Barbara Mikulski: “I oppose the Ensign amendment No. 3295. What the Senator from Nevada is proposing is to reduce the NASA funding in this…”

“I oppose the Ensign amendment No. 3295. What the Senator from Nevada is proposing is to reduce the NASA funding in this bill by $150 million and to put it into something called the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program. Again, we are pitting good ideas against each other. In the CJS bill, we did want to fund the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program. We know how important it is because it reimbursed the States for detaining illegal immigrants. This is a priority for this subcommittee, and we provided $400 million to do that. We are very aware that State budgets are stretched thin, that they should not bear the cost of paying the bill for detaining illegal immigrants. We do not want to create another unfunded Federal mandate there. Now, we acknowledge that the Senator from Nevada would like to increase it. We would like to increase it as well. But already the President is threatening a veto because we restored the funding for the COPS Program. Now, the cut to NASA is not a benign cut. It would be a devastating blow to NASA.”