Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On Today’s Vote To Move To Conference On Critical Jobs And Competition Legislation

Washington, D.C. –  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor regarding the path forward to conference on the jobs and competition legislation to bring back American manufacturing, strengthen supply chains, and unleash another generation of American innovation. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

It’s been a good week in the Senate because two important things happened:

First we finally confirmed every single U.S. Attorney that had been blocked by Republicans, making the country safer.

And today the Senate is taking the next big step towards enacting major legislation to create jobs, bring back American manufacturing, strengthen supply chains, and unleash another generation of American innovation.

Later today we will vote to enter into a conference committee with the House on the competition and innovation legislation. And we will work with the House to finalize this jobs and competitiveness bill. We will also vote next Tuesday and Wednesday on twenty-eight motions to instruct, eight from Democrats and twenty from Republicans.

There’s still a lot of work to do before we send this competitive jobs bill to the president’s desk. Not everyone is going to get what they want, but even so this bill is going to be just what the doctor ordered to boost our economy, bring back manufacturing jobs, and lower costs for American families.

Let me say it again: today the Senate is moving forward on legislation that is awash with good news for American jobs, American families, American innovation.

It’s great news for American families who want to see lower costs on daily essentials.

It’s great news for workers who want to see good-paying manufacturing jobs brought back from overseas.

It’s great news for our businesses—especially our chip manufactures—who need help strengthening supply chains.

And it’s great news for our innovators, scientists, workers, universities, and creators who will help us create new technologies and generate the next wave of good-paying jobs in this century.

Now, we Democrats have bent over backwards to get this bill done. We allowed a very long list of motions to instruct, in fact it’s the most votes on motions to instruct of any bill in decades. It’s a sign of both the immense good will we’ve shown to our Republican colleagues and the fact that many members on both sides of the aisle have a stake in seeing the bill finalized.

Frankly, it shouldn’t have taken us so long to get to this point forming a conference on the USICA legislation, but once again it’s good news that the bill is moving forward. I thank my colleagues from both sides of the aisle who worked in good faith to help us reach this point, and I give a particular shout out to Chairman Cantwell as well as Senator Young, my cosponsor, on this legislation. 

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