Patty Murray

Mrs. MURRAY

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about why the funding decisions we make here in this building matter and how the Fiscal Responsibility Act spending caps will continue to hold America back, undercutting our economy, competitiveness, and future, unless the Senate can come together and take action. The Appropriations Committee has now held nearly 40 hearings on the resources that we will need in fiscal year 2025. We have discussed exactly what our Nation needs to stay strong, safe, and competitive, and there is a big, obvious takeaway from those hearings: The FRA caps for fiscal year 2024 are already causing serious pain and serious challenges, and the caps for fiscal year 2025 are grossly inadequate. In fiscal year 2024, the FRA froze nondefense funding while increasing defense funding by nearly 30 billion more, to say nothing of the billions in the supplemental. In fiscal year 2025, the caps mean just a 1-percent increase for nondefense and defense alike. Needless to say, that does not begin to keep pace with inflation or other rising expenses. That means net cuts in terms of real resources across the government. Let's all remember why we have these caps in the first place. House Republicans took the debt ceiling hostage and demanded funding caps and cuts in exchange for not destroying our Nation's credit. I warned at the time that we passed the FRA--and I have warned repeatedly since-- that these caps undermine our country's future in a really serious way. That is not speculation. I am speaking from experience. Back in 2011, the last time a large group of Republicans leveraged the full faith and credit of the United States to extract spending caps under a Democratic President, we got sequestration, which both parties quickly recognized was a disaster, and we got a decade of harmful caps. The effects of that still echo today. Nondefense funding, except veterans' medical care, is down 6 percent from 2010 when you adjust for inflation and down 14 percent when you adjust for inflation and population growth. That is not just a number on a page. That is less support for families, fewer research grants to keep us on the cutting edge, fewer officers cracking down on crime in neighborhoods. It is just so many opportunities lost, and I can't, for the life of me, understand why we would want to go through something like that again. Now, I am glad so many of my Republican colleagues are in strong agreement, at least when it comes to defense, but every Senator calling to boost defense spending alone is seriously missing the point. And any Senator who thinks I will let us leave nondefense spending behind is seriously misreading the situation. There is a simple reason I pushed for the principle of parity when I struck the budget deal that ended the worst of sequestration with Paul Ryan in 2013, and it still applies today. Nondefense investments matter to families. They matter to our economy, our competitiveness, our future, and, yes, it matters to national security. I can't emphasize that enough. Here in Washington, DC, we call it nondefense discretionary spending, or NDD--very wonky. Back home, we call it making sure parents have childcare, helping families put food on the table, supporting quality affordable healthcare in our communities, fixing our roads. Back home, we call it clean water, safe food, fresh air, affordable housing. When air traffic controllers keep our planes operating safely, that is NDD. When the FDA pulls an unsafe product off the shelf, that is NDD. When kids go to a public school or get a Pell grant that makes college possible for them, that is NDD. NIH researchers working to cure cancer, weather forecasters warning us of a disaster, agents cracking down on the flow of fentanyl and going after criminal organizations, fighting wildfires, enforcing sanctions against Russia, negotiating tough agreements with allies and adversaries alike--that is NDD. So I hope I have made my point. What we are talking about here is spending that is, by no stretch of the imagination, the largest portion of our budget--just about one-eighth of our total budget. But that makes a real tangible difference in family's lives and our country's safety and success every single day. We are also talking about things Americans overwhelmingly support. Seriously, I encourage my colleagues to go ask your constituents in any part of this country--conservative, liberal, Washington to Kentucky: Do you care if you have clean water? Do you care if your kids get sick from foodborne illness? Do you want to wait longer when you call the Social Security office, if you can reach anyone at all? Do you want someone making sure that the bridges that you drive across are safe? Do you want to stall our progress on cures and treatments for cancer or Alzheimer's or other deadly diseases? And yet NDD has been consistently underfunded, and it is a constant target for cuts by House Republicans, as we are now seeing. I am here to say: Enough is enough. If we keep cutting and stretching and shortchanging those programs, something is going to snap--something important. But more cuts are exactly what a 1-percent cap actually means--not treading water, not keeping up. A 1-percent cap means pain. If we let families down, that means we let our competitors get ahead. It means we leave our Nation vulnerable. That is not politics; it is cold, hard math. One percent is not enough to keep up with rising costs, growing needs, and new challenges. The issue here isn't whether we can make more tough choices. It is whether we are going to be honest about the tough realities of a 1- percent cap. There are so many priorities lawmakers on both sides of the aisle care about that just can't happen with a 1-percent increase. Here is what 1 percent means in practice: 1 percent means letting families go hungry. WIC, a literal lifeline for nearly 7 million mothers and babies is going to need a nearly 10-percent increase next year. Anything less will force us to choose which moms, which babies are getting the food they need and which are getting put on a wait list. Think about that. One percent means we are letting rural families lose their homes. We need a 5-percent increase for rural rental assistance alone. Falling short means thousands of rural families will lose assistance and may face eviction. How is that right? One percent means losing law enforcement. The FBI already can't fill about a thousand open positions because of what happened in fiscal year 2024. At 1 percent, in fiscal year 2025, it would have to trim another 1,300 positions. That is far fewer agents going after transnational criminal organizations, fentanyl traffickers, violent crime, cyber attackers, and more. Meanwhile, DOJ would have to lose or freeze nearly 5,000 positions. We are talking about attorneys and agents that defend our civil rights, prosecute dangerous criminals, and keep our Nation safe. Do Republicans really want to defund law enforcement? One percent means slashing pay for our Federal firefighters. Any family whose house has been threatened by one of the many devastating wildfires in recent years will tell you firefighters are not an optional expense. But over a quarter of the Forest Service's wildland firefighting jobs are vacant. And unless we provide funding to save our firefighters from a pay cut, those vacancies will get worse. This is the very definition of a ``must-have,'' not a ``nice-to- have,'' kind of investment. One percent means we are blunting momentum for lifesaving biomedical breakthroughs. NIH is looking at a $280 million shortfall as Cures Act funding tapers off. That absolutely cannot be filled with a 1-percent bump. And that is on top of the $678 million in NIH Cures Act funding that already expired last year that we couldn't make up for because of the caps. There are countless patients who would be devastated to hear that totally arbitrary spending caps are stifling research that could save their lives. But that is barely scratching the surface. One percent means no major new funding for the opioid or mental health crisis. It means fewer kids in Head Start, which is facing now a severe staffing shortage. It means long waiting times for seniors and people with disabilities who need help with their Social Security benefits. It means laying off meat inspectors and consumer product safety workers. And let's not forget that 1 percent means we are giving up ground to our competitors and adversaries in just about every way. It means delaying NASA missions. It means letting adversarial governments fill the void in global politics and influence, failing to counter an aggressive Putin in Russia and allowing partners to succumb to economic coercion from Beijing and withdrawing from the world stage to let competitors set the international norms that impact our safety and economic strength. It means falling way behind on innovation, which we should be leading the way. Do you know how much the Chinese government is increasing their research and development spending this year? It's 10 percent--10 percent. How do we expect to compete at 1? You know, we authorized some truly transformative programs and funding levels in the bipartisan Chips and Science Act, but that doesn't matter if we don't provide bipartisan investments that live up to those ambitions. The FRA has already forced us to fall short; and without more nondefense funding, it will force us to fall behind the Chinese government. I have covered a lot, but here is the rub: This is not even close to a comprehensive list of what those spending caps mean for our country. I cannot emphasize enough that under the caps for nondefense, everything struggles to keep up with rising costs. Programs that our kids, the future of our country, depend on--public schools, public health, nutrition assistance, to name a few--cannot get by on 1 percent. Programs that keep our economy strong and growing--childcare, training for our workers, support for small business and for farmers, cutting-edge research--can't get by on 1 percent. Programs that help communities thrive--affordable housing, transportation, broadband, and, of course, support for our Tribes-- cannot get by on 1 percent. Programs that keep us safe--diplomacy, Border Patrol, food inspectors, law enforcement--cannot get by on 1 percent. It is entirely self-defeating to box our future in, leave our families behind, and give our adversaries an opening to charge ahead. Congress needs to decide, Do we want a stronger America? House Republicans are saying ``no'' and writing fiscal year 2025 bills that ignore the deals that they negotiated in favor of devastating cuts to nondefense. The Senate, however, needs to come together and chart a different path in a bipartisan way that says ``yes'' to a stronger America. So, to me, the path for the Senate is clear: We have got to provide additional resources beyond the caps to address major shortfalls and new challenges. I appreciate my colleagues who want to do more for defense. I also think the defense cap is too low. But I feel strongly that that increase cannot happen in a vacuum. We have to do more for nondefense as well. Parity is the order of the day because investments in our families, in our economy, in communities' safety and success are no less important than investments at the Pentagon. They are, actually, in fact, connected. After all, a new submarine isn't just built with money; it is actually built by people who need schools and childcare for their kids, roads and public transportation to get to work, safe food and water, workforce training programs so they can take on new roles in advanced manufacturing, and more. So let me be clear: I will not let us boost defense alone while leaving families and our country's future in the dust. That is a core principle for me. It is who I am. Now, I want you to know I am not asking for the moon here. Parity for defense and nondefense is not new or radical; it was the norm. I should know. When I sat down across from Paul Ryan--a principled conservative--to reach a deal that undid the worst of sequestration a decade ago, we didn't agree on everything. In fact, we didn't agree on a lot of things. Family and football and fishing was all we agreed to start with. That is where we started. But we both understood the only way we were going to reach a deal, undo massive cuts, and help folks back home was by working together and producing a deal that may not be what we would have written alone but addressed concerns that both of us brought to the table. A cornerstone of that agreement--and of numerous agreements since-- was parity for defense and nondefense. Parity is not new. It is not some antiquated concept either; it is as relevant today as ever, because I think we can all agree that making sure planes fly safely overhead, making sure we invest in R&D as the Chinese government now spends 10 percent more, making sure our kids don't get hungry is not some second order priority. So we cannot shortchange either side of the ledger. We increased defense funding by tens of billions this year while nondefense was held flat; and I worked extremely hard alongside my colleagues to ensure we delivered on a $95 billion national security supplemental to address the major global threats we are facing. In fiscal year 2025, I cannot accept net cuts in real resources to NDD, which is what a 1-percent increase means. Our duty to our constituents is to pass bills that make their lives better: to provide funds that let us actually meet this moment, support families, protect our Nation, and stay ahead of our competitors. That will require more resources for nondefense. And I am ready to work with my colleagues to provide the same for defense. Last year, we were able to produce strong, bipartisan bills in committee. I am very hopeful we are going to be able to do the same again this year. I plan to hold our first fiscal year 2025 markup the week we return from the Fourth of July recess. And I look forward to working with all of my colleagues to make sure we meet this moment, take the concerns that we are hearing back home, and write and pass strong, bipartisan Senate Appropriations bills. I yield the floor.

Mrs. MURRAY

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

Mrs. MURRAY

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, last week, every Senator was put on the record as to whether they will defend the right to contraception, and despite Republicans' words about supporting birth control, their actions--voting against the Right to Contraception Act--spoke louder. Today we are putting Republicans on the record on another issue families across the country are deeply concerned about: the right to IVF. As we saw in Alabama, the threat to IVF is not hypothetical. It is not overblown, and it is not fearmongering. After the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that a frozen embryo is the same--has the exact same rights--as a living, breathing human person, women who waited for months and spent tens of thousands of dollars and were days away from an IVF appointment were left to wonder if it was all for nothing when their treatment was abruptly canceled. And families that had already gone through IVF were left to wonder if they could have their providers now dispose of unused embryos without facing legal threats. This happened. It was national news. It was complete chaos. So Republican efforts to dismiss this vote as fearmongering are simply not going to fly--especially when, right now, there are Republican bills, right now, that would enshrine as a matter of law that life begins at conception and that discarding unused embryos is, essentially, murder. That would essentially end IVF in our country. And this is not a fringe bill, either. It is supported by the majority of House Republicans, including the Speaker. Mr. President, I don't know how to make this any clearer to my Republican colleagues: You cannot support IVF and support fetal personhood laws. They are fundamentally incompatible. Democrats are not going to let Republicans off the hook for their support for fetal personhood. This is a dangerous and extreme ideology that the public must understand Republicans support wholeheartedly. We are also not going to let Republicans paper over their extremism with their so-called solution: a bill that is not only silent on ensuring embryos can be discarded but that explicitly allows States to put burdensome restrictions on IVF and create the kind of legal uncertainty that forced clinics in Alabama to close their doors. Mr. President, I do have good news for any of my Republican colleagues who do genuinely want to support IVF in a serious, meaningful way. We have a bill before us today that will do just that, and we are going to vote on it very shortly: the Right to IVF Act. I really want to thank Senator Duckworth and Senator Booker for working with me to put together a bill that would protect Americans from attempts to restrict IVF and help people get those vital services at a lower cost. The Right to IVF Act would establish a Federal right for patients to get IVF care and for doctors to provide it. It would ensure more health insurance plans cover IVF services, making care finally accessible to middle-class and lower income families who desperately need it. And this package includes my bill to help more veterans and servicemembers who have difficulty conceiving get the critical fertility services they need to start their families, including IVF. This is something I have long been pushing for, for years now, and it is long overdue. After all, these men and women fought to protect our families. We owe it to them to make sure they have the support when they come home to grow theirs. None of this should be controversial, especially if Republicans are serious about supporting IVF and preventing more chaos like we saw in Alabama. I will have more to say before the final vote, but the bottom line is: Americans saw earlier this year, with painful clarity, just how real the threat to IVF is, and they are going to see right now just who is serious about addressing that threat and protecting IVF access. With that, I will turn it over to my colleague from Michigan, who has been a champion on this issue.

Mrs. MURRAY

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I am not going to mince words here. It is ridiculous to claim that this bill protects IVF when it does nothing of the sort. In fact, it explicitly allows States to restrict IVF in all sorts of ways. It is literally in the bill text. Remember, it did not take State lawmakers in Alabama passing a ban on IVF for clinics in the State to suspend services. Under this bill, there are a million ways Republican-led States could enact burdensome and unnecessary requirements and create the kind of legal uncertainty and risk that would force clinics to once again close their doors. Also, even though it is an inherent part of the IVF process that families will make more embryos than they need, this bill does absolutely nothing--not a single thing--to ensure families who use IVF can have their clinics dispose of unused embryos without facing legal threats for a standard medical procedure. Instead, this bill completely ignores the matter of what happens to frozen embryos in order to appease Republicans' extreme anti-abortion allies. This was intentional, and it leaves the door open to a lot of chaos. So this Republican bill really is a PR tool, plain and simple. It is just another way for Republicans to pretend they are not the extremists that they keep proving they are. Meanwhile, there are bills some Republicans are pushing for right now that would enshrine, as a matter of law, that life begins at conception and that discarding unused embryos is essentially murder. Senator Cruz himself supported a personhood amendment to the U.S. Constitution. No way around that. The junior Senator from Texas wanted to change the U.S. Constitution to give embryos the same rights as living, breathing human beings. Look, the stone-cold reality is that you cannot protect IVF and champion fetal personhood. So I would like to ask my colleagues who are offering this enormously inadequate bill--and I hope they do answer it directly--do you support letting parents have clinics dispose of unused embryos, which is a typical part of the IVF process, or do you support fetal personhood, which by its very nature will throw IVF access into chaos? Because until they clearly answer that question--and it is a couple simple ones--all the claims of supporting IVF will fall obviously short, just like this bill does. That is why I object.

Mrs. MURRAY

Mrs. MURRAY. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mrs. MURRAY

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I want to thank all of my colleagues who are here on the floor and thank Senator Hirono, who has led this legislation, along with Senator Markey. As you just heard, today, every Senator is going to be confronted with a very simple question: Should Americans have the right to contraception, the right to birth control--IUDs? Plan B? Now, that really should not be a hard question. In fact, most Americans thought this matter was settled. After all, nearly 60 years ago, the Supreme Court decided Griswold v. Connecticut and affirmed Americans' right to privacy, including the right to contraception. Today, the right to contraception is overwhelmingly popular. The vast majority of the American people, our constituents, supports this right. So this should be an easy vote. This bill should pass with flying colors. It almost shouldn't be necessary. Yet Republicans have been making clear that a bill like this is not only necessary but urgent. Not only has Justice Thomas signaled an interest in reconsidering Griswold and not only have Senators said Griswold was unsound, but there are Republican bills right now with large GOP support that would severely undercut the right to birth control, like the Life at Conception Act, which is supported by more than half of the Republicans in the House, including the Speaker. That GOP bill would enshrine the truly extreme doctrine of fetal personhood nationwide. That would not just ban abortion, it would outlaw emergency contraception like Plan B, and it would outlaw IUDs. You don't have to take my word for it. I chaired a HELP hearing yesterday on the damage of Republicans' anti-abortion attacks over the past 2 years, and I asked the Republicans' own witness directly: Do you view IUDs as abortion? The answer was yes. Let's be crystal clear. IUDs and Plan B do not cause an abortion. That level of disinformation is chilling, and it cuts to the heart of the issue about what many Republicans really think about contraception. So every time Republicans try to say no one is coming for your birth control, well, what about every Republican pushing for fetal personhood? Seriously. Let's say Republicans succeed in making fetal personhood the law of the land. I mean, they have already succeeded at overturning Roe. So if Republicans enact fetal personhood, what happens to all of the women with IUDs? Make no mistake, that isn't simply some provocative hypothetical. If Republicans actually pass the Life at Conception Act, this is a question millions of women will have to grapple with. Now, I don't expect an answer from Republicans, and I don't expect every Republican to be as forthcoming as their witness yesterday when it comes to where they stand on the right to birth control, but we are putting every single Senator on the record today when we vote on the Right to Contraception Act. This bill is as exactly straightforward and as common sense as it sounds. It simply codifies Americans' right to birth control into law. That is it. And you don't have to take my word for it; read it. It is 11 pages. To me, this is not just a messaging bill; it is a meaningful way to protect a really fundamental right. But it is absolutely right that how each of us votes will send a message. So what message do my Republican colleagues want to send to the American people? What message do we want to send to our constituents: that we support their right to birth control--that we support access to IUDs, to Plan B--or that we are OK with taking that right away and letting politicians make medical decisions for women in this country? I know where I stand--with the overwhelming majority of people who support that right. Soon, we will know exactly where every Republican Senator stands as well. Whatever happens with this vote, Democrats are going to keep pushing in full force to hold Republicans accountable for their extreme policies and the harm they are causing. We will work to restore abortion rights in this country and to protect women's reproductive rights across the board. I yield the floor.

Mrs. MURRAY

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized for up to 10 minutes, Senator Schmitt be recognized for up to 5 minutes, Senator Lee be recognized for up to 10 minutes, and Senator Sanders be recognized for up to 2 minutes prior to the scheduled vote.

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I have been warning for months about the need to meet this moment of global uncertainty and chaos with a robust, national security supplemental--not delay, not half steps, but investments that show the world we are serious about standing by all of our allies, providing humanitarian aid, and maintaining America's leadership on the world stage, which is why I am glad the House sent us legislation that includes every pillar of the package we passed overwhelmingly here in the Senate. And I hope now we can all come together to pass these policies once again. We cannot send the message that division has won out against action, that isolationism has won out against leadership, because the challenges that we face and that our allies face are immense, urgent, and interconnected. Putin is waging a brutal invasion of Ukraine, which is running low on supplies. The war between Israel and Hamas threatens to escalate into a far more dangerous regional conflict. Civilians caught in conflict desperately need food, water, medical care, and other humanitarian aid. And the Chinese Government is making aggressive moves to grow its influence in the Indo-Pacific. Those are the stakes of this moment, as I have reminded my colleagues time and time and time again. Inaction cannot be an option. We need to meet this moment, address all the challenges before us, and show the world American leadership is still strong. I believe that strongly, and I know, when push comes to shove, a clear majority of Members on both sides of the aisle, in both Chambers of Congress, feel the same way. That is why I have come to the floor so many times over the past several months to lay out in painstaking detail how much is at stake, how crucial it is that we meet this moment with a robust package that addresses the many interconnected challenges before us. It is why here in the Senate we took action over 2 months ago now and overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan national security supplemental. I and many others--Vice Chair Collins, Leader Schumer, Leader McConnell--all worked very hard over months to craft legislation that could pass both the Senate and the House, that both Democrats and Republicans could get behind. So I am glad we are now working to pass the national security supplemental the House sent over, particularly since it is materially identical to the Senate package we cleared with such great support. I have to say I am relieved to see Speaker Johnson finally do the right thing, ignore the far right, and send us what is essentially the bill we wrote and passed months ago. But let's be clear about a few things. This delay has not been harmless. Putin's forces have been on the march. His missiles and Iranian-made drones have been striking critical Ukrainian infrastructure. We measure time in hours; Ukrainians are measuring it in how many bullets they have left, how many more missiles fall on their cities, and how much closer Putin's tanks are getting. That was clear even before I said that 2 months ago. The path forward, the path we are finally now on, was painfully clear because unfortunately we have seen this movie before in debt limit negotiations and in funding the government. I believe Congress can actually work together. We can actually hammer out a compromise. This is not the bill either party would have written on their own but one that gets the job done. Let's be clear. The package before us gets the job done. It gets aid to soldiers in Ukraine, who are counting their bullets and wondering how long they can hold out. It gets support to Israel, which faces serious threats on all fronts. It gets support to our allies in the Indo-Pacific, where the Chinese Government has been posturing aggressively. It gets critical humanitarian aid to civilians in Ukraine, Sudan, and Gaza, including kids who are caught in the crossfire who are in desperate need of food and water and medical care. That was a redline for me. I pushed hard at every stage of this to make sure we provide humanitarian aid. At every stage of these negotiations, I made clear Congress will not advance a supplemental that fails civilians. I will not let us turn our backs on women and children who are suffering and who are often hit hardest by the fallout of chaos and conflict. Madam President, at a time when the world is watching and wondering if the United States is still capable of meeting the challenges before us, if we are still united enough to meet them, this package won't just send aid, it will send a message. It will show our allies that our word is still good and that we will stand by them in times of need. It will show dictators that our warnings are serious and that we will not let their flagrant attacks go unchecked. And it will show the world that American leadership is still alive and well and that we are still a strong protector of democracy and provider of humanitarian aid. That is a message that is well worth sending now more than ever. I wish we were able to wrap this up much sooner. I am glad we are at this final threshold now. I urge my colleagues to vote yes on the final package. Before I wrap up, I absolutely have to recognize some of the people who have worked incredibly hard to get us here today. It starts with my vice chair on the Appropriations Committee, Senator Collins, and our House colleagues, former Chairwoman Granger, Ranking Member DeLauro, and Chairman Cole, and their staffs for help getting this package through the House. It includes Leader Schumer and Leader McConnell, as well, and in the House, Leader Jeffries and Speaker Johnson. We also would not have gotten here without Members on both sides of the aisle coming together and understanding that this is a moment we cannot leave our allies behind and then all pulling in the same direction so we can deliver support to our allies in Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific, humanitarian aid to civilians, and that message to the world. Most importantly, we wouldn't have gotten here without the tireless work of our dedicated staff. The stakes have been high, the nights have been very long, and the men and women working to get this package together and get it across the finish line have absolutely risen to the challenge. Madam President, from Vice Chair Collins' team, I want to recognize Betsy McDonnell, Matt Giroux, Ryan Kaldahl, Paul Grove, Viraj Mirani, Lindsay Garcia, Patrick Magnuson, and Lindsey Seidman for their hard work. I owe a huge thanks to many members of my excellent team. Excuse me for one moment. It is a list, but every one of them deserves recognition and for us to all hear who they are. From my team, I want to thank Evan Schatz, John Righter, Carly Rush, Kate Kaufer, Mike Clementi, Robert Leonard, Ryan Pettit, Abigail Grace, Brigid Kolish, Gabriella Armonda, Katy Hagan, Kimberly Segura, Laura Forrest, Alex Carnes, Drew Platt, Kali Farahmand, Sarita Vanka, Doug Clapp, Jennifer Becker-Pollet, Aaron Goldner, Kami White, Elizabeth Lapham, Jim Daumit, Michelle Dominguez, Jason McMahon, Mike Gentile, Ben Hammond, Valerie Hutton, and Dylan Stafford. I know there are many others as well, including House staffers who have worked tirelessly on this. I want to personally thank each and every one of them. Madam President, we hammer out a lot of meaningful bills here. Just about every bill we pass touches the lives of the American people directly--every one. But, as I said before, in this moment of global uncertainty, the balance of world power and the strength of American leadership are at stake. So I am deeply grateful to every Member, every staffer, and every person who came together to make sure we pass this test by passing the resources that are so clearly needed. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 and the waiver provisions of applicable budget resolutions, I move to waive all applicable sections of that act and applicable budget points of order for the purposes of the pending measure, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I object.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, it has been no easy task to get us to this point. The world has been watching; the clock has been ticking; but we are finally at the finish line. I am not just glad but relieved we are finally about to pass the bill from the House that, as many of us noted, includes every pillar of the package we passed overwhelmingly here in the Senate back in February, essentially identical in the funding that we are providing. I think it is fair to say, thanks to the bipartisanship and a shared commitment to doing what is best for America, the Senate has made its voice heard in this process. In particular, I want to, once again, thank my counterpart and vice chair, Senator Collins. We don't agree on everything, but we both had a real appreciation for the seriousness of this work and the importance of negotiating a bill that would pass both Chambers. As I have said, this package is not the product I would have written just by myself; it is the result of a difficult bipartisan process. Crafting this package has required serious, sober discussion, not partisanship, not political show. So thanks to Senator Collins, Leader Schumer, the minority leader, and many others, this legislation provides the resources necessary to make the world safer for America and its allies. We are delivering investments to address the challenges of today and investing in our strategy for the future. This package makes clear that Congress understands that the conflict in Ukraine is not disjointed from future aggression by the Chinese Communist Party. From the beginning I was clear: The challenges we face around the world are interconnected. We have to deliver a comprehensive package. Half steps cannot cut it. This package ensures that America keeps its word to all of our allies and stands by all of our commitments. Especially important to me: in passing this package, we do not lose sight of the human reality on the ground, the fact that in the middle of every conflict are civilians--people displaced from their homes, people facing obstacles getting basic medical services, and kids and families who desperately need food and water. I made certain at every step that this bill delivers badly needed humanitarian assistance for Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, and many other regions caught in conflict. So now we are at the finish line. Let's vote to stand by our allies, to say to dictators like Putin that they cannot invade sovereign democracies freely and unchecked and that America will not ignore the humanity and the cries for help from civilians who are caught in the middle of conflict and crossfire whom we must protect. Tonight, Moscow and Beijing are watching closely to see whether we have the vision to recognize how these crises are related and the resolve to come together and respond forcefully to them. Our adversaries are cheering for dysfunction. Let's show them unity instead. Let's show them the strength of democracy. Let's vote yes.

Mrs. MURRAY. A bipartisan majority has been working for months to get this aid across the finish line and, after so long, we are at the threshold. Any further delay will waste time we do not have, that our allies do not have. That is exactly what this motion is. We need to get this bill passed ASAP. Let's remember: This bill is essentially the same bill we already passed overwhelmingly 2 months ago. There is no reason, no excuse for delay, not when bombs are falling on our allies, not when civilians, including kids, are suffering and starving, not when the world is watching to see if America is still united enough to lead. I urge my colleagues to vote no on the table motion.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I object.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I object.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I object.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. MURRAY

Mrs. MURRAY. I do. At this time, I will administer the oath to all Senators in the Chamber in conformance with article I, section 3, clause 6 of the Constitution and the Senate's impeachment rules. Will all Senators now stand and raise their right hands. Do you solemnly swear that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Alejandro N. Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, now pending, you will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws, so help you God? SENATORS. I do.

Mrs. MURRAY

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the revised memberships on the twelve subcommittees of the Committee on Appropriations for the 118th Congress be printed in the Record. The new assignments reflect my selection as chair of the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development and Senator Kyrsten Sinema's selection as chair of the Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies, both for the remainder of this Congress.

Mrs. MURRAY

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, we are nearing the end of what has been a long, winding, and tough process. I just want to start by thanking everyone who has worked with me to get here, and that starts, of course, with my vice chair, Senator Collins, who has been a really great partner throughout this process, and I so appreciate it. I also want to thank our counterparts in the House, Chair Granger and Ranking Member DeLauro. And I want to thank all of my staff and the vice chairs who have worked tirelessly on these bills, all our incredible subcommittee chairs: Senators Tester, Van Hollen, Murphy, Baldwin, Reed, and Coons; our ranking members: Senators Hagerty, Britt, Capito, Fischer, and Graham; Leaders Schumer and McConnell; and all of their staffs; and so many others. As I have said before, this is not the package I would have written all on my own, but by working together, we were finally able to hammer out an agreement on funding bills that protect and even strengthen critical investments in our families, in our economy, and in our national security. Make no mistake, we had to work under very difficult top-line numbers and fight off literally hundreds of extreme Republican poison pills from the House, not to mention some unthinkable cuts, but at the end of the day, this is a bill that will keep our country and our families moving forward. I want to talk about what is in this package before our final vote. I want to start with something that is a top priority for families and for me: childcare, which is far out of reach for so many people right now. I will seize every opportunity I can to help families get affordable childcare. And in this funding bill, I am pleased to say that we increased Federal funding for childcare and pre-K by $1 billion. That is not even counting steps I secured to protect the CCAMPIS Program that helps young parents who are in college who need childcare or double the capacity for the universal pre-K program we have for our servicemembers. Ultimately, we need to pass, I believe, my Child Care for Working Families Act to fix this crisis and make affordable childcare a reality for every family. But until we get there, I will keep pushing for every inch of progress to alleviate the stress families are feeling when it comes to childcare. Can we take steps to help our military families get childcare? What about moms who are looking to get a college degree? What bit of progress can we make to help folks? These are the questions that motivate my thinking on this issue and many others like people's health and well-being. This package provides crucial health funding. It boosts research funding for cancer, for Alzheimer's, for maternal mortality, and more. It funds community health centers, local efforts to fight the opioid and mental health crisis, and the new Federal office of pandemic preparedness that I created with former Senator Burr. In the face of House Republicans' push to gut funding to end HIV and build our public health infrastructure, we protected those vital efforts in this bill. We protected family planning, not just from the House Republican efforts to defund title X entirely but also from countless far-right proposals to restrict women's reproductive freedom. The American people should know that Democrats stood firm to reject every single one of those. We also stood together to make critical investments in education, protecting increases we made to the maximum Pell award in recent years, educator preparation initiatives, and workforce training programs. We rejected House Republicans' unthinkable cuts in funding for K-12 schools, which would have reduced funding for nearly 90 percent of school districts and force teachers out of our kids' classrooms. Of course, this package does fund our staffs and Capitol Police here in Congress, our election security, and other essential, basic functions of government. Then there are the crucial investments for our national security. At a time when Putin is on the march in Ukraine, the Chinese Government is growing its influence in an aggressive posture, and the Israel-Hamas war is still raging, American leadership could not be more essential. That is why it remains imperative the Speaker finally put that national security supplemental bill that we passed overwhelmingly up for a vote, and it is why this bill also includes investments to promote global stability, to keep our country safe, to deter conflict, and to ensure our military remains the strongest in the world. That means investments in diplomacy, maintaining strong ties with our allies, upholding our commitments, forging new partnerships, providing more humanitarian aid, and promoting stability and global health. It means investments in defense, not just funds for new equipment-- though that is important--but investments in the men and women in uniform who are our true frontlines of defense. The bill provides our servicemembers a pay raise. It invests in childcare for their kids, like I mentioned earlier. It invests in food security and strengthens our efforts to prevent suicide and address sexual assault and harassment in the forces, and more. This bill secured additional visas for brave Afghans who worked alongside our servicemembers during the war in Afghanistan. Finally, this package provides critical operational funding for the Department of Homeland Security. It is certainly not a perfect outcome, but let's not forget that Democrats were at the table. We were ready to pass a bipartisan border policy deal until Donald Trump told Republicans to kill that deal. But in spite of that, the funding in this bill shows we can at least agree to some extent that we must not shortchange crucial work: stopping fentanyl from reaching our communities; stopping dangerous human trafficking; cracking down on drug cartels; and ensuring our borders are operating safely, efficiently, and humanely. Now, I hope my colleagues will work with me to close the book on fiscal year 2024, to avoid a shutdown and get this bill passed ASAP, and then let's make sure we all learn from the hard lessons of the past few months about how we do get things done in a divided government, because what we have seen at every stage of this process is that when we do work together, when we put our heads down and focus on solutions and listen to our constituents, we can find common ground. We can craft bipartisan bills. But when House Republicans stopped everything to renegotiate the deal they struck with the President; when they insisted on partisan poison pills; when they listened to the loudest voices on the far right, who-- let's be real--were never going to vote for any bipartisan funding bill, that gets us nowhere. It wasted months of precious time far better spent crafting bills that grow our economy and protect our country and make things better for folks back home. After all of that delay, how different, ultimately, was the outcome? Think about that. Yet now we are here, 6 months into the fiscal year, and Agencies will just have 6 months left to leverage these full-year spending bills. I believe we negotiated strong, bipartisan bills that will help the American people. This outcome is so much better than a shutdown or a full-year CR, which would have had devastating cuts, but it should never have taken us this long to get here. We should not teeter on the verge of a shutdown and lurch from one CR to another. Agencies should not be dedicating so many resources to preparing again and again for a possible government shutdown. Don't we all agree that the Pentagon and the NIH have better ways to be spending their time and their tax dollars? The far-right elements who forced this dysfunction claim to care a lot about fiscal responsibility, but the constant chaos they create is the opposite of fiscal responsibility. The truth is, these appropriations bills are written over the course of months, after dozens of hearings, with input from nearly every Member, and they reflect the priorities of every State in America. Working together, focusing on solutions, solving problems for people back home--that is the responsible way to get things done, and it is for the most part how we conduct ourselves here in the Senate. Vice Chair Collins and I held bipartisan hearings. We gave every Senator an opportunity to weigh in on these bills. We crafted 12 bills that passed out of our committee overwhelmingly, many unanimously. I think we need more of that as we begin our work now on fiscal year 2025 if we are going to keep this process on track. So as we finally pass this bill, I urge all of my colleagues to really take the lessons of the past year to heart. Congress can still work but only when we come to the negotiating table in good faith and leave politics at the door. Before I turn it over, I want to submit into the Record a list recognizing our incredibly dedicated staff, the people who truly keep the trains on track and who poured so many long days and nights of hard work into these bills. I ask unanimous consent to have that printed in the Record.

Mrs. MURRAY

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H. Con. Res. 100, which was received from the House and is at the desk.

Mrs. MURRAY. I further ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mrs. MURRAY. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. MURRAY

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

Mrs. MURRAY

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask the Chair to lay before the Senate a message from the House of Representatives on H.R. 2882. I ask for the yeas and nays.