Haley Stevens: “I inform the Senator from Indiana that we would oppose this amendment in any event because the bill already contains an…”

“I inform the Senator from Indiana that we would oppose this amendment in any event because the bill already contains an additional $390 million, $30 million more than is already proposed by this amendment, for armored tactical wheeled vehicles. This bill before us now has $240 million for the up-armored HMMWVs or the armored light tactical vehicles and has $150 million for the armored tactical wheeled vehicles. The Senator's amendment is duplicative of the amendment we have already accepted to the bill, and we cannot add that much more money to the Senator's amendment which is before us, No. 1933. I urge the Senator to take a look at the Record and withdraw the amendment because there we are adding too much to that one section and we could not accept this amendment. It would earmark funding for tactical wheeled vehicles if armory funds are not needed for units deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. We do not think we should earmark critical force protection equipment funds. Some of this work is done in one place, some in another. I indicated that we already have added $30 million more than the Senator proposes to add to the bill. We agree with the Senator in terms of the need, and that is why we have already added money, as I mentioned before. I hope the Senator will look at what we have already done.”