Haley Stevens: “I am pleased to endorse the comments of the chairman of our subcommittee regarding this Defense appropriations bill for…”

“I am pleased to endorse the comments of the chairman of our subcommittee regarding this Defense appropriations bill for fiscal year 2008 to the Senate. This bill does reflect a bipartisan approach. This is the approach Senator Inouye and I have always maintained regarding the Department of Defense appropriations. The fact is this bill was reported out of the full Appropriations Committee almost 3 weeks ago by a unanimous vote. We hope, as the chairman of the subcommittee said, to finish this bill this week so we can proceed to conference as soon as possible after the October recess for Columbus Day. Our fiscal year began yesterday. Normally this bill would have been signed by the President by this time. But it is a matter that still has extreme urgency, as far as I am concerned, to get it before the President. As Senator Inouye has said, as a temporary measure we do have the continuing resolution in place to keep operations ongoing in the Department of Defense until this bill becomes law. That is a temporary measure. There are many acquisition activities that simply cannot be initiated under a continuing resolution. They require an annual appropriations bill to be enacted. Under the continuing resolution, there are very limited amounts available each month to the Department. That is not sufficient to sustain a force in the field as we have in Afghanistan and Iraq.”