Thad Cochran: “we are pleased to present to the Senate today the fiscal year 2006 appropriations bill for the Department of…”

“we are pleased to present to the Senate today the fiscal year 2006 appropriations bill for the Department of Agriculture, rural development, and related agencies. The bill is before the Senate and is open for amendment or discussion and debate. I am pleased to announce to the Senate that this reflects a lot of hard work through hearings, examining the President's budget request for these Departments for this next fiscal year. The subcommittee was very capably managed by the distinguished Senator from Utah, Mr. Bennett, who is chairman of this subcommittee. The bill is within the budget authority outlined by the budget resolution adopted by the Senate. Specifically, section 302(b) of the budget resolution allocates $17.348 billion to this subcommittee's authority for appropriations. It is within the outlay allocation of $18.816 billion. Throughout the past 7 months, the committee has reviewed suggestions by Senators and others who are interested in the provisions of this bill. The bill, as reported by the subcommittee, was approved unanimously and submitted to the full committee. And after review by a bipartisan group of Senators in that subcommittee, all of the Senators in the full committee approved the allocation and the appropriation of funds as reported in this bill. We hope if any Senators have any suggestions for amendments, they will bring them to the attention of the managers of the bill. We will be happy to discuss those and review them.…”