Katie Porter: “I support the substance of this amendment. I think a change in the law would make great sense since it has not been…”

“I support the substance of this amendment. I think a change in the law would make great sense since it has not been adjusted for 40 years, I believe, maybe longer. But I frankly do not understand why the amendment would not be subject to a point of order when in the first place it is in a sense legislation on an appropriation bill but, more important, if this were adopted, it would only be law for 1 year. It seems to me that this is a clear example of why appropriators ought to stand back and allow the authorizing committee to take this matter up, to address it and to bring out a bill to make the correction where it is needed. The provision really does not belong here. It belongs in the hands of the chairman of the authorizing committee. They have had ample time to undertake legislation in this area. All it does in our bill, very frankly, is to make our bill that much more difficult to pass. We have worked very hard, as I have said earlier, to achieve a bipartisan consensus.”