Rob Bishop: “We are here on a bill that allegedly provides supplemental funding for our troops, yet within the bowels of this House…”

“We are here on a bill that allegedly provides supplemental funding for our troops, yet within the bowels of this House amendment are provisions that have implications for our border security, provisions in violation of our rules but nonetheless provide a permanent authority to transfer money from border patrol to the Department of the Interior with absolutely no limit--$50 million this time, but then unlimited after that. So to have the situation of Congress appropriating money we think is going to border patrol, but then border patrol will have to give that money to the Department of the Interior for alleged mitigation issues, such concepts and projects as, in the past: hiring three employees of the Interior to monitor prong-horned antelope or having a biologist watch the erection of 15-foot towers to verify that no animal was crushed; or having Fish and Wildlife, for one acre of possible habitat loss, insisting border patrol buy 55 acres somewhere else to give to them. We will have the outrageous situation of Interior and Forest Service regulations blocking the border patrol from their patrols and doing their job, and yet the same provision, the border patrol has to pay DOI, with no oversight from the legislature, no internal rules for caution of spending, no limitation, just to do their job.”