Floor Statements

Madam President, this amendment would create an automatic CR, which would make it way harder for Congress to actually get its job done and fund our government. It would allow Members, particularly those who are fine with obstructing, to ignore their responsibility to fund our government and deliver for the communities that they represent; it will hurt Agencies and programs people count on by freezing funding levels; it will weaken our ability to deliver funding for Ukraine and Israel, for childcare and so much else; it will allow critical laws to lapse and potentially create chaos on this floor.

Let's be clear. No one wants to avoid a shutdown more than I do. But the way that we avoid a shutdown is by Members of Congress sitting down and working together to prevent one, responsibly, by funding our government, not by abdicating Congress's responsibility to control the powers of the purse and avoiding the hard work of compromise by putting funding on perpetual autopilot.

But I am afraid that is exactly what this amendment would do, and it would create a new, unproven fast-track process, allowing six Senators to completely ignore our committee process, completely ignore regular order, and take over the floor and force the Senate to consider appropriations vehicles of any and all sizes with little or no scrutiny or input.

We need to get our jobs done. We need to pass our appropriations bills. That is what we are working on, not set ourselves on a path to endlessly kick the can down the road. I strongly urge my colleagues to vote no on this amendment.

I yield the floor.

Vote on Amendment No. 1232 to Amendment No. 1092

Madam President, after many discussions with Members on both sides of the aisle about ensuring a robust amendment process and a final vote on this strong bipartisan package of appropriations bills, I am pleased to say we have reached an agreement to finally get voting on the amendments and passage of this minibus.

I want to thank everyone who has worked with me and the senior Senator from Maine so we can get this process moving again to show the American people this place can actually work.

This is so important, especially right now because over the last few weeks, the American people have seen a lot of chaos and dysfunction in Congress. It has come at a time when the world needs to see U.S. leadership is still strong because it is not just the American people who are watching Congress right now. Our allies are watching. Our adversaries are watching. We need to show them that we are still able to work together and solve problems and respond effectively to the pressing challenges of this moment. And this is an important opportunity to do just that.

By passing this package, we can continue moving on our appropriations process and we can show that, by working together in a bipartisan way, you can actually get things done in a divided Congress. And that is important because there is a lot we absolutely have to get done. There is this first package of appropriations bills. There is the rest of our appropriations bills and the pressing need to address all sorts of urgent priorities, including supplemental funding to support our allies in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan; to deliver additional disaster relief; address the worsening childcare crisis; and more. Getting all of this done is going to require us to put aside our differences and work together.

By passing this minibus, we can show that Congress is still capable of doing that, because this spending package is a prime example of what it looks like when Democrats and Republicans come together and focus on solving problems and helping people. It follows the bipartisan debt limit deal. It includes input from members across the country and across the political spectrum. And the bills in this package passed the Appropriations Committee unanimously.

In other words, this is a serious bipartisan legislation that can be signed into law; and it provides crucial resources to care for our veterans, to fund military construction, to keep our food supply safe, to support our farmers, keep our travelers safe, invest in infrastructure, and a lot more.

We should pass this bill, show we can still focus on solutions, find common ground, and help people, like we were all sent here to do. And we can get our appropriations process back on track and continue our return to regular order, which, I know, so many Senators across the aisle and on this side have asked for.

To every one of my colleagues who has said we need to move away from massive end-of-year omnibuses, I agree. This is your chance to avoid one. If we don't get this passed, we are giving up a crucial opportunity to make sure the Senate has its voice heard on our Nation's spending priorities and make sure we don't find ourselves at the end of the year, once again, staring down another omnibus.

Madam President, just a few weeks ago, we were on the brink of a completely unnecessary government shutdown before cooler heads prevailed. The lesson from the near-shutdown should be clear: Letting the loudest voices on the far right push for damaging cuts, extreme partisan policies, is a road to disaster. Bipartisanship is the only way to get the job done in a divided government.

Now, we need to remember the lessons as we continue working to pass our full appropriations bills; support our allies in Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific region; shore up our disaster relief funds; and address the childcare crisis; and more. So let's send a message that Congress can actually work and that we can actually work together. Let's get things on track so we can avoid an omnibus and address the urgent challenges we face.

The American people are watching. The world is watching. And let's be clear: Our adversaries are cheering for dysfunction. Let's show them unity. Let's show them the strength of our democracy. Let's get this done and then let's work together and get absolutely vital aid to our allies.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations: all nominations placed on the Secretary's desk in the Coast Guard; that the nominations be confirmed en bloc; that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to any of the nominations; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that the Senate resume legislative session.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 366 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

I ask unanimous consent 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 with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be discharged from further consideration of

S. 2854 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent 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 with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the en bloc consideration of the following Senate resolutions introduced earlier today: S. Res. 420, S. Res. 421, and S. Res. 422.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all en bloc.

Madam President, I have four 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:

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 12 noon on Monday, October 23, for a pro forma session only, with no business conducted; that when the Senate adjourns on Monday, it next convene at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, October 24; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for later in the day, and morning business be closed; that upon the conclusion of morning business, the Senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the Whitaker nomination; that the Senate recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly caucus meetings; that the cloture motions filed during today's session ripen at 2:15 p.m.; and, finally, that if any nominations are confirmed during Tuesday's session, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Madam President, I rise today to pay tribute to a true public servant and an icon of the Tri-Cities community. Last month, my good friend Karen McGinnis passed away. For 20 years, Karen served as the founding director of a critically important worker training facility, the Volpentest Hazardous Materials Management and Emergency Response, HAMMER, Federal Training Center, at the Hanford site in my home State of Washington.

Born in Nevada and raised in Oregon, Karen made her way to my alma mater, Washington State University, where she received her master's degree in agricultural economics in 1980. She went on to work at the Hanford site for almost her entire career, serving various Hanford contractors for 40 years,

including two decades as the director of the HAMMER training center. This is where I had the great fortune to cross paths with Karen.

Karen and I worked together from the get-go, along with Sam Volpentest, to plan, fund, and build HAMMER. I was so proud to stand with Karen and Sam at the groundbreaking for HAMMER in 1995, and I still have the shovel from that event in my office today. It serves as a reminder of what just a few people with a real passion to make a difference can accomplish--and if anyone had passion for this effort, it was Karen. Her work was essential to getting HAMMER off the ground and growing it into the world-class worker training center that it is today.

Beyond founding HAMMER, one of Karen's crowning achievements was the many, many partnerships she was able to forge. She brought Federal, State, and local agencies together with organized labor, Tribal governments, contractors and management, safety professionals, and community leaders to form a coalition that made HAMMER flourish. Her leadership earned HAMMER the Federal Government's top safety award through the Star Program of the Voluntary Protection Program. Karen was also honored with a Special Achievement Award for her role in getting there, and she was later appointed to sit on the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers, FLETC, Advisory Board. Her leadership and coalition-building ensured that workers at the Hanford site and emergency responders around the world continue to receive the training they need to remain safe on the job today. Their work is dangerous--but vital. Without HAMMER, the Hanford cleanup mission would not have the trained workers necessary to continue making progress safely.

Ultimately, the entire safety culture at Hanford can be traced back to Karen's leadership, her dedication and infectious optimism, and her ability to bring people together. Former AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka recognized her work as one of the most important partnerships between labor and management in the country. I find it hard to disagree. Her incredible leadership and dedication to protecting workers' health and safety was essential in making HAMMER into a globally recognized worker training facility.

Not only did Karen build HAMMER, she also established the professional culture for worker safety, Tribal relationships, and collaboration between labor, contractors, and Federal programs. And she didn't stop there; she went on to develop the next generation of workers so that the worker-trainers of the future could lead the way. Now, there is an army of HAMMER champions ensuring that Congress, DOE, contractors, and national labor leaders recognize just how important this facility is.

I also have to say, as someone who knows a little about this: Karen didn't take the easy road. She entered a profession dominated by men at the time--and she didn't just get by, she thrived as a pioneer in the field. Karen earned the respect of her colleagues, and importantly, she opened doors and broke glass ceilings so that other women could follow in her path.

Karen McGinnis was truly one-of-a-kind, a natural leader whose dedication, boundless energy, and wisdom touched many lives. She helped build something extraordinary at the Volpentest HAMMER Federal Training Center. Karen had as strong of a moral compass as you can find, and when she knew she was in the right, she did not take ``no'' for an answer. As for me personally, I knew that any time Karen came to my office--or anytime I visited her in the better Washington--she came ready to work, ready to help people, and ready to solve problems. Hanford workers and so many other people around the world are better off today because of Karen's vision, her tireless work, and her dedication to their safety and well-being.

Karen McGinnis has made a tremendous impact on the Tri-Cities community, Washington State, and our entire Nation. Today, I join with others in the State of Washington and across the world in recognizing Karen for her many years of service. She is dearly missed.

Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon to urge my colleagues to keep moving this bipartisan CR forward and remind them that this isn't the be-all, end-all of legislating this year. I really appreciate the efforts, including considering a different message in this bill.

I have a message for everyone who still wants this bill to do a little bit more. This is not the last bill this Congress is ever going to pass, but it is how we avoid a devastating shutdown. The issue that the Senator from Virginia just talked about in terms of making sure we are strong--not just here at home, but across the globe--I can assure you, whatever other issue you care about, whether it is childcare or the border or farmers or schools or air travel or rural healthcare or veterans, you name it--a government shutdown is not going to make it better. It will hurt our families. It will hurt our economy, and it will hurt our national security. And, by the way, it is going to be more expensive than just keeping things open.

That is why the first order of business for all of us, no matter what you care about, has to be getting our bipartisan CR passed. Once we take care of priority No. 1 and keep the lights on, we can and we obviously will keep talking about how to deal with the pressing challenges of childcare, the border, natural disasters, and more. And we can get back to passing our 12 bipartisan appropriations bills to provide full-year funding.

Let's get this done so we can avoid a complete disaster for families and get back to making progress on all the other issues we all care about. I urge my colleagues to vote yes on the motion to invoke cloture on the substitute.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I have been down here all week, saying again and again that the only way that we are going to avoid a shutdown is with a CR that can get bipartisan support to quickly pass the House and Senate, and we have been working nonstop to pass that commonsense, bipartisan CR that I put together with my colleagues across the aisle.

But, tonight, we had a bill from the House that passed in a bipartisan way, with nearly every House Democrat voting in support, and I am now glad the Senate has been able to pass it, as well, and get it the President's desk for his signature. This bill does not contain the devastating cuts House Republicans were pushing just yesterday. It does not contain the ineffective, partisan border provisions they were demanding. So there were good reasons to vote for it.

First and foremost, it will prevent a senseless government shutdown, one that House Republicans have been pushing us toward for weeks. But this bill also meets the President's full request for disaster relief funds, and that is good and important to so many of us. It will ensure that our brave Federal firefighters don't see a drastic pay cut, and it maintains current funding levels through November 17.

We know a CR is never a good long-term policy outcome, but it is certainly good to see that some House Republicans have, at least for this moment, given up the fruitless and cruel cuts they were demanding just yesterday. It is good to see some of those Members coming to their senses.

But we also have to be clear about where this bill falls seriously short, why we found ourselves in this moment, and how House Republicans' recklessness has caused so much unnecessary chaos, because let's be clear: There is a lot of work left to do now that we have passed this bill.

First, we have to absolutely do more to support our allies in Ukraine. Dictators across the world are watching. Will we stand with democracy? I say yes. The Senate absolutely will stand with our friends in Ukraine as they continue to defend themselves against Putin's brutal invasion, because continuing to support Ukraine is not just about addressing a humanitarian crisis; it is also about our own national security, what kind of world we want to live in. It is in America's national security interest to send a strong message to dictators like Putin that they cannot just invade a sovereign nation and steamroll democracy wherever and whenever they want.

And let's make sure we are crystal clear about this: There are strong bipartisan supermajorities in both Chambers that have shown they understood that. Just a few days ago, support for Ukraine got over 330 votes in the House--3 in 4 House Members. The United States does not abandon its allies, and the United States will not give Putin a free pass to continue his brutal war of aggression.

I need to make it clear: We are sticking with our allies in Ukraine, and we are not letting up. We are going to make sure we get this done, period. So I will work with all of my colleagues to make certain we stand with Ukraine and deliver the resources in a supplemental we know are so vital at this moment and do it in a timely manner.

I know my vice chair shares that commitment. We both look forward to continuing our efforts and working with many colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

We, of course, also need to take action to address the childcare crisis, especially as the funding cliff makes things even worse for parents, providers, and our economy.

To my Republican colleagues, I am positive you are hearing from your constituents on this. I am ready to work with anyone to make progress here. So please talk to me, and let's work together on that front.

Now, let me also say that there was no reason for it to come this close. House Republicans should have worked with us from the very start. Instead, they spent weeks entertaining the most extreme ideas from their far right, spending the last week voting on really extreme appropriations bills that would not even, actually, have averted a shutdown--appropriations bills that would deny our servicemembers the ability to get the reproductive care they need in emergencies, severely restricting women's access to medication abortion in every State; bills that would decimate rural communities, eliminate essential resources for our diplomats abroad, and so much more.

And then, just yesterday, they proposed an across-the-board 30- percent cut to virtually all domestic spending. They wanted to gut funding, come Monday, for childcare, support for K-12 schools, law enforcement, heating assistance for families on tight budgets, air traffic controllers, lifesaving cancer research, and much more. Even that proposal, apparently, wasn't enough for the most extreme Members of the House Republican conference, and it went down in flames.

But let's not forget--and I know the American people won't--that the vast majority of House Republicans voted, just yesterday, to gut programs families count on--programs that keep all of us safe--by 30 percent. Needless to say, I am glad to see some of them have, at least for the moment, abandoned those cruel efforts to slash funding for families, with no rhyme or reason.

Now, as we look ahead, I urge my House Republican colleagues to spare us and the American people the unnecessary drama and chaos, and learn to work with your colleagues, not against them.

Look, the Speaker and the President shook hands on a deal. Congress passed it into law. We are going to stick with it. I voted for this bill today with a firm commitment that, here in the Senate, we will not waste any time in moving forward to support our Ukrainian allies and a continued determination to make bipartisan progress on the many issues we need to address.

And, of course, we still need to pass all 12 of our bipartisan appropriations bills so we aren't back here in a few weeks.

On that note, we need to get moving to the Military Construction- Veterans Affairs, T-HUD, and Ag appropriations minibus that a few of my colleagues--very few of them--have been blocking. I hope both leaders will facilitate the vice chair and I getting back to work on those bills in the next few days. And as we pass short-term CRs, we need to make progress and begin conferencing our spending bills with the House to avoid another CR or an omnibus at the end of this year, which I know my colleagues are focused on avoiding.

If we are going to get any of that done, it has to be bipartisan. It is going to involve our being serious and focused on getting our job done to have real results for the American people.

If there is one lesson for House Republicans to take from the absolute

chaos they have caused this past week, it is that partisanship is not a path forward; it is a path to chaos. The only way to avoid a shutdown, the only way to get things done, especially in a divided Congress, is to sit down with the other side and do the hard work of negotiating, talking to one another, not to cave to the most extreme Members of your caucus or go back on your word.

I think most of us have known that from the start. Apparently, Speaker McCarthy needed to learn that lesson the hard way. Now it is time for him to show he has truly learned it. I urge him not to retreat back to a partisan corner, not to push for extreme partisan spending bills that go back on the deal he made just a few months ago. If you follow the most extreme Members of your party and go down that same partisan path, they are going to lead you to the same dead end.

The American people need us to move forward. They need us to work together. The senior Senator from Maine and I have 12 bipartisan bills in the Senate. We drafted them after many hearings and serious debate and discussion with Members on both sides of the aisle, and they passed our committee in overwhelming bipartisan votes--unanimous or near- unanimous votes. These are serious bills that can be signed into law.

Let's now leave behind the partisan politics being championed by the loudest voices, who are the farthest on the right, and come together so we can help people and solve problems just like we were sent to do.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, yesterday, the senior Senator from California came onto the floor through those doors to do her job. She voted. She voted to make sure that our country would continue to move forward and not shut down. That was Dianne. She did her job every day. She cared about her country. She cared about her State. She cared about doing a job, no matter how tough it is, for the future of America, and she did it with dignity and respect every single minute.

Today, you will hear accolades from across the country, lists of legislative accomplishments from her early days, all the way through her career. What I just want to say today: It is a true loss to America. It is a loss to her family.

My heart is with you.

It is a loss to her colleagues from California who have served with her and know her as I do--as a tower of strength--to our colleagues on the floor who have worked with her on a laundry list of legislation that you will hear about and is way too long to list today.

But, to her constituents, you need to know we depended on her just as you did, and she was here every day to fight for you, no matter what. She fought for women. She fought for those who were victims of gun violence. She fought for foreign policy that was remote to most people, but she knew every detail. And when Dianne spoke, the rest of us stopped and we listened.

Mr. President, she was a friend. I was sworn into office just a few weeks after she was, and she was always there for us, in matters big and small, in matters of our country, in matters of policy, and always as a friend.

To those of you who don't know, she was the most generous Senator I have ever known. I remember one time when I noticed that her purse was really nice, and I said: Dianne, that purse is beautiful.

Two days later, I got one delivered to my door. That was Dianne. She saw people. She knew people. She saw that she could be someone whom we all needed, and she saw that she could be there when she was needed-- and she was there.

I will have more to say about my friend of more than 30 years over the next few days, and I am sure we will hear so much today. But I am so sorry I didn't hug her when she went back out that door yesterday.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, as I have said, I share my colleague's concern with making sure that our servicemembers do not miss a paycheck because of a potential government shutdown. In fact, I do not want any of our Federal workers to miss a paycheck, whether they are cancer researchers whose work saves our lives or brave firefighters who risk their lives for us, and I don't want any programs families rely on to be undermined: counseling and transition assistance for new veterans adjusting to civilian life, nutrition assistance for 7 million moms and kids who need a hand up. And that includes our servicemembers' families.

Several years ago, I worked to save a WIC clinic which was going to be kicked off a Navy base in my home State of Washington that hundreds of military families counted on. None of those paychecks for any of these workers and none of those programs should shutter because of a completely unnecessary shutdown, which is why I am working around the clock with the majority of our colleagues to make sure that we do pass a bipartisan CR, which we released this week, because that is the only serious solution here. That is the only way that we will make sure everyone is able to keep doing the work that the American people count on and getting that paycheck that they do deserve.

If the Senator from Alaska or the Senator from Texas are serious about making sure our servicemembers get paid, I hope they will get serious in a way that matters the most, and that is their votes. I hope they will work with us to keep the government open. And I hope they will reconsider their recent votes against the CR to fund the government in a bipartisan and timely way.

Let's be real. You cannot grandstand about wanting to make sure that servicemembers get paid during a shutdown and then vote against the very bipartisan bill that prevented a shutdown.

I also hope the Senators will understand that our servicemembers will see the harm of a government shutdown in so many other ways. Permanent change-in-station moves will be significantly curtailed, meaning that some of our families could be left without a place to live if they have already sold their house or broken their lease or they could be forced to pay for two homes at once. For the Army alone, this means approximately 2,100 moves every week. And if you do not work with us to keep the entire government open, servicemembers' elective surgeries and procedures at DOD medical and dental facilities would have to be postponed. And, by the way, an elective surgery could be anything from removing a kidney stone to a mastectomy for breast cancer.

Essentially, post and base services will be closed or severely limited. That is everything from our commissary statewide to childcare our military families count on.

So not only do I want to make sure that our servicemembers don't miss a paycheck, I want to make sure that our servicemembers don't miss out on any critical services they rely on every day.

The Senators should also understand that their focus and support of the military cannot end with those who are currently in uniform. And they should remember, 47 percent of Department of Defense civilians are veterans. And for that matter, one in every four employees across the entire Federal Government are veterans. We can't leave anyone behind.

So I will say it again for my colleagues who raise their voices here on the Senate floor but have not cast their votes to prevent a shutdown: There are a lot of programs I care about, a lot of programs we all care about that would be hurt by a shutdown. But we are not going to solve this problem one by one, carve-out by carve-out. The best solution is to stop a shutdown in the first place. That is something we can do. And I bet we could do it a lot more quickly if the Senators from Alaska and Texas would earnestly work with us.

This isn't complicated. We have a straightforward, bipartisan CR package that will avoid that shutdown, keep our military paid. So let's get our jobs done and get that passed. I object.

Madam President, Americans across the country are watching us now, as we near the brink of an entirely pointless and absolutely devastating government shutdown and wondering: How in the world did we get here? It is a great question and an infuriating one.

So I want to take a few minutes to walk through exactly how we did get here, because the plain truth I want the American people to recognize is, it did not have to be this way. But a number of House Republicans, who have been working from day one of this Congress to hold our government hostage, pushed the most extreme partisan agenda imaginable and set us on a collision course for a government shutdown.

You don't have to take my word for it. Just listen to what some of them have been saying:

If a shutdown occurs, then so be it.

We should not fear a government shutdown.

It is ``not the worst thing that could happen.''

And this quote:

[M]ay be what it takes.

Last week, of course, former President Trump--the same guy responsible for the longest shutdown in history--called for Republicans to shut down the government again.

Unfortunately, it sure seems like these are the sorts of people Speaker McCarthy has been listening to--the most extreme, fringed voices in his party--when he should be listening to the overwhelming majority of people in our country who do not want a shutdown, because, let's be clear, most Members of Congress--like most Americans--on both sides of the aisle here, in both Chambers of Congress, do not want a government shutdown. They do want to see us working together to get our jobs done.

This is something I have heard from so many of our colleagues when I became chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee at the beginning of

this year: We need to get back to regular order. No more omnibuses. No more chaos. No more government shutdowns. I heard it from across both parties here in the Senate.

So I have been working with the senior Senator from Maine to deliver on just that: to make our appropriations process work better, to get our bills done, and to ensure that all Members do have a say in the process.

We have made some concrete progress; but over and over, extreme Republicans in the House have put up roadblocks and done everything they can to prevent Congress from getting even the most basic things done.

The vice chair of the Appropriations Committee and I held nearly 50 hearings this past spring to evaluate what resources our communities need in the year ahead. But, then, instead of being able to get right to work and negotiate top-line spending numbers and writing those bills as we finished those hearings this spring, we had to press pause to contend with extreme Republicans who were then holding our Nation's credit hostage and threatening a devastating default if they did not get their way with unrealistic, draconian cuts to programs that this entire country relies on.

It was a full-blown crisis. It was created by extreme House Republicans who ground Congress and almost our economy to a halt.

Finally, after their dangerous brinksmanship caused so much unnecessary drama and delay, President Biden and Speaker McCarthy struck a deal on spending levels that rejected the deepest, most damaging cuts. Now, it was not a deal I would have written myself-- absolutely not--but a deal is a deal.

The Speaker and the President shook hands. We all voted on it. It was signed into law. We had an agreement so we here in the Senate could finally get to work writing our bipartisan spending bills.

And in the Senate, that is exactly what we did. The senior Senator from Maine and I said: Okay, let's get things back on track. Let's get back to regular order. Let's write serious bills that can actually be signed into law.

We agreed to work off that Biden-McCarthy deal in a bipartisan way to avoid partisan poison pills and give all of our colleagues input on those bills. We held televised, bipartisan markups with amendments, with debate. And, for the first time in 5 years, we passed all 12 bills out of the committee, and those bills passed overwhelmingly with bipartisan support. We then got a resounding 91 votes to start work on three appropriations bills that passed unanimously out of committee on the Senate floor.

As we know, a few holdouts slowed things down. But I want you to know we are going to keep working together to return to regular order so Members can debate appropriations bills and offer amendments, and we can get them passed.

Now, compare that to the House. Did they work to produce serious, bipartisan appropriations bills that can be signed into law? Nope. They wrote extreme partisan bills--extreme--that are not going anywhere.

Did they keep out provisions that they knew would be nonstarters? Absolutely not. Their appropriations bills are a far-right wish list chock full of extreme policies that would undermine our response to the climate crisis, embolden bigotry against the LGBTQ community, weaken commonsense gun safety regulations, and, of course--of course--impose extreme abortion restrictions.

I mean, the list of extreme far-right policies that were slapped onto the government spending bills in the House is astounding. If you want to get something done for your constituents, you need to get serious, and those bills are not serious.

Did House Republicans, at least, stick to the bipartisan top lines that President Biden and Speaker McCarthy agreed to and we all voted on? Not even in the slightest. Before the ink was dry on that deal that he shook hands on, Speaker McCarthy caved to demands from the far right to ignore those agreed-upon spending levels and take a hatchet to programs that our families rely on.

In those spending bills, House Republicans want to cut 80 percent--8- 0--80 percent, that is $14.7 billion from title I funding our public schools rely on. It supports nearly 90 percent of our Nation's school districts. That includes rescinding funding that Congress provided last year that schools have worked into their budgets and are using for this school year.

They want to cut grants that keep our drinking water safe by more than half.

They want to slash nearly $4 billion from lifesaving research at the

Madam President, reserving the right to object, we can't be back here in the same situation in 2 weeks. We need a CR that gives us the actual time to get through our bipartisan spending bills. Believe me, I would love to say we could get this done in 2 weeks. But we know that is not realistic, because even the three that passed unanimously out of my committee have run into delays, as the Senator from Wisconsin knows all too well.

And, just as importantly, this bill does nothing to reauthorize time- sensitive programs. It does not reauthorize the FAA, which means chaos for air travelers. It doesn't reauthorize our community health centers and other critical primary care programs, which means patients in our underserved areas will lose access to programs they need.

And it doesn't protect our wildland firefighters from a drastic pay cut. It doesn't extend disaster relief funding or Ukraine's aid.

We have before this body a carefully negotiated bipartisan CR that does include all of those absolutely essential policies, that has already garnered more than enough support to pass here in the Senate, and that I am confident will pass the House as soon as Speaker McCarthy actually puts it to a vote.

That is where our attention needs to be, not on a slapdash bill that puts us back here in 2 weeks and completely leaves air travel, health care providers, firefighters, and so much more in a lurch.

I object.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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