Supplemental Appropriations
Floor Speech
SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS -- (Senate - March 29, 2007)
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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, the Senate has just made a tremendous effort in moving forward to make sure we support our troops in every sense of the word. I thank all of my colleagues who voted ``aye'' in moving this forward.
It is important to remember that this is an emergency supplemental bill. I have heard others on the other side call it a war supplemental. It is true, indeed, that over the last several years, the President has insisted that we pay for the war in Iraq on an emergency supplemental. But I remind everyone that there are countless emergencies across this country, and we, as Democrats, believe it is critical that we address those concerns--whether it is our agricultural industry, which has faced drought, severe weather, family farms which have been inundated and unable to continue to provide the crops all of us rely on to feed our families; whether it is our veterans who, as the occupant of the chair well knows as a member of the Veterans' Committee, have been left behind time and time again.
We all know of the Walter Reed issue that hit the papers several weeks ago. But this is not a new issue for many of us who have been following this issue for some time. We have men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan who are coming home and have severe traumatic brain injuries. They have been lost in the system. We are now starting the fifth year of this war, and to date this President has not planned and supported funding to make sure those men and women--whether it is traumatic brain injury or whether they lost a limb or whether they have post-traumatic stress syndrome or whether it is just coming home and being able to find another job--have been paid attention to.
In this supplemental, we say we are going to pay for all costs of the war and certainly pay for those men and women who paid the ultimate price, along with their families, and taking care of them is part of that cost of war. In this critical bill which the Democrats voted for, we make sure they are a part of this.
So we provide funding to repair the facilities at Walter Reed and also to make sure that across the country the Walter Reed syndrome is paid attention to. Those veterans facilities we have gotten the reports from--the 1,100 sightings of mold on the walls, of bats that have not been gotten rid of in the Oregon VA facility, of peeling paint on the walls--these kinds of conditions are not ones we as Americans should allow to continue.
In the supplemental bill, we say we are going to take care of those issues, and we require specifically that the VA come back to us in 60 days and identify every one of those 1,100 sightings and say whether they have fixed those facilities. If they have not, we want to know the exact cost, because we are not going to let those men and women sit in those deplorable conditions.
Under this bill, we address the issue that has faced many of our soldiers who have returned home with traumatic brain injury. Many of us saw the Bob Woodruff special several weeks ago, a reporter who was in Iraq and who suffered a traumatic brain injury. We saw how he struggled with his recovery and now has presented an amazing news story to let all of us know what is happening not just with him but to men and women across this country as they come home. It is true when a soldier is in a vehicle that is immediately affected by a blast, they often know they have traumatic brain injury. It is also true soldiers who may be 100 or 150 yards away from that blast may also receive an injury but may not know it.
We have all talked to these men and women when we go home, and their wives normally say to us, my husband can't remember where he put a piece of paper I just handed to him, not realizing he had been a victim of a blast and that his injury had caused brain damage. We need to make sure those soldiers are treated and are treated well, and that we have the research and the capability to make sure they are not lost when they come home from service to this country. That funding is in this bill, and that funding was voted on by a majority of Senators in this body. We are going to keep working to make sure it is there.
We also have in this bill money for Katrina. It seems a long time ago now that our country was stunned by the impact of Katrina and other hurricanes in the gulf coast. Americans across the country said, what are we going to do? We know since that time there have been major stumbles. As Democrats, we are not stepping back. We believe that is as much an emergency as what the President has asked for in this emergency supplemental focusing only on Iraq, the war, and the reconstruction efforts there.
We have a reconstruction effort that is absolutely critical here in this country. Democrats are standing up and saying we are going to take responsibility and pay for it. There is $6.7 billion in here for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. I believe that is as much a critical emergency spending item as the reconstruction dollars the President has asked for in the supplemental, and that is why we are supporting this bill.
This bill also addresses the issue of homeland security. We have heard a lot of rhetoric about homeland security and protecting our own. That is an emergency because that funding has not been there. Rhetoric protects no one here at home. We provide $2 billion, critical infrastructure dollars, for port security, mass transit security, and explosive detection equipment at our airports. We are putting it into this bill because it has not yet been funded, and across this country Americans are at risk without that funding.
We have heard a lot of talk on this floor over the last several days about extra porkbarrel spending. Well, I would say to all of my colleagues there is $4.2 billion that is provided for Americans here at home--not for reconstruction efforts out in the world but for right here at home, $4.2 billion.
Senator Boxer from California was out here yesterday showing tremendous pictures of the agricultural disasters that have occurred in California. These are farmers whom we rely on as Americans when we go to our grocery stores to be able to buy food to feed our families. If their farms are lost because they do not have the support after a disaster that has affected them, every one of us suffers. As Democrats, we say that is as much an emergency as what we are putting into this bill for reconstruction in Iraq. We need to reconstruct here at home.
On this side we are playing catchup. For a number of years now we have seen emergency supplementals that were just war supplementals. We are saying that, as Democrats, we know we have to invest in ourselves across the country. We have to invest in our future. We will only be as strong abroad as we are at home. If we abandon our farmers, if we abandon our children because they do not have health care--and there is SCHIP funding in this bill--if we abandon our gulf coast residents, who have not yet been able to rebuild their homes and their infrastructure, if we abandon our veterans when they come home and don't take care of them, if we abandon our military personnel without the proper equipment and supplies, then we are not doing the job we have been sent here to do.
We are proud of this supplemental we are putting forward because, in addition to everything else, we are taking a major step forward and saying we are no longer going to idly stand by without any debate, without any consequences, and move continuously to increase the war in Iraq. We have said it is time for us as a nation to tell the Iraqi people they need to stand up for themselves. That language is critical in this bill.
We have worked with colleagues on all sides to put together what I think is a very important, very critical bill for us here in America--here at home. We are going to work very hard now in conference with our House colleagues to come together with a bill to bring back to the Senate and then to send to the President. I understand the President is saying he is going to veto the bill, but I ask the President to listen to us, to sit down in the way we are supposed to here in Congress, and work with us to find agreement so we can move this bill forward. That is my hope for us here, and it is my hope for Americans across this country.
I am proud of the bill we have put forward in addressing the critical infrastructure investments here at home, and I hope as we move forward in this process in a few weeks we will be able to have a conference committee bill that will be sent to the President and that he will agree to so we can then move on to the other issues facing this Nation.
I also take this opportunity to thank a number of people who worked on this bill, but particularly Chairman Byrd, who
led us throughout this debate. I thank Senator Cochran, my ranking member, who has been out here on the floor late nights working with us to help keep an orderly process.
I also thank all of our full committee staff, Terry Sauvain and Bruce Evans, all of their staff, who have worked countless hours. I am not sure they even went home last night before they came in this morning to help us get to the point we are today, and I thank all the staff of all the Appropriations subcommittees, who have worked very hard on this bill.
I also thank our floor staff, because without their work and their support, none of us would be able to complete the work we do. They are the silent workers who sit in front of us and who have done such a tremendous job to help us get through this process.
At the end of the day, I want my colleagues and I want America to know we in the majority here in the Senate believe an emergency spending bill should be just that. There are numerous emergencies across this country, investing in Americans who have suffered tremendously, and we are working hard to make sure their issues are finally addressed. Importantly, we are telling the President that our veterans and those who serve us in Iraq and Afghanistan, when they come home, their issues are going to be addressed as part of the cost of the war and as part of this emergency supplemental.
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