Heidi Alexander: “within a few minutes we will be voting on whether to cut off debate on the Energy and Water appropriations bill and move…”

“within a few minutes we will be voting on whether to cut off debate on the Energy and Water appropriations bill and move to finish the bill. I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will vote yes. This is a bill the Senator from California and I have worked on carefully with Members on both sides of the aisle. More than 80 Senators have made contributions to the bill. We considered 18 amendments on the floor. This is a bill which is about half national defense and about half essential services. These include dredging harbors and building locks and dams. These include our 17 National Laboratories and keeping us first in the world in supercomputing. It is within the Budget Control Act, and it is the part of the budget that is flat. In other words, it is a part of the budget that is reasonably under control, not the part that is not. It is also the first time since 2009 that this Energy and Water appropriations bill has had the opportunity to go across the floor in the regular order. It is the earliest appropriations bill that has been considered by the Senate since 1974. Senator McConnell and Senator Reid picked this bill because they thought Senator Feinstein and I could work with Members of the Senate to establish a model for how to deal with the remainder of the appropriations process, and we hope that proves to be true. We have run into one issue, and that is an amendment by the Senator from Arkansas regarding Iran.…”