Rodney Frelinghuysen: “It is my honor to bring the fiscal year 2014 Energy and Water Development bill before the membership of the House.…”

“It is my honor to bring the fiscal year 2014 Energy and Water Development bill before the membership of the House. However, before I go through its highlights, I would like to thank my ranking member, Ms. Kaptur, for her partnership on this bill and hard work and friendship. It's been a real honor to work with you, and I look forward to working with you to get through the entire process. I would also like to thank all the members of our committee on both sides of the aisle for putting this bill so quickly together and so responsibly. I would also like to recognize the hard work of Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Lowey to bring this bill, and several others before it, to the floor under an open rule. The bill for fiscal year 2014 totals $30.4 billion, $2.9 billion below last year's levels and more than $4 billion below the President's request. The budget allocation we received this year made for some very difficult decisions, but in our bipartisan tradition, we worked hard to incorporate priorities and perspectives from both sides of the aisle. Mr. Chairman, we placed the greatest priority on national defense, our nuclear deterrent, also the critical work of the Army Corps of Engineers and other activities on which the Federal Government must take the lead. The reductions we had to make to the applied energy research and development programs will shift more of their work to the private sector.…”