Conference Report on H.R. 3222, Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2008
Floor Speech
CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 3222, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008 -- (House of Representatives - November 08, 2007)
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Mr. WICKER. I thank my friend from Florida for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, this is a good bill. I support the bill. As Mr. Frelinghuysen stated, if I had been writing it line for line, it wouldn't be quite the way it is, but it is a good bill and worthy of our support.
I support the rule also. I hope that it can be amended to make it even better, and here is why. This is the Defense appropriations bill. It will be acted on today, it will be acted on perhaps tomorrow by the Senate and on the President's desk. There is another bill that very much needs to be on the President's desk by Veterans Day, which is November 11. I suppose we will be celebrating it on Monday, November 12, this year because we don't have the Federal holidays on Sunday. That's the bill making appropriations for Military Construction and Veterans Affairs. That bill is ready to go and also ready to be sent to the President of the United States.
The House passed its version of the MilCon-VA bill on June 15 of this year by a vote of 409-2. The Senate passed its version of MilCon-VA on September 6, over 2 months ago, by a vote of 92-1 in favor of the bill. For over 2 months, we have stood ready to conference this bill to send it on to the President and send vital funds for infrastructure, for our troops and for their families, and also for our heroes who have served in the past.
As we all know, this is the latest the Congress has gone without sending a single appropriation bill to the President in the past 20 years.
Now, what this amendment that the gentleman from Florida will do, if he is allowed to offer the amendment, is simply to instruct the Speaker to appoint conferees immediately for the MilCon-VA bill. It will do nothing to the Defense bill whatsoever, but it is a way for us to proceed immediately on legislation, which all of our veterans service organizations say is important, which is a good bill, and which should be sent to the President by Veterans Day.
I will be joining Mr. Diaz-Balart and others in voting against the previous question, not because there is anything wrong with the Defense bill, but in order for this amendment to be added and simply allow MilCon-VA to proceed also.
Now, as we say sometimes in the rural south, there is more than one way to skin a cat. If Members feel that defeating the previous question is not what they want to do and requiring the Speaker to appoint conferees immediately, there is another way to move the MilCon-VA immediately and have it sent to the Senate this very day, and that is some legislation which I introduced last night. It's H.R. 4104, and here is what it does. It contains the exact language that was signed by the conferees with regard to MilCon-VA. It is a stand-alone bill with the conference language on MilCon-VA, and it could be adopted this afternoon by unanimous consent. It could be adopted under a suspension of the rules, sent to the Senate immediately, and sent on to the President for his signature before Veterans Day.
What a way to honor our veterans. What a way to honor and pay tribute to the families that will benefit from the MilCon projects and to the troops that need that vital infrastructure.
Defeating the previous question and amending the resolution, I support. But if Members feel they cannot go along with that, I urge them to look at this bill, H.R. 4104. We already have over 100 cosponsors. As I say, it is identical to the bipartisan MilCon-VA conference agreement that Mr. Edwards and Mr. Obey and I and Mr. Lewis worked out as a conference agreement with Members of the Senate. It is the exact language that was passed as an attachment to the Labor-HHS bill.
You know, this should not be a partisan issue. I strongly disagreed on the floor of this House with my friend Mr. Obey and the leadership of this House with the strategy of linking MilCon-VA with the Labor-HHS appropriation bill. I stated that I thought it would slow things down, and, indeed, it did slow things down. The strategy didn't work. The Senate delinked those two bills yesterday afternoon, and now we are really not sure where we are.
H.R. 4101 is the best way and the quickest way for this House and for the Senate to simply send that legislation on to the President. He could be signing it tomorrow afternoon.
So I call on my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question. I like Mr. Diaz-Balart's strategy. Frankly, I like my strategy a little better because it's cleaner. Let's pass a stand-alone MilCon-VA conference report, the exact language that every one of us has already agreed to, send it on to the President and honor our troops by Veterans Day.
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