Keystone XL Pipeline Act

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I wish to take a few minutes to talk about the latest attempt by the Republicans in the House of Representatives--and a few Republicans in the Senate as well--to hold hostage the basic operation of our government, once again, over politics.

While I have several issues with the Department of Homeland Security funding bill that the House has sent to us, I will first discuss this strategy we are seeing from Republicans, as the former chair of the Budget Committee and as someone who has worked across the aisle to break through gridlock in Congress.

Two years ago our country was moving constantly from one manufactured crisis to the next. We had debt limit scares that were rattling our businesses and the markets, we were headed toward an absurd and unnecessary government shutdown, and people across the country were losing faith that their elected officials could get anything done when it came to the budget and to our economy.

But by working together, Congressman Paul Ryan and I were able to reach a budget deal that prevented another government shutdown and showed the American people that Congress could work together to get things done.

Because of that deal we were able to then pass bipartisan spending bills for the past 2 fiscal years, including 11 of the 12 appropriations bills from last year. Although we have a lot of work to do, it is clear that stability in the Federal budget makes a difference for our economy. We have to work together to build on that growth, to continue that certainty, and to make sure our economy is working for all families, not only the wealthiest few.

Across the country, businesses have added more than 11 million new jobs--over 58 straight months of job growth. The unemployment rate is now under 6 percent and trending downward, and we have reduced the Federal budget deficit by over two-thirds since 2009.

So when I look at the Homeland Security funding bill that the House of Representatives has now sent to us, I see a few things. I see a bill--the way it is drafted and was sent to us will tear apart families who are working hard to make it in America. I see a bill that will put our security at risk, and I see a bill that seriously threatens all of the work we have done recently, Republicans and Democrats, to keep our government functioning because the bill the House has sent over is simply unacceptable.

It will not pass the Senate. Republicans know that. Let's be clear about what this bill is, it is a calculated, political gamble from our Republican colleagues.

This looming showdown over funding the Department of Homeland Security is no accident. In fact, it is actually a risk they have been planning since last year all because of political pressure from the extreme anti-immigration right wing of their party.

If Republicans are willing to risk funding for the Department of Homeland Security for political reasons, I believe the American people deserve to know exactly what that does mean because funding the Department of Homeland Security doesn't only keep the lights on the DHS headquarters, that funding protects our country from terrorist attacks at a time when the world is as dangerous and volatile as ever.

It protects our country and American businesses from cyber attacks, a threat that is all too real as we have now seen in recent months. It supports basic security measures at our airports, at our seaports, and along the border. It even supports our Federal emergency management resources that are on call for every community in America.

In my home State of Washington, this funding supports the Coast Guard, which protects shippers and sailors throughout Puget Sound, and Customs and Border Protection, which helps facilitate billions in international trade moving through my State, the most trade-dependent State in the country.

Not funding these programs is a risk we cannot afford to take. It is reckless and irresponsible and, more than anything else, simply counterproductive for Republicans to put all of this on the line just to score some political points with the tea party and the far right. Unfortunately that appears exactly to be what they are doing.

Once again Speaker Boehner and the House Republicans have decided they are willing to break up millions of families and deport millions of DREAMers who are victims themselves of a broken system.

They have decided they are willing to stop the President's policy of focusing our law enforcement on national security threats, gang members, and violent criminals. Once again they have decided they are willing to make bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform that much more difficult to achieve.

This is much more than only an annual funding bill. This legislation is a message which has been sent to us loud and clear from House Republicans and Speaker Boehner that they are willing to continue pushing us from crisis to crisis. They are willing to play politics with our national security, and they are willing to turn their backs on millions and millions of children and families.

For years now we have seen that strategy doesn't work--it doesn't work. It holds us back.

But I have to say I was encouraged when Majority Leader McConnell said that at the end of the day the Senate will fund the Department of Homeland Security.

It is clear the House bill will not pass the Senate, so I truly believe it is time for the majority leader to show, as he has promised, that he will let the Senate and Congress work efficiently.

It is time for the majority leader to bring a clean DHS appropriations bill to the floor. Let's get it done, passed, and move on to the work that is so important to us.

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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