Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. CARTER of Texas. I thank the chairman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I am a proud member of the Appropriations Committee. I have one of the most difficult areas as far as current events in the country, and that is homeland security.

I don't like a CR any more than any other appropriator likes a CR, but our job is to fund the government. The Constitution tells us we are to fund the government, and we have hardworking people like Hal Rogers, who reads the Constitution and realizes we have got to take the best medium we can for now and fund the government. So, of course, I am going to support this CR and I hope all my colleagues will.

I want to tell you, all of us on the Appropriations Committee go through the entire process of doing the best we can for the departments we represent, to give them suggestions of leadership and direction to fund the projects that they need, to take care of the employees who work there and take care of the mission of every department we have. To have to see cede all that to a CR is painful, but reality is reality.

The government must go on, and at this point in this time the government will go on with a CR.

I also wanted to get up and say, as you go through these battles, wonderful people like my chairman and ranking member, Mr. Rogers and Mrs. Lowey, fight through the frustrations through the entire committee, and we do this.

Yet these great minds like Hal Rogers know what it takes to make things work around here, and they are willing to put in the time and the effort to get it done no matter how it has to be done. Our preference is to pass all appropriations bills into law. A necessity at this time is a CR, and I trust absolutely that my chairman is doing the right thing.

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