Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I certainly share the deep concern expressed by my colleague from Utah over the growing size of the Federal debt. It is a serious problem. I encourage him to look at the chart that Senator Alexander has produced, which shows where the problem is.

The problem is on the mandatory side of the budget, not the discretionary side of the budget, which, due to efforts we have made, has been held relatively flat for several years. But the mandatory spending side of the budget is soaring. There is no doubt about that. For example, many of us, when the administration presented its budget, rejected the gimmicks that were included, for example, in the transportation budget to shift some $7 billion from discretionary to mandatory spending. That was unwarranted. We did not do that.

But if ever there were an emergency, it is the threat posed to public health by the Zika virus. About 2 weeks ago, Senator Johnny Isakson and I went to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, GA, and heard briefings from the top experts in the world about the threat posed by the Zika virus.

The fact is that the news keeps getting worse and worse. Zika has now been linked for certain to a severe kind of birth defect, making pregnant women particularly at risk. It has also been linked to a disease known as Guillain-Barre syndrome, which can cause paralysis and even death.

Those of us who live in Northern States--this kind of mosquito, for example, is found only in the very southern tip of Maine--should take no comfort from that fact. The CDC has documented cases of the Zika virus in virtually every State in the Union, and that is because disease knows no boundaries in this world of international travel. In addition, the CDC has documented approximately 1,000 cases of Zika. It is an epidemic in Puerto Rico, where there are more than 475 documented cases--a true crisis for that U.S. territory.

From my perspective, we have to act. We have to act quickly. The Blunt-Murray compromise bill deserves the emergency designation which is attached to it.

Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 and the waiver provisions of applicable budget regulations, I move to waive all applicable sections of that act and applicable budget resolutions for purposes of the Blunt-Murray amendment No.

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I believe we are going to have that vote a little bit later.
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Ms. COLLINS. 2577.

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, on this amendment, I yield back the remainder of our time.

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Ms. COLLINS. 3896, Senator Enzi or his designee be recognized to make a budget point of order against McCain amendment No. 4039; further, that Senator McCain be recognized to make a motion to waive the point of order and that the Senate immediately vote on the motion to waive.

I further ask that the votes in this series be 10 minutes in length, strictly enforced.

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of the time on this side.

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President. I rise to speak in support of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs division of the substitute before us. I commend Chairman Kirk and Ranking Member Tester for their leadership in crafting the fiscal year 2017 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs funding bill. As a member of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee, I have appreciated their steady, strong advocacy for our Nation's veterans, servicemembers, and their families.

As the daughter of a World War II veteran, I know well the sacrifices of those who serve and have served on our behalf, as well as the sacrifices made by their families. The vital programs and benefits funded by this bill will help fulfill our obligations to them and honor their commitment to our Nation.

While we can never fully repay these debts, we must strive to provide each veteran with the quality health care that they deserve. One way this bill helps to meet this goal is through the extension it would provide of the highly successful Access Received Closer to Home, or ARCH, program. This pilot program, which is scheduled to expire in August, serves rural veterans in northern Maine, Montana, Kansas, Virginia, and Arizona, providing them access to high quality care in their communities and near their families.

Many of my constituents tell me that this program has proven to be a lifeline for them and has saved them the arduous burden of traveling up to 600 miles round trip to receive care at the Togus VA Medical Center in Augusta, ME.

In Maine, the program not only reduces wait times for appointments and prevents veterans from going through a third-party administrator to receive care, but it is cost effective. According to the VA's own statistics, the average cost of ARCH per veteran in Maine is less than half the average cost for VHA direct care. More than 90 percent of ARCH veterans are overwhelmingly satisfied with their care, a testament to why ARCH should be a model for the Nation.

Ensuring that veterans continue to receive this seamless care is paramount, and I thank Chairman Kirk and Ranking Member Tester for including an extension of this vital program in the fiscal year 2017 funding legislation.

I am also pleased that this legislation would fund the President's fiscal year 2017 request for VA medical leases, including funding to lease a new Community Based Outpatient Clinic--CBOC--facility in Portland, ME. This project would allow VA to consolidate and colocate the Saco and Portland CBOCs with Maine Medical Center and its affiliate, the Tufts University School of Medicine. This collaboration will provide primary care, mental health, women's health, and specialty care medical services for veterans.

This legislation would also help to address the opioid epidemic by requiring the Department to improve appropriate pain care for veterans. It also includes programs to help end veteran homelessness, expand care services focused on our growing population of female veterans, and support caregivers, who shoulder the enormous responsibility of caring for veterans who are unable to care for themselves

Finally, I want to highlight the funding included in this legislation for our Nation's civilian and military members--and their families--who serve at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, ME. The legislation includes $74.9 million for housing, the replacement of the medical and dental clinic, and utility nuclear improvements. These projects will help provide the exceptional personnel at PNSY with the facilities they need and deserve to carry out the mission.

Again, I thank the chairman and ranking member for their excellent work in balancing the priorities within their bill, and I urge my colleagues to advance this important legislation.

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I call up the Collins-Reed-Cochran amendment No. 3970.
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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, the amendment that Senator Jack Reed, Senator Thad Cochran, and I are offering would make very clear that none of the funds made available in this appropriations bill can be used by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to direct a recipient of Federal funds to undertake changes to their zoning laws. There has been concern that some have brought up that a new rule that was issued last year by the Department would somehow allow HUD to be the national zoning authority for every neighborhood in our country. While I do not believe that is a correct interpretation of the fair housing amendment or regulation that HUD has promulgated, the Collins- Reed-Cochran amendment ensures that HUD cannot do that. It eliminates that possibility and ensures that communities will continue to make their own decisions to address these Federal requirements.

By contrast, the proposal offered by my colleague from Utah, Senator Lee, would prohibit all funding for a rule that was issued by HUD based on a requirement that is included in the landmark civil rights era law known as the Fair Housing Act of 1968. It is important to know that this regulation was in direct response to a 2010 GAO report that criticized HUD's implementation of the requirement of the law that grantees, recipients of these funds, affirmatively enhance fair housing opportunities. It also was issued in response to requests from communities seeking guidance to ensure compliance because they don't want to be sued for inadvertently violating Fair Housing Act requirements. So communities asked HUD for more tools, better assessments, and more guidance to make sure that they were in compliance.

It is important to know that the Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination not only based on race, national origin, and religion but also against those with disabilities. Indeed, 56 percent of the complaints of housing discrimination have been initiated by individuals with disabilities. That is why Senator Lee's amendment is opposed by the Paralyzed Veterans of America and other disability groups, as well as the Urban League, the NAACP, and countless civil rights groups. On the first vote, we will be voting on the Collins-Reed-Cochran amendment.

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Ms. COLLINS. Yes, I will yield.

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Ms. COLLINS. No community in the United States or its insular areas will lose Federal housing funds solely because of its racial demographics. There are communities throughout the United States that are racially homogenous for reasons that have nothing to do with discrimination or other historic barriers.

The rule does not change the Fair Housing Act, which for decades has included the affirmative fair housing requirement. The whole purpose of the rule is to ensure that States and communities that receive Federal funds take this requirement seriously.

This rule is a planning tool, created to help grantees identify barriers to fair housing and plan how to address them. The rule does not penalize any community for where it starts but rather assists a community in taking meaningful steps to address any barriers it may find.

HUD would never deny Federal funds to a community simply because of its demographics. It has never done so in the 48 years since the passage of the Fair Housing Act, and it will not under this rule.

Additionally, I know some have expressed concern about what effect this rule would have on Alaskan Natives and other Native Americans. HUD's housing programs for Native Alaskans and other Native Americana are authorized under the Native American Housing Assistance and Self Determination Act, NAHASDA. NAHASDA includes a statutory exemption from the Fair Housing Act, which the affirmatively furthering fair housing rule does not change.

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I know the Senator from Alabama is going to speak, and the Senator from Rhode Island should have an opportunity to speak.

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I will be very brief. Let me just reiterate what I have been saying repeatedly. What the amendment Senator Reed, Senator Cochran, and I have introduced does is make very clear that HUD is prohibited from intervening in local decisions regarding zoning ordinances. That is in direct response to what some people have been claiming, incorrectly in my view; that the rule on affirmatively furthering fair housing would somehow allow HUD to be a national zoning commissar. That is not the case, but to make absolutely sure that could never happen, we have teamed up on this amendment to prohibit HUD from intervening in local zoning matters. It is very different from the Lee amendment, which we will discuss shortly.

This is an important clarification that should take away any fear that there is any possibility of HUD using funds authorized by this bill to interfere in local zoning decisions.
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Ms. COLLINS. I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 3897
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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, the amendment offered by my colleague Senator Lee would prohibit all funding for a fair housing regulation issued by HUD based on a requirement of a landmark civil rights law, the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Not only was this not a regulation that appeared out of thin air, the GAO did a report criticizing HUD, and once the regulation was implemented, closed the recommendation.

In addition, communities asked HUD to issue better guidance on this part of the law so that they could avoid being sued under the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

Thank you, Mr. President.

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Ms. COLLINS. 4050, offered by Senator Rubio; and amendment No. 4026, as modified, offered by Senator Baldwin.
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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I know of no further debate on these amendments.
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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, before I make some closing remarks, I would yield to Senator Reed, who has been such an extraordinary partner as we have worked together in a transparent and collaborative way to bring this bill across the finish line.

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, the Senate has completed its consideration of this appropriations measure, which provides essential funding for the Department of Transportation, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, related agencies, military construction programs, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and to combat Zika. I thank all of my colleagues for working together with us in an open and collaborative manner.

I would note that the legislation we just passed incorporates some 40 amendments. There were also recommendations from more than 75 Senators from both sides of the aisle included in the Transportation-HUD appropriations portion of this bill which were incorporated at the committee level. I thank all of my colleagues for giving us their suggestions, their requests, and their insights. It made for a better bill.

As I mentioned, I am particularly grateful to Senator Jack Reed, the ranking member of the Transportation-HUD Subcommittee, for his work.

I also thank the staff for their diligence and commitment throughout this process. As Senator Reed mentioned, we worked extremely hard, but our staff worked even harder. So I thank Heideh Shahmoradi, Rajat Mathur, Jason Woolwine, Lydia Collins, Gus Maples, Dabney Hegg, Nathan Robinson, Christina Monroe, Jordan Stone, and Mike Clarke on the subcommittee staff.

I also give special thanks to the floor and cloakroom staffs who worked so hard. Without the help of Laura Dove and her team and the team on the Democratic side, we could not be where we are today. They did a lot of the vetting that needed to be done on various amendments. They helped us in the negotiations and compromises that ultimately were included in this bill.

I would note that our Transportation-HUD portion of this bill recognizes the fiscal reality while making critical investments into our crumbling infrastructure and economic development projects. It meets our responsibility to vulnerable populations. I think most of our colleagues are unaware that 84 percent of HUD's budget goes to subsidized housing. When we fund that, we keep very vulnerable low- income families, disabled individuals, and our low-income seniors from being at risk of homelessness.

We also paid special attention in this bill to vulnerable homeless populations, such as our veterans and our young people. We continued a program the administration wanted to abolish that helps our homeless veterans, to whom we owe so much--$57 million in new vouchers, so that we can continue the progress we are making in housing our homeless veterans. Since we started this program, the number of homeless veterans has declined by about one-third. This program works, but we can't declare victory until the job is done. That is why both last year and this year we funded the program, even though the President's budget sought to eliminate it.

We have made real investments in helping some of our most vulnerable young people, and those are youth who have been in the Foster Care Program and then age out of that program. In some cases, they are aging out of the program before they have even graduated from high school, and they have nowhere to go. So through family reunification vouchers and other programs, we are beefing up support so they don't fall through the cracks and become vulnerable to traffickers, to dropping out of school, to couch surfing, or ending up in shelters. In particular, I am very proud of the work we have done in that area.

I am very pleased this bill funds the TIGER Grant Program at $525 million. This program has been extraordinarily popular and effective. It has funded projects in each and every State--projects that have led to job creation and economic development. When we think about it, at heart, much in this bill is about creating jobs and security for our fellow citizens. If you don't have a place to live, it is very difficult to show up for work every day. If the infrastructure is crumbling, it is very difficult for a business to hire the employees who produce the products and get those products to market. The construction projects this bill will fund creates good-paying jobs. In many ways, I think of this as a jobs bill.

Let me give another example of a very popular program, the Community Development Block Grant Program. If you ask of the mayors and other town and city officials in your State, they will point to that program as one that gives them the flexibility to improve their downtowns, to make investments that bring new employers to the region, to build affordable housing, whatever their needs are, and that is the beauty of that program. It is not dictated from Washington. It gives tremendous flexibility to States and communities to design the kinds of economic development programs that boost growth and create jobs.

In short, our bill strikes the right balance between thoughtful investment and fiscal restraint and thereby sets the stage for future economic growth, something I know the Presiding Officer has been a real leader in speaking out about and reminding us that must be our focus as Members of the Senate.

I am also pleased we were able to bring spending bills to the floor for Members to examine, debate, and vote on in a transparent manner. The worst situation is when we do a series of continuing resolutions temporarily funding the essential functions of government. They create such uncertainty, they lock in priorities from previous years rather than reflecting today's priorities, and they end up costing more money. Agencies are unable to enter into contracts. Businesses, because of the uncertainty, tend to build in a little extra into their bids. It is a terrible way to operate.

Equally bad is the practice of bundling all 12 of the appropriations bills into one gigantic omnibus bill, thousands of pages long, that is rushed through at the end of the fiscal year--or, more often, at the expiration of one of those continuing resolutions that I just deplore. We are not doing that this year. This is the third appropriations bill that the Senate has passed earlier than ever, with great cooperation from both sides of the aisle. The Members of the Appropriations Committee and its two leaders, Senator Cochran and Senator Mikulski, deserve great credit for putting us on a strict schedule and keeping the process moving.

In fact, in the full committee today, we approved two more appropriations bills that are ready to come to the Senate floor. That is the way the process used to work. That is the way the process should work, and that is the way the process is working this year. I believe it is a great credit to the Senate, to the leaders of the Appropriations Committee, and to Majority Leader McConnell, who has made it a goal that all 12 bills be reported by the Appropriations Committee and brought to the Senate floor, individually or two or three combined, for full and open debate.

Again, I thank Members on both sides of the aisle. Many of your requests are included in this important legislation. I feel fortunate to have worked with Senator Jack Reed on this bill. He is not only a great colleague and a terrific Senator but also a good friend.

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