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[Pages S6863-S6864]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
BUSINESS BEFORE THE SENATE
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, for weeks now, the Republicans have
been asking the Democrats to take off their impeachment blinders and
let Congress legislate for the American people. We have argued that
American families deserve better than this partisan paralysis, where
the Democrats literally obsess over impeachment and obstruct everything
else.
This very morning, for example, the Speaker gave a speech on national
television to push forward her rushed and partisan impeachment, with
not one word on the outstanding legislation the American people
actually need--nothing on the USMCA or the NDAA or funding for our
Armed Forces. It is all impeachment, all the time. Only in this town,
only in Washington, does anybody think it is OK for our Armed Forces to
go unfunded and for a major trade deal to go unpassed, because the
Democrats are too busy hosting a panel of law professors to criticize
President Trump on television instead of being busy on the things the
American people actually need us to address.
The Kentuckians I represent cannot believe our military commanders
are being denied certainty, our men and women in uniform are being
denied stable funding, and 176,000 new American jobs are being held up
all because the Democratic leadership thinks there is more political
advantage in obstruction than in doing their jobs. Well, the
servicemembers and personnel in the Kentucky National Guard and at Fort
Campbell, Fort Knox, and the Blue Grass Army Depot aren't going to
simply stop doing their jobs. No, they are counting on us to pass
critical defense legislation that reforms housing and spousal
employment programs, that invests in construction, readiness, and
[[Page S6864]]
modernization, and that locks in--listen to this--the largest pay raise
in a decade.
These bills touch every single State. Of course, there are major
national and international issues at stake, as well, but the Democrats
are still holding the NDAA hostage for a partisan wish list that is
meant to appease trial lawyers, public sector unions, and their own
far-left base. They are holding up the NDAA over unrelated, nongermane,
leftwing wish-list items.
Meanwhile, the Speaker and the Democratic leader are withholding
their assent from important bipartisan provisions like the Caesar Syria
Civilian Protection Act, which has previously passed both Houses and
has been modified to resolve all concerns by the committees of
jurisdiction. Unlike the Democratic leader's rhetoric on Syria in
recent weeks, this bill would actually do something to stand up for the
Syrian people and hold Assad accountable. So I hope the Democratic
leader will allow this important demonstration of our support for the
Syrian people to go forward.
In the meantime, as if to underscore that the Democrats' top priority
is performance art for coastal elites and not the people's business, I
understand the Speaker of the House spent part of this week in Madrid,
talking about climate change. She took an international flight to
discuss carbon emissions. So the Speaker was in Spain, lamenting
President Trump's decision to pull us out of the Paris Agreement. Maybe
she pitched her conference's Green New Deal--its socialist plan to hurt
our economy for American families--while bigger emitters like China go
roaring right by.
As an aside, over the past 15 years, the United States' carbon
emissions have actually fallen significantly. We appear to be on track
for another decline in 2019. Meanwhile, Paris Agreement signatories,
like China and India, continue to emit more and more every year. China
already emits, roughly, twice as much as the United States, and it is
increasing every year.
Kentucky and many other States know exactly what happens when
Washington Democrats ignore these facts and decide America needs to
take on unilateral economic pain for no meaningful change in global
emissions. We are still trying to recover from the Democrats' last
``War on Coal.'' We certainly don't need the Speaker of the House to
promise the Europeans that she is going to start a new one. So working
Americans and their families are not well served by the Democrats'
political performance art. What they really need are results.
The only path to results is bipartisan legislation, and, fortunately,
it is a well-trodden one. There are 58 consecutive annual defense
authorizations to prove it. Always in the past we have been able to
overcome these partisan differences and go forward. There is a
bipartisan-bicameral agreement that the Speaker and the Democratic
leader signed just a few months ago to help them find their way back to
the table, but the agreement needs to be honored. I hope they do so
sometime soon.
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