Jim Inhofe: “let me mention something else I think is critical. I have heard ugly rumors that the President of the United States…”

“let me mention something else I think is critical. I have heard ugly rumors that the President of the United States might end up vetoing what we call the WRDA bill, the Water Resources Development Act. Let me say I don't understand. I am coming from a conservative perspective. I am ranked by the American Conservative Union, No. 1 out of 100 most conservative Member. Yet I am saying to you there are two things we ought to be spending money on in this country. One is national defense and the other is infrastructure. We have a crisis in our infrastructure. The big bill on transportation infrastructure we passed a year ago is going to do nothing more than maintain what we have now, and it is anticipated in 20 years we will increase our traffic by 50 percent. What are we going to do? The same thing is true with the Water Resources Development Act. We have not had a reauthorization in 7 years. It should happen every other year. When you say I don't care if this thing is $10 billion or $20 billion, the amount is not significant because it is not spending money, it is authorizing. If we authorize something--hopefully, we will pass this bill today. If we authorize something, it may never be appropriated or it may be appropriated 10 years down the road. So it does not have any remote effect on the budget today. I think it is dishonest for people to say this is somehow a spending bill and therefore we should vote against it. That is not true at all.”