Hal Rogers: “I have a letter in my hands from the Department of Commerce of the administration dated July 31 in which they say that…”

“I have a letter in my hands from the Department of Commerce of the administration dated July 31 in which they say that they cannot support, in essence, this amendment. They say that we cannot support further reductions in this account or other Commerce programs, and they say that because they go ahead to say in the letter: "The committee bill already reduces this account by $88.2 million, and a proposal to reduce PAC by another reduction of $15 million would cause delays and increase costs to the Federal Government for the remaining projects." That is satellites, that is weather forecasting of the floods and the hurricanes and the tornadoes and all the other disasters that we are facing already. And so I urge the committee not to yield to the temptation to put more money in clean water, which we would all like to do, but as the gentleman from Colorado says, this is an even higher priority, and that is forecasting the weather for our constituents. So I urge a defeat of this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.”