Patrick Leahy: “I am rather disappointed with this amendment. Senators have every right, of course, to offer any amendment they have.…”

“I am rather disappointed with this amendment. Senators have every right, of course, to offer any amendment they have. This bill has been before the Senate for almost 2 weeks now. We just heard about this amendment a very short time ago today. This amendment cuts at least $164 million from important programs, as the Senator from Minnesota and others have pointed out. I mention the money it is cutting because these are programs where funds have been requested by both Republicans and Democrats. The amendment of the Senator from Florida would transfer those funds to the Andean Counterdrug Program. That program essentially consists of military and economic assistance to four principal countries--Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador--but these are not countries that are going unfunded. They already get over a half billion dollars in this bill-- well over a half billion dollars. They get $567 million. I do not believe there is any region, other than possibly Middle East countries and the former Soviet Republics, that gets that amount of money. That $567 million is on top of the $1,300 million--$1.3 billion--that we provided for Plan Colombia last year. In fact, it is not a half billion dollars; it is more than a half billion dollars. It is nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars when you include the economic and development aid in this bill for the Andean countries, and that is there on top of the counterdrug aid.”