Mark Udall: “while I have some serious reservations about this conference report, I will vote for it. One of my concerns relates to…”

“while I have some serious reservations about this conference report, I will vote for it. One of my concerns relates to the way this bill has been brought to the floor of the House. We all expect that this will be the last real appropriations bill--as opposed to a continuing resolution--of the year, and that when it is enacted funding will be available to keep all federal agencies running. This is the good news about the parliamentary situation in which we find ourselves. The bad news is that we must vote yes or no, up or down, on an omnibus bill that few if any of us have had much time to review and that includes many substantive provisions that have little or nothing to do with appropriations and that may well be contrary to good public policy in several areas, including protection of the environment. This is not the way the Congress should do its business. It is not the fault of the House--we completed action on all the appropriations bills in a relatively timely way. But regardless of how we got here, this is not where we should be. From my perspective, there is also both good news and bad news about the bill's specific provisions. The good news is that the bill includes many provisions that will greatly benefit the nation as a whole and Colorado in particular. The bad news is that it includes some things that should not be included and omits some things that should be part of the conference report.…”