Lynn A. Westmoreland: “I almost feel like rather than offering an amendment that I need to ask everybody to stand up and we'll hold hands and…”

“I almost feel like rather than offering an amendment that I need to ask everybody to stand up and we'll hold hands and sing Kumbaya, but I guess it's easy and people are in a good mood and very agreeable when you're talking about spending other people's money. And in this case, we're talking about spending taxpayers' hard-earned dollars where we have very little control over how hard it is for them to make their money, but we spend it pretty easily. This amendment takes $30 million out of the Corps of Engineers' investigation budget. It brings it down to the spending level that the President has requested in his budget request. The Energy and Water appropriations bill is $1.1 billion over the President's request, and this amendment would reduce the funding for the investigation account under the Corps of Engineers by the $30 million, bringing it back down to the President's original request. The investigations and construction funding is used to collect and study the basic information pertaining to local water projects such as flood and storm damage reduction.”