▶ 0:29:03Chair Collins: The committee will come to order. Today, the senate appropriations committee will consider the fiscal year 2026 appropriations bill for military construction, veterans affairs, and related agencies. Following my opening remarks and vice chair of murray's remarks, we will vote on this measure.
▶ 0:29:28Chair Collins: As I did it last week, I would like to begin by thanking vice chair marie and all the numbers of the committee along with the committee staff for their hard work during this appropriations cycle. Last week this committee was able to report to funding bills, the agriculture and legislative branch appropriations measures.
▶ 0:29:58Chair Collins: Each past with overwhelming bipartisan support. Today, we continue our work to advance bipartisan appropriations bills that reflect the priorities of members on both sides of the aisle and the constituents they represent.
▶ 0:30:21Chair Collins: I would note that the committee has received the house passed version of the veterans affairs bill and military construction and we will report it today with the senate substitute. I also want to note that leader thune has indicated to me that he has every intention of bringing to the senate floor the bills that we report.
▶ 0:30:52Chair Collins: Just like last week's bills, the v.a. Funding bill is a member driven product. It reflects input from the 89 senators who submitted a total of 980 nine requests. This legislation reflects many of the priorities of nearly the entire senate. After the initial vote on the v.a.
▶ 0:31:22Chair Collins: Bill, I will recognize the subcommittee's able leaders, senators boseman and ossoff to discuss their work and we will consider them. Let me commend both of them for their leadership and hard work in developing the bill that we consider today.
▶ 0:31:45Chair Collins: This bill addresses key needs for our military infrastructure, including housing improvements for military families. It takes care of our nation's veterans, to whom we owe in enormous debt, adapt we can never fully repay.
▶ 0:32:04Chair Collins: It helps to fund the v8 health care system, makes investments to improve mental health care, includes programs to assist in the prevention of veteran suicide, homelessness prevention programs, supports the family caregivers and expands care for our veterans. It also funds important veterans benefits, including disabilities, pensions, the g.I.
▶ 0:32:34Chair Collins: Bill and employment training programs. Before I turn to vice chair marie for her remarks, I want to say for the information of all of the senators present my intention to resume consideration of the commerce justice science and related agencies funding bill after voting on the military bill.
▶ 0:33:07Chair Collins: Bipartisan drafted bill has been amended but currently lacks the support to be reported, a situation I hope will change today as more information is provided to the committee. I would now to recognize the vice chair for any comments she would like to make.
▶ 0:33:28Sen Murray: Thank you very much, chair collins. We are here today to resume consideration of the cjs bill and take up the milk and take up the mil con va bill. It is a good thing by working together we were able to put together a solid bill that invests in folks back at home. This is the weight this process should work.
▶ 0:33:57Sen Murray: Senators coming together in finding common ground on common sense investments. But I do have to acknowledge the elephant in the room here. It is no secret the path to advancing more bills is going to be harder because of the unprecedented partisan rescissions pill that republicans just past. It is extremely frustrating to see so many colleagues and I worked with us to fast funding bills turn around and go to rip away the funding that we all agreed on.
▶ 0:34:30Sen Murray: I have never seen anything like it because the senate has never done anything like that before. We have never come until now, past a purely partisan rescissions bill. It is a dangerous new precedent and poses some hard questions my colleagues across the aisle need to start answering. Round two of the partisan cuts are on the way soon.
▶ 0:35:00Sen Murray: What do my colleagues want to do? Do they want to turn this into the rescissions committee because that is one path we could end up going down and as of now, we are one big alarming step down it. It is not the path I want to go down rate and want to see us turn back to what is historically made this committee so powerful and so worth being on in the first place, which is working together to advance bills that deliver for our constituents and get signed into law.
▶ 0:35:30Sen Murray: It is unfortunate that many members of this body have voted to make that a whole lot harder. That is the reality and there is no ignoring it. I do believe our work here is as important as ever, writing bills that make the voice of the senate and the voices of our constituents heard instead of letting donald trump and making a decision for a forever cr.
▶ 0:35:57Sen Murray: There is no doubt in my mind the bills we negotiate together will be far preferable to the partisan house bills or another slush fund cr. We have already seen this president abused the power from the last cr. To ignore our bipartisan decisions, spend taxpayer dollars as he sees fit and rub money for blue states exactly as I warned about. We have already learned that lesson the hard way.
▶ 0:36:26Sen Murray: We cannot throw in the towel again and let omb hold up funding for our states or zero out projects we secured for folks back home. That is part of why bipartisan bills are so important. But everyone has to understand, getting to the finish line always depends on our ability to work together in a bipartisan way and it also depends on trust , trust.
▶ 0:36:55Sen Murray: As I warned on the floor, bipartisanship does not end with any one line being crossed, it erodes over time, bit by bit. And frankly, I am alarmed by how quickly that erosion is happening right now over the last six months and certainly over the last 24 hours. We are racing in the wrong direction and it is really on my colleagues across the aisle to decide if they are going to hit the brakes or go over the cliff.
▶ 0:37:23Sen Murray: The question of whether forging a bipartisan path is hopeless or not will depend very much on whether this committee is able to lock arms and whether our colleagues will defend bipartisan deals from a budget chief who believes quite plainly that congress and appropriators should have as little essay as possible on federal spending.
▶ 0:37:48Sen Murray: I appreciate that two republican members of this committee ultimately took a principled stand against the partisan rescissions package. I really hope more will join us in standing up for our power of the purse. Turning back to the bills before us today, the mil con va v.a. Is one I believe in. As a dot of a world war ii veterans, the funding is very personal to me.
▶ 0:38:15Sen Murray: Doing it right by our vets and getting them the care they need and were promised is a moral obligation. I will have more as we bake the bill including areas I would like to have done more but the bottom line is, it deserves the funding for safe and updated infrastructure for troops and families and to keep our word to our veterans. As the chairman noted it, we will also retake up the cjs bill.
▶ 0:38:43Sen Murray: I spoke about the serious concerns I share with the senator and it is frustrating after a bipartisan amendment was taken up instead of advancing the bill, we recessed and are now only taking it back up with consideration of a partisan amendment. My hope is we can ensure the integrity of the process for it to be protected by the committee.
▶ 0:39:08Sen Murray: I am prepared to see what happens as this bill moves forward but will probably quote know if this does not get addressed. With that I will turn it back over to chair collins.
▶ 0:39:18Chair Collins: I would just note that there is another factor that is critical to the success of the appropriations committee and that is having a majority leader who is willing to bring appropriations bills to the senate floor, something that did not happen last year.
▶ 0:39:47Chair Collins: I will now recognize vice chair murray to make the customary motion to report the house mil con v.a. Bill with an amendment to the nature of a substitute.
▶ 0:39:57Gen. Brown: I would the I removed that the committee make military construction, department of veterans affairs and related agencies for fiscal year ending september 30, 20 26 and for other purposes with an amendment in the nature of a substitute provided the bill be subject to further amendment. Any authority be offset by reduction of equal or greater a budget authority.
▶ 0:40:23Chair Collins: Thank you, senator murray. I note that we have a quorum present and with at objection, we will now vote to report the bill -- >> chair, is there a point at which we will have some discussion?
▶ 0:40:41Chair Collins: Yes. >> I want to make that separate and apart I want to make sure we have the contacts and a discussion among college but don't want to interfere with the vote but want to make sure there is a place for that.
▶ 0:40:55Chair Collins: As the center is well aware, the weight appropriations operates is we vote to report the bill subject to amendment and then after that is done we do debate and the offering of amendments which usually starts with the managers package and then any member is able to offer a germane
▶ 0:41:25Chair Collins: Amendment to the bill. This will be no different. So the clerk will call the role. >> Sen. mcconnell:. >> aye. >> >> aye. >> senator graham. >> aye. >> senator capital >> aye.
▶ 0:41:56Chair Collins: . >> senator kennedy. >> aye. >> senator britt. >> aye. >> senator rounds. >> aye. >> senator reed. >> aye. >> senator jean.
▶ 0:42:28Chair Collins: >> aye. >> senator baldwin. >> aye. >> senator murphy. >> no. >> senator van hollen. >> no. >> senator heinrich. >> aye. >> senator gillibrand.
▶ 0:43:02Chair Collins: >> aye. >> chair collins. >> aye.
▶ 0:43:17Chair Collins: On this boat, there are 25 ayes and 3 nays. To report favorably is agreed to. We will now turn to consideration of the bill.
▶ 0:43:35Chair Collins: Again, I want to think the subcommittee or working together under the strong leadership of senator boseman and senator ossoff and I want to thank the subcommittee staff for getting the bill ready.
▶ 0:43:56Chair Collins: As I said in my opening statements, this funds many important priorities for our veterans and will ensure that that military has the infrastructure it needs to fulfill its mission. Like senator murray I am the daughter of a world war ii veteran who was wounded twice in the battle of the bulge and spent his last days in a veterans home.
▶ 0:44:23Chair Collins: So I know firsthand how important this infrastructure is. I would now like to recognize vice chair murray to comment on the bill.
▶ 0:44:32Sen Murray: Again, thank you and -- for your work putting together a good mil con v.a. Bill. This legislation lives up to the nation's commitment to the veterans that the funding they need and makes crucial investments to support service members. The bill includes a special funds for v.a.
▶ 0:44:52Sen Murray: Care including rural health, medical research, and the caregivers program I have long championed and puts funding levels for these important programs in statute and expands the pilot I started to ensure that childcare is not a barrier to any veteran who needs care and increases funding for veteran homelessness and mental health needs pigment comes to supporting our service members and families, there are investments for 300 construction projects, including the family
▶ 0:45:22Sen Murray: Housing construction and child development centers, also investments to bolster the footprint in the pacific and support nato projects. Altogether these are incredibly important to service members and veterans and national security so I will be voting yes.
▶ 0:45:39Chair Collins: Thank you vice chair murray. I will now turn to the subcommittee to explain their bill and we will begin with chair boseman.
▶ 0:45:53Sen. Boozman: Thank you. I am happy to join the senator in the fiscal year 2026-2027 budget recommendation of the department of veterans affairs and for the department of defense military construction.
▶ 0:46:12Sen. Boozman: I want to thank senator ossoff for his partnership and hard work in putting together the strong bipartisan bill and as always we appreciate the example of the chair and vice chair in their ability to work together. This -- as has historically been the case, this is when the first to mark up a bill and I'm proud to continue the appropriations process today.
▶ 0:46:38Sen. Boozman: As in years past, the subcommittee crafted the bill in an open and bipartisan way and I expect to continue that today as we move to the floor for consideration. This bill takes into consideration the needs of our veterans and families and service members. Within that framework, we have created a thoughtful path for both departments and related agencies. The bill provides a hundred and $53.5 billion in discretionary spending.
▶ 0:47:08Sen. Boozman: Of that amount, the department -- department of veterans affairs has provided $133.3 billion in discretionary funding. When combined with 48.9 billion for the toxic exposure, veterans affairs will be funded to the tune of 160 $3.6 billion -- $163.6 billion.
▶ 0:47:36Sen. Boozman: $698 million for outreach programs and increasing health care rural access. Supports critical mental health programs at $18.9 billion prevents veterans homelessness for $5.3 billion and provides funding for medical research for the bill also provides 250 3.6 billion dollars in mandatory veterans benefits, including
▶ 0:48:07Sen. Boozman: Disability pensions, employment training programs and education benefits. We also provide advanced appropriations for fiscal year 2027 for certain accounts, including $122.3 billion for veterans medical care and $262.1 billion for mandatory veterans benefits. This bill provides $19.8 billion to support military construction and family housing needs.
▶ 0:48:35Sen. Boozman: The bill would give the department of defense the resources it needs to project power globally, enhanced or fighting capabilities and train forces. This bill also provides $1.9 billion to improve housing and quality of life for servicemembers and their families. I also want to note that it includes $255 million for agencies which includes the american battle monuments, commission, U.S.
▶ 0:49:02Sen. Boozman: Court of appeals for veterans claims, arlington national cemetery, in the armed forces retirement home for this year at the bill also includes several measures for provisions including incorporating a new table by reference, eliminating the transfer of authority and adding several new statutory carveouts for v.a. Programs.
▶ 0:49:26Sen. Boozman: I want to thank you and vice chair murray for your support in helping us to get to the point where we are where we can present this to the committee today. I also want to thank senator ossoff for his partnership in crafting this bill as well as both of our staffs. Given the lateness of the budget request, the staff did a tremendous job in crafting this bill in such a short time.
▶ 0:49:57Sen. Boozman: With that, I yield back.
▶ 0:49:58Chair Collins: Thank you very much. Senator ossoff does not recognized for his remarks.
▶ 0:50:08Sen. Ossoff: Thank you, madam chair, and I want to thank senator boseman as well for his bipartisan work to craft this legislation, which will support vital and overdue construction and upgrades at defense installations in all of our states for george is proud to host some of the most essential defense installations in the country.
▶ 0:50:33Sen. Ossoff: We are all proud of the installations in our states and the men and women who serve their and this legislation makes important investments in those defense installations in military readiness and military quality of life. This legislation also includes important policy to support the work of the v.a. And the sacred trust between the nation and those who have served in uniform to improve the quality and timeliness of health care and service and benefits they have earned.
▶ 0:51:04Sen. Ossoff: It also includes important bipartisan provisions to protect the v.a. Workforce to ensure veterans are never denied care or timely access to care as a result of damaging or arbitrary cuts to the workforce.
▶ 0:51:19Sen. Ossoff: This legislation I think reflects real bipartisan work to support our military and veterans and I echo senator boseman's work given the department was late in providing the judge it justification and initial submission was incomplete. The subcommittee worked hard to work around that. I want to address a couple of other points, including those raised by vice chair murray.
▶ 0:51:47Sen. Ossoff: First of all, at our last meeting, we raised this question about books that occurred prior to debate and amendment and I don't think we had a resolution of that discussion. Let me share with my colleagues as a new member of this committee and that may be the tradition but it is a silly one and it is not explicable to the public why it we would all vote on legislation prior to discussing and amending the legislation.
▶ 0:52:18Sen. Ossoff: I want to raise that again that probably needs to change. Addressing what happened last night, as the vice chair ray said, the elephant in the room. If the senate is going to have a serious appropriations process that requires 60 votes to pass appropriations measures and then partisan rescissions undo the work we have done together, it is obviously deeply corrosive to
▶ 0:52:48Sen. Ossoff: This process and I fear the enduring legacy of the apartments committee and 100 and 19th congress may be the destruction of the appropriations process if we accommodate on a partyline basis .
▶ 0:53:08Sen. Ossoff: We rescind funding that we have agreed to on a bipartisan basis for particularly whereas we saw last night and the political pressure cooker we are income even senators who have policy convictions that would lead them to oppose provisions of those rescission packages are unwilling to offer amendments or support amendments consistent with their views. How are we going to continue like this? It is something that this committee needs to grapple with seriously.
▶ 0:53:35Sen. Ossoff: But this legislation reflects the serious bipartisan work to support america's veterans and defense installations. I think colleagues for their support of this legislation. I hope that we can continue working toward the floor to pass appropriations measures that are in the national interest. I yield.
▶ 0:53:56Chair Collins: I will now turn to senator boozman for the manages package.
▶ 0:54:06Sen. Boozman: I would like to enter this for the veterans affairs and the related agency bills. The package has been negotiated and agreed to by both sides and I ask that it be adopted.
▶ 0:54:20Chair Collins: Are there any objections? Without objections, the manages package is agreed to. Are there other members who wish to offer an amendment to the bill? The senator from connecticut is recognized.
▶ 0:54:42Chair Collins: >> I know senator will offer an amendment that will allow us to have a conversation about what happened last night and what I think is the real story we need to be talking about today, the destruction of the bipartisan appropriations process that frankly brought us all here and caused us to fight so hard to be a member of this committee. I first want to offer a relatively straightforward reporting amendment that I hope will receive bipartisan support.
▶ 0:55:10Chair Collins: As many of you know, we had a 30 year consensus across the aisle that said if an individual has been adjudicated seriously mentally ill or incompetent that they should not be able to get a firearm and that was relative to courts making those determinations but also administrative bodies. For 30 years when the v.a.
▶ 0:55:39Chair Collins: Adjudicated a veteran to be mentally incompetent, that is the term in the statute which essentially means they can't even imagine their financial affairs, can't balance a checkbook, can't hold a bank account, the most common diagnosis in this category with schizophrenia. These are really serious mentally ill veterans, that that would have their -- that they would have their gun rights suspended pending eight review and appeal process which veterans are afforded.
▶ 0:56:10Chair Collins: We attached a writer to the appropriations bill a few years ago that restored to all of those veterans, even those with serious suicidal ideations and histories of self-harm their ability to buy guns again. I am not asking us to relitigate that question appeared, but I think it would be important for us to get some information about the impact of the very serious change that we made.
▶ 0:56:37Chair Collins: Obviously, the risk here is that when you are giving guns to veterans who have serious histories of self-harm, very serious mental diagnoses like schizophrenia, you are going to spike the suicide rate. This amendment simply says that there should be a report from the v.a. On information they have whether or not this population of veterans who have been adjudicated mentally incompetent by the v.a.
▶ 0:57:03Chair Collins: Have been committing suicide at increasing rates. So this is simply an amendment to say, let's get a report on the suicide rate for this specific population to see if the decision we made a few years ago to allow this class of veterans access again to firearms has in fact resulted in a dramatic rise, as I worry at has come of veterans and suicides.
▶ 0:57:30Chair Collins: So again not trying to litigate the underlying issue, hoping we can just as a committee say it would be good for us to get data to understand whether this change has resulted in real harm to the veterans community.
▶ 0:57:43Chair Collins: Senator booz
▶ 0:57:52Man.Sen. Boozman: I appreciate you working on this important issue. Veterans are from my an 30 to be a danger to themselves or others , -- veterans that are deemed to to be a danger to themselves or others, there is nothing in this amendment as drafted to delineate whether the suicides to be reported involve a firearm or not. So for that reason, we would oppose the amendment.
▶ 0:58:25Chair Collins: Senator ossoff.
▶ 0:58:29Sen. Ossoff: This is a pretty straightforward reporting requirement and that the committee and congressman -- congress would require more data to support the amendment. I support.
▶ 0:58:44Chair Collins: Senator reed.
▶ 0:58:47Sen. Reed: There is a crisis in veterans suicide in the united states today. No generation of american fighting men and women have endured the kind of traumatic, constant deployments that this generation has seen over the last two decades at least. As a result, we have serious problems with ptsd and other issues, schizophrenia, etc..
▶ 0:59:16Sen. Reed: There are approximately 6500 veterans a year who die by suicide and 70% of those involved firearms. We have to ask ourselves, what is one way for us to reduce this ?
▶ 0:59:33Sen. Reed: And it is first to do what senator murphy did is look at the problem analytically and determine whether or not informing authorities and gun shop owners about the status of these individuals will save lives.
▶ 0:59:51Sen. Reed: They have literally given their lives in many respects to the country and this is just a sensible analysis so that we can go forward with knowledge to make better policies to help our veterans. I am just going to go by saying I think everyone here should find out a story from home about a veteran taking their life.
▶ 1:00:16Sen. Reed: Just last week I said -- I had been asked, did you know about so-and-so and I said no. And they said to kill themselves -- killed himself two weeks before his wedding. We have serious problems here in this deals with it. I support passage. >> if I could just respond.
▶ 1:00:35Chair Collins: Senator murphy.
▶ 1:00:39Sen. Murphy: It does incorporate underlying privacy laws so all it is seeking is to get the aggregate data, the number of suicides within this population. Again, I don't know why we wouldn't just want this information to point us in a future direction of policy.
▶ 1:00:57Chair Collins: Vice chair murray.
▶ 1:01:00Sen. Murray: Every day, about 17 veterans died by suicide. We can't ignore that. 12 of those 17 veterans died from self-inflicted firearm injuries. As senator reed said, that is 71% of the veteran suicides.
▶ 1:01:19Sen. Murray: Senator murphy' as amendment allows us to understand how many veterans we have potentially lost to suicide because they might otherwise have been barred from purchasing handguns if they were. So at a minimum, we should collect the data to know how this provision adopted recently is affecting veterans and costing lives. Want to thank senator murphy for offering this amendment. I know it is a very personal issue for him, the issue of gun safety.
▶ 1:01:49Sen. Murray: I really want to commend you for offering this amendment. I hope we can adopt it. It seems to be the most rational, easy thing we can do.
▶ 1:01:56Chair Collins: Other further senators who wish to comment on the amendment? If not, the clerk will call the rope. >> senator mcconnell. >> no. >> senator murkowski. >> no. >> senator graham. >> no.
▶ 1:02:25Chair Collins: Senator hoeven votes no by proxy. >> senator o. >> no. >> senator kennedy.
▶ 1:02:36Chair Collins: Senator kennedy votes no by proxy. >> senator hagerty. >> senator hagerty is no. >> senator mullin. >> no. >> senator fischer. >> no. >> senator rounds. >> no. >> senator durbin. >> aye. >> senator reed. >> aye. >> senator shaheen. >> aye. >> senator merkley. >> aye.
▶ 1:03:06Chair Collins: >> senator schatz. >> aye. >> senator baldwin. >> aye. >> senator van hollen. >> aye. >> senator heinrich. >> aye. >> senator peters. >> aye. >> senator ossoff. >> aye. >> chair collins: -- chair collins.
▶ 1:03:30Chair Collins: No. On this boat, there are 14 a -- vote, therea arey 14 -- this is not taken up.
▶ 1:04:00Sen. Merkley: Thank you. I will have later what might college to refer to is discussing the challenge we face in regard to the work of this committee and whether it is going to be undone on a partisan basis. That is not this amendment. I am calling up, first of all, veterans equal access amendment. For 10 years, we have gone through this process and have approved the amendment.
▶ 1:04:30Sen. Merkley: I am happy to take a voice vote on it but essentially it says in states where cannabis is legal that veterans can talk to their doctors about its appropriate rule in their health care regime.
▶ 1:04:46Sen. Merkley: To do otherwise is to restrict the free speech of the doctors to do best by their patients which is why this has been approved time and time again and on the 10th anniversary of the first introduction, I would like to see us approve it again to support our veterans. We were just talking about the stress they face. Let them in states where cannabis is legal, have a conversation that their doctor about whether there is a medicinal role that would be important and helpful to them.
▶ 1:05:24Chair Collins: Is there a further debate on the amendment? The senator has suggested a voice vote, all those in favor say aye. >> aye. All those disapproved. >> no.
▶ 1:05:50Chair Collins: Senator rounds wishes to be reported as a no vote on the amendment and will be. Are further amendments? >> madam chair.
▶ 1:06:05Chair Collins: Sen. merkley:. .
▶ 1:06:11Sen. Merkley: Across the nation, states have been engaged in developing veterans homes to provide an appropriate environment for retirement of veterans who have a special life experience and can be where they can get their needs addressed and also be in the community of others who have served in more.
▶ 1:06:35Sen. Merkley: The list has grown very, very long for the matching funds from the U.S. government. We now have a list of over 80 homes or renovations of existing homes waiting for the federal match. The funding we have in this bill , as I understand it, will address only six of those homes.
▶ 1:07:02Sen. Merkley: And those are just the priority one homes. There is already a list of priority 2 where states have set aside the matching fund but looking at this and saying we have this matching funds we have set aside to build a veterans home and normally it is a 35-65, 35 from the state and 65 from the feds, but only doing six per year, we are at 12 years away from our priority to home --
▶ 1:07:34Sen. Merkley: Priority number two home getting on the priority one list. Let's take care of the backlog. The veterans are aging and may well have died by the time we provide a match at this rate of only six per year. I'm going to withdraw this amendment, but I would like to plant the seed here for us to really think seriously that this is really an investment we should be making it now.
▶ 1:08:02Sen. Merkley: We shouldn't be telling our veterans there are 80 plus just party homes waiting to be built. States are developing matches and we are saying wait a decade, too bad, you will be dead. Sorry we didn't help you out. I don't think that is the right message or the right moral position to be in on behalf of those who have served our nation in war.
▶ 1:08:28Chair Collins: Senator moran.
▶ 1:08:33Sen. Murray: And I want to complement and encourage the efforts of senator merkley in this regard. This is an significant issue across the country and for me in the state of kansas. Senator tester and I and the veterans committee work to address this issue and I'm sure the new vice chair is interested and engaged but I want to let senator merkley know that as the chairman of the committee of veterans affairs, this is a high priority for me.
▶ 1:09:05Sen. Murray: It will take some money to get this done. >> thank you. We look forward to working with you. >> we look forward to working with you, senator merkley. We have gone to this in arkansas. Most of the members had experiences with trying to get this done. Nice thing about being in the senate is you can be on the authorizing and appropriating committee and also on the authorizing.
▶ 1:09:32Sen. Murray: We look forward to working with you and trying to figure out a path forward. The other thing that is frustrating is you might be number four on the list one year and then number 15 the next year . There is a rhyme or reason to it but it is hard to understand and we are committed to transparency and trying to get some of these things built in a timely fashion.
▶ 1:09:58Sen. Murray: >> thank you very much could we do not have the fy 25 list. We only have the 24 list for many folks who think they might be in the top six that will get funded by the bill may get bumped out. Extremely frustrating.
▶ 1:10:17Chair Collins: The bill? >> madam chair.
▶ 1:10:26Chair Collins: Senator merkley.
▶ 1:10:31Sen. Merkley: . This is my last and I hope we can discuss the challenge we are facing right now. This committee does rescissions on a regular basis. We look at what we've funded last year or a multiyear funding, two years ago and proceed to say, that funding is no longer needed and we remove it.
▶ 1:10:54Sen. Merkley: Do this bipartisan discussion at this table, what is new and different is to have what is done as a bipartisan work here in this committee undone as a partisan event on the floor of the senate.
▶ 1:11:15Sen. Merkley: We all are familiar with the idea that your handshake means something, that your word is your bond and it has always been understood that the deal we make here in this committee that we will defend it. For a century, that has been the case here that century of standing by the work of this committee was broken in the early morning today.
▶ 1:11:43Sen. Merkley: That is a huge challenge for our work going forward and it is something we all recognize can shift as the makeup of this committee shifts from being in the minority to the majority to the minority.
▶ 1:12:02Sen. Merkley: We realize that if the majority decides to on a partisan basis break the deal today, what happens two years from now on the minority is the majority and the priorities that the former majority had but are now in the minority, the other side says you broke the deal, we will break the deal.
▶ 1:12:25Sen. Merkley: You wanted this, we wanted that and we worked it out and had a bipartisan bill and we stood by each other, and you broke the deal, last year in and out we are in charge, we will ditch your priorities. We want ours. And that is not the future we want to end up in.
▶ 1:12:43Sen. Merkley: I think we are so much stronger in terms of serving the american people when we bring the concerns of our various states to this room and partner with folks who have similar concerns regardless of whether we are in a blue state or a red state. We have a forest in oregon and idaho imports on the west and in south carolina.
▶ 1:13:12Sen. Merkley: Thinking about a couple of deals in the past when lindsey graham and I both had a helicopter that might disappear. We teamed up and preserved our rescue helicopters. When senator mccall and I both had ccc's that were about to be eliminated by the secretary of agriculture in the first truck administration, we teamed up and protected those.
▶ 1:13:38Sen. Merkley: That is the type of spirit that has inhabited this committee of partnership and collaboration. It has been very common on amendments for people to be circulating and breaking each other, going to the other side of the table, finding a partner across the way. We are on the verge of losing all of that. So I am introducing this amendment in hopes that it will be adopted and in hopes that it -- we can have an open discussion about this challenge that we as a committee are facing.
▶ 1:14:06Sen. Merkley: My mma explicitly says that the work we do -- my amendment specifically says that the work we do this committee will not be subject to rescissions on the floor of the senate. They can be subject to rescissions done in this committee, but that would be the bipartisan committee reviewing and doing what it has always done in terms of reallocating funds to wards a better set up -- towards a
▶ 1:14:37Sen. Merkley: With that, I am introducing merkley amendment number four. It has been passed out. And, I would invite dialogue and discussion because this is such a serious turning points in terms of what is the work we are doing today, and what is the work that we are going to be doing down the road.
▶ 1:15:04Chair Collins: Senator schatz.
▶ 1:15:07Sen. Schatz: Thank you. I guess this was yesterday morning but it was published in the last hour said "the appropriations process has to be less bipartisan." the appropriations process has to be less bipartisan. He wants to change the. Time of the way appropriations has worked can -- pointing to the continued use of stopgap spending bills.
▶ 1:15:37Sen. Schatz: When asked if he could reassure appropriators that he would buy -- abide by bipartisan spending agreements he said he would not. I really do worry that we are witnessing and participating in the demise of the appropriations process. We are still in possession of a power of the purse as a matter of constitutional law. If we do not exercise it, we do not have it.
▶ 1:16:09Sen. Schatz: And, I hope we adopt this amendment. But we do not have to act like this is some super complicated puzzle that we cannot decipher. The question at hand is whether four republican appropriators will do what we did in trump's first term and say we are the article one branch, we appreciate you and we will work with you, but just when the
▶ 1:16:39Sen. Schatz: President submits we say that is nice and we are going to do our work. We are respectful about it. It matters to us what the president's budget says but it is not despotitive. And the package last night frankly caused my trust to fray in a very significant way. And so the question for all of us is do we want to reconstitute appropriations?
▶ 1:17:10Sen. Schatz: And we do not have to act like it is complicated. We simply have to stand up for ourselves as a branch of government.
▶ 1:17:18Chair Collins: Are there further comments? Senator graham.
▶ 1:17:28Sen. Graham: There we go. As to senator merkley, he is the ranking member of the budget committee and I have enjoyed working with him and we have done things together. So let me give you my concern about this amendment. All of us have used reconciliation to get what we want. That the other side would not agree to.
▶ 1:17:55Sen. Graham: There is no obamacare with us, so you went through the reconciliation process. The trump task -- tax cuts would not happen with you all, so we did the one big beautiful bill and so, the reconciliation process has been used by both parties under the 1974 budget control act that allows us to do that.
▶ 1:18:23Sen. Graham: They are partisan exercises about the reshaping of the budget and getting things done that you want done that fit within the byrd rule. You and I have done it and it has been there since 1974. What senator merkley is doing is amending the act in a way to avoid the fast-track process that the law gives us. This is a military v.a.
▶ 1:18:54Sen. Graham: Appropriations bill. What would happen that if passed, it would be a point of order against this appropriations bill, because it would be changing the budget control act within the budget committee. I would obviously make that point of order. A little bit about normal. I think I vote for most everything coming out of the committee because I like appropriating versus cr's.
▶ 1:19:23Sen. Graham: I have been a good supporter of the 150 account and the chairman and I have been the ranking member and here is what you have to understand. Last night was 1/10 of 1% of the entire federal spending. There are a lot of people out there thinking maybe we could reduce spending by 1/10 of 1%.
▶ 1:19:47Sen. Graham: If you listened last night the answer is a resounding no because of some of the programs of which I have been generally very supportive of. So my democratic colleagues you have to understand. What we have found in the appropriations process is spending on things that are completely violating the trust. You have, in my view, samantha powers and others violated my trust.
▶ 1:20:18Sen. Graham: You will have a hard time dealing with me in the future, because I have been out there at my own political peril. Soft power is something easy said and hard to sell. There is an isolationist movement in our party and I have tried with my colleagues to stand up to it.
▶ 1:20:39Sen. Graham: I try to say if you help somebody raise their child with clean water and provide vaccines and treatment for aids, that family will like american bet -- america better. It is hard to recruit if you are helping people if you are isis or the taliban. I am buying the concept of soft power big time.
▶ 1:21:03Sen. Graham: But what happened destroyed my trust that you all care more about your liberal causes than the underlying premise of the bills. I want you to hear it, you have a real problem with me going forward. You had control of the senate for four years and I am going home weekend after weekend, why did you not know about that, and how could you authorize money to be spent on this garbage?
▶ 1:21:32Sen. Graham: I am saying we appropriated the money and people in the government spend the money. And these agencies have their priorities. The priorities I support were obliterated. I want to save children from a terrible death. I want to help stop mother and child transmissions of aids. Count me in for that.
▶ 1:21:57Sen. Graham: But some of the money that has been spent has zero to do with the underlying premise of soft power and everything to do with your pet peeves. So, you have lost my trust. I would urge you to vote no. >> madam chair.
▶ 1:22:17Chair Collins: Senator shaheen.
▶ 1:22:20Sen. Shaheen: Thank you, madam chair. And I think this is an important conversation. I am not sure that having it at the committee right now is helpful as it might be if we could do it in a way that was less charged. But, senator graham, you had me in terms of the need to reform the process.
▶ 1:22:47Sen. Shaheen: But, so much of what has happened with foreign assistance since this administration took office has been reflected by elon musk holding the chainsaw and saying he was going to take a chainsaw to foreign assistance programs.
▶ 1:23:06Sen. Shaheen: If we are going to have a thoughtful effort that can engage people in how to improve those programs and make them more effective and eliminate the ones that do not work, I am all in for that. But, when the same misinformation keeps being repeated time after time about why we are eliminating these programs, and that lgbtq opera in south america never happened.
▶ 1:23:38Sen. Shaheen: That was not money spent for that. Do not tell me about that. Do not tell me about the transgender mice because that is not being funded by foreign assistant programs. There are transgenic mice used for research and it has nothing to do with lgbtq. I am happy to have a positive, thoughtful, bipartisan conversation about how we improve these programs.
▶ 1:24:05Sen. Shaheen: We cannot do it if we are going to attack each other and complain about the conservative causes versus the liberal causes. This should be about what causes are good for the united states of america. That is the fight I want to have and I am happy to have it with all of you on the other side and see how we make the process work better. >> madam chair.
▶ 1:24:29Chair Collins: I am sorry. Who was seeking? Senator ossoff.
▶ 1:24:36Sen. Ossoff: I want to encourage us to slow down and take a deep breath before we vote. This debate is devolving into a partisan one. And the question of this amendment is not a question of democrats versus republicans. This is a conflict between the senate appropriations committee, whoever runs it, and the budget office in the executive branch, whoever runs a.
▶ 1:25:07Sen. Ossoff: This is a pretty significant vote. Not about how funds are spent, but about who decides who has the power of the purse. The question here is, if we appropriated funds on the floor with 60 votes, can those funds then be pulled back with 50?
▶ 1:25:34Sen. Ossoff: And, what we saw last night, and it would not matter whether the trump administration did it. If the tables were turned in a democratic administration had done that, then I think this conversation would be happening precisely inverted. This is not a democrats versus republican question. The question is, are we going to defend the power of the purse the congress.
▶ 1:26:02Sen. Ossoff: What we saw last night, even when senators objected, the nature of the politics was such that they could not be defeated. If we appropriated funds with 60 votes, it should take 60 votes to resend them. That is what the amendment does. Rather than shoot -- suiting up and getting into the culture war stuff, let's really think carefully. This is an opportunity for this committee to assert itself.
▶ 1:26:31Chair Collins: Senator
▶ 1:26:35Mcconnell: Nn senator murkowski.
▶ 1:26:36Sen. Mcconnell: The one thing we agree on is the appropriations process is broken. For 18 years, I ended up being involved in these discussions when we did not function, and fielding all of the requests coming in from people who were disadvantaged by the process.
▶ 1:27:04Sen. Mcconnell: I have concluded that let's forget for a minute who is in the white house and who is in the majority. I have concluded that our failure to pass our bills and empower every president, regardless of party, because I have been in those discussions at the end. The big four, and the guy with the pen.
▶ 1:27:35Sen. Mcconnell: And that makes all of our requests irrelevant. So, what senator thune and senator murray will end up doing when we do not function is sitting there trying to take care of a massive number of things that were never voted on, because we did not do our job. So I think we have met the enemy. It is us.
▶ 1:28:05Sen. Mcconnell: I believe the current majority leader will bring up bills. The more we bring up bills, and function, the more discretion we will leave to ourselves. So, this is not a question of who happens to be in a good position at the moment.
▶ 1:28:31Sen. Mcconnell: But, if congress is going to exercise its responsibility appropriating funds, we have to function. Otherwise, we have given to the president extraordinary power, and weakened our opportunity to represent our estates and interests.
▶ 1:28:56Sen. Mcconnell: So, I am hopeful that the current majority leader will give us a chance as the chairman has said, on the floor, which then gives everyone else a chance to have an imprint. And I think they expect -- our constituents expect us to not be completely irrelevant. Thank you.
▶ 1:29:21Chair Collins: Thank you. Before I turn to senator murkowski, who has been very patient, I do want to recognize that senator kennedy is here despite being ill.
▶ 1:29:38Chair Collins: And I would ask him -- I would ask permission, unanimous consent that he be allowed to record his votes on reporting the nilcon bill and cjs bill. Is there objection?
▶ 1:30:03Chair Collins: Senator kennedy, how would you like to be recorded on the mil con bill. >> aye.
▶ 1:30:15Chair Collins: And the cjs bill? >> aye.
▶ 1:30:20Chair Collins: I appreciate the cooperation of the members. >> can I ask senator mcconnell a question? Senator mcconnell would you yield for a question?
▶ 1:30:37Chair Collins: The vice chair has a question for senator mcconnell, and again I would beg senator murkowski's indulgence.
▶ 1:30:49Sen. Murray: I listen very closely to the former majority leader's comments about this committee, and I do not think there is any of us that disagree that getting these bills on the floor and all members a chance to participate and be able to vote on them is the correct way to go.
▶ 1:31:10Sen. Murray: I think what the concern is here is that, if we should do that and be successful, and I hope that we can be, how do we stop an omb director or administration coming in after we vote and moving to resend the funds that we agreed to on a vote with the majorities that we have, whether it is republican or a democratic president.
▶ 1:31:38Sen. Murray: What senator merkley's amendment does is save that once we pass these bills that the money cannot be rescinded. We spoke out about our power of the purse and voted on it. How do the -- how do we then not trust that the agreements that we came to and the compromises that we all have to make in the amendments that passed.
▶ 1:32:03Sen. Murray: Some pass and some do not, will not ever matter again because an administration can come in with a rescission, reminding ourselves of what happened last night has never been done before. That is the concern on this side, and the trust we have to have moving forward in order to have those bills and make those amendments. That is a concern I have. And I hope that you understand as we move forward.
▶ 1:32:30Chair Collins: Senator murkowski.
▶ 1:32:33Sen. Murkowski: I am glad the conversation has dialed back from relitigating the merits of what we had in front of us last night and who supports global health or who does not support making sure that starving children are fed. We do need to be asking ourselves how we move forward as appropriators.
▶ 1:33:04Sen. Murkowski: I appreciate your statement, senator mcconnell, about having the ability to advance these measures to the floor, that is what making -- that's what makes us relevant. There is a lot of good work that goes on here. Last night for me was very personally frustrating because it was. These were measures I cared about and some of you had a different view.
▶ 1:33:34Sen. Murkowski: They were matters we had authorized and signed into law and now we were dealing with them. Senator schatz, you made one comment that struck me. You said all we need to do is to kind of help address the challenge we are facing as appropriators and not being relevant we need to find four republican appropriators to basically help out. I would dispute that.
▶ 1:34:04Sen. Murkowski: I think what we need to find is if there is going to be a rescission that moves forward, it needs to be a rescission that is a bipartisan rescission from the beginning, one where folks in the administration have come to us and said do you realize that this is in this measure related to global economic disaster or child nutrition, or whatever it what might be.
▶ 1:34:34Sen. Murkowski: To have that conversation and engagement to shape a package that we, not just we as appropriators but as members of the senate under article one who have this authority of the power of the purse to say you know what, that should not have been in there.
▶ 1:34:53Sen. Murkowski: I am not sure who was responsible for it, but it should not be in there, and there is a process we can follow that will not divide us into partisan camps. But will actually elevate the work that goes on in the senate, and congress when it comes to the power of the purse and appropriations. I will tell you, I am super offended, not frustrated.
▶ 1:35:24Sen. Murkowski: That is the word that you are supposed to use. Today, when I see the omb director say and tell us and challenge us you guys should be more partisan. What that tells me is that there are people who do not want us to be relevant or do not want us to come together and work through these issues and problems. I'm going to take that as a personal challenge.
▶ 1:35:55Sen. Murkowski: I am saying I will do everything I can to make sure that we are able to do bipartisan initiatives and we are able to actually make our process work without having the omb director being the one going to "change the paradigm" of the way we do our jobs here. They can have input and that is totally legit. But, we have a trust deficit.
▶ 1:36:25Sen. Murkowski: That is probably an understatement. But, it is up to us to address it in a way that is befitting of the responsibility that we have when it comes to stewards of the taxpayer dollars. We have work to do. To the merkley amendments, if I may, I am going to oppose it.
▶ 1:36:48Sen. Murkowski: And I am going to do so because I want to respect the jurisdiction that comes with the various committees that we have. This jurisdiction as chairman of the budget committee has noted does not lie with us but with the budget committee. I'm going to be pushing you, lindsey, to be sure we do not find ourselves in a situation where we are delivered a holy partisan rescission package and told to take it or leave it.
▶ 1:37:19Sen. Murkowski: And put us in this same situation and a rerun of what we had last night. That is not good for those of us who have done that or for the institution.
▶ 1:37:28Chair Collins: I would note that we are 15 minutes into the vote. So I would hope that we could wrap up this debate, which is very important. Senator kennedy.
▶ 1:37:48Sen. Kennedy: Let us answer this question because it was a good one. Her question is how do we deal with rescission. A president, any president has the right to send us a rescission package. You and I have the right to vote no. But, when we appropriate money and this committee -- and this is to me is what is about.
▶ 1:38:18Sen. Kennedy: It is not how many lawyers can dance on the head of a pin or internet -- and it is not about article one verses article two. The american people care -- because the american people do not care. The american people care about the cost of living and how their money is spent.
▶ 1:38:38Sen. Kennedy: And we appropriate money to a president, any president and a stent -- spend that money on male prostitutes in haiti, and condoms in zambia on electric buses in uganda, I want to know about it. I never heard it from this committee for dm committee for damn sure.
▶ 1:39:05Sen. Kennedy: I heard about it from the white house and I am damn glad they told me. And I will vote to get rid of that stuff every single time. If you do not agree with me, I am saying you do or do not, but you have a vote. The president has a right to send us a rescission package and say this is spending porn. My work here is done.
▶ 1:39:29Chair Collins: Senator boseman.
▶ 1:39:33Sen. Boozman: We are blessed that we get to be appropriators and authorizers. This is an incredibly important discussion, but it is in the wrong place. Senator graham is the chair of the authorizing committee and has raised a point of order and he will do that to the parliamentarian, rightfully so. I have had things kicked out and most of you have had things kicked out if you have been doing this long.
▶ 1:40:03Sen. Boozman: One of the most contentious things we see are from people who are not appropriators on the authorizing committee is legislating in their jurisdiction. For that reason, we can take a vote and irregardless it will not make a difference. I do think that you cannot have it both ways. We cannot say one thing is wrong and then go ahead and do something that is blatantly wrong in order to fix it.
▶ 1:40:30Chair Collins: Senator merkley, senator graham and senator hoeven, I would ask you to limit your comments.
▶ 1:40:39Sen. Merkley: The first thing to say is that if you have complaints about the way that money is spent, talk to the administration about talking the administration is spent. Every administration has the ability to cancel contracts and determine new ways to spend money. This is fundamentally about obliterating the trust that we have built. This authority has existed since the 1970's, 50 years.
▶ 1:41:10Sen. Merkley: There has been eight times when one party controlled the white house, the house, and the senate. Eight times when the majority party had the ability to do what republicans did last night, to undo a bipartisan spending bill through a rescission's package. In 50 years it has never happened. So yes, both parties use the reconciliation process and yes there are trust issues.
▶ 1:41:37Sen. Merkley: But never before, in the 50 years that we have been living under the rescission's power, has a party done what they did last night, which is to undo a bipartisan agreement with only the votes of the republican party. What russ vote said this morning -- vaught said this morning is extraordinary. He says that there are more coming.
▶ 1:42:02Sen. Merkley: He said no voter in the country went to the polls and said I am voting for a bipartisan appropriations process. The appropriations process has to be less bipartisan. What he is telling you is that there are more rescission's package is coming. So senator britt and I have the toughest subcommittee budget to negotiate and will involve trades in which republicans get things which are priorities and democrats get things important to us.
▶ 1:42:31Sen. Merkley: What we know is that that agreement will mean nothing. It will not be worth the paper it is written on because the white house told us that they will send up a rescissions package that will eliminate democratic priorities. So, senator collins, I do not know how we proceed especially with the very clear statement from the white house that every single bipartisan agreement that we come to will be subject to a new package.
▶ 1:42:58Chair Collins: I obviously do not agree with the comments made. >> I do think it is important to note in the question of jurisdiction which was raised, this is joint jurisdiction. The rescission packages involve the work of this committee. We saw that last night. Those were appropriation accounts being cut. These -- this is joint jurisdiction.
▶ 1:43:22Chair Collins: So, we have consulted with the parliamentarian's office. And this particular proposal as drafted falls under the jurisdiction of the budget committee. And as such it will be included in our bill, it would violate the congressional budget act and be subject to a point of order on the floor. Senator hoeven and then senator graham.
▶ 1:43:49Sen. Hoeven: We had no appropriation bills that went to the floor last year. Exactly none. We can sit here and complain about that and go on about it. It will not get us anywhere. We better start working together and have amendments that will realistically move these bills to the floor and then we can have some floor debate. But we are either going to get something done and get these bills to the floor which we now have the opportunity to do.
▶ 1:44:20Sen. Hoeven: If we move them out we are going to the floor. Let's get that done.
▶ 1:44:24Chair Collins: Senator graham. Very quickly, please.
▶ 1:44:29Sen. Graham: Can you hear me? Senator murkowski made a good point. I think you had known about this stuff you would've said no. Some of it yes, some of it now. If we have a program to train gunowners in serbia, he would not like that. I can see where our guys start doing this stuff. I would like to figure out and get ahead of this.
▶ 1:44:56Sen. Graham: I do not know how doge found it and we did not. That has what has got me going. How did this -- how did they find that stuff and we didn't. And if some of it is fake, I am open-minded to say it is fake. All of this is not. We need a process to make sure that this does not happen again. There was an effort by bush to do a rescission package and it fell short on votes. It has been done before.
▶ 1:45:26Sen. Graham: My hope is that rescission package is will not be the norm for the reasons that you said. And we can find better filters so we do not get ourselves in this mess.
▶ 1:45:37Chair Collins: Senator britt. And I'm going to call on you. But that I'm going to ask the clerk to call a role, but would encourage members to continue conversation after the votes and to return here. >> mattern chair I would like to have a close to respond to a few things before we vote.
▶ 1:45:57Sen. Britt: I think this is a healthy conversation and many of you have listens to me talk about this. When we look at us not doing our job, that is what happened. I know that you are new on this committee, but the last time we did our job was fy 97 when we got these passed on time. If you look at passing them on time it was fy 95. We are talking about over 30 years of dysfunction.
▶ 1:46:29Sen. Britt: If we want to say in this and I think we should with the way the constitution intended we have to work together to get them not only out of this committee thought leadership on both sides to put them on the floor. We can point fingers and one of the things we did do was tell our leader whoever it was that he had to bring these bills to the floor. And we have the opportunity to actually pass them and have true bipartisan buy in to do our job and have our say.
▶ 1:46:58Sen. Britt: I would encourage this group to continue this conversation and be honest about it with each other. Getting it working is what is best for the american people and it is no doubt what is best for the body.
▶ 1:47:08Chair Collins: Senator merkley.
▶ 1:47:11Sen. Merkley: I appreciate the discussion. I think we need to continue it and keep wrestling with this. The status quo is this committee has been to do rescissions through this committee process. That is where we have done them dance 1974.
▶ 1:47:29Sen. Merkley: It is not a question of rescissions or no rescissions but if we will keep that bipartisan effort and dialogue so that we are working together for the future of our country versus doing a partisan affair on the floor. Mr. vought made it clear that more packages are coming and he said in appropriation is a ceiling and not a floor.
▶ 1:47:54Sen. Merkley: This is essentially what was adjudicated on the line item veto by the supreme court and he disagrees with what the supreme court decided. He thinks we can delegate and the president can choose any funding level and an pound, stall and freeze forth. That is absolutely a challenge between the executive branch power and constitutional responsibility of the power of the purse being with us. My amendment does not amend the impoundment control act.
▶ 1:48:24Sen. Merkley: A budget point of the work -- point of order can be raised but we can overcome if we want to defend the work of this committee. How do we get bills to the floor? That is a very important question and I think sent -- and I thank senator mcconnell and several other -- for pointing that out. I have briefed several of you on how to expedite the process.
▶ 1:48:50Sen. Merkley: When is the last time of the -- a member of the minority said I want to help out to make this process work better? Not a discussion for the day, I am handing this out and I will continue to talk about how we make sure. If it takes three weeks to do a single bill we will never get more than one bill to the floor. So please, hold that side. I will ask for a vote on what is before us.
▶ 1:49:17Sen. Merkley: But I also asked all of us to continue wrestling with this question on how we work together as a committee to depict -- to defend our bipartisan effort.
▶ 1:49:25Chair Collins: Thank you. I will now ask to occur -- the clerk to call the roll on the merkley amendment. >> senator mcconnell? >> no. >> senator murkowski? >> no. >> senator graham? >> no. >> he withdrew it? That was --
▶ 1:49:49Chair Collins: That was the earlier one. >> senator hoeven? Senator boozman? Senator o senator capito?
▶ 1:50:01Chair Collins: No by proxy. Senator kennedy votes no by proxy. >> senator hyde-smith? Senator hagerty?
▶ 1:50:11Chair Collins: No by proxy. >> senator mullin? >> no. >> senator rounds?
▶ 1:50:20Chair Collins: No by proxy. >> senator durbin? >> aye. >> senator shaheen? Aye. >> senator coons? Senator schatz? Senator murphy? Aye. >> senator van hollen? Aye. >> senator peters? Aye. >> senator gillibrand?
▶ 1:50:50Chair Collins: >> aye by proxy. >> chair collins?
▶ 1:50:56Chair Collins: I vote no. Yeah. On this vote the ayes are 14 and the nays are 15 and the amendment is not agreed to. If there are no further amendments, the bill as amended is reported.
▶ 1:51:29Chair Collins: I want to tell everyone that after the vote, I would implore you to return to the committee so we can turn to the commerce, justice and science bill, the cjs bill. We will recess -- liebler -- leader mcconnell votes aye on reporting the bill.
▶ 1:52:02Chair Collins: On the cjs bill, just to be clear. Thank you, we will recess and reconvene after the vote.
▶ 2:18:14Chair Collins: >> the committee will come to order.
▶ 2:18:20Chair Collins: We will resume her mentor -- consideration of the cjs bill. That includes amendments adopted I roll call vote, the managers package, and the voice vote. Let me begin by withdrawing my own motion to officiate the vote on reporting the cjs bill as amended during last week's marker.
▶ 2:18:49Chair Collins: Next I would recognize senator moran to offer anything.
▶ 2:18:55Sen. Moran: Thank you to my colleagues. Let me do a couple of things I was unable to do. First of all by recognizing the contribution senator merkley is attempting to make and I am one who would be interested in trying to figure out ways.
▶ 2:19:21Sen. Moran: I worry about putting us all in the chamber and having a conversation. We are separating the appropriators from the senate colleague. Not always to our advantage. I'm willing to participate in a conversation about how we maintain our constitutional responsibilities and fulfill our observation -- obligation. Find ways to continue to be colleagues that find solutions to problems despite our differences.
▶ 2:19:52Sen. Moran: Secondly, I want to indicate that in the managers package, we were successful in adding an amendment, I want to thank the chairman and ranking member for doing so. This is our ability to continue to have solid relationships with those who serve in our military and the countries that they come from and live in.
▶ 2:20:21Sen. Moran: It is an important issue to all of us. Particularly to our colleague from hawaii and elsewhere. Senator boseman and senator ossoff allowed us -- by us I mean senator shots and I to add an agreement -- amendment.
▶ 2:20:48Sen. Moran: The chairman of the four relations committee and the chairman of the veterans affairs committee because we are concerned the department of veterans affairs is not wallowing the mandate that we have required them to follow in providing adequate care and that if it to those that live in the south pacific that serve in our military. I want to highlight the language that is important to senator schautz has been included.
▶ 2:21:21Sen. Moran: I will continue to work as chairman of the veterans affairs committee. I would tell you senator risch is fully engaged to make sure the department of veterans affairs takes a different approach to this issue in following congressional mandate. I would add one more thing.
▶ 2:21:48Sen. Moran: This committee and our subcommittees need to -- I don't know if it is return because it hasn't been that prevalent in the time I have been in the relations committee. Oversight, when we find things we don't like in the bill, it embarrasses me that I do not know that. With our schedules and the press of business, our ability to do oversight is woefully lacking.
▶ 2:22:17Sen. Moran: We have to find out how our subcommittees not only appropriate but then also make sure the money appropriated is rightfully used according to the law. In terms of the bill at hand, it has been described to all of you last thursday, a week ago today.
▶ 2:22:40Sen. Moran: I think the chairwoman and the ranking member for allowing this bill to be further considered today. At the beginning of the markup of commerce justice science last week, the committee voted to report this bill on a strong bipartisan vote of 21-6. I would highlight and repeat what I said last week.
▶ 2:23:08Sen. Moran: This is a bill that in the absence of senator van hollen's amendment I would have expected to pass unanimously. By saying that, I cast no criticism of senator van hollen. I had the pleasure of sharing and being the ranking member, the vice chairman of the subcommittee with senator shaheen.
▶ 2:23:35Sen. Moran: I told senator van hollen I hated the fact that senator shaheen was going someplace else . I could tell you that in my view , senator van hollen and I have worked well together and this bill reflects the priorities he filed for with his constituency and all of us in this room and the benefit of the senate and the country.
▶ 2:24:01Sen. Moran: I have no objection to senator van hollen effort and attempts to make certain that his position reflecting the desire of his state is heard and considered. There is a challenge that comes with that. My overriding effort has been defined a path forward, which is why we drafted the bill that we drafted.
▶ 2:24:28Sen. Moran: I suppose there's a way we could draft a bill with you all the republican support in this committee. My goal is not to make a statement, my goal is to make legislation. I want to see us report a bill that you could all be supportive of and that amendment makes it impossible to do.
▶ 2:24:52Sen. Moran: This legislation supports under the allocation that we have been given. I think the chairman and ranking member for the allocation. We have made every effort to adequately support things that are really important to the country. This bill does lots of things. It's involved in lots of things that matter.
▶ 2:25:23Sen. Moran: It's about the department of commerce and growth, we have made the attempt to find the highest number of resources with the responsibility for how they are spent.
▶ 2:25:39Sen. Moran: In addition to that, things that stood out to us, law enforcement, the department of justice, grant enforcement, police chiefs in regard to whether forecasting and in regard to nsf in the future of our scientific capabilities.
▶ 2:26:07Sen. Moran: After that vote that we took last week, the initial bipartisan vote, the committee adopted three amendments. The managers package, an amendment by the ranking member and then an amendment from senator van hollen on the funding for fbi headquarters building. As we talked last week, there was money placed in this bill a decade ago for the purposes of fbi headquarters.
▶ 2:26:38Sen. Moran: We have not appropriated that money and has said in our account for the long time. This committee has no jurisdiction over the gsa in determining the site for which this fbi headquarters should rest.
▶ 2:26:58Sen. Moran: The amendment senator van hollen in his effort to deal with this issue with the fbi headquarters, the adoption of that amendment caused a significant shift in the votes in this committee. We did something new and different last week. The result of that was this bill is currently failing on a vote. I opposed that amendment.
▶ 2:27:30Sen. Moran: I believe it interjects this committee into selection process. If we have a role, it better rest with fsgg and the gsa. I listened to the concerns that we all had.
▶ 2:27:54Sen. Moran: One of the themes was could we get to the point where we actually appropriate and put bills on the senate floor? I was telling our colleagues today with a smile, and kansas you can only lie if you admit you are lying. I said when I was a little boy and I sat on my front porch and I dreamed about being a senator, it was not a dream.
▶ 2:28:25Sen. Moran: I dreamed about spending every day during nominations. I want something different here. I want to see us have a role to play. As we talked earlier, one of the things that is important is bills aren't considered by subcommittees and reported and that we go to battle to educate and get the confirmation from
▶ 2:28:55Sen. Moran: Our colleagues that we are doing something right. There is a sense about this committee being separate from the rest of our colleagues. The floor action is where everybody should get the chance and we have been denied that by the bills not coming to the floor and if they do they come in packages of such magnitude that there is no time for amendments.
▶ 2:29:21Sen. Moran: We have a lot of work to do to revive the value and importance of what we do here with our colleagues. It brings me back to this bill. The mission I was on last week when we consider this legislation. It is essential for us to enact the bill this year.
▶ 2:29:44Sen. Moran: Let's do it in a way that gets 60 votes on the senate floor for more. Absent the amendment senator van hollen offered. This is a strong bipartisan bill that supports things that every member of this committee brought to our attention. If we are going to get this out of committee we need to address the amendment, the number of votes to do so.
▶ 2:30:13Sen. Moran: It cost us the bipartisan support we had when we started last thursday's markup. I will offer an amendment that strikes the amendment from senator van hollen that was adopted by recorded vote. This amendment has -- I take things personally too.
▶ 2:30:32Sen. Moran: My intention is to continue to be an ally and friend of the vice chairman of this subcommittee and defined ways that we could continue to cooperate to provide all of you the opportunity to vote on a bill this year and into the future that adds value to the country.
▶ 2:30:52Sen. Moran: This is the next step in my view to return this bill to the bipartisan situation it was in before the adoption of that amendment. I respectfully offer the following amendment to strike senator van hollen cement. That would require me to have the language that says that.
▶ 2:31:24Sen. Moran: On page 806i offer the following amendment. On page 86, line five, strike the new section adopted entitled van hollen, fbi headquarters.
▶ 2:31:38Chair Collins: Are there other senators who wish to speak on this amendment?
▶ 2:31:44Sen. Van Hollen: Thank you. I want to start where I started last week. It was exactly a week ago, thinking my colleague and his team for working to put together what was overall a very strong piece of legislation. It didn't have all of the resources we wanted to be able to work but I think with what we were allocated, we chose wisely.
▶ 2:32:17Sen. Van Hollen: I want to thank you for that effort. I have to say having just sat the conversation before the break about what this committee could do to uphold bipartisanship, this is the opposite. What happened was a bipartisan amendment that was adopted is now being proposed to be stripped out.
▶ 2:32:50Sen. Van Hollen: I want to underscore the fact that my original amendment with respect to the funds that have been set aside to build the fbi at a site that was selected was not just about maryland and van hollen. This was actually a bipartisan process over many years.
▶ 2:33:16Sen. Van Hollen: What happened was the trump administration came and they proposed a de facto rescission of the funds. This is exactly what we were taught about last night in different form. Those moneys had been set aside now for the purpose of going to maryland but of going to the site that was selected through a nonpartisan process of expert that would meet the security requirement of the fbi and the
▶ 2:33:47Sen. Van Hollen: Mission requirement of the fbi. This has been a long, bipartisan process. When we got the request for re-from the fbi I had hoped that we would on a bipartisan basis say we are not going to accept your reprogramming request because it flies in the face of long-standing bipartisan support for this process.
▶ 2:34:18Sen. Van Hollen: We did not do that. I offered the amendment to make sure that we defend that process. I want to take a moment for our colleagues to emphasize again the bipartisan nature of this decision, this battle is not going away. As the chairman said, it became a partisan vote.
▶ 2:34:42Sen. Van Hollen: It was only a partisan vote because the republican side of the committee decided to vote no after a bipartisan amendment was about. This is a microcosm of the overall challenge that we are facing. I would've hoped that as a committee that we stood up for that bipartisan decision. I will put a couple of things in the record.
▶ 2:35:10Sen. Van Hollen: I want to make it clear once and for all that this is not just a process that was invented by senator van hollen. It was actually invented by all of us where we delegated the decision to the fbi. It began many years ago actually when a prospectus was submitted to the congress.
▶ 2:35:36Sen. Van Hollen: The way this works is the environment and public works committee in the senate and the house transportation committee look at prospectuses for new building. The prospectus was adopted on a bipartisan inanimate spaces by those committees years ago.
▶ 2:35:55Sen. Van Hollen: Just to make it clear that this was not a one-sided democratic process, the chair of the house, the chair of the senate in the public works committee, they adopted the prospectus. Here's what the prospectus said.
▶ 2:36:20Sen. Van Hollen: I'm quoting, the facility will be built to meet isc level five security specification on one of the three previously identified site. Two were identified in maryland, one in virginia.
▶ 2:36:43Sen. Van Hollen: A bipartisan aces decision made that whichever of those three sites won the competition to meet the security requirement of the fbi would be chosen.
▶ 2:36:55Chair Collins: That will be can -- included.
▶ 2:36:59Sen. Van Hollen: I will not belabor all of the reporting this committee has done over time on this issue. Suffice to say the purpose of the funds were in the department of justice and in the gsa account. Just for one example, this is the bill that we all who were here at the time back in 2022 voted for.
▶ 2:37:30Sen. Van Hollen: At least those of us who voted for the bill. I think most of the members did. It says this. The administrator of the general services administration shall select a site from one of the three listed in the general services in the 2017 prospectus. A new facility consolidated in headquarters.
▶ 2:38:01Sen. Van Hollen: Such decisions are made in an expeditious. The authorizing committees on a bipartisan basis set up this process to pick from one of three sites because they were all determined to meet the security requirements. We ratified it. I would ask that the final decision announcement be put in the record.
▶ 2:38:30Chair Collins: Without objection.
▶ 2:38:33Sen. Van Hollen: It was the result of a process on a bipartisan way by all of us around this table. That is what I was trying to protect. I want to say one more thing. My view is we should be preserving decisions that we previously made. Everything we have just talked about was about that. Here is our opportunity to do that. Now we are trying to undo that.
▶ 2:39:05Sen. Van Hollen: The fbi decided they wanted to move to ronald reagan. No security analysis, no cost estimate, I would just remind my colleague that when president trump came into office last time he did not want to move to one of these three sites. He wanted to keep the fbi building in its current location.
▶ 2:39:30Sen. Van Hollen: They came down here and said this will meet all of the requirements. That's what they say now. At least they said that to some people. They informed staff that they have just on a walk-through and they haven't determined what the security decision is.
▶ 2:40:01Sen. Van Hollen: Colleagues, I do just want to say that when the first trump administration proposed to essentially renovate the existing hoover building for the fbi headquarters and made these representations that were going to be just fine that there were two inspector general reports. One was the inspector general of the department of justice. They found and I encourage my colleagues to read it carefully.
▶ 2:40:34Sen. Van Hollen: In fact proposal did not meet a level five security requirement that had been established in a bipartisan basis. That is what the inspector general of the justice department concluded with respect to that earlier proposal. It wasn't just the doj. It was also the inspector general of gsa.
▶ 2:41:04Sen. Van Hollen: They reached similar conclusions about the earlier trump administration's proposal to keep the headquarters where it was and determine that representations would meet the security requirements were just unbound. I asked that this report be put in the record.
▶ 2:41:28Sen. Van Hollen: Finally I would point out that there is a statute that was adopted when the ronald reagan building was created making it clear what the purposes of that building work -- work including a center of trade and commerce. There are a lot of other tenants in that building now. The national children's museum was part of that building.
▶ 2:41:57Sen. Van Hollen: We see no plan as to what is supposed to happen to all of those tenants in the building. We have to be real that this was something that thought was not really put into. We have a selected site based on competition, analysis and security requirements. It took way too long. I will acknowledge that.
▶ 2:42:29Sen. Van Hollen: A decision was finally made pursuant to a bipartisan process , we all set it up. I would say this is a microcosm of exactly what we were talking about before the break. Whether this committee will stand up for the work it has done. That is the process that we set up. That is why that bipartisan amendment was important.
▶ 2:42:59Sen. Van Hollen: We talked about 60 votes on the floor of the senate. It is pretty crazy that this amendment that was supposed to stand up for congressional prerogatives would be the reason our republican colleagues decide not to support it? That's exactly the problem we have been having. It's not just the president, it is all of us. I will strongly oppose this amendment.
▶ 2:43:30Sen. Van Hollen: I have to say as I said earlier, if this is stripped out I will change my vote to no. This goes to the heart of everything we have been talking about. Reversing a decision. I appreciate my colleagues listening to me about this, it is not going away.
▶ 2:44:02Sen. Van Hollen: We have collectively spoken on it for many years. I urge the director of the fbi to not try to rush to move in to the fbi building. First of all because they haven't done the security analysis. They will need this committee for additional resources going forward that we put aside over many years for a down payment.
▶ 2:44:28Sen. Van Hollen: In my view, this has been an abuse of progress. It's going to be hard to envision sustaining support for a decision that undid what we did over so many years resulting in a choice competition none of us knew what the reason was. Now we are not sticking with it.
▶ 2:44:57Sen. Van Hollen: Chair, colleagues, I urge you to vote against the motion to strike. If it carries I hope we will vote against this as much as that pains me because of all of the other good things. I can't understand why a bipartisan amendment standing up for what we have done would cause our colleagues to flip on the other side. It is the root of the problem we are dealing with.
▶ 2:45:24Chair Collins: Are there other members who wish to speak?
▶ 2:45:31Sen. Murkowski: Thank you. Colleagues, I think it is pretty evident that we put the bipartisan in the van hollen amended last week.
▶ 2:45:48Sen. Murkowski: It cause the committee to perhaps be a little bit more rambunctious than the chairwoman would have liked or any of us would have liked. It certainly was not my intention to be purposely disruptive.
▶ 2:46:10Sen. Murkowski: It was my intention to try to discern a little bit more information about how we arrived to the decision within this bill with regards to the ronald reagan building as opposed to history. It has been a long and very tortured history.
▶ 2:46:37Sen. Murkowski: One that has been contentious throughout whether it is a debate over maryland, virginia, perhaps to alabama or back here in the district. I said I don't have a dog in this fight. I just don't. I do have a question. I want to try to understand better how we came to this place .
▶ 2:47:05Sen. Murkowski: In doing so that cause the hearing to be put into a recess until this time. I appreciate the adoptions of the chairwoman on the vice chair and allowing me this time. To ask the questions that I felt were important. That I feel was part of my job.
▶ 2:47:34Sen. Murkowski: We had a discussion earlier and my colleague had a list of all of these programs that had been included in various bills that came out of this committee. It identified that we did not like. Did we not ask enough questions? Is that not our role as appropriators in our subcommittees as we are working through.
▶ 2:48:04Sen. Murkowski: Sometimes taking the time to ask the questions is important. Thank you for giving me the opportunity. What I do not want to have happen is that this process within the subcommittee or any of our appropriations bills moving forward not be able to advance.
▶ 2:48:35Sen. Murkowski: We had a little discussion earlier and many have stated, I think it was you, vice chair. You said you don't want to turn the appropriations process into the rescission committee. We don't want to do that.
▶ 2:48:55Sen. Murkowski: I mentioned earlier, I don't want us to give the director his wish that we become as a committee more partisan. I don't think that reflects well on us. Sometimes you have to say you have asked your question, you got your answer, are you 100% satisfied? No.
▶ 2:49:24Sen. Murkowski: Do I want more than anything for a good bill that has been negotiated by two good people and got into a place where I think most of us are very comfortable with. With the exception of one issue.
▶ 2:49:43Sen. Murkowski: I cannot stand by and say because of this I'm going to let not only the cjs appropriations measure fail but potentially the rest of the process. If we are going to figure out how we work together, we have to be able to do it beginning in this room before we get to the floor.
▶ 2:50:09Sen. Murkowski: I have no doubt that you will be just as energetic on the floor in defense of your measure. I have no doubt those who have been involved will engage in that. I want us to be able to have that debate.
▶ 2:50:33Sen. Murkowski: We have to advance that measure out of committee I will support the chairman of the subcommittees proposal here. To strike the amendment that I supported last week to prohibit the fbi from using previously appropriated fund for the move. I want to share briefly because we will have the opportunity to discuss this on the floor.
▶ 2:51:02Sen. Murkowski: I had the opportunity to have a conversation with the director of the fbi, I was joined by the chairman of the subcommittee is that meeting. I came away with a satisfaction that my questions had been answered. I have reservations about the move. I don't believe we should lock the fbi into the greenbelt location, which that amendment would do.
▶ 2:51:31Sen. Murkowski: I don't think there's any disagreement that any of us have seen the hoover building. There is no disagreement that it is not a situation that needs to be left standing for another decade much less two decades. If we wait another 10 years, we will be spending more money putting band-aids on the old facility only for that building to be sold and abolished.
▶ 2:52:00Sen. Murkowski: That to me is throwing good money after bad. There is history senator van hollen has noted. Some of it is just plain sight evaluation. Some of it is a little bit of political intrigue. I have no interest in going down that rabbit hole.
▶ 2:52:27Sen. Murkowski: What happened after 2023 when the decision was made to go to the greenbelt property. We heard the concerns expressed by director ray at the time about the potential for conflict of interest. There's a lot out there worthy of exploration. I am not convinced we have enough information to know that ultimately the ronald reagan building will be the best location.
▶ 2:52:54Chair Collins: I know that senator cap itself needs to go -- senator capito needs to go. I wonder if I need -- could ask unanimous consent for her to record her final vote.
▶ 2:53:12Sen. Capito: I would like to change my vote from no to aye.
▶ 2:53:22Sen. Murkowski: I want to share with colleague how I came to get to a better place. It was not director patel who just kind of woke up one day and said I think I want to go over to the ronald reagan building. The gsa, I worked through a process to identify location. They were the ones in the lead on selecting ronald reagan building with input from career fbi folks.
▶ 2:53:55Sen. Murkowski: They looked at things like the cost of security and whether it meets the bureaus need. They conducted the official assessment to determine whether it is worth moving forward with. There is a further security review that will be conducted moving forward. You look at that, you look at the time it would take to build out the greenbelt facility. The cost associated with that.
▶ 2:54:28Sen. Murkowski: And again the reality we are faced with at this point in time is trying to throw good money after bad in a building that is just not in the condition we would accept. Arguing for the next 10 years and spending much more than we would with an existing facility in the city.
▶ 2:55:00Sen. Murkowski: I have come to this decision based on the conversations I have had with kash patel. I would encourage other members on this committee or off the committee to have the same conversation, same discussions. I want to note for colleagues that I hope we are not going to see any funds being reprogrammed to the effort by gsa.
▶ 2:55:35Sen. Murkowski: We are talking about cjs here in this committee. What is going to happen if this bill becomes law, the fbi will have over half $1 billion. We could assess the programming after we know more about the other project components senator van hollen has noted.
▶ 2:56:04Sen. Murkowski: I thank you for the indulgence in giving the time to share where I have come from on this but also recognizing that it has delayed a good bill an additional week and I would like to see it move through the process.
▶ 2:56:18Chair Collins: Are there other senators who wish to speak? >> I will be brief. I want to again say where I agree with senator murkowski. I appreciate the conversation we have had. We would like to move the bill forward respect to the other provisions.
▶ 2:56:42Chair Collins: Where we disagree is after adopting the amendment, we are back in a situation where colleagues have said they were not allowed to move forward with that provision. I want to make a point in closing, we had hoped to have a bipartisan briefing with the director of the fbi.
▶ 2:57:13Chair Collins: So we could all here together what the director said. Finally, I want to include in the record the final evaluation of the site selection by the inspector general of the gsa. There were issues raised, allegation of conflict of interest. The gsa inspector general looked into it and here is the final report.
▶ 2:57:46Chair Collins: They said there is nothing that happened that should change the final decision with respect to site selection. I ask that this be included. We should get going. It took way too long. This process has been tortured. This is february 3, 2025. We are ready to go.
▶ 2:58:15Chair Collins: Now what we are doing is going to delay the entire process. Thank you.
▶ 2:58:21Chair Collins: We will call the role on the amendment offered by chairman moran. [voting]
▶ 2:59:51Chair Collins: On this vote there are 15 aye's and 14 nay's. The amendment is agreed to. Senator durbin will be recorded as no on reporting the bill. Senator reed will be reported as voting no on the bill.
▶ 3:00:24Chair Collins: Senator fischer will be recorded as voting yes. Senator mullen will be recorded as voting yes. Senator britt will be recorded as voting yes.
▶ 3:00:51Chair Collins: Senator hagerty will be recorded as voting yes. Senator hyde-smith will be recorded as voting yes. Senator rounds will be recorded as voting yes. Senator boseman will be recorded as voting yes.
▶ 3:01:22Chair Collins: Senator hoeven will be recorded as voting yes. Senator murray, let me just finish this. Senator has that right and will be recorded as voting no. Senator graham will be recorded as voting aye. Senator murkowski will be recorded as voting I.
▶ 3:01:56Chair Collins: Senator murray will be recorded as voting no. Senator merkley will be recorded as voting no. Senator baldwin will be recorded as voting no. Senator murphy will be recorded as voting no.
▶ 3:02:27Chair Collins: Senator van hollen, I think you already ordered as voting no. Senator gillibrand will be recorded as voting no. Are there other senators who wish to change their vote except for myself?
▶ 3:02:55Chair Collins: Senator collins wishes to be recorded as voting aye. The clerk is tallying the votes.
▶ 3:04:11Chair Collins: It is my understanding that senator peters is on his way.
▶ 3:05:42Chair Collins: While we are awaiting senator peters arrival, it is my understanding that there is one further amendment to be offered by senator baldwin . Would you like to proceed?
▶ 3:06:00Sen. Baldwin: Madam chair, last week I offered an amendment to restore the 1500 grants that had been terminated by this administration at the now -- national science foundation. It includes those who have been awarded to universities in wisconsin.
▶ 3:06:31Sen. Baldwin: They increase women's participation in stem fields, middle school engagement in mathematic, and researching genomics. It includes just over $70,000 in already awarded funding. Just under $1 million in south dakota. Over $2 million in north dakota. $5 million in south carolina, $6 million in brassica.
▶ 3:07:02Sen. Baldwin: Over $7 million in kentucky, $8 million in mississippi, $9 million in arkansas, nearly $11 million in louisiana, $13 million in tennessee, 30 million dollars in alabama. I heard your concerns last week of the subcommittee with the original amendment and have drafted a modified version to address the concerns you stayed with verbally.
▶ 3:07:40Sen. Baldwin: This version would restore nfs grant and include exceptions for cases of cancellation due to financial mismanagement, research fraud, malfeasance. The additional characteristics you wanted included. Grants awarded are critically important to make sure america maintains our global leadership and scientific research and development.
▶ 3:08:14Sen. Baldwin: I urge my colleagues to support this modified amendment.
▶ 3:08:19Chair Collins: Before senator moran responds, senator peters has arrived. I wanted to give him the opportunity.
▶ 3:08:37Sen. Peters: I would like to be recorded as a no on the cjs bill.
▶ 3:08:45Chair Collins: After accounting for the vote changes the bill is reported favorably, there are 20 aye's and ni aye's and n9 nay's. The bill is reported as amended. I apologize for interrupting the debate on this amendment.
▶ 3:09:06Sen. Graham: Thank you. Senator baldwin and I said in my opening remarks I failed to accomplish what I wanted to do between last thursday and this thursday and having conversations with you. I know you have submitted some amendments to your amendment that you offered last week.
▶ 3:09:27Sen. Graham: I am not prepared to support your amendment but having failed you and my commitment to work with you I restate that if I have any credibility to make sure it is.
▶ 3:09:50Chair Collins: Are there further comments?
▶ 3:09:55Sen. Murray: The amendment senator baldwin offered is really important and I want to thank you for offering it. This committee has provided critical funding or the national science foundation to propel the sort of cutting-edge scientific research that has made america the envy of the world.
▶ 3:10:17Sen. Murray: Since taking office president trump has not only failed to these funds out for this fiscal year, he is actually terminated hundreds of research award. Those cancellations have really cut off some vital research and support for stem education. This is a massive goal. These determinations have to be reversed. I support this amendment to restore the canceled grant.
▶ 3:10:51Chair Collins: I share the senator's concerns about canceled grants that apparently are arbitrary cancellation. I do think the list is not comprehensive enough. I would like very much to work with the senator to expand the grounds for cancellation.
▶ 3:11:24Chair Collins: Since I think the three that are included are all valid but are not comprehensive enough. I too would like to join with chairman moran in working with the senator to come up with additional grants. There's no doubt that arbitrary cancellation of important grants is a serious problem.
▶ 3:11:53Chair Collins: >> I would like to press on with this amendment.
▶ 3:12:00Chair Collins: Is there further debate on the amendment? If not, the clerk will call the role. [voting]
▶ 3:13:28Chair Collins: On this vote there are 14 ayes and 15 nays. The amendment is not agreed to. >> I would ask unanimous consent, I was voted aye by proxy. If it could be recorded as if I were present.
▶ 3:13:51Chair Collins: We will reflect that you were present. Senator murray, do you have a closing? >> thank you for your efforts to make this bill available for consideration.
▶ 3:14:17Chair Collins: Despite the challenges that we face in regard to a particular issue, thank you for the cooperation with the bill that has come out of the subcommittee. I thank you for your consideration. I want to thank the staff and my own staff.
▶ 3:14:46Chair Collins: It is my understanding that senator schatz is on the way back. In the meantime I would call on senator murray for a closing statement. >> I'm glad we were able to advance this bill today. I'm really disappointed the cgs bill was advanced.
▶ 3:15:11Chair Collins: I am worried about how much harder our work will become as partisan rescissions have become the new reality. I hope members of this committee will work to make this process better, not worse and make sure our voices are heard by passing full-year bills. He believes the appropriations process make it less partisan.
▶ 3:15:47Chair Collins: He is doing his best to chip away at our bipartisan record. It's clear this fight is not over do they want to be less bipartisan? Do we ask members of the senate to protect our bipartisan process and deliver for our constituents.
▶ 3:16:18Chair Collins: He rubs it in our faces. He does not respect the rule of this committee or any appropriator, republican or democrat. I stand for our committees and congress as a co-week ran of this government. Thank you. Thank you for your comment.
▶ 3:16:44Chair Collins: I would point outi would point e that this is the fourth bill that we have reported on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis. There have been some bipartisan votes on the amendment.
▶ 3:17:03Chair Collins: That is not unusual in years past, but my hope is that we can continue to work in a bipartisan way, a goal that I completely share with you. Now that I have filled in the time for senator schatz.
▶ 3:17:20Sen. Schatz: Thank you for your very able vamping. Sorry for the delay.
▶ 3:17:28Chair Collins: Thank you, senator shots. On the motion to report of the bill favorably, there are 19 ayes and 10 nays. The motion to report as agreed to, and the bill is reported as amended.
▶ 3:17:47Chair Collins: I want to close this meeting by taking a moment to again thank the members of this committee and their staff for all of the hard work on the bipartisan bills that we have reported. The best way for us to counter what has been said by the omb director is to continue to work in a bipartisan way, and I hope that we are just going to do so.
▶ 3:18:21Chair Collins: As I've said before, we are operating under difficult circumstances, however, those circumstances make it even more essential that we redouble our efforts to ensure that our government is funded in a timely way that affects priority of the people of this country and their elected representatives.
▶ 3:18:50Chair Collins: I want to again thank you, vice chair marie. This committee plans to reconvene soon, to consider additional appropriations bills, and an announcement will be forthcoming. And, again, I want to emphasize that majority leader john thune has committed to bringing appropriations bills, approved by this committee, before the full senate for consideration.
▶ 3:19:23Chair Collins: That is extremely important. It did not happen last year. And I hope we can work together to ensure that that effort is successful. This meeting of the senate appropriations committee is now adjourned. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap.org]