Senator Murray: (11:10 a.m.)

• Spoke on the appropriations process.
  • "I am very proud we were able to negotiate and pass our bill through the committees and on the senate floor of congress, something that has not been done here in the senate side for over a decade. And that we were able to work together to get this conference report done. And I believe this was possible because we rejected partisanship and poison pill riders and worked together to make families and patients and students and workers and our middle class. Our bill builds on the strong work we've done to increase access to child care and early learning. It includes targeted funding to address the opioid epidemic, especially in underserved areas, significant new resources to address the truly alarming issue of maternal mortality."

 

Senator Moran: (11:22 a.m.)

• Spoke on the appropriations process.
  • "And by the administration I mean cabinet secretaries and bureau chiefs, agency heads. The power of the purse string is an important tool for Congress under Article 1 of the United States Constitution to direct how taxpayer dollars are spent in the United States. And so it's a cause of mine to see that the appropriations process works so we could establish those priorities but also so we could have input into any administration's intentions to establish rules and regulations, develop new policies. The power of the purse string exhibited - should be exhibited by C87ongress in a way that allows us to behalf of the citizens of this country to have input into what goes on in any administration."

 

Senator Shaheen: (11:35 a.m.)

• Spoke on the appropriations process.
  • "They've joined us on the floor. But, you know, if you have any doubts about why what's in the C. J. S. bill is so important and why we're taking it up, all you have to do is turn on the TV or have watched the television coverage over the last four days of Hurricane Florence as it's hit the Carolina coast. It has caused devastation, it caused deadly flooding. I know that we all empathize and support the people of the Carolinas with what they are dealing with with Hurricane Florence. But we've been able to predict the course of that hurricane because of the national weather service hurricane forecasters. They knew about Florence's track and they didn't do it alone."

 

Senator Lee: (11:44 a.m.)

• Spoke on the appropriations process.
  • "Republicans in this Congress have undertaken such efforts on behalf of certain priorities. In particular, the tax relief and spending increases that are poised to yield the budget deficit of nearly $1 trillion this year. But no such legislative progress has been achieved advancing the right to life nor the plight of those denied it. For the second straight year of unified Republican governance, unified pro-life governance, Congress' annual spending bills will include no new reforms protecting unborn children or getting federal taxpayers out of the abortion business."

 

Senator Shelby: (11:52 a.m.)

• Spoke on the appropriations process.
  • "Thanks to the work of my colleague on the Appropriations Committee and many others, especially Senator Leahy, we've hung together as the presiding officer knows, to make the Appropriations Committee work again. It hasn't worked for regular order, toward regular order in years and years. But today we passed this minibus dealing with defense and H.H.S. Mr. President, that would be 74.9% of all appropriations money in these five bills, the three we passed, the two we hope to pass in a few minutes."

 

Senator Leahy: (11:55 a.m.)

• Spoke on the appropriations process.
  • "Mr. President, the senator from Alabama and I have been friends for decades. Our wives have been friends, as the presiding officer knows. We have different political philosophies. We joined together wanting to make the Senate work the way it should work, the way it used to work. It would have done that in these appropriations bills. It means that the senator from Alabama has had to decline some things in this bill that he might have liked otherwise. But I've had to do the same. And that's why we're here today."