Interior, Environment, Financial Services, and General Government Appropriations Act, 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. SHELBY. Madam President, I will be brief. I appreciate the Senator's amendment. On policy grounds, I would agree with Senator Cruz 100 percent. My position on this, though, is clear, and I have consistently voted to repeal ObamaCare and the individual mandate. So it is with reluctance that I support the motion to table this amendment. I do so, I believe, for the good of the appropriations process. We have been able to cut a path back to regular order here by working together in a bipartisan manner. This amendment, I believe, would poison this, would eliminate the bipartisan support we have forged for this package. If we go down this road, I believe we will soon find ourselves back on the path to disorder in the appropriations process. I don't believe any of us want that.

So, again, I support the motion to table this amendment not because I oppose it on policy grounds but because I want to maintain the progress we are making in the appropriations process to go to regular order.

I thank the Chair.

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Mr. SHELBY. Madam President, I thank Senator McConnell and Senator Schumer for their kind remarks. I hope my wife was listening to that. What the heck.

We have been working together, and we have to continue that to make the process work, to reach out to each other. Gosh, it is hard work. Senator Leahy and I differ on a lot of things, but we are together on bringing regular order to the Appropriations Committee because I thought all along we owe it to the American people. We are accountable--both parties, both groups. That is what we have been about.

Thank you again to the leader and Senator Schumer for your kind remarks.

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Mr. SHELBY. Madam President, I want to say again that what we have been doing here, working together in a bipartisan way, is something that Senator Schumer and Senator McConnell were talking about hadn't been done basically in 30 years. We are on the right track. We want to stay there. I have said many times to both parties: It is in our interests. The American people expect it. Let's keep working together.

Madam President, before we vote, I want to thank my colleagues for their cooperation in moving this package. In particular, I want to thank leaders McConnell and Schumer for bringing these bills to the floor and Vice Chairman Leahy for his continued partnership throughout the appropriations process.

I also want to congratulate the bill managers and their staffs: Senators Murkowski, Collins, Lankford, and Hoeven on the Republican side; Senators Udall, Reed, Coons and Merkley on the Democratic side. These valuable members of the Appropriations Committee produced strong and balanced bills, and they have guided an open and disciplined process here on the Senate floor.

I thank them for their excellent work.

We are now making real headway in the appropriations process.

The Committee reported all 12 fiscal year 2019 bills to the full Senate before the July 4 recess all with strong bipartisan support.

The first three bill package passed the full Senate last month by a vote of 86 to 5.

The package now before the Senate contains four additional appropriations bills.

Hopefully--we'll see here shortly--this package will achieve the same level of bipartisan support as the last.

If that holds true we will have passed seven--yes, seven-- appropriations bills before August. With only five more to go, I think we can honestly say this train has considerable momentum behind it now.

Next up is the Defense-Labor-HHS package--a package I know senators on both sides of the aisle are very eager to debate.

I hope my colleagues are encouraged by what is happening here, by what we are accomplishing together.

Moving these bills in this way is the right thing to do--not only for this institution, but for our country; for the American people.

When we take up the next package I hope we will continue to work using this framework as our guide.

It is, after all, this framework that has allowed us to return to regular order.

This process is working, let's keep it going.

Again, I thank my colleagues for their cooperation.

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