Keystone XL Pipeline Act

Floor Speech

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. I rise this morning to join our colleagues in
discussing the need for a clean, full-year bill to fund the Department
of Homeland Security. Just 30 days from today, funding for the
Department of Homeland Security expires unless Congress acts.

I know that sometimes in congressional time 30 days may seem like a
long time, but with a scheduled recess in a few weeks and the certain
fact that the House-passed bill cannot pass the Senate, we must act
soon to prevent a shutdown and provide the resources to keep our
country safe.

Luckily, there is a path forward to prevent a shutdown. We should
pass the bipartisan, bicameral, Homeland Security funding bill that was
agreed to last December.

Just a few weeks ago, Senator Mikulski, then Chair of the Senate
Appropriations Committee, and Congressman Rogers, Chair of the House
Appropriations Committee, negotiated spending bills for the entire
government, including the Department of Homeland Security bill. This
was a compromise measure. Not everyone got what they wanted, but the
bill funded the Department at levels that would ensure the Department
can fulfill its mission to secure the homeland.

Then, unfortunately, politics came into play. Some House Republicans
demanded the homeland bill be removed from the larger budget because of
immigration issues, and now the entire Department is funded on a short-
term basis through February 27. Now we face a fundamental question: Are
we going to put the country at risk because of an ideological
disagreement?

Since Senator Mikulski and Congressman Rogers reached that agreement
in December, we have seen many threats to our Nation and to our allies.
The U.S. law enforcement community is on high alert for terror threats
after attacks in Australia and Ottawa, Canada, and in Paris. Recently,
an Ohio man was arrested when it was discovered he was plotting to blow
up the U.S. Capitol in an ISIS-inspired plan. Now is not the time to be
holding up funding for the Department of Homeland Security because of
ideological reasons.

Last week, I had the opportunity to visit the Department of Homeland
Security's cyber security center in Arlington. The center is where
officials are working every day to prevent attacks not just against the
Federal Government or against State governments but against the private
sector, against U.S. companies such as Sony, and against critical
infrastructure such as nuclear powerplants and the electric grid.

Last week, in the Armed Services Committee, former National Security
Adviser Brent Scowcroft said that he views cyber security threats to be
``as dangerous as nuclear weapons.''

We must continue to make important investments in our cyber defenses.
But if we fail to fully fund their budget--the clean budget that was
agreed to by the House and Senate--their efforts to identify the newest
technologies and strategies to protect our cyber infrastructure will be
put on hold.

One of the things they talked to me about when I visited the center
includes two areas I think are particularly important to our national
security. One is the effort to identify a secure emergency response
line, which is very critical when we have national emergencies--even
the snowstorm we are seeing in the northeast in New Hampshire, where we
have several feet of snow that is being predicted. We also need a
secure emergency response line so our first responders--the people
there on the ground when an emergency happens--can communicate with
each other. That is at risk if we pass a CR rather than a clean funding
bill.

The other thing at risk is the effort to identify the next generation
of cyber threats. There are things being worked on that we don't even
know yet, and unless we are ahead of that curve we are not going to be
there to protect our cyber system throughout the country. So we need to
give the Department of Homeland Security budgetary certainty so it can
plan and prepare for these kinds of threats. That is why a short-term
continuing resolution should be off the table. We need to pass a bill
that funds homeland security for the rest of this fiscal year.

A short-term budget means the Department is on autopilot. That would
be extraordinarily bad for business and for our national security. If
Homeland Security operates under a short-term budget, new projects and
grants are halted, contracts and acquisitions are postponed, hiring is
delayed, employee training is scaled back, and grants to our first
responders--those people on the ground when something happens--are not
going to be awarded, and congressionally targeted reductions--those
reductions we want to make in wasteful programs--are also put on hold.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit New Hampshire's fusion
center. Every State has a fusion center. This is a network of centers
designed to serve as a focal point in each State to coordinate
terrorism-related information and threats to our national security, to
our State security, and to our municipalities. It is a place where
first responders, local law enforcement, and in New Hampshire's fusion center, in addition to our State and local folks being represented, someone from the FBI is there on hand, someone from the Department of Homeland Security identifies potential threats and relays that information up and down the chain of command.

In New Hampshire, the fusion center has also been very critical in
working to address drug interdiction and to help identify the heroin
abuse epidemic that, sadly, we have seen not only in New Hampshire but
in northern New England. If we have a short-term budget, new grants to
our fusion centers, which are on the front lines of protecting our
States and municipalities against security threats, and the security
grants to State and local law enforcement will not be awarded.

Why would we threaten this important public safety and security
funding for unrelated ideological reasons?

Secretary Jeh Johnson recently said:

As long as this Department continues to operate on a
continuing resolution, we are prevented from funding key
homeland security initiatives. These include, for example,
funding for new grants to State and local law enforcement,
additional border security resources, and additional Secret
Service resources to implement the changes recommended by the
independent panel. Other core missions, such as aviation
security and protection of Federal installations and
personnel, are also hampered.

That is a direct quote from the Secretary of the Department of
Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson.

In addition to what he lays out there, I want to highlight a few
specific examples of why a short-term budget--a continuing resolution--
is problematic for the Department and for our national security.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement--ICE--could not fund all of its
current detention, antitrafficking, and smuggling requirements under a
short-term budget. Under a short-term budget, ICE will not have the
funding they need to meet their legal mandate to have 34,000 detention
beds in place for immigration detainees nor funding for a new family
detention center.

So for those people concerned about our border security, concerned
about people coming into this country, why would we want to deny
funding to address efforts to interdict people coming across the
border, to interdict surveillance efforts, to build a new family
detention center so we can find out who these people are and whether
they should go back to the country they came from? It makes no sense.

Under a short-term budget, there is no funding to hire additional
investigators for antitrafficking and smuggling cases to combat the
influx of unaccompanied children at the southern border.

Under a short-term budget, no funding is provided to address Secret
Service weaknesses identified after the recent White House fence-
jumping incident.

Yesterday we saw concerns about how the Secret Service operates. This
time I think everybody acknowledged they could not have been expected
to intervene in the drone that got dropped on the White House lawn, but
it highlights again the threats that are there and why we need to
ensure the Secret Service has the resources to reform itself and to
make sure the President and officials are protected.

A short-term budget would delay the contract for the Coast Guard's
eighth national security cutter we need for maritime security.

In New Hampshire, we have a border with the ocean, so we very much
appreciate the work of the Coast Guard, but I think it is critical
throughout the country. And one of the things that would be put on hold
is upgrading the Coast Guard's ice-breaking fleet.

Last winter alone, when the Great Lakes froze, $705 million in
shipping was lost and 3,800 jobs because we didn't have a Coast Guard
ice-breaker that can open a channel on the Great Lakes.

Under a short-term budget, aging nuclear weapons equipment will not
be replaced. That causes gaps in an area where mistakes are simply
unacceptable and too dangerous even to comprehend.

A short-term budget would delay upgrades to emergency communications
for first responders--something I have already talked about--as we
think about how they respond to local emergencies.

The best way forward is to provide certainty and stability for the
men and women who fulfill homeland security's mission to protect the
United States from harm. To ensure our local communities and our States
that we are providing the resources they need, we need to pass a clean
bill--a clean bill that was agreed to last December.

Lurching from funding crisis to funding crisis is a terrible way to
govern. It is an especially terrible way to govern when our Nation is
dealing with major threats. The clean bill that was agreed to by the
House and Senate last December provides a good budget that strengthens
our Nation, protects against known threats, properly supports homeland
security and those who serve on the front lines of protecting this
country.

The negotiated agreement includes critical increases in funding and
support for border security, for cyber security, and for other national
security initiatives. It maintains strong maritime security operations
provided by the Coast Guard. The agreement fully funds continued cyber
security advancements. It invests in innovative solutions for border
security, for biological defense, and for explosives detection.

Senators on both sides of the aisle have talked about the importance
of border security and a clean bill that robustly funds border security
requirements. The clean bill funds customs and border protections
requirements to apprehend, care for, and transmit unaccompanied alien
children, while maintaining 21,370 Border Patrol agents on our borders
and safely facilitating legitimate travel and trade.

The agreement also funds enhanced border security technologies as
well as air and marine surveillance along our land and maritime borders
to help the Department better interdict illegal crossing of people and
narcotics.

It allocates grant funding to train and equip first responders,
continuing real progress and efficient preparedness, as was so evident
in New England in the response to the Boston marathon bombing.

And the agreement fully funds known disaster needs and prepares us
for the next disaster.

In closing, let us support our national security funding by passing a
clean bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security for the rest of
this fiscal year.

I yield the floor.

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