Udall Foundation Reauthorization Act of 2023

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, I rise today in support of the final six government funding bills before us. These bipartisan, bicameral bills are the result of many months of hard work by the Appropriations Committees in both the Senate and the House.

Let me start by thanking Chair Murray for her tremendous leadership and hard work throughout the entire appropriations process. She has really made a difference.

Since Chair Murray and I took the helm of the committee over a year ago, we have been committed to an appropriations process that provided Senators with a voice in funding decisions through robust committee proceedings. Toward that end, we held more than 50 public hearings and briefings. We televised our committee markups for the first time ever. The Senate Appropriations Committee marked up and advanced all 12 bills individually for the first time in 5 years, and we did so with overwhelming bipartisan support. Every single bill--each and every one of them--was subject to robust debate and amendments. Many of them passed unanimously, I am pleased to say, and others with only one dissenting vote.

This final package on the Senate floor today includes the fiscal year 2024 appropriations bills for the Department of Defense; State and Foreign Operations; Financial Services and General Government; Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education; Legislative Branch; and Homeland Security. We are not punting through yet another continuing resolution, nor is this an omnibus; rather, it is a package of six individual bills that fund critical programs, important Agencies, and essential Departments through the end of this fiscal year.

Now, Madam President, I would have preferred that more of these bills would have been brought across the Senate floor, but no one can say that they were not available for scrutiny since we reported the last of them from committee way back in July.

In addition to my thanks for Chair Murray, I want to thank the ranking Republican members on each of the subcommittees reflected in the package today--Senators Graham, Hagerty, Capito, Fischer, and Britt--for their outstanding efforts in assembling this package. I also want to acknowledge the contributions of their Democratic chairs.

This legislation is truly a national security bill. Seventy percent of the funding in this package is for our national defense, including investments that strengthen our military readiness and industrial base, provide pay and benefit increases for our brave servicemembers, and support our closest allies.

This legislation also supports America's working families while providing funding to better secure our borders and combat the transnational criminal organizations that are flooding our communities with fentanyl.

As part of the effort to address the crisis at the border--and it is a crisis--this package includes funding for additional detention beds and more Border Patrol agents and port-of-entry officers. Those are longstanding Republican priorities--priorities that are shared by many Democrats as well.

As the ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, I want to take a few moments to highlight the bill in this package on which Chair Tester and I worked extremely closely.

The bill avoids a devastating yearlong CR that every single service chief told us would be a disaster for the Department of Defense. It meets the complex threats that are facing our country.

Madam President, to say that things have changed since the fiscal year 2024 budget request was first presented last spring would be a drastic understatement. Putin refuses to end his war in Ukraine. Hamas conducted its heinous, brutal attack on Israel on October 7. Iran continues to fan the flame of violence and terrorism throughout the Middle East, including against American forces. China's military budget and armed forces continue to grow unabated.

But you don't have to take my word for it. In the past few weeks, the Commander of U.S. Central Command, GEN Eric Kurilla, has described this as the most dangerous security environment in 50 years.

On the other side of the world, the Commander of the U.S. Indo- Pacific Command told Chairman Tester and me earlier this week that this is the most dangerous time he has seen in his 40-year career, citing cooperation between Russia and China as a key and growing concern.

In addition, just last week, the Commandant of the Marine Corps and the Chief of Naval Operations wrote to the majority and minority leaders describing the harm to the readiness of our Navy and Marine Corps unless we quickly pass a full-year Defense appropriations bill. This needs to be done before a large part--about two-thirds--of our government would otherwise shut down at midnight tonight. We must not let that occur.

To meet these challenges, our bill includes nearly $824.5 billion for the U.S. military. It fully funds the 5.2-percent pay raise for servicemembers--the largest pay raise in more than 20 years. It includes a critical $123 million increase for bonuses for our new recruits and junior enlisted soldiers. The bill also doubles the number of children who will have access to full-day prekindergarten in DOD schools--an important priority for Senator Murray and for me.

I also want to salute the work Representative Ken Calvert did in this whole area of improving benefits and pay for our junior enlisted soldiers.

As the Chinese navy rapidly expands to more than 400 ships over the next 2 years, our legislation includes $33.7 billion for Navy shipbuilding and downpayments for both an additional DDG-51 destroyer and an amphibious ship--the largest shipbuilding budget ever provided. Indeed, our legislation supports a Navy fleet that is six ships larger than the President's woefully inadequate request.

The Defense bill also includes more than $2.2 billion for our uniformed military leaders' highest priorities that were not included in the administration's request. But, as the Presiding Officer knows, we get a list of unfunded priorities from our service chiefs.

Our bill includes $273 million for long-range radars and sensors to close the awareness gaps identified by General VanHerck when he was Commander of Northern Command. It includes $50 million for the INDOPACOM Commander to accelerate his top priority targeting capability and $200 million to accelerate the development of the E-7 radar aircraft that was a top priority for the Air Force.

To strengthen deterrence against China, our legislation keeps the modernization of the nuclear triad on track. It funds the transition from ``just-in-time'' to a ``just-in-case'' stockpile of munitions by authorizing and funding, for the first time ever, six multiyear procurement contracts for missiles and munitions.

Surely, that has been one of the lessons that we have learned from Ukraine: how important it is that we have modernized an adequate stockpile.

And $6.5 billion is also included to maximize this year's production of Patriot air defense missiles, long-range anti-ship missiles, and six other long-range precision strike missile programs.

Finally, in the area of defense, this bill also includes $500 million for Iron Dome and David's Sling and Arrow--the cooperative missile defense programs that are consistent with the 10-year memorandum of understanding signed between the United States and our close ally Israel. This will provide much needed assistance to Israel in its fight against terrorism.

In addition to having a strong national defense, another priority of mine is biomedical research. And this bill will continue the progress that we are making in increasing funding for the National Institutes of Health. It increases funding for NIH by $300 million, including $120 million in an increase for the National Cancer Institute and $100 million more for Alzheimer's disease and related dementia research.

I would note that it also increases funding for mental health, which is so important--an area that has been neglected somewhat in the past.

Another cause of mine, as the cochair with Senator Jeanne Shaheen of the Diabetes Caucus, has been to increase the funding for diabetes research. And we have done so in this bill.

We also pay attention to the problems with opioids and have included an increase in the funding for the Help to End Addiction Long-Term initiative, known as the HEAL initiative. Palliative care research also receives an increase. That is so important as our population ages. And that is an area--long-term care--that we still need to do an awful lot of work on in this country. I hope that this will start us on our path to that end.

Again, there has been so much work done on this package of bills. And I want to thank my Republican and Democratic colleagues on the Appropriations Committee, the leaders in the House, as well on the appropriations subcommittees and full committee. And I also want to thank our Senate leaders on both sides of the aisle and our House leaders for their extensive work on these bills.

Members throughout the Senate have contributed to prioritizing funding and identifying how funding should be prioritized. And I want to note for my Republican colleagues that the legacy riders that we have traditionally included, such as the Hyde amendment, are included in this bill.

Finally, I want to thank our extraordinary staff. They have worked nonstop throughout this past year but particularly this past month, without getting sleep, without seeing their families--just working night and day.

I urge my colleagues to join me in voting for this final fiscal year 2024 appropriations package and complete our fundamental job of funding our government.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I very much appreciate the comments of the Senator from Nebraska. I agree with him that UNRWA cannot be the conduit for humanitarian aid. It is clear that it has been infiltrated by Hamas, and indeed Israeli intelligence indicates that specific employees--employees--of UNRWA were involved in the brutal atrocities of October 7 when Hamas attacked Israel. In addition, it is estimated that many other employees of UNRWA are sympathetic to Hamas or affiliated with Hamas.

So American tax dollars should not be going through an organization that has been involved--some of its employees--in a terrorist attack, one of the worst terrorist attacks we have seen, a terrorist attack that resulted in the worst loss of Jewish life in a single day since the Holocaust. How could we possibly allow American tax dollars to be used by this organization?

Now, this is not to say there should not be aid. There are differing views on that issue. But we know there are other organizations within the U.N.--there is the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees organization. There is UNICEF. There is the World Food organization. There are many other organizations.

For me, Mr. President, what was most compelling is when I learned that Hamas had a major communications and command control center underneath UNRWA's headquarters, and there were additional Hamas organizations that had locations in the tunnels underneath UNRWA's schools. Now, tell me, how could UNRWA possibly not have known this was occurring? How could they not have seen the tunnels being built, the air-conditioners being brought in, the computers being installed, their electric rate going way up? It is just not conceivable that UNRWA was unaware of all of this.

As my friend from Nebraska has mentioned, we know that far too many of the schools UNRWA is running in Gaza teach hatred in their textbooks--teach hatred not only of Israel but of Jews in general.

It is totally unacceptable that American tax dollars would go to this organization. There are alternatives. That is why, in the supplemental appropriations bill, which I know the Presiding Officer feels so deeply about, as do I--in that bill, we defunded UNRWA and we said that dollars from previous appropriations could not be used by UNRWA. In the bill that is incorporated and before us today--the State, Foreign Ops bill, which is part of the six-bill package--we also defund UNRWA, and we extended it beyond the end of this fiscal year. We extended it to March of 2025 to ensure there wasn't a gap and give us time.

I do pledge to my colleague from Nebraska to continue to work on this issue about which I feel so strongly. I will continue to work with him, and I very much appreciate the opportunity to engage in this colloquy.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, first let me express my appreciation to the Senator from Nebraska.

I will ask unanimous consent that a story from the Wall Street Journal on this very issue be printed in the Record. I would note that this story estimates that approximately 10 percent of UNRWA's staff in Gaza has links to the Hamas militants.

Agency Staff's Links to Oct. 7 Attack (By Carrie Keller-Lynn and David Luhnow)

Tel Aviv.--At least 12 employees of the U.N.'s Palestinian refugee agency had connections to Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on Israel and around 10% of all of its Gaza staff have ties to Islamist militant groups, according to intelligence reports reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Six United Nations Relief and Works Agency workers were part of the wave of Palestinian militants who killed 1,200 people in the deadliest assault on Jews since the Holocaust, according to the intelligence dossier. Two helped kidnap Israelis. Two others were tracked to sites where scores of Israeli civilians were shot and killed. Others coordinated logistics for the assault, including procuring weapons.

Of the 12 Unrwa employees with links to the attacks, seven were primary or secondary school teachers, including two math teachers, two Arabic language teachers and one primary school teacher.

The information in the intelligence reports--based on what an official described as very sensitive signals intelligence as well as cellphone tracking data, interrogations of captured Hamas fighters and documents recovered from dead militants, among other things--were part of a briefing given by Israel to U.S. officials that led Washington and others to suspend aid to Unrwa.

Intelligence estimates shared with the U.S. conclude that around 1,200 of Unrwa's roughly 12,000 employees in Gaza have links to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and about half have close relatives who belong to the Islamist militant groups. Both groups have been designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. and others. Hamas has run Gaza since a 2007 coup.

``Unrwa's problem is not just `a few bad apples' involved in the October 7 massacre,'' said a senior Israeli government official. ``The institution as a whole is a haven for Hamas' radical ideology.''

An Unrwa spokesperson on Monday declined to comment, saying an internal U.N. investigation into the agency was under way.

Two officials familiar with the intelligence said the Unrwa employees considered to have ties with militant groups were deemed to be ``operatives,'' indicating they took active part in the organization's military or political framework. The report said 23% of Unrwa's male employees had ties to Hamas, a higher percentage than the average of 15% for adult males in Gaza, indicating a higher politicization of the agency than the population at large.

Nearly half of all Unrwa employees--an estimated 49%--also had close relatives who also had official ties to the militant groups, especially Hamas, the intelligence reports said.

In the aftermath of Oct. 7, as Israel has waged war against Hamas in Gaza, Unrwa has emerged as one of the loudest voices decrying the impact of the fierce fighting on Palestinians in the enclave, where authorities say more than 26,000 people have been killed. Unrwa says at least 152 of its own staff have been killed in the conflict.

The agency is also the main pillar of operations to move food, aid, medicine and other humanitarian supplies into Gaza.

The vast majority of Unrwa's 30,000 staff across the Middle East are Palestinian, and Israel and some in the U.S. have long accused it of nurturing anti-Israeli sentiment in crowded refugee camps that have been important recruiting grounds for militant groups, including Hamas.

The Trump administration suspended funding for Unrwa in 2018, saying the agency's mission was fundamentally misguided. The Biden administration renewed funding in 2021.

The Oct. 7 intelligence reports seen by the Journal identified an Unrwa Arabic teacher who the reports said was also a Hamas militant commander and took part in a terrorist attack on Kibbutz Be'eri, where 97 people were killed and about 26 people were kidnapped and taken as hostages to Gaza.

Another Unrwa employee, described in the dossier as an Unrwa social worker, played a role in absconding with the body of a dead Israeli soldier, which was taken to Gaza, the reports said. He also coordinated trucks and munitions distributions for Hamas before being killed.

A person familiar with the dossier said that after U.S. officials were briefed on the intelligence material, they alerted Unrwa, which put out a statement announcing the allegation that some of its employees were linked to the attacks and saying it had fired the employees involved. It provided no details, and didn't say how many employees were involved.

On Sunday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was personally horrified by the allegations.

Unrwa commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini criticized Western nations for pausing aid at a time when Gaza is facing a humanitarian crisis as the war between Hamas and Israel rages. Guterres also implored nations to not suspend humanitarian aid.

It is ``immensely irresponsible to sanction an agency and an entire community it serves because of allegations of criminal acts against some individuals,'' Lazzarini said.

Unrwa looks after more than 5 million Palestinians in densely-packed refugee neighborhoods across the Middle East, including the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. But its biggest operations are in Gaza, where it looks after an estimated 80% of the local population and runs hundreds of schools and scores of clinics.

Israel says it has documented deepening ties between Unrwa and Hamas since the militant group cemented its hold on Gaza in 2007. Unrwa has admitted to finding Hamas weapons stored in schools and Israel has repeatedly said Hamas tunnels run under and through Unrwa buildings as well as other civilian facilities. The former head of Unrwa's union in Gaza was fired in 2017 after Israel found out he had been elected to Hamas' top political leadership.

The dossier is the most detailed look yet at the widespread links between the Unrwa employees and militants. It offers telling details regarding the events of Oct. 7.

A math teacher belonging to Hamas was close enough to a female hostage in Gaza that he took a picture of her. Another teacher was carrying an antitank missile the night before the invasion.

One Unrwa employee set up an operations room for Palestinian Islamic Jihad on Oct. 8, the day after the attack. Three other employees, including another Arabic teacher at an Unrwa school, received a text from Hamas to arm themselves at a staging area close to the border the night before the attack. It was unclear whether they went.

A different elementary school teacher did cross into Israel and went to Reim, a district where a kibbutz, an army base and a music festival were attacked.

One of the intelligence reports seen by the Journal said a 13th Unrwa employee, who didn't have a discernible affiliation with a terror group, also entered Israel. Hundreds of Gazan civilians flooded across the border as part of the Hamas-led attack, Israel says.

Teachers make up nearly three-quarters of Unrwa's Gaza- based local staff. Unrwa schools, which use textbooks approved by the Palestinian Authority, have come under fire for using materials that allegedly glorify terrorists and promote hatred of Israel. Unrwa says it has taken steps to address problematic content, but a 2019 U.S. Government Accountability Office report said that measures haven't always been implemented.

Since Oct. 7, Hamas has stolen more than $1 million worth of Unrwa supplies, including fuel and trucks, according to the intelligence report. The intelligence assessment alleges that Hamas operatives are so deeply enmeshed within the Unrwa aid-delivery enterprise as to coordinate transfers for the organization. corrections & amplifications

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, known as Unrwa, was incorrectly referred to as Unwra in one instance in an earlier version of this article. (Corrected on Jan. 29).

The first is that he is correct that a lot of the increase in spending is on the mandatory entitlement side of the budget, but that is not what the Appropriations Committee handles. That is not under our jurisdiction.

The second point that I want to make is that in this six-bill package, the amount of spending in the nondefense discretionary area is actually below last year. It is 1.7 percent below last year. When you factor in inflation, that means there are real cuts that these Agencies and programs are going to be experiencing. There is a 3.3-percent increase for defense, but that, too, is below the inflation rate. When you look at the global threats our combatant Commanders have identified, we should be spending more for defense than that.

The final point I will make is that we have adhered to the Fiscal Responsibility Act caps on spending in this bill, the final six-bill package, and the overall bills we have brought forth.

So we have also accommodated and followed the agreement that was negotiated between the Speaker of the House and the Democratic leader of the Senate. So these bills are not big spending bills that are wildly out of scope. They are carefully drafted, they are conservative, and they meet the requirements of the FRA and the top line established by the leaders.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source