On the recordJune 6, 2012
I take exception to any claim that our bill unnecessarily increases spending. There is one reason that this bill is $188 million above fiscal year 2000: it's defense, national security. Many Members may not realize it, but nearly one- third of our bill supports critical national security needs, including nuclear weapons. That is actually the origin of why we have a Department of Energy today: it's the Atomic Energy Act. Only two subcommittees received increases in fiscal year 2013, the Energy and Water bill and the Defense bill, because those increases are needed to support national security. There are no other reasons. The defense portion of this bill is almost $300 million more than last year, an increase which directly supports our nuclear weapons and national security. Even with those security increases, our bill is still less than one-third of 1 percent above last year's bill. That means the rest of the bill is cut deeply. It means that spending for our nondefense accounts is cut by 800 million below last year's levels. Even with the increase for defense spending, our bill is still below 2009 levels, actually quite close to 2008 levels. So I'll not accept any criticism that our bill in any way is not reflective of this body's work to reduce spending. The House's commitment to cut spending, Federal spending, was fully engaged in in a bipartisan way by the Energy and Water Subcommittee.…
