Haley Stevens: “the Senator's amendment is very difficult to vote against, except that it applies to all members of the Department of…”

“the Senator's amendment is very difficult to vote against, except that it applies to all members of the Department of Defense, civilian and military. About 1 percent of the people in the Department of Defense, civilian and military, go to a conference each year. I personally know that when we travel abroad, we ask for members of the Department of Defense from Germany and from Italy to come meet with us in France. We have conferences with them concerning NATO. We did the same thing recently in terms of the Middle East. We had people come from three different countries to meet with us when we were in Kuwait. That involved probably 14 people traveling in each instance to come see us. It is essential that we have conferences and not have to depend upon video conferences to deal with issues. That applies throughout the Department of Defense. The Senator is correct. We offered to take it to conference, and in conference we might be able to find a reasonable figure that would be a limitation. Seventy million is not a reasonable limitation. There is no reason for us to try to be unreasonable with the Department of Defense. We are the last superpower in the world. People depend upon us, and we go visit the places, 120 different countries, where we have military people in uniform. It costs money. The cost of traveling is going up all the time. I did offer to take the amendment to conference and try to work out with the House a reasonable limitation.…”