Wayne Allard: “I value our working relationship with my chairman on the subcommittee. There is certainly much in the committee bill I…”

“I value our working relationship with my chairman on the subcommittee. There is certainly much in the committee bill I am able to support. One of my particular interests for several years has been the use of commercial imagery to help meet the Nation's geospatial and imagery requirements. I do not believe the Department of Defense has been aggressive enough either in crafting a strategy or in providing funding for this purpose. I am gratified that the committee bill includes a substantial increase for commercial imagery acquisition and some very helpful words in report language that I suspect will drive the Department toward establishing a sound relationship with the commercial imagery industry. I also appreciate the support of the new Department of Energy environmental cleanup reform initiative that will incentivize cleanup sites to do their important work faster and more efficiently. The accelerated cleanup initiative will reduce risk to the workers, communities, and the environment, shorten the cleanup schedule by decades, and save tens of billions of dollars over the life of the cleanup. The bill adds $200 million to this initiative, and I expect the Department of Energy will make tremendous strides.”