Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2015 -- Motion to Proceed -- Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, with 1 day before the funding expires for
the Department of Homeland Security, I rise to urge the adoption of a
clean funding bill.

It seems we are on a path to ensure that, at least in the Senate, we
are going to adopt a bill that funds the critical safety and national
security functions of the Department of Homeland Security without
extraneous immigration riders. I encourage my colleagues in both
Chambers to embrace what Members on both sides of the aisle have
acknowledged is the best way to resolve this issue--avoid a shutdown,
enact the clean bipartisan Homeland Security bill, and address the
immigration policies through regular order on the floor.

By now, we have all heard from a host of people spelling out the many
negative impacts of a shutdown--our colleagues, Secretary Johnson,
previous Secretaries, and many of our Nation's mayors. We would be
unnecessarily disrupting funding which all of our States' emergency
managers rely on and which allows for programs that function to keep us
safe and keep people and goods moving securely and efficiently
throughout our country.

My home State of Hawaii is 2,500 miles from the closest landmass. It
hosts the Nation's fourth largest airport for international arrivals
and is currently responding to and recovering from presidentially
declared disasters related to lava threats and tropical storms.

For these and many other reasons, I am concerned that Congress would
consider risking timely funding for the agencies that keep our airports
safe, our coasts and waters secure, and provide for critical planning
and response support to our States' first responders.

Additionally, I don't think anyone should attempt to trivialize a
shutdown based on the argument that many Department of Homeland
Security employees will have to report to work regardless. What an
insult. For the thousands of Hawaii residents employed by the
Department of Homeland Security, this is significant. These are middle-
class jobs helping to support middle-class families. These employees
will still have to make rent, pay a mortgage, buy gas, food, childcare
and the like, and the Coast Guard's men and women will have to report
for duty--not for pay. We owe them better than that. We shouldn't
subject these families to uncertainty about their next paycheck.

Our path forward is actually totally simple: pass the original
funding bill that was negotiated in good faith by both parties and both
Chambers last December. Because of where we are right now, it is
important to remember that the underlying Department of Homeland
Security funding bill was the result of a bipartisan negotiation and
compromise between both Chambers and both parties.

That means we have to resist the temptation in either Chamber to make
political decisions that have no chances of success in the Senate or
would be vetoed by the President. For example, reinserting partisan
immigration riders into this bill is a nonstarter. The Senate has not
wavered on this point, and that dynamic is not going to change.

Let's just do our jobs. Let's fund the Department of Homeland
Security, and then we can debate comprehensive immigration policy any time the
leadership desires to bring it to the floor.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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