Earl Blumenauer: “Mr. Chairman, I do think this is very important in terms of our keeping our commitments. I appreciate the work that the…”

“Mr. Chairman, I do think this is very important in terms of our keeping our commitments. I appreciate the work that the subcommittee is doing in this broad range of areas, but I would hope that you would work with us, because you cannot spend the $13.5 billion. The adoption of this amendment will have no effect on BRAC cleanup for the 2005 round for years to come, if at all. But failure, failure for Congress to keep our commitments to these legacy BRAC programs, not only does it penalize these people who have been waiting in line for, in some cases, 19 years, but it makes it more likely, frankly, that people who are in the 2005 cycle are going to end up having Congress do to them what past Congresses have done to the legacy BRAC. I appreciate the work of the subcommittee, and I look forward to working with you, and echo my friend from California that it would be the worst of all possible worlds if somehow the next amendment, taking money away from these critical bases, was somehow diverted for another use. But I hope that we spare ourselves that problem by adopting the amendment before us.”