth or Consequences to the Pueblo of Santo Domingo, rely on this funding to make their streets safer.

Road construction for railroad crossings. Recently, New Mexico was awarded $44 million for road construction in Gallup to build a safer rail crossing.

New Mexico's community schools. New Mexico community schools rely on the Community Schools Program for social support services for their students and families. Last year, schools in Bernalillo County received $2.4 million to support the work of their educators and their students.

Literacy programs. Comprehensive literacy development programs, $60 million to help kids read better.

The community health centers. Each year, 16 federally funded community health center organizations in our State leverage, on average, $76 million to serve over 300,000 patients, to provide them with healthcare--17 percent of those patients are completely uninsured; 40 percent are covered by Medicaid.

How about essential air service for our rural airports? That is something that gets incredible bipartisan support in this body because it makes sure that rural communities have access to air service. Carlsbad air terminal, Clovis Regional Airport, Grant County Airport-- all rely on this program to maintain their commercial air operations. These three rural airports receive $15 million a year, more or less, through this program.

New Mexico's housing trust fund. The housing trust fund money is used for affordable housing for extremely low- and very low-income households.

It is not like any of us have a housing problem in our States right now, do we?

Small business loans. The Small Business Administration loan program has supported 112 New Mexico small businesses with almost $50 million in loans. And those loans help those businesses grow; they allow them to purchase new facilities, equipment, supplies.

Let's not forget New Mexico's farmers. Last year, New Mexico received funding to support our specialty crop farmers. Those are the farmers who grow crops essential to the economy, as well as to the history, the identity, of our State--crops like chili, onions, pecans, garlic, stone fruit--just a few examples.

These programs that I have just read through are a fraction of the list. They aren't even a quarter of it. So let's go a little deeper now into more concrete examples of the disruptions and harm caused by President Trump's blockade. And each of these were shared directly with me or with one of my staff just in the last day and a half.

This one really pisses me off: Sexual Assault Services of Northwest New Mexico. They provide lifesaving services to sexual assault survivors in our State, and the freeze meant that this organization may not make payroll because they were locked out of the Federal reimbursement portal. They don't even know if their grant is still coming through. They said that ``as a victims' service provider, this memo directly threatens our ability to serve survivors of sexual assault.''

Women's Economic Self-Sufficiency Team--we call them WESST in the central part of the State. WESST serves around a thousand New Mexico small businesses--2,000 people a year--with consulting and training, incubation, microlending programs. They told me Federal funds directly and indirectly provide the majority of their operating budget. They planned to open a seventh Women's Business Center in Hobbs, NM, to focus on growing childcare businesses. That expansion was put on hold by the freeze.

They employ 34 staff and operate six Women's Business Centers throughout New Mexico.

They are incredibly concerned about the continued survival of the SBA Office of Women's Business Ownership and the Minority Business Development Agency.

Here is another really woke one. Cannon Air Force Base and the Ogalalla Land and Water Conservancy. They told me the readiness and environmental protection integration program that is at risk is more than a funding mechanism; it is a lifeline. This project addresses the incredibly severe water scarcity challenge faced by the entire region where groundwater from the Ogalalla Aquifer is now the sole source of water for municipal, industrial, and agricultural needs.

But without this program, the Ogalalla Aquifer is projected to lose its functional capacity as early as 2028. That would leave the region without water that they need to survive, but it also cripples those local communities, and it would jeopardize the very viability of Cannon Air Force Base and the Melrose Air Force Range.

Albuquerque Public Schools. This is the largest school district in New Mexico. It is actually the 31st largest in the entire Nation. It serves almost 80,000 students across 143 schools, and one of Albuquerque's largest employers with over 11,000 staff and well over 5,000 teachers.

Because of the freeze, APS was forced to halt all nonstaff-related funding for grants from the Department of Education, Centers For Disease Control and Prevention.

Here is what they told me: APS paused spending on its Federal community school grant, magnet school grant, Centers For Disease Control grant, and transportation funding for upcoming college field trips.

Their community school grant provides essential support--including counseling, tutoring, food assistance, and housing programs--for almost 2,000 students across three schools in Albuquerque. We have learned that these community schools are vital to better outcomes in our public schools.

The magnet school grant serves over 2,000 students across four more schools, funding programs that keep students

engaged and prepare them for the 21st century workforce.

The CDC Prevention grant supports students in all of our 141 APS schools, providing critical health and wellness resources.

Finally, students at 13 schools who were looking forward to a college field trip to New Mexico Tech next month just had their trip canceled because the district could not access Federal grants to pay for their transportation.

Silver Consolidated Schools, which serves over 2,500 students and their families in Southwest New Mexico, they told me the Silver Consolidated School District is 2 years into their 5-year, nearly $6- million school-based mental health services grant. And this grant created, once again, in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, has allowed the school district to put mental health services in each school in the district. These are services that the students, especially those in crisis, have come to rely on in a four-county region that lacks basic mental health services.

These programs I have just read through, they are not the whole list. They aren't even a quarter of it. So let's go now--and some of you watching are wondering, Why come to the Senate floor? Why decry an action that the President has already supposedly reversed?

First, I think we have to ask: Has he reversed it? According to his Press Secretary, the funding is still blocked. Again, these are laws, not guidance. They are laws passed by Congress, signed into law by the President of the United States.

And let me tell you about just a few of the projects under some of these laws that President Trump is unilaterally blocking funding for: projects from the Inflation Reduction Act, which is law, and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, which is now law.

Over $9 million for the Eastern New Mexico Rural Water System Project, which would continue fieldwork and design on a project that will, eventually, bring drinking water to more than 75,000 people in Clovis, Portales, Cannon Air Force Base, and other communities in eastern New Mexico.

Another 5 million for the Jicarilla Apache Rural Water System Project, which would contribute to final design and construction of the water system serving the Jicarilla Apache Nation.

Just over 5 million for the city of Santa Fe from the infrastructure law to complete the San Juan-Chama Return Flow Pipeline that will return treated unconsumed San Juan-Chama water back to the Rio Grande. This project was Santa Fe's primary strategy to mitigate the water supply shortages that we struggle with and create a sustainable water source.

I could go on and on and on. It is really remarkable how many people in my State have just been thrown into chaos by all of this. Now, before I finish, I want to be clear that this type of chaos and uncertainty is not what Americans elected President Trump to deliver. It is illegal. It is a type of action that puts our democracy--really, the whole structure of our government--in jeopardy.

But if your focus is just on money, if the fate of our democracy feels a little too abstract, then understand this: President Trump has also blocked funding from going out under the infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act. Again, these laws are laws passed by Congress and certainly not what New Mexicans sent me to Washington to deliver. They want certainty.

Americans are calling on us--really, all of us--to work together on policies that will bring down the cost of their groceries, their rent, their internet, their healthcare. They want us to help get fentanyl off of our streets or make our communities safer and support survivors of sexual assault. They want us to put our veterans in safe housing.

And according to a number of New Mexicans, they still can't access Federal funding.

They want us to help the small businesses and support the public lands that are the beating heart of local rural economies. They want us to create jobs that they can build a family around, jobs they can be proud of, jobs that are in their own communities. They don't want all this chaos.

I would hope that my Republican and my Democratic colleagues alike, especially the appropriators--we work together every single year to try to produce bipartisan bills. By nature, those bills have to be written in a bipartisan way. I have written many of those bills since I joined the Appropriations Committee with my Republican colleagues, some of which got reported out of committee unanimously.

I hope we can all join together in calling on the President to just get back to following the law that we all passed together. Let's get back to creating certainty for our communities, for our small businesses, for our democracy itself.

Benjamin Franklin put it years ago like this: We have a republic, if we can keep it.

I will fight like hell to keep it. And I know that I am not alone.

Mr. President, our economy, our hospitals, your mother's nursing home, your son's school lunch, your niece's afterschool program, our police, fire departments, our newborns, our elders, our veterans, pretty much everyone in my home State of New Mexico--President Trump threw them all into chaos with an unconstitutional and patently illegal power grab.

In an overnight maneuver that would make a dictator envious, President Trump unlawfully and unilaterally froze all Federal grant funding. He shut down the housing portal that nonprofits and Tribes in my home State use to access mortgage financing.

He literally shut down the Medicaid reimbursement portals across the country. Although after a day of raising hell over it, I think that Medicaid--at least the Medicaid portal in my State--may well be up and running again, at least for now.

And for context, almost a quarter of my State's budget actually moves through that portal--about $8 billion in Medicaid funding every single year in one small State alone.

He threw every town and county, Tribe, nonprofit, healthcare provider, school, and preschool into total disarray. And from our State's Roundhouse to the classroom, to the emergency room, today was chaos. People want answers. My phone has literally been ringing off the hook from people around the State who want answers, who want certainty.

Did Donald Trump just cut off funding for 7 out of 10 nursing home residents, for 55 percent of newborn births and New Mexico's doctors and New Mexico's hospitals? Did Donald Trump just deprive 7 out of 10 New Mexican children their daily lunch? Did Donald Trump just effectively close my child's preschool program?

The reality is that most of President Trump's own staff don't know or won't answer those questions just yet, and my Republican colleagues sure aren't jumping in to figure it out either.

One thing that is clear to me is the law. The President cannot override, delay, rescind Congress's appropriations laws once they are signed into law--full stop. This has been upheld time and again by the Supreme Court, by the Department of Justice, by the Government Accountability Office, and by the law--specifically, the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. Congress had to write and pass this law after President Nixon tried to withhold congressionally appropriated funds, and Nixon was wrong just like President Trump is wrong now.

We should all remember--especially my Republican colleagues who aren't here tonight, but really all of us--that elections swing both ways. We have seen the back and forth for the last few election cycles. Sometimes, your party is in charge of the White House; sometimes, it is not.

But think for a moment about what it would mean if the President--any President--could unilaterally cut off Federal funds that he or she didn't like. Sure, a conservative President could decide to cripple the Head Start programs in blue States, but it is every bit as true that a progressive President could decide to cripple the defense contracts or the military bases in red States.

That is not democracy; that is chaos. And today was just a small taste of that.

As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I know how much work goes into writing and passing our bipartisan funding laws. There have been times when I have been able to work with my Republican colleagues to pass appropriations bills out of committee unanimously, and I am not going to cede that to any administration to be abused.

Here is where I need help from my own constituent, help from New Mexicans. I want to hear from you about Donald Trump's blockade and how it is affecting you and your family. If your town's COPS grants get frozen, I need to know. If your VA mortgage gets held up, I need to know. If you are a nonprofit that is giving services in the area of violence against women, refuges for people who are battered, and your funding gets held up, these are the stories that I think need to be held up to understand just what is happening in our country right now.

And I hope that all of us--not just Democrats, but Republicans as well--who have a vested interest in being able to create certainty in our own States, certainty for the economy, certainty for the small business community, can come together and say that this is not what democracy looks like.

Let's create that certainty. Let's follow the law. Let's make sure that whatever we agree to here in this amazing Capitol, that not only passes both Chambers but gets signed into law by the President of the United States, that we abide by that, because only if we all agree to color inside the lines and to act like this is a democracy will this remain a democracy.

And I just want to say to my own constituents how sorry I am that they are going through this right now because the amount of anguish and uncertainty--and, you know, I had heard from a Tribal housing program today that said: You know, we won't be able to make payroll in a few days if this is how this is going to be.

And you can tell story after story like that of just huge clouds hanging over people who are just trying to do a good job for their communities and provide services and do their jobs. That is not how you grow the economy.

I want to thank all of my colleagues who have come to the floor to talk about this. We are all getting story after story from our States. We need to lift those up, and we need to say that we need to put this chapter behind us for the benefit of the American people.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the privileges of the floor be granted to the following member of Senator Sinema's staff: Kelsie Hovenden.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I want to begin today before we get to bump stocks by acknowledging the South Fork and Salt fires that have forced literally thousands from their homes in Lincoln County, NM, and the Mescalero Apache Nation over the last 24 hours.

I was actually just at the White House discussing these fires with Homeland Security Advisor Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall. These are no-joke fires. They are large, they are fast-moving, and they are threatening thousands of people's homes today.

I know that many are worried that they may have already lost their homes, their property, their businesses, their animals. My thoughts are with every single one of you.

I want to extend my extraordinary thanks to the wildland firefighters, the first responders, local and Tribal leaders who are working right now to protect New Mexicans. I am also grateful to all the surrounding communities that have already welcomed thousands of their neighbors.

In times of need, New Mexicans look out for each other, and I know that we will do everything possible to help our fellow New Mexicans through this immediate emergency and the recovery in the months and years ahead.

I want to stress the importance for everyone in the impacted area to please heed evacuation orders and follow directions from local authorities. Please do everything you can to stay safe.

Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1909

Mr. President, I am also here today to make a UC request for the Senate to consider my legislation, the Banning Unlawful Machinegun Parts or BUMP Act.

Nearly 7 years ago on October 1, 2017, more than 20,000 people gathered for a large outdoor music festival. It was the third day in a row that folks from all around the country joined their friends and family to hear music from some of their favorite musicians. No one could have anticipated the nightmare that was about to unfold that day.

Just after 10 o'clock at night, thousands were listening to the final performance of the night. And then over the music, they started to hear what at first people thought were fireworks. Rapid gunfire rained down on the crowd with shots so close together they seemed to almost bleed into each other. Complete panic erupted. And for the next terrifying 10 minutes, concertgoers ran in every direction, searching for cover where there was none--some falling down next to bleeding friends and dying loved ones, others fleeing desperately trying to reach safety.

In total, the shooter fired more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition in just 10 minutes. He killed 58 people that night, injured hundreds more, including 2 more who ultimately perished from their wounds. It was and is the deadliest mass shooting in American history.

The Las Vegas gunman was able to murder and injure so many people so quickly because he used a deadly device known as a bump stock. Bump stocks are an attachment that modify semiautomatic firearms to dramatically increase their rate of fire, allowing them to operate as fully automatic weapons. They make it possible to shoot hundreds of rounds a minute. And let me be real clear, as a firearms owner myself, there is no legitimate use for a bump stock--not for self-defense, not in a law enforcement context, not even in military applications as they are less accurate than a standard fully automatic military platform.

But what they are tailor-made for is a mass shooting. I know there are people who will say: Guns don't kill people. People kill people. But the reality is this: Bump stocks kill and injure in the hundreds.

As someone who has owned and used firearms for most of my life for hunting, sport, for self-defense, I know for a fact that bump stocks serve no legitimate purpose. And that is why in the days and weeks that followed the horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas, NV, I led a bipartisan effort to ban bump stocks. I introduced legislation in the Senate alongside my Republican colleague and friend Jeff Flake of Arizona and Nevada's Senator Catherine Cortez Masto. We also called on then-President Trump to use his authority to ban bump stocks in a Federal rule. President Trump actually agreed with us at the time and finalized an ATF rule to get that done.

But last week, our wildly out-of-touch Supreme Court majority invalidated that rule. In an illogical and deadly ruling, they made bump stocks legal once again.

As Justice Sotomayor said in her dissent, ``When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.''

I agree with Justice Sotomayor. A bump stock-equipped semiautomatic rifle is a machinegun, and it should be banned just like machineguns have been banned for nearly 100 years.

Even still, within the Supreme Court majority's ruling, they gave Congress--they gave us--clear direction on the only way for us to protect Americans from these deadly devices. Congress needs to act. We need to pass my bill to ban bump stocks and do it now.

I am proud to lead the Banning Unlawful Machinegun Parts, or BUMP Act, alongside Senators like Catherine Cortez Masto, Susan Collins, Angus King, and the more than 20 new cosponsors who joined our legislation after the Supreme Court's recent ruling. This is the same bipartisan bill that I first introduced in 2018 in the aftermath of that shooting.

The BUMP Act would prohibit the sale of bump stocks and other devices that allow semiautomatic firearms to increase the rate of fire and operate as fully automatic weapons. This is something that nearly all Americans agree should be done.

This should be a commonsense, bipartisan public safety vote that all of us should welcome if we believe that our kids should have the freedom to feel safe in their church or their classroom or their movie theater.

We should also be clear about what happens if we don't pass this legislation. We will be giving a free pass to street gangs and cartels and mass shooters to access these deadly devices and turn them against our communities. That is the harm that we are putting our communities in.

There is some skepticism out there about whether Congress can get this done, about whether all of us coming together to ban bump stocks is impossible. But 2 years ago, we proved that type of thinking is flat wrong. Over my time here in the Senate, I have learned that people are always quick to tell you there is no path forward for your legislation. And the reality is that there is never a path forward until we collectively choose to make one.

I was proud to be part of the core group of bipartisan negotiators here in the Senate that helped pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. That was the first significant Federal gun safety legislation signed into law in nearly three decades. During those negotiations, I worked especially close with my colleague Senator Collins on a successful effort to increase criminal penalties for those who would put guns into the hands of criminals and to make it illegal to traffic firearms out of our country. And by passing that law, we proved that Congress can take concrete action to protect our communities from gun violence.

Now, it is time that we take similar bipartisan action to ban these bump stocks. For my part, I refuse to stand idly by and wait for the next mass shooting. I would ask all of my colleagues to please support the BUMP Act to ban these deadly mass killing devices once and for all.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. 1909, the Banning Unlawful Machinegun Parts Act, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I just want to remind our colleagues that we actually did pass legislation, 2 years ago, to invest in mental health, and we passed a meaningful gun safety piece of legislation. But the assertion that this would ban some enormous number of firearm devices is certainly not rooted in fact. It would, however, ban bump stocks, and it would ban things like Glock switches, which also let semiautomatic firearms act as fully automatic firearms.

I think the American people understand what commonsense gun safety looks like, and that is what the BUMP Act is all about.

And I will reserve the rest of my time, but this will not be the last time you hear about these devices on the floor of the Senate.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize Dr. Joseph Suina for his service to our Nation.

Dr. Suina is a former Cochiti Pueblo Governor, a University of New Mexico professor emeritus, and a Vietnam and Marine Corps veteran. Recognition of Dr. Suina's service is long overdue.

But before I speak about his military service, I want to take a moment to recognize what Dr. Suina's decades of leadership have meant for Cochiti Pueblo and for New Mexico as a whole.

Over the course of his life, Dr. Suina has served as a Governor for his Pueblo and a Tribal council member. He also served as the president and CEO of the Cochiti Community Development Corporation and as the chair of the Cochiti Language Revival Committee.

But before all of that, Dr. Suina grew up in Cochiti Pueblo, within the adobe walls of his grandmother's home. He has recounted the nights she would sing to him in their native language and tell him stories of her childhood, well before electricity and cars had made their way to the Pueblo.

As a young boy, he was shunned by his teachers for speaking his native language at school and experienced the stark contrast between the teachings of his grandmother and those of his nonnative teachers.

Through it all, Dr. Suina found strength in his culture, later leading him to become a champion for keeping indigenous language and culture at the center of Native American education policy.

Dr. Suina worked for decades as a professor in the University of New Mexico's College of Education, and he directed the Institute for American Indian Education, serving Tribes across the Southwest. His scholarship focused on how maintaining connection to tradition, culture, and language improves educational outcomes for Native students.

He also developed new methods for assessing student learning and training programs for educators who teach Native students. And over the years, Dr. Suina has mentored countless teachers whose work continues to make a difference for New Mexico's children and children throughout the entire Southwest.

You can see the results of his work in so many communities, but especially in his home community of Cochiti Pueblo and at the Keres Children's Learning Center. The center is an indigenous language revitalization school that has become one of the very best early childhood and primary education centers in the entire country. It

is a living testament to Dr. Suina's visionary leadership and education.

The legacy of Dr. Suina's life of service to Cochiti Pueblo, to New Mexico, and to our Nation will be felt for generations to come.

And, today, I would also like to recognize Dr. Suina's service to our Nation as a marine.

In the early 1960s, just 3 days out of high school, Dr. Suina enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. He went on to serve two tours of duty in Vietnam, in 1964 and in 1966. He was wounded in his second tour and earned a Purple Heart on March 22, 1966. He was honorably discharged with the rank of sergeant.

Tomorrow, Dr. Suina's friends and family members are gathering together at the New Mexico Veterans Memorial in Albuquerque to recognize his service to the Nation, and I am honored to have helped play a role in retrieving the medals that Dr. Suina earned as a marine and that he will receive at that gathering.

You see, back in the 1970s, Dr. Suina's house was broken into and his service medals were stolen.

As I mentioned earlier, Dr. Suina earned the Purple Heart Medal, which was one of the Nation's oldest and most distinguished medals. The Purple Heart is awarded to U.S. servicemembers who have been wounded or killed as a result of enemy action.

Dr. Suina also earned the following awards: the Combat Action Ribbon, the Marine Corps Good Combat Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, the Vietnam Service Medal, the Rifle Sharpshooters Badge, the Pistol Expert Badge. And he also earned a Gallantry Cross Medal from the Republic of Vietnam.

I was deeply honored to help retrieve these medals that recognize Dr. Suina's incredible bravery and sacrifices.

And, before I finish, I also want to commend Dr. Suina for the ways that he has raised the visibility of the physical and often invisible wounds that impact veterans with PTSD.

In recent years, Dr. Suina has spoken about how he saw these wounds in himself, in his fellow Vietnam veterans, and in the veterans of his father's generation who served in World War II. Many of these veterans have come home with trauma that went unrecognized. And I am so appreciative that Dr. Suina is working to bring recognition and healing to himself and to his fellow veterans.

And on behalf of so many New Mexicans and so many Americans, I want to express just how profoundly grateful we are for Dr. Suina's lifetime of courage and of service.

Mr. President, nearly 80 years ago, in Central New Mexico's Tularosa Basin, at a place we now call the Trinity Site, the world as we knew it changed.

The Trinity test was the first detonation of a nuclear weapon in human history, and the families who lived downwind from the Trinity explosion have lived the consequences of that day for every moment of their lives. These families were never told that the white dust falling around them that day would contaminate their bodies, would contaminate the bodies of the children they had yet to bear, that it would contaminate the crops and the water and the livestock that they had built their communities around. They were never told about the kinds of cancers they would get, the conditions they would suffer through, or the loved ones they would lose.

These families still to this day have not received the recognition or the compensation for what they endured so that our Nation could be victorious in the Second World War. Nearly a century later, 80 years now, these folks deserve better. They deserve justice.

It is long overdue for Congress to finally, finally amend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, RECA, to include the Trinity downwinders, to include all Americans who were directly impacted from our nuclear tests and program, and to include the uranium workers who were exposed to radiation in service to our national defense. That is what we are voting on this week in the U.S. Senate. Today, we have a chance to finally deliver justice for the Trinity downwinders and for all Americans who were exposed to radioactive nuclear materials.

I want to thank especially the Presiding Officer as it has been one of the honors of my career to fight alongside him for this expansion of RECA for our entire congressional careers.

I want to urge all of our colleagues to stand with us on the right side of history today and to support this legislation.

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

Madam President, I have seven requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Devon Gorbey, Wasem Gawish, Max Katz, Cynthia Bailey, Cliff Ho, Will Murray, Jon Yap, who are all fellows in my office, be granted privileges to the floor until January 2, 2025.

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