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Floor Speech
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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, yesterday afternoon, we reached an agreement with Democrats on an appropriations package, and I am pleased to report that as of last night, we passed three of the fiscal year 2026 appropriations bills: Military Construction-Veterans Affairs, Legislative Branch, and Agriculture. Those are the three appropriations bills that we were able to pass last night.
I would say it is a very good start on appropriations, and a striking contrast, I might add, to last year when the Democrat leader failed to bring a single appropriations bill to the floor for a vote, notwithstanding the fact that 11 of the 12 passed out of the Appropriations Committee with big bipartisan margins.
And I want to thank Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Collins, as well as Senators Hoeven, Boozman, and Mullin. I also want to thank Senator Moran, who had done outstanding work on the Commerce-Justice- Science appropriations bill. And that would have passed last night had it not been for the opposition of a single Democrat Senator.
Thanks are due to all the members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which has now reported out 8--8--of the 12 fiscal year 2026 appropriations bills.
The Senate is currently in its best place on appropriations in years, and I am grateful for all those who worked cooperatively and in good faith to make last night's votes happen. It is good to have the Senate back on a regular-order track on appropriations, and I will continue to work for a regular-order process as we continue, and I hope that Democrats will join us in that effort.
It was disturbing to hear the Democrat leader threaten to shut down the government in his July 8 ``Dear Colleague'' letter. And I hope--I really hope--the Democrats will not embrace that position but will continue to work with Republicans to fund the government.
As I said, we are in the best place we have been in years, but we have a lot of work to do. And I hope that we will be able to continue the good work we began last night with continued bipartisan cooperation.
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