Ellen Tauscher: “I appreciate not only their frustration, but their energy that they bring to the debate because, frankly, as the Chair…”

“I appreciate not only their frustration, but their energy that they bring to the debate because, frankly, as the Chair of the subcommittee, that is the reason we did cut $764 million from this program. For a long time I think many of us have been concerned that this has been an agency that has been obviated from all of the normal conventions of responsibility and testing regimen and accountability. I think what we see now is that we do have components of missile defense that are successful. Certainly PAC-3 is successful, certainly Aegis BMD is successful, and many of us have very high hopes for THAAD. The ground-based system has not had as successful testing as many would like. As frustrated as my colleagues may be, as severe a cut as they are proposing is too detrimental to our ability to do what we try to do in this bill, which is to deliver in the near term the kind of protections that we need to have for not only the American people here at home, but for our warfighters deployed down range. These medium and short-range missile threats are real. It is important that we keep this funding going so we can deliver on these good opportunities while we restructure the program and while we hold the Missile Defense Agency accountable for the first time. I have to reluctantly oppose this amendment.”