Dan Coats: “I rise to address this question of the defense appropriations bill with some degree of disappointment. First of all, I…”

“I rise to address this question of the defense appropriations bill with some degree of disappointment. First of all, I am disappointed that an appropriations bill is going to be passed out of this Congress ahead of the authorization. That is not the way it is supposed to work. It renders much of the work done by the authorization committee this year of no effect in some of the critical areas. I do not blame the Appropriations Committee, however. There are 4 days remaining before the end of the fiscal year. The clock is ticking. Senate Armed Services and the House didn't get the job done in time, and the Appropriations Committee was patient in giving us that time. I regret that we were not able to get our authorization act together. So I am not here to condemn the Appropriations Committee. I do, however, want to express my disappointment, sincere disappointment, that as chairman of the Air and Land Subcommittee the actions that we have taken in the Senate Armed Services Committee to address the question of TACAIR and where we are going in the future were forfeited in the negotiations with the House; that the Senate deferred to the House position particularly on the issue of F-22 funding, and I want to discuss that because there are consequences, I believe, to that decision.”