OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Executive Session

Floor Speech

Date: May 21, 2020
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: National Security Defense Executive Branch Health and Health Care Legislative Branch

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Mr. McCONNELL. 644.

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, a few announcements for the information of all of our colleagues.

When we reconvene after meeting with our constituents and monitoring the pandemic response in our States, the Senate will first continue to fill critical vacancies in the executive branch.

This week, we confirmed a new Director of National Intelligence. In just a moment, we will confirm a new Secretary of the Navy.

But our Democratic colleagues would not let the Senate fill several more posts over at the Pentagon. So, as has sadly become the norm over the last 3 years, the Senate will be spending floor time and multiple rollcall votes on each of the following: an Assistant Secretary of Defense and the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.

If you can believe this, I also had to file cloture on the incoming Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery. If we had a nickel for every time our Democratic colleagues have claimed that congressional oversight of the recovery programs was important, the CARES Act would have paid for itself. Yet Democrats blocked the confirmation of the special inspector general to look over the program this week.

The Senate will prepare to confirm these qualified people the hard way. Three years and counting of Democratic heel-dragging continues.

Of course, there will be plenty of legislative business before us as well. Senators will continue to monitor the pandemic response and discuss ways to help the Nation pivot toward reopening and economic recovery.

In addition, thanks to the hard work of Senators Gardner and Daines, we will be able to take up their bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act in the next work period. It is a milestone achievement to secure public lands and ensure their upkeep well into the future.

We will have the National Defense Authorization Act so that we do not let this pandemic take our eye off the ball of our Nation's security.

We will have much work to do in our home States next week. We will have much to do when we get back here after that. All around the Nation, Americans are taking precautions, but they are continuing to show up to do essential jobs and keep the Nation going. The Senate is not going to be any exception to showing up.

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