Water Resources Development Act of 2016 - Continued

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SULLIVAN. I thank Senator Daines and all of my colleagues on the floor today, all of the freshman class. The Presiding Officer is part of it. We have a great new class, 12 new freshmen. As you can see, we are very serious about this topic because this is a critical topic not only to the Senate but also to the country.

You know, our friends in the media--they often sit above the Presiding Officer's chair--you wouldn't know that the Senate minority leader has filibustered spending for our troops six times in the last year. No one reports on it. It is a disgrace, in my view.

Last week we and our colleagues on the other side of the aisle were talking a lot about the Senate doing its job. I think if you polled the American people and you asked them the No. 1 job the Senate, Congress, or Federal Government should be doing, it would be defending this Nation. It would be supporting the troops. That is the No. 1 thing in terms of the Senate doing its job that we should be focused on.

As Senator Capito so eloquently talked about, look at where our forces are right now--all over the world. There are 5,000 troops in Iraq. They are in combat. The White House doesn't like to use the word ``combat,'' but those troops are in combat. Our troops in Syria, brave pilots, are bombing ISIS, terrorist groups, on a daily basis. They are in combat. Their families know it.

Again, we have a White House that doesn't want to talk about combat. The Press Secretary will not mention the word, but our forces are in combat.

We had two aircraft carrier battle groups recently in the South China Sea. It was an incredibly important demonstration of American resolve. We have over a thousand troops who were just put in Europe by the President to reassure our European allies with regard to Russian aggression. A new headquarters was stood up in Poland--an American headquarters. The President ordered 8,500 troops to remain in Afghanistan. These are all initiatives by the President and by our leaders in the Department of Defense just in the last couple of months. Many of us support these. Many of us support these.

As the Presiding Officer knows, it is not just the real-world contingency operations--the combat our troops are in. It is real-world training. My colleague from Montana mentioned JBER in Alaska. We have some training exercises, such as RED FLAG-Alaska, one of the best air-to-air combat training exercises anywhere in the world. We had many evolutions of RED FLAG- Alaska this summer. Our troops were training hard. This is what the U.S. military is doing throughout the world and throughout the country to keep our Nation safe.

What is the Senate doing? More specifically, what is the minority leader doing? Well, as we have talked about, we came back last week, back in session, and the first vote we took was the sixth time the minority leader of the Senate organized a filibuster to make sure our troops didn't get funding--six times. There is no other bill in the Senate in the last year and a half that the minority leader of the Senate has picked to filibuster more than this bill--the bill that funds our troops.

Senator Capito asked a very good question. Why? Why? Why?

I have been on the floor asking this question for months. We are freshmen. We are new to this body. But we have not heard one Member of the other party come to the floor and explain why they are filibustering the spending for our troops--not once.

This is what our troops need. They watch this, by the way. They understand what is happening. A lot of people think: Oh, it is the Senate. Nobody understands these procedural filibusters and things. The men and women of the U.S. military know exactly what is happening. We will come down here and continue to fight for the funding and support of our troops and their families as long as the other side continues this filibuster.

Senator Capito, as I mentioned, asked a very important question: Why? But here is another question for my colleagues. I serve on the Committee on Armed Services. I serve on the Veterans' Affairs Committee. I know these are great bipartisan committees with Members of both parties--very patriotic and very supportive of the military. But why are my colleagues on the other side of the aisle following the Senate minority leader? Why are they following his lead in the filibuster? I really, really wish one of them--just one--would come down and explain to the American people why six times--six times in the last year and a half--the minority leader has filibustered spending for our troops and why my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have followed him.
9999
If you were to poll this question back in any State where you are from, regardless of party--Democratic or Republican--the American people would say: Fund the troops. The American people would say: Bring it to the floor and at least have a debate on the bill that passed out of the Committee on Appropriations unanimously. The American people would say: They are doing their job. U.S. Senate, it is time to do your job. Fund the troops; support the troops.

It is remarkable that we are still debating this, and we are going to keep raising this. Maybe the media will focus on it. Again, I want to commend my colleague, Senator Daines, for leading this colloquy because it is so important for the people of the United States to understand what is really happening on the floor of this important body.

Senator Daines.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source