Hire More Heroes Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. REID. Mr. President, I served in the House of Representatives. It was standard over there for Members at committee hearings and on the floor to always say: I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. That was standard practice in the House. We don't do that here. But certainly in the House it would have been totally inappropriate to say: I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend the remarks of my friend from California or wherever they might be from, but that is basically what my friend, the Republican leader, has done.

He has no right to make up what I said this morning. What I said this morning is in the Record. The fact is that he can't rewrite what I said. Here is what I said earlier today: We have made it clear that we will not proceed to appropriations bills under the Republicans' partisan budget. That is what I said verbatim this morning.

We seek a budget agreement that fairly prevents mindless sequester cuts to defense and the middle class alike. We want negotiations to start, and I said I am gratified our votes on this measure have caused the Republican leader to acknowledge that we need to negotiate, and that is true. I am happy to see that, and I have publicly commended the Republican leader for the statements he has made in recent days about how we need a clean CR. I also said this morning, as far as the upcoming vote, that there is no reason for Senators to change their votes from how they voted earlier, and that was on the Defense appropriations revote. This is yet another case of the Republican leader just wasting time before we address the real deal.

We read in this morning's papers that the Republican leader plans to bring a clean continuing resolution before the Senate later this week. That is not a day too soon. That is what I said, and that is what I say again.

This vote on Planned Parenthood this Thursday is another rerun vote. I do not in any way take away from people who feel strongly about their position on abortion, Planned Parenthood, and the 20-week abortion. I understand how strongly people feel on both sides of that issue, but this is yet another rerun vote.

The Republicans--in the 9 months they have been running the Senate--have had more revotes than any other majority party in the history of our country. They are No. 1 in revotes. We have revoted and revoted and revoted. We voted on Planned Parenthood earlier this year in August, and we voted on abortion today. How many times will the Republican leader need to return to this same show vote?

We are going to prevent a government shutdown with a clean continuing resolution. That is what he said, and I agree with him.

When will we avoid a default by addressing the debt limit? When will we address cyber security and the highway trust fund? All of these things are important to do, and I am anxious to get them done. We have a lot of problems out there in our great country. We have so many things to do. We haven't addressed the energy problems that face this Nation.

We have fires that are ravaging the great Western part of the United States. The government entities that are fighting these fires don't have the money to fight them. The two worst fires in the history of the State of California are just being tamped down, but they are still not completed. Hundreds of homes have burned. We have a country that is burning up.

The Governor of Nevada is a good man. He is a Republican Governor, and I have great admiration for him. I suggested his name to the President of the United States to become a Federal judge, and he accepted my recommendation. He then resigned that position to run for Governor. He is now conducting a 3-day event in Nevada--bringing people in from all over the West and all over the country--to talk about what is happening to Nevada. We are having so many problems in Nevada. Lake Mead is drying up, and Lake Tahoe is having tremendous problems. We have a snowpack that basically doesn't exist. We don't have many rivers in Nevada, but those little rivers that we have, including the mighty Colorado, are in deep trouble. We have snowpack in upper Colorado that evaporates before it gets into the river.

I am willing to do whatever is necessary to move forward in funding this government, but to blame us for not funding the government is really carrying things to extremes.

I have completed my statement, Mr. President.

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