Mitch McConnell

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 165, H.R. 3877.

Mr. McCONNELL. I send a cloture motion to the desk for the motion to proceed.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 394.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum calls for the cloture motions be waived.

Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate resume legislative session and consideration of the veto messages as under the previous order.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule XXII, following the cloture vote on the Liburdi nomination, the Senate vote on the cloture motion on the Welte nomination; I further ask consent that if cloture is invoked, the Senate vote on the confirmations of these nominations in the order listed at 11:30 a.m., on Tuesday, July 30, and that if confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid on the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's actions.

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the remaining votes in this series be 10 minutes in length.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. I move to proceed to legislative session.

Mr. McCONNELL

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

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 290, submitted earlier today.

Mr. McCONNELL. I know of no further debate on the resolution.

Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent that the preamble be agreed to and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 2695 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m., Tuesday, July 30; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the Senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the Liburdi nomination under the previous order. Finally, I ask that the Senate recess following the cloture vote on the Hendrix nomination until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly conference meetings.

Mr. McCONNELL

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

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, today we expect the House of Representatives will pass the 2-year government funding agreement the Trump administration and Speaker Pelosi announced earlier this week. I stand with the President, who has publicly expressed his support for the agreement on several occasions. I am grateful to the members of his administration who led the negotiations: Secretary Mnuchin, Acting Chief of Staff Mulvaney, and Acting OMB Director Vought. Considering the circumstances of divided government, this is a good deal. After the House approves it today with bipartisan support, I expect the Senate to do the same next week. Here is why it is a good deal: It achieves the No. 1 goal on the Republican side of the aisle of providing for the common defense and continuing our progress in rebuilding the Armed Forces of the United States and modernizing them so they can continue to keep Americans safe and project power for years to come. This has been a top shared priority for this Republican Senate and this Republican White House for 2\1/2\ years. Pentagon leaders need stable, reliable, and sufficient resources. The greatest military on Earth should not drift in uncertainty. Our servicemembers deserve better than a string of funding crises and continuing resolutions. Our commanders need predictable resources and sufficient resources to lay the foundations for the future of our national defense. Servicemembers deserve to deploy armed with state-of-the-art training and cutting-edge equipment; their families deserve the best support services the Nation can offer; and the Nation as a whole deserves the global presence that is up to snuff and competitive with the leaps forward in which our adversaries have invested heavily. That is why we have delivered historic increases in resources for modernization and DOD reforms--to ensure the U.S. military is strong and agile enough to confront a growing number of threats to America and our interests. That is why just a few months ago we authorized the largest year-on-year increase in defense funding in more than a decade. This funding agreement is the next step forward in that process. Every Member of this body knows the threats we face are serious and getting more serious: the resurgence of great power competition with nations like Russia and China; the destabilization of influence of state-sponsored terror and regional aggression from bad actors such as Iran; and the testing of historic alliances. Amidst the growing international chaos, the preeminent obligation of the U.S. government is to provide for the common defense. This agreement prioritizes that commitment to the safety and the security of the American people. A nation that understands these threats and takes them seriously makes serious investments in the readiness of its own defenses today and the modernization that will preserve their strength into the future. For years, we have seen China extend its strategic reach, testing the waters of the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. We have watched its Communist leadership nearly double military spending in the last decade and push the boundaries in everything from offshore territorial claims to 5G technology. America's edge is in jeopardy. Our allies in the Pacific are uneasy. The administration's budget agreement with the Speaker will allow America to ensure that our own foot stays on the gas pedal as well. Meanwhile, in the Middle East, we are confronted daily with escalating threats to our allies and interests. State-sponsored terror and proxy actions are becoming bolder. Gray zone activity in places like the Straits of Hormuz is raising the economic and geopolitical stakes of Iran's meddling. From Syria to Crimea, Russia continues to stretch its legs. Not since the height of the Soviet Union have we seen Moscow this focused on extending influence beyond its borders. All over the world, historic alliances and partnerships like NATO need to be strengthened and renewed for this new landscape. Fortunately, in the coming days, we will have the opportunity to address all these areas--Europe, the Middle East, the Indo-Pacific, and beyond. That opportunity is this bipartisan spending agreement. So I am grateful to the administration for ensuring that such robust funding for our national security is included in this package. It will make us safer worldwide and make needed investments in our own facilities right here at home, like Fort Knox, Fort Campbell, and the Blue Grass Army Depo, which Kentucky is proud to host. What is more, I commend the President's team for firmly holding the line on the laundry list of leftwing policy riders that some House Democrats had sought to push throughout their partisan appropriations process over there on the other side. We are talking about far-left wish list items, things like reversing the Trump administration's decision and getting title X taxpayer dollars flowing back into the pocket of Planned Parenthood, weakening the conscience rights of healthcare professionals, removing protections for the Second Amendment, and efforts that would have weakened ICE and defunded the President's efforts to secure our border. These are just some of the policy riders the far left had hoped to smuggle into the appropriations process--perhaps using the full faith and credit of the United States as leverage, but the administration froze all of them out. They are not in this deal. They shepherded an agreement that delivers on our most basic responsibility to the American people. They set the stage to provide for the common defense. Today it is the House's turn to follow through, and then, in the near future, it will be ours.

Mr. McCONNELL

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

Mr. McCONNELL. In order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to further proceedings.

Mr. McCONNELL. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, what my friend the Democratic leader is asking unanimous consent to pass is partisan legislation from the Democratic House of Representatives relating to American elections. This is the same Democratic House that made its first big priority in this Congress a sweeping partisan effort to rewrite all kinds of the rules of American politics--not to achieve greater fairness but to give themselves a one-sided political benefit. The particular bill the Democratic leader is asking to move by unanimous consent is so partisan that it received one--just one-- Republican vote over in the House. Clearly, this request is not a serious effort to make a law. Clearly, something so partisan that it only received one single solitary Republican vote in the House is not going to travel through the Senate by unanimous consent. It is very important that we maintain the integrity and security of our elections in our country. Any Washington involvement in that task needs to be undertaken with extreme care and on a thoroughly bipartisan basis. Obviously, this legislation is not that. It is just a highly partisan bill from the same folks who spent 2 years hyping up a conspiracy theory about President Trump and Russia and who continue to ignore this administration's progress in correcting the Obama administration's failures on this subject in the 2018 election; therefore, I object.

Mr. McCONNELL. I object.

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, for the information of all of our colleagues, I want to provide an update on the remaining items the Senate needs to complete before we adjourn for the August State work period. Here is what we need to accomplish before Members depart next week: We need to confirm well-qualified nominees to two open positions of utmost importance--the Deputy Secretary of Defense and our Ambassador to the U.N. These jobs are important, the nominees are impressive, and we need to confirm David Norquist and Kelly Craft next week. Obviously, we need to pass the bipartisan funding agreement that President Trump's negotiating team worked out with Speaker Pelosi. The House will pass it today. The President is strongly in support of it. The Senate needs to pass it and put it on the President's desk next week. We need to make more headway on the backlog of qualified judicial nominees who are waiting for confirmation, so next week we will also need to process a significant, bipartisan package of district court nominees. That is our to-do list for next week--the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the U.N. Ambassador, the bipartisan government funding agreement, and a significant group of well-qualified judges. Not bad for a week's work. That is what the Senate will accomplish before we adjourn for August.

Mr. McCONNELL

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