Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2026
Floor Speech
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Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I want to provide an opportunity tonight for us all to stand up for the Constitution, one of the most important powers that we have here as a Congress, and that is the ability to design a program and to fund a program. And once that has been signed into law by a President of the United States, it is the law of the land. The President has the responsibility to execute that program as designed and funded.
But back in 1974, we decided to give the President a fast track to propose that something we have designed and funded should be unfunded. It is called a rescission, a fancy name for us acting to unfund a program we previously had put in place.
And here is the thing, that law, the Budget Act of 1974, says that it takes an affirmative vote of the Senate and of the House of Representatives to unfund the program that is already in law.
But an unexpected challenge has emerged, and that unexpected challenge is that if the request from the President to unfund the program comes within 45 days of the end of the year, even if we were to act and turn down the rescission, it still means that, under a grace period in the law, the funds evaporate at the end of the year. So in other words, with no approval from the House or Senate, no new law being passed, the existing law is undone on the clock. It is like-- well, it is like Cinderella's coach. It reaches midnight, and the coach becomes a pumpkin. It falls apart. It disappears.
That is a threat that goes fundamentally to the difference between a democracy and an autocracy. In a democracy, we come together with all of our varied experiences, with all of our different parts of the country, and we say: Here are programs and funding that fit our Nation as a whole. It is a master compromise. But in an authoritarian government, one person decides what is funded and what isn't. And that is what happens in this special power when it is submitted within 45 days of the end of the fiscal year.
So however much one may like or dislike a given President in power, support or oppose, all of us have a responsibility to stand up for our constitutional power of the purse; that all of America will be served by the laws we pass and that if they are to be undone, they have to be voted on by this Chamber and the Chamber down the hall in an affirmative fashion.
So I will, at the appropriate moment a minute or two from now, propose at that point to table an amendment that is in the tree so we can submit an amendment that will defend our Constitution, defend article I power, defend our democracy.
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Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I will be happy to give a portion of that equally divided by saying simply this: None of us are well served by a situation where the President decides to cancel programs based on the President's preferences. That is not a democracy.
And whether it is this President or a future President, we need to have these rescission requests submitted in time for us to take action as the law requires.
So submitting them with enough time to spare at the end of the fiscal year for us to vote up or down is the right thing to do. It protects our constitutional power to design and fund programs.
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Mr. MERKLEY. 3946 for the purpose of offering my amendment No. 3948 to defend our constitutional power of the purse and the importance of our democracy in ensuring that what we put into law stays in law unless we choose to change it.
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Mr. MERKLEY. I really ask my colleagues, particularly on this side, to hear me out on this.
The Senators from Kentucky and Oregon cooperated to create the first research on hemp. We cooperated to give the first opportunity to move research seeds across State lines. We cooperated and pushed to create hemp as a legitimate agricultural product.
CBD derived from hemp has been approved by the FDA for treating seizures. It is a legal medicine. We would wipe out an industry that we have spent more than a decade creating.
The advocates for this language that is in the bill will tell you this won't affect CBD. Every expert I have consulted has said that that is exactly wrong; that this will, in fact, wipe out 95 to 99 percent of the industry.
My colleague from Kentucky is exactly right. We asked our farmers to engage in this research, and we asked them to build this industry. We should protect it for CBD.
I support my other colleague from Kentucky, who doesn't want intoxicated products produced from hemp. The definition that is in this bill does far more than that, and it has to be fixed. So, for now, it needs to be stripped out.
Please support Senator Paul's position.
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