María Elvira Salazar: “I will take exception with respect to a characterization concerning my amendment in that there is some inconsistency…”

“I will take exception with respect to a characterization concerning my amendment in that there is some inconsistency between what we did in the 2005 BRAC recommendations, which we all supported, and this particular amendment. The fact is, the BRAC, in its findings, said we would move the additional brigades into Fort Carson, that there was sufficient capacity to provide all the training that was required there at Fort Carson, and that is because Fort Carson has over 100,000 acres on its own site and 235,000 acres of additional land. Now the Army wants to acquire land that is going to make the Army's holdings at Pinon Canyon greater than the size of the entire State of Rhode Island. My question is, What has changed from January of 2005 until today? What has changed is that all of a sudden the Army has decided that it needs all this additional land. I go back to my initial argument, which is, if we care about private property rights, if we care about the ranchers in southeast Colorado, if we care about national security and making sure we are investing taxpayer dollars wisely, then it is important we do a timeout, which is all that my amendment does.”