Hal Rogers: “the gentleman, as I understand his amendment, would take $14.7 million out of the Office of the Under Secretary for…”

“the gentleman, as I understand his amendment, would take $14.7 million out of the Office of the Under Secretary for Management and provide that money to the metropolitan medical response teams. Mr. Chairman, we have already provided $30 million in the bill for these teams. The budget request that came to us asked for zero, and the subcommittee and the committee decided these were worthwhile programs, doing great work, and we provided $30 million in the bill that we had to find from somewhere else. Now, Mr. Markey wants to take another slug of money from the Office of the Under Secretary for Management. The poor guy's out of money. With the amendments that have been offered so far, there is no more money left in the Under Secretary For Management's account if those amendments pass, Mr. Chairman. So we have hit bottom and the Under Secretary for Management and the management of the Department of Homeland Security, if these amendments pass, will go out of business. So I urge a rejection of this amendment. I cannot see how the extra money would be used by the teams because we have already got $30 million in their account, and the offset would wreck the Department. I urge a ``no'' vote.”