Haley Stevens: “I have come to the floor to try to bring a sense of urgency to the Senate about getting this conference report finally…”

“I have come to the floor to try to bring a sense of urgency to the Senate about getting this conference report finally approved. The House has approved it. The conference report has been duly approved by a majority of the Appropriations Committee. The distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Thad Cochran, is here now. I, as chairman of the Defense Subcommittee, want to point out that this supplemental was received by the Senate on February 17, and it is now June 13. The Army has notified us of the need, and we have approved reprogramming of $1.4 billion to carry the Army through June. The difficulty is that we are now informed, despite the circumstances of the reprogramming, the Army, at the end of June, will have only $300 million left in its O&M account. The O&M account is the money to pay bills for any of the departments, and I think as we look at this, Members of the Senate should realize all over the country there are actions being taken now to the detriment of many of our bases, our ports, and various installations even here at home, here in the United States. But the main thing is that the Chief of Staff of the Army, GEN Peter Schoomaker, has asked Chairman Cochran, on May 17, to do his best to accelerate the approval of this bill because almost half of the money that is in this supplemental appropriations bill is for the Army.…”