Senator Collins Calls for Action on Government Funding Bills
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Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Susan Collins, Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Defense, delivered remarks on the Senate floor today to urge action on the Fiscal Year 2025 appropriations bills and warn against the dangers of long-term continuing resolutions.
A transcript of Senator Collins’ remarks are as follows:
Mr. President, I rise today to point out that we are only 12 days from the end of the fiscal year, and to call upon the Majority Leader to bring the appropriations bills to the Senate floor. We have wasted the last two weeks. We have spent time voting on issues that were not nearly as time sensitive.
By the end of July, the Senate Appropriations Committee had held hearings on, thoroughly considered at full Committee markups, and reported for consideration by the full Senate, 11 of the 12 appropriations bills – roughly 96 percent of the discretionary funding permitted by the caps. All of the bills, all of them received strong, bipartisan support. We advanced six of the bills unanimously. Unanimous support for any bill in today's Senate is no small feat and a testament to the hard work and seriousness of our Committee members on both sides of the aisle, led by our Chair, the senior Senator from Washington.
But what has happened after the Committee reported its bills? Nothing. They have languished on the Senate Calendar. Instead of taking up the Senate Committee passed bills, including bills that passed unanimously that we passed earlier in the summer, the Senate has spent this month processing nominations and taking show votes aimed at scoring political points – show votes.
We had another of those yesterday. We voted for the second time on the exact same bill on IVF. What was that? That's not what the Senate should be doing at this critical time. That was simply an attempt by the majority leader to score political points, and I think that's highly unfortunate.
We need to get back to legislating and, surely, funding our government is an imperative. The Founders envisioned the Senate as a deliberative institution.
As I indicated, by July, the Senate Appropriations Committee had advanced the Fiscal Year 2025 defense appropriations bill by a vote of 28 to zero. It was unanimous. The bill would provide our military with the resources it needs to confront the global threats facing the United States, which combatant commanders have described to me as being the worst and most dangerous in 50 years.
Our bill rejects the administration's budget that would have led to the smallest Air Force in history and would have yielded the seas to the growing Chinese navy. The Committee instead called for a 3.3 percent increase in defense funding levels compared to last year.
Our bill strengthens our military across all domains – air, land, sea, space, and cyber space.
Our bill would also provide our brave men and women in uniform the pay and benefits that they deserve. It would fund a 4.5 percent pay increase for most of our service men and women, and a 5.5 percent pay increase for the most junior enlisted personnel. These are just some of the highlights of the bill.
Our bill includes $37 million for Navy shipbuilding, the largest shipbuilding budget ever. It begins to reverse the dangerous decline in the number of Navy ships.
For the Air Force, the bill provides additional funding to make nearly 500 more aircraft available than the President's budget request would allow.
The bill addresses the changing face of warfare with a billion dollars for counter drone capabilities to address this evolving threat. The growing use of drones by Iran and its proxies, as well as Russia and its attacks in Ukraine, have demonstrated that warfare has changed, and so must our strategies and budgets.
These are just some of the highlights of this critically important appropriations bills that we should have been debating, amending, and passing on the Senate floor.
Mr. President, don't take just my word for it. I would ask unanimous consent to submit for the record letters on why we need a full year defense appropriations bill and describing the harm of long continuing resolutions.
One of the letters is from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. One is from the Secretary of Defense. One is from the Chief of Naval Operations. One is from the Commandant at the Marine Corps. One is from the Secretary of the Navy. One is a white paper from the Department of the Army. One is a white paper from the Department of the Air Force. One is a letter from the military coalition representing more than 5.5 million current and former service members, their families, and caregivers. One is from the Aerospace Industries Association.
I could go on and on. I do ask unanimous consent that those be placed at the end of my remarks.
Mr. President, here's my point. It does not have to be this way. If the Senate Majority Leader had prioritized bringing appropriations bills to the floor, we could be in conference now with our Senate colleagues on some of the most important funding bills and send them to the President's desk prior to the October 1 start of the fiscal year. The Senate is not doing its job. We should be considering these bills, not engaging in show votes.
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