Frank Pallone: “I wanted to talk tonight briefly about what happened with regard to the VA, HUD, and EPA appropriations bill, and…”

“I wanted to talk tonight briefly about what happened with regard to the VA, HUD, and EPA appropriations bill, and specifically the amendment sponsored by the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Stokes] and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Boehlert] on a bipartisan basis which was in effect turned around tonight. Mr. Speaker, I think many people do not realize in the House of Representatives you can vote once in what we call the Committee of the Whole, which is what happened with this bill last week, and have a vote one way, but again, when the bill comes to the full House, as it did tonight, you can have the same amendment or provision, and the bill can go another way, and what happened essentially, Mr. Speaker, is that over the weekend the Republican leadership spent a lot of time trying to convince Members and get Members back here so that in fact today, when this amendment came up again, the vote went the other way, and what I consider a very good amendment that was sponsored on a bipartisan basis by both Democrats and Republicans was defeated. The appropriations bill that we took up today essentially does great damage to the environment by including something like 17 riders, as we call them, that would prohibit expenditures of funds for enforcement of environmental protection.”