Eleanor Holmes Norton: “This amendment would restore $500,673,000 to the Department of Homeland Security that has been cut entirely from this…”

“This amendment would restore $500,673,000 to the Department of Homeland Security that has been cut entirely from this appropriation. This is the most important construction, private or public, ongoing in our country today, because it involves a secure facility that the Congress has voted to consolidate in order to protect the United States of America in the homeland. This entire appropriation cuts billions of dollars in order to reduce spending. I wager that there is no cut quite like this one, because this cut guarantees that the taxpayers will be charged more precisely because of this cut. Already, the reduction in funding to the 2011 appropriation for consolidation of the Department of Homeland Security has cost taxpayers $69 million. Increased costs for this construction of Federal property come from, in this case, lease holdovers, short- term lease extensions, and horrific inefficiencies now imposed because the integration of construction of this mammoth facility will be delayed and interrupted. Any further reduction in funding will substantially increase even more the total costs of this huge project, the largest since the Pentagon. Until now, it was on budget and on time. Remember why Congress voted to consolidate these 22 agencies in the first place. Congress has never formed one agency of 22 different agencies. They are spread all over this region.…”