Business Before the Senate

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, with only a few weeks to go until the end of September, we have no time to waste when it comes to appropriations. We had planned for the Senate to consider bipartisan bills from the Appropriations Committee as soon as next week and make significant headway before a partial interim continuing resolution becomes necessary at the end of the month.

To this end, Democrats and Republicans in both the House and the Senate, plus President Trump, formalized an agreement 1 month ago. It set up funding levels to inform the appropriations process, and everyone on both sides agreed there would be no poison pills, no partisan wrenches thrown into the gears.

Unfortunately, yesterday brought some disturbing signals that Democrats may be rethinking that commitment. New poison pills are apparently being discussed. But everyone knows what we agreed to last month. In fact, back on August 1, I asked consent to print the entire terms sheet that everyone agreed to in the Record.

So I maintain hope that Chairman Shelby and Ranking Member Leahy can oversee a smooth process and that we can move all 12 appropriations bills in a bipartisan fashion. Both sides have every reason to want a smooth appropriations process to proceed as we had planned. I hope that is exactly what happens in committee this week and on the floor soon thereafter.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source