Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman. I yield back the balance of my time. Mr. McKINLEY. I move to strike the last word. The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from West Virginia is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. McKINLEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise for the purpose of a colloquy with the chairman. Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity to discuss one of my top priorities with you today: NOAA's Comprehensive Large-Data Array Stewardship program, otherwise known as CLASS. This program has been funded at the same base level of $6.5 million for each of the past 10 years, despite an increase in their mission. This is NOAA's enterprise system for handling all of its environmental data critical for weather predictions. Simply put, CLASS therefore must rely on programs within the satellite program to overcome their $24 million funding shortfall. We should be creating certainty, Mr. Chairman, for the NOAA CLASS program, instead of expecting them to rely on these other satellite programs to transfer funds for their own budget to CLASS. Under last year's budget, CLASS fell short of the necessary funding to sustain core mission values. Mission failure of CLASS will continue if we don't provide CLASS with funding certainty this year and not depend on transfers from other satellite programs. Mr.…”