Unanimous Consent Requests--The Calendar
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. LEE. Mr. President, the American people understand to varying degrees but have a general understanding of the fact that the work we do here in the Senate is a combination of things.
Some of the things that we address are controversial. Some of them make the daily or evening news or the cover of the newspaper the next day. Those tend to be the things that are more controversial, things on which there might be sharp disagreements, sometimes sharply divided down partisan lines, reflected based on where one's desk sits in relation to the center aisle of this Chamber.
Other times, there might be controversy, but the controversy doesn't cut cleanly across party lines. We might have some Republicans and some Democrats on one side or the other.
In many instances--maybe not enough but, mercifully, there are many instances--there is not only not much controversy but no controversy at all.
There is a significant amount of legislation that passes through this Chamber every single year unanimously, without a single ``no'' vote. Some of this, to be sure, might recognize the naming of a post office or it might recognize--I don't know--``National Sofa Care Month,'' if there is such a thing. Others deal with discrete, local issues--issues that, while important to a select few people who live around, for example, a particular piece of land owned by the Federal Government and might be affected by the land management policy associated with that parcel, are very important to that local population but might be completely unknown not only to people on the other side of the country but even to people in other parts of that same State.
There is a fair amount of legislation that moves through the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources--a committee that I currently chair--that fits into each of these categories: controversial bills where there is a sharp Republican-Democratic divide; bills that have some controversy that cut across party lines; and, yes, mercifully, this other category of noncontroversial votes without a single substantive objection.
The American people understand that there will be opposition to a lot of pieces of legislation, but they also, justifiably, expect us to consider and pass bills on their merits. As to this category of bills that are important to some, unknown to most, and controversial to no one, well, they expect us to get those passed in a timely fashion.
I am trying to do this quickly, expeditiously, and to do it in the right way.
Now, I tried doing it the right way--the same way I am going to try today--back in May, on the 22nd of May. I tried to do it the right way again on July 29. I tried doing it the right way again, 2 weeks ago. This will be my fourth attempt to try to pass a small handful of extremely noncontroversial bills that already passed this Chamber unanimously, without a single ``no'' vote in the last Congress, at the end of last year, and that have moved forward from the Energy and Natural Resources Committee--again, without opposition from either side of the aisle, from any Senator--earlier this year.
Each of these times, I have received an objection from the Democratic side of the aisle. At no point have I heard a single substantive objection to any of these bills in this category that I have tried to pass through this procedure--a procedure which is well-worn and which exists for exactly this circumstance. You know, across multiple committees--certainly within the Energy and Natural Resources Committee--there is a lot of legislation that falls into that category.
We are told repeatedly that there are simply too many bills for the Senate to consider individually. This is often the case. And it is often the case, in particular, that for a bill that has no opposition, for a bill that is very important to a population of people within a particular State as to a discrete issue--it might be important or interesting to literally no one else in any other State or in other parts of the same State--we are told that these bloated bills that sometimes get combined, which are multiple pieces of legislation, sometimes amounting to thousands of pages at a time, can become a necessary evil to accommodate all of the small lands bills important to our States.
I am here to tell you that this is simply not the case. It certainly need not be the case here, and it isn't.
Now, had we moved these bills each time I have been on the floor this year, we certainly would have already been able to make significant progress in clearing the backlog, so that we could deal with this problem that many people cite as a reason we would need a massive, all- or-nothing, bloated, sewn-together lands package--take it or leave it, all or nothing.
If we really need the bills passed, why can't we start, at least, with the low-hanging fruit?
I have no delusions that this makes everything easy. It certainly doesn't, as there is a lot of this process that can be difficult. But we ought to start with the bills that are noncontroversial, that have yet to receive a single substantive objection on their merits, and that are things that we all agree on.
Why can't we move the bills that have already passed unanimously, that have already been vetted in committee this year and last year, and that passed on the Senate floor without a single ``no'' vote last year?
Why come down here and object, over and over again, to bills that are noncontroversial?
Well, sometimes this is the muscle memory that can start to evolve, that can start to take hold within this body. But it need not be this way; it ought not be this way, as it doesn't lead to good decisions. If this is how we treat the things that are noncontroversial, it is going to make the things where there is some debate, some opposition, some dissent more difficult and, as to the stuff that is sharply partisan, impossible.
If you have a bill that you know can't pass on its own, well then, what do you do?
Well, perhaps what you want to do is pair it with a bunch of other bills that are themselves noncontroversial, hoping that it won't get noticed or hoping that there will be enough other Senators who will say: I guess we have to take it or leave it; so let's let it all pass.
They might say: Are you really going to sink all of this important work just for one section of this much larger bill that you disagree with?
Well, look, taken to its logical conclusion and repeated, over and over again, and applied even to noncontroversial bills, this ends up being sort of extortive in its effect, and it doesn't produce a good outcome--not for people of either party, not for people of either legislative Chamber, and, certainly, not for the American people.
Just yesterday, we were able to do some things on the floor the right way. Senator Sullivan came to the floor and passed his bill to extend the deadline for Alaska Native Vietnam-era vets to claim the land allotments that they earned through their service. This was only after Democrats--including my friend and colleague the distinguished senior Senator from New Mexico, Senator Heinrich--had objected to it twice. But his bill--Senator Sullivan's legislation that I just mentioned--is now headed to the President's desk to be signed into law. Now, there is no reason that that success that we tasted, just yesterday afternoon, can't continue here with similarly situated, similarly noncontroversial, unanimously passed bills.
So, again, I have got four bills that I will be asking unanimous consent to pass here today. They include S. 1084, which is the North Dakota Trust Lands Completion Act of 2025. This bill, sponsored by Senator Hoeven, passed last year with unanimous support and would authorize equal value exchanges to enable the State of North Dakota to manage its own State lands.
S. 1142 is the Scarper Ridge Golden Gate National Recreation Area Boundary Adjustment Act. This bill, sponsored by Senator Padilla, passed last year and would make a minor boundary adjustment to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. It is entirely noncontroversial.
S. 1016 is the Vicksburg National Military Park Boundary Modification Act. This bill, sponsored by Senator Wicker, is a minor but important boundary adjustment to the park, and it passed last year with unanimous support.
S. 603, sponsored by Senator Kaine, designates the George C. Marshall House in Virginia as an affiliated area within the National Park System. It is simply allowing them to be affiliated with the National Park Service. This bill also passed with unanimous support.
What do these bills have in common? Well, they are bipartisan. They all passed the body unanimously, without a single ``no'' vote in the last Congress. I have heard zero substantive objections on the merits to any single one of these bills.
I stand ready to work with any Member--Republican or Democrat--to move their bills off the floor, especially with regard to these noncontroversial bills.
We can get this done. We can work through this broken process. It need not be broken, especially as to this category of bills. This is the easy stuff. Let's not make the easy stuff hard, lest we incur the risk of making the harder stuff impossible.
1084, North Dakota Trust Lands Completion Act of 2025 from Senator Hoeven; S. 1142, the Scarper Ridge Golden Gate National Recreation Area Boundary Adjustment Act from Senator Padilla; S. 1016, the Vicksburg National Military Park Boundary Modification Act with a substitute amendment from Senator Wicker; and S. 603, to designate the General George C. Marshall House in the Commonwealth of Virginia from Senator King.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I appreciate my friend and colleague, the distinguished Senator from New Mexico, who has a genuine concern. It is a worthy concern, and it is a concern that I share in the sense that I want to make sure that both Democrats and Republicans serving in this body on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, when they submit these bills--particularly bills in this category that I described that have passed unanimously in this body--be given ample opportunity for consideration and passage over in the House of Representatives.
He is understandably concerned about the possibility of Republican and Democratic bills being sent over together, only to discover after the fact, that the Democratic bills would languish. I understand that concern. I am deeply sympathetic to it.
And it is because I share that concern--and not in spite of it--that I believe this is the way we ought to do things. This is the way we do things elsewhere in the Senate where we have got noncontroversial legislation. Let's move them forward. Now, we have moved them forward. You have seen pairings here; Democratic bills brought to the floor, not stitched together surgically in one legislative package but paper- clipped together in one stack so that we are presenting them for unanimous consent passage at the same time but not as part of the same legislation.
Why do we do this rather than the other way?
Understanding the legitimacy of his concerns, we want to make sure that bills in this category, in particular, receive fair consideration regardless of whether there is a Democrat or Republican sponsor of the bill.
No. 1, our House counterpart committee and others within the House of Representatives have told us that not only is this their preference-- that they would rather have them paper-clipped and not stitched together as one bill but sent over as separate bills--they said this will actually expedite, facilitate their ability to get them passed, whether they are introduced by Republicans or Democrats in the House or in the Senate.
Not always, by the way, is a Democrat bill here a Democrat bill on the other side of the Capitol. Sometimes it switches. But regardless, even for the bills that are introduced by a Democrat here and a Democrat there, these bills are considered--and we have been told over and over again by those with responsibility over this, they have got a better chance of passing separately than they would if we start stitching them together.
In their view, as they have told me repeatedly, it will hinder--not expedite or facilitate--their chances of being passed if we surgically stitch them together in one bill.
There are a number of reasons for this, including the fact that the laws of gravity don't always operate the same way here as they do on the other side of the Capitol. Sometimes a bill that can move through over here without a single objection might draw some opposition on the other side of the Capitol for reasons that can be difficult to predict.
In any event, there is a great safeguard in all of this in the way the House of Representatives passes this--and I think this is inherent in why it is that they want them as separate bills that can be paper- clipped together for purposes of getting it passed by unanimous consent over here--over there.
When they do it over there, they use a procedure in the House known as suspension of the rules. Under suspension of the rules, you have got to have 290 votes to pass it rather than a simple majority of 218 votes. That feature ends up replicating, to a significant degree, the effect of the cloture standard over here such that it has got to be bipartisan. So they can't afford to--and therefore don't on bills like this--favor Republican bills over Democrat bills.
Now, my friend and colleague the distinguished Senator from New Mexico noted a moment ago that his concerns are already materializing and that they are neglecting Democrat bills in the House while preferencing Republican bills.
I don't see this. In fact, to the contrary. Within the last week, the House of Representatives has passed multiple bills--I believe it was three or four bills--introduced by Democrats; Democrat bills run through the suspension of the rules calendar passed this week.
They are not depreferencing them. And from what I have heard from multiple credible sources on the other side of the Capitol, this is because of the way the suspension of the rules practice works over there. They don't, in part, because they can't get these passed if they preference Republican bills and depreference Democrat bills in this respect.
Look, at the end of the day, we have to remember that a lot of what this Chamber does operates by means of unanimous consent, certainly in scheduling votes, scheduling just about anything. Heck, scheduling what time we are going to go to lunch or adjourn for the evening until the next day requires unanimous consent.
But a lot of legislation we pass gets done that way, too, and thank Heaven above that it can. If we can't do the easy stuff this way, the harder stuff becomes much more difficult. And the really tough stuff, the stuff that still needs to get done--things like permitting reform, for example, where on both sides of the aisle you have strong opinions, you have a strong desire overall to see that permitting reform gets accomplished, you have somewhat differing ideas on what must be in there and what must not be included--things like that that are very important to the public but that are by no means noncontroversial become far more difficult to impossible.
Let's get the easy stuff done. We did it yesterday afternoon. We can do it again. I will be back as I am determined to push these bills forward, Republican and Democrat. And if we tie them together surgically in one bill, it will impair their passage, Republican and Democratic alike. We don't need to do that here. We ought not. This is unfortunate, but I will be back soon.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source