Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I am very pleased to rise in support of the fiscal year 2012 energy and water development appropriations bill with my ranking member, the distinguished Senator Alexander, with whom I have had the great pleasure of working. I want to say this up front: It has been a pleasure to work with this particular ranking member. He is respected, he is credible, he is direct, and he is reasonable, which I have learned is an endangered species around here. So I very much appreciate that. This Energy and Water bill has an allocation of $31.625 billion, which is $57 million or .1 percent below last year's enacted levels and nearly $3 billion or 9.4 percent below the President's request. The $31.625 billion is split between security and nonsecurity funding, consistent with the Budget Control Act of 2011. The Budget Control Act established caps on discretionary spending over 10 years, with separate caps for security and nonsecurity spending. Now, this becomes relevant, as I will explain. The security allocation for energy and water is $11.05 billion. The $11.05 billion funds only four programs under the National Nuclear Security Administration, called NNSA: nuclear weapons, nonproliferation, naval reactors, and the Office of the Administrator. I would like to point out right up front that funding for the NNSA makes up a growing portion of this bill. Last year the NNSA made up 30 percent of the total allocation. This year it has increased to 35 percent.…”