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

Floor Speech

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Mr. REID. Mr. President, the majority leader and I have had very good discussions in the last 24 hours or so. We have agreed that, in order to pass a clean Homeland Security appropriations bill for the remainder of this fiscal year, the Democrats will support getting on the House Homeland Security funding bill. In exchange, the majority leader will provide that the only amendment will be a clean Homeland Security funding substitute, which he just outlined. The substance of this amendment is the same as the bill that was introduced by Senators Mikulski and Shaheen about a month ago.

The Senate will adopt that amendment and send the amended bill to the House in an expedited fashion. The Senate will then vote on cloture on the motion to proceed to the Collins bill.

Personally, I don't believe the Collins bill is a compromise. It would undermine law enforcement and tear families apart. So until full-year funding for the Homeland Security Department is enacted, I will vote against going to the Collins bill.

After a clean bill is signed into law, I will be happy to have a vigorous debate on immigration and the best way to fix our broken system.

I want to be very clear that Democrats would be willing to expedite the plan we have before us by consent.

In conclusion, I thank the majority leader for working with Democrats to come to a solution of this impasse that we have been faced with for the last 4 weeks.

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