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Floor Speech

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, it is so disheartening that the Senator from Maryland is not taking to heart the eloquent words of the Senator from Kansas.

Let me make a point very clear.

The Senator from Maryland is not being denied the opportunity to offer an amendment on this issue. Indeed, the unanimous consent request which the Senator from Kansas put forth specifically recognizes, makes room for, allows the Senator from Maryland to offer his amendment. What we cannot do is guarantee that he will be successful in his amendment. That is the way the legislative process works. But he is not, in any way, being denied the opportunity to offer his amendment, to debate his amendment, to make the case for his amendment. Yet he is opposing this unanimous consent agreement. That is so disappointing because I know that the Senator from Kansas and the Senator from Maryland have worked together to craft an excellent bill and an important bill.

The Commerce-Justice-Science bill supports programs that enjoy overwhelming bipartisan support and are critically important to communities in every single one of our States, including the State of Maryland. The State of Maryland, for example, has the Goddard Space Flight Center. It is funded functionally at $200 million above the fiscal year 2025-enacted level.

There are many other provisions in this bill that directly benefit the State of Maryland, represented by the Senator.

There are programs in this bill that need our support. It includes the National Weather Service. It warns Americans of life-threatening weather events. It includes everything from tornadoes in the Midwest; hurricanes in the gulf and on the Atlantic seaboard; ice and snow storms; blizzards in New England and in the Northeast in general; flooding events such as the tragic flooding that we saw in Texas just recently and, just last night, the risk of catastrophic tsunamis in the Pacific. The American people are counting on us to ensure that the Weather Service is able to execute its safety-of-life mission as well as to deliver a reliable forecast each morning.

The legislation funds public safety programs that are so important to our police departments, our sheriffs, law enforcement in general, the FBI.

It funds programs that help combat substance abuse and drug trafficking.

It also supports pro-growth programs that are so strongly supported by so many Members of this Chamber. These include the overwhelmingly popular economic development assistance programs at the EDA; the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program. So many Senators wrote to us about the importance of that program; trade promotion for our smaller businesses provided by the International Trade Administration.

There is a program run by the Commerce Department that is particularly important to my State of Maine and to some 30 other States, and that is the Sea Grant program, which helps our fishing and lobstering industries, our seafood and fishing processors, and our coastal communities.

It supports American leadership in scientific research. That includes the cutting-edge research supported by the National Science Foundation in critical fields like artificial intelligence and quantum computing. We absolutely cannot cede our dominance in these fields to China. That is why this bill is so important.

I would urge my colleagues to call the presidents and the chancellors of your States' public and private universities and ask them for their thoughts on the value of the National Science Foundation's supported research. I can predict that you will be told just how important it is that we fund the NSF, and that is what we have done in this bill.

Of course, this legislation supports NASA--one of the jewels of the U.S. Government and our country. I know that the funding for NASA is particularly important in States with a major NASA presence, including Maryland--Maryland--as well as Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, California, Ohio, Texas, Virginia, and Louisiana.

A final note on this bill: The allocation for the Senate version of this legislation, the CJS legislation, is $79.7 billion. This is very close to the amount that the House subcommittee has reported. So this is a bill that we could send to conference with the House and be assured that we could get a product to send to the President's desk to be signed into law to avoid a continuing resolution that just puts these important programs, these vital Agencies, on autopilot. We don't want to do that. We want these important programs, these vital Agencies and Departments, to reflect the deliberation, the debate, and the hearings that we had through the Appropriations Committee.

Let's not miss this opportunity. Let's not kick the ball down the road and hope that somehow it can be worked out.

Again, let me emphasize what I believe to be the absolutely key point here: No one--no one--is denying the Senator from Maryland the opportunity to offer his amendment on the Senate floor.

There are many Members of this body who decided to withhold amendments that they might want in the interest of expediting consideration of this package. But in the case of the Senator from Maryland, we knew that he had this amendment that he cares about, and we have accommodated his ability to offer his amendment as part of the unanimous consent request.

So, therefore, I would implore the Senator from Maryland to withdraw his objection and allow us to proceed with this package of four appropriations bills--bills that came out of committee with overwhelming bipartisan support, bills that were carefully drafted, bills that reflect the input from so many Members of this body, and I would urge him to let us get on with the business of the Senate.

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