Kay Bailey Hutchison: “the $3 billion that has been cut out is going to affect many important bases in our country. One of the bases is in…”

“the $3 billion that has been cut out is going to affect many important bases in our country. One of the bases is in Texas. Fort Bliss is in great need of military construction because it is designated by the Department of Defense to receive 30,000 troops, and there is much that needs to be done to prepare the base for those overseas redeployments. I happen to know that one the best, of course. But let's talk about Fort Riley, KS, where a good number of the redeployed troops are also going to be stationed. They are very concerned in Kansas. I know Senator Roberts and Senator Brownback plan to speak this afternoon. But I am speaking now because I am hoping the majority leader will decide that maybe we do need some amendments to this bill, that maybe we can work together in a bipartisan way and work these out. These BRAC budget provisions have been adopted by the Senate. The military construction appropriations bill was a quite bipartisan bill that was adopted last year by the Senate as well. When you look at Fort Riley in Kansas, which is one of the major-need areas for BRAC funding that we are going to talk about--I know Senators Roberts and Brownback will expand on it--you have a Battle Command Training Center. This is for troops coming from Europe to Fort Riley for training. The major part of the military construction for Fort Riley is a training center.”