C. W. Bill Young: “I am going to be very brief here and suggest that the chairman has already specified some of the details of the defense…”

“I am going to be very brief here and suggest that the chairman has already specified some of the details of the defense part of this bill. Mr. Speaker, I want to say that it is long past time for the Congress to have completed action on this legislation. The global war on terror is going on every day. It is costing considerable money every day. I want to remind the Members that the House passed our version of this supplemental emergency supplemental on March 16, 3 months ago. It is high time that we got to conference with the other body and concluded this work. The defense part of this package is basically what the House adopted 12 weeks ago. So I think it is a good product, and I hope that the Members will find it acceptable and get us a nice, substantial vote. Mr. Speaker, the conference agreement on the programs under the jurisdiction of the Defense Subcommittee for the global war on terror totals $65.792 billion, which is $1.765 billion below the House-passed level and $103.9 million above the President's request. The conference agreement provides $708 million for the National Guard's border security support to the Department of Homeland Security. As the House is aware, the President amended his original supplemental budget submission in order to fund border security activities. This resulted in a cut of almost $1.9 billion in Defense spending for the global war on terror. I sincerely regret that decision.…”