Mike Lee Spars With Ron Wyden After He Blocks Series Of Bills, Accuses Democrats Of 'Extortion'

Forbes Breaking News

During remarks on the Senate floor Thursday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) blocked Sen. Mike Lee's (R-UT) series of bills.

Transcript

00:00Senator from Utah is recognized.

00:01Mr. President, last year, this body, the United States Senate, passed 41 bills from the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

00:09Twenty-five of those bills have been reintroduced.

00:13All have bipartisan support.

00:14All have been vetted in committee.

00:17All are ready to move.

00:19Today, I'm asking that we pass four of them at the same time,

00:23as a modest step forward for the kind of open, member-driven process for which the Senate was built and has long existed.

00:33The first from Senator King of Maine would expand access to the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument,

00:41something that passed this body unanimously last year.

00:43The second from Senator Cornyn of Texas would adjust the boundaries of Big Bend National Park,

00:49again, a common-sense proposal with bipartisan support.

00:52The third from Senator Gillibrand of New York would establish a National Historic Park at Fort Ontario,

00:59the site of the only Holocaust refugee shelter in American history.

01:03And the fourth from Senator Lankford of Oklahoma would designate the historic Greenwood District,

01:08also known as Black Wall Street, as a national monument.

01:11The Greenwood District in Tulsa was once a thriving community of black-owned businesses,

01:17of professionals and families.

01:18Until the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 tragically burned it to the ground.

01:25Hundreds killed.

01:25Thousands left homeless.

01:28Designating this site as a national monument is long overdue.

01:32And this month, May 31st, in fact, just a few days from now,

01:37marks the anniversary of that tragic, tragic massacre.

01:42With that, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

01:48be discharged and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the following bills on block.

01:55S-282, the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument access from Senator King.

02:00S-1051, Historic Greenwood District, Black Wall Street National Monument from Senator Lankford.

02:07S-432, Fort Ontario, Holocaust Refugee Shelter National Historic Park Establishment Act from Senator Gillibrand.

02:15And S-1112, Big Bend National Park Boundary Adjustment Act from Senator Cornyn.

02:21Further, that the bills be considered read a third time and passed,

02:26and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

02:31Is there objection?

02:32Reserving the right to object.

02:34The senator from Morgan is recognized.

02:35Thank you very much, Mr. President.

02:38And I would just say to my colleagues, I very much wish that I was not in this position this morning.

02:46I was, like Chairman Lee, I was chairman of the committee, and I know that this is a challenging process to put these measures together.

02:55And Chairman Lee and I have worked very closely for years on these issues and a host of others.

03:02And I look forward to having plenty of opportunities in the future to continue our good work.

03:09So the reason I'm here is I requested that two additional strongly bipartisan measures that already cleared the chamber last Congress

03:19and had no objections be individually included in the request.

03:23One of those bills was S-356, the Secure Rural Schools Reauthorization of 2025,

03:31that for years I have championed with my friend and colleague from Idaho, Senator Crapo.

03:38And across the West, this legislation has had bipartisan support because it would reauthorize a crucial lifeline,

03:46particularly for schools and law enforcement and roads throughout the West.

03:52I was in Grant County recently, a small community in eastern Oregon,

03:56and they're basically hanging by a thread if they don't get the Secure Rural Schools money restored.

04:03So that's why I'm here on the floor today.

04:07I'm clear that I want us to work together and to get this done as expeditiously as possible.

04:15I'm committed, as I have been over the years working with Chairman Lee,

04:19to advance these bipartisan proposals swiftly.

04:22I deeply regret being out here and having to express my concern today and to object.

04:29And I just hope that we can be back on this floor very, very quickly to pass this good package of bills

04:37and make sure that the Secure Rural Schools legislation is included.

04:41And for that reason, Mr. President, I object.

04:43The objection is heard.

04:45Mr. President.

04:46Senator from Utah.

04:47Mr. President, I appreciate the kind words of my friend and colleague, the distinguished Senator from Oregon.

04:52I know our time is short, but I need to respond to a couple of points.

04:57First, the bills to which my Democratic colleagues are referring have been cleared.

05:02They've been cleared through what's known as our hotline, cleared for passage on the Republican side.

05:06Not one objection from one Republican.

05:10It's the Democrats that are the holdup there.

05:11We are not the ones.

05:12Secondly, I want to make very clear that this is a very unfortunate occurrence in the Senate.

05:18It's a bad habit we've gotten into, and it's a habit that we must break.

05:23The habit involves raising an objection.

05:25One of the things you did not hear from my friend and colleague from Oregon is a single objection,

05:29not on the merits, not on any legitimate procedural grant to any of the bills that I just mentioned, not a single one.

05:36No, these bills are drawing an objection today, not allowed to pass the Senate today,

05:41even though they've passed in the past unanimously, they don't have any substantive objection.

05:46They're objecting to these, not because they are unpopular, but because they are popular.

05:52When they are popular, when the need for them is due and undisputed,

05:55when there is no legitimate argument against them,

05:57when the House delegation, the local population, the Senate delegation is all supportive of them,

06:03they use them and take them as hostages.

06:05And they use them so that the way these things can happen is they'll cobble together a whole bunch of bills.

06:13These bills all accomplish similar things.

06:16They have a lot of commonalities.

06:18They do similar things.

06:20They enjoy similar amounts of support.

06:23They've passed in the past.

06:24Local communities overwhelmingly support them.

06:27It makes sense to offer these up together.

06:29We ought to do them individually as often as we can.

06:33But what they want to do is what's been done in the past is you cobble together a whole bunch of bills,

06:39sometimes a dozen or more, maybe dozens of them,

06:43and then time the introduction of that package to a moment just before a major holiday or a long-scheduled recess.

06:51They bring them forward and they say, take them or leave them.

06:54You must take all of them or have none of them.

06:57And what that does to public land states like mine,

07:00where 67% of the land is owned by the U.S. government,

07:04we're beholden to everything, puts us in an impossible position.

07:08Usually these deals are put together by two or three people in secret,

07:11and they bring it forward at the last possible minute with no time for debate,

07:15no time for amendment, no time to say, okay, this one doesn't belong, the others are fine.

07:19Take it or leave it, it's extortion.

07:21We've got to end that process.

07:23There is not one legitimate reason why we shouldn't pass any one of these four bills.

07:29Let's get this done today.

07:30I find it tragic that this drew an objection.

07:33Senator Morian.

07:35Just to briefly respond, because we're hearing about hostages and extortion and all this kind of thing,

07:42I just want my colleague to know, because he and I have worked together for years and years,

07:50and we've never had a difference of opinion that was based on somebody trying to take hostages and these kinds of things.

07:58This is about something that is really, in my communities, a question of whether they're going to make it in terms of keeping the schools open.

08:10There are no objections to what Senator Crapo and I have been trying to do here.

08:15Let me repeat that.

08:17No objections.

08:18And throughout the West and the federal government, like my colleagues state, the federal government owns much of our land.

08:26People are waiting to see if we'll work together and fix this.

08:30And I want to tell my colleague I'm happy to join him in 20 minutes if we have worked this out, and we'll be done.

08:39And as my colleague says, we'll go home and say we got something else done that was constructive.

08:43So I want to renew my point.

08:46This is not about politics.

08:49It's been bipartisan.

08:50There are no objections.

08:51And I stand willing with my staff to join the Lee staff right now.

08:57We work together over the next few minutes.

08:59We have a unanimous consent request, and we're done.

09:01I yield the floor.

09:02Mr. President.

09:03Senator from Utah.

09:04I've got colleagues ready to speak, and I just need 10 seconds here.

09:08Look, I respect and appreciate my friend and colleague from Oregon.

09:11And it was not to him personally that my comments about taking bills hostage was drawn.

09:16But this is a process that has happened in the past over and over and over again.

09:19This is how it's playing out.

09:21As to these bills, I reiterate, there is not one Republican senator objecting to them.

09:26Bring them forward.

09:27Let's pass them now.

09:29Their problems, I don't know what they are or why they would arise.

09:31They're on the Democrat side, not ours.

09:33But that's not our problem.

09:35This shouldn't be an impediment for Senator Cornyn's bill or Senator Lankford's bill or Senator Gillibrand's bill

09:40or Senator King's bill that the Democrats can't get their act together,

09:44that for some reason they're not willing to support that legislation.

09:47This is unfortunate.

09:48We've got to fix it.

Category

Transcript

Recommended