Hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee - Fiscal Year 2008 Supplemental

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SEN. PATTY MURRAY (D-WA): Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for having this hearing. Mr. Nussle, I share the anger, frustration, I guess pugnaciousness of the senator from Maryland. It is extremely disturbing to me that we are getting an emergency supplemental request for Iraq and Afghanistan five and a half years into this war that's being paid for off the books.

I listen to your testimony; you say this has to be emergency because of changes on the ground. Well what about the changes on the ground here at home? What about those? What about the fact that we have many, many road projects that are a result of small floods, natural disasters that have occurred, the changes on the ground here at home. What about the changes on the ground in the economy where people are being laid off in community after community where mortgages are going into foreclosure, where housing is a number one concern for Americans?

What about the healthcare crisis? What about the fact that your budget that you sent to us absolutely is inadequate in investments in our infrastructure? Those are changes on the ground that we have an obligation to respond to.

Now here we are, five and half years into this war, and we are getting a supplemental request that take care of Iraq. Well we're creating jobs in Iraq, we're building schools in Iraq, we're building roads in Iraq, and we have a president and a White House who is fighting this Congress' efforts to try and build schools here, to try and take care of our roads, to try and take care of the infrastructure, to try and give our families here at home security again. So yes, you're seeing a little bit of anger here.

My friend and colleague Senator Dorgan has talked about the waste, fraud and abuse, and I share that concern uncovered by the GAO and the Inspector General when it comes to these funds. Yes, we're having a hearing on that, but we're also having a hearing because we believe that there are emergencies here at home, and infrastructure costs here at home that have to be paid for and met. You bet our constituents are angry that their taxpayer dollars that you so jealously guard are going over to Iraq and Afghanistan to rebuild them when, as you heard, they have oil revenues that are sitting in our banks here, 60 billion dollars I've heard, 34 to 60 billion dollars.

No wonder you're hearing the frustration on a bipartisan level here from all of us. We're frustrated five and a half years into the war that we're facing an administration that can blithely come before this committee and say the only emergency we have is a war that's lasted five and a half years. There are emergencies in every one of our communities and we have a responsibility to address them. Once again, we have a supplemental request sent to us that doesn't have one dime for the men and women who are fighting for us when they come home.

As Senator Mikulski said we had a very good, bipartisan hearing this morning to listen to the medical personnel talk to us about the long term costs for those soldiers who are coming home with those invisible wounds of war, of post-traumatic stress syndrome, and TBI, and it's going to cost us into the future. And we get into an administration that says they're not part of the cost of war. Well this Congress disagrees. Last year we added 1.8 billion dollars on the supplemental that we said that is a cost of war. And again we have to look at that because we don't get a request from this administration that is real and I find it just really disconcerting that this administration continues to deny that the cost of caring for our soldiers is part of the cost of war.

Mr. Nussle, my obligation as chairman of Transportation and Housing is to look at what those requests are coming from your administration. And once again, in this budget, we're receiving requests in a supplemental for roads and bridges not here at home, but in Iraq and Afghanistan. The president has committed to improving the infrastructure in Iraq and Afghanistan as a way to improve the lives of their citizens. Well, when you look across the board at the supplementary request and the Defense Department, State Department, military construction, you're asking for more than three quarters of a billion dollars for road construction in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, right here at home we have a federal highway emergency relief program that has shut down because it's out of money. There is a backlog of eligible requests of more than 560 million dollars for roads and bridges, not in Iraq, but here at home that have been damaged or destroyed in declared disasters in 21 of our states. None of them are going to get a dime without a supplemental appropriation.

But somehow the president and you are saying, that we have to take care of roads in Iraq and Afghanistan, funding over 725 million dollars and here at home our roads that are emergency repair, that are in backlog don't get requested a dime. And I hear you sitting here saying that you're going to recommend a veto if we add those to this supplemental, and those are roads and bridges that our constituents need to cross to get to work, to take care of their families, and to make sure that they've got security here at home. So perhaps you could explain to us why you're going to recommend vetoing those emergency road repairs here at home.

MR. NUSSLE: Well, first, Senator, I don't take your tone or Senator Mikulski's tone as anything but passion for the issues you're concerned about and for your constituents. I don't take it any other way than that, number one. Number two, when it comes to transportation certainly there are funds that are needed in Iraq in order to fund the transportation needs --

SEN. MURRAY: Forget Iraq. What about the ones here at home? What about our emergency requests for here at home?

MR. NUSSLE: But I think it's fair for you to understand or for you to hear that those directly support the troops and their movements in Iraq. It's not just --

SEN. MURRAY: Fair enough. I'm not saying we're not going to fund that. I'm asking you about the ones here at home.

MR. NUSSLE: Okay. With regard -- and the senator has obviously taken a leadership role. We've had a 17 percent increase in the last three years. We have an 11 percent increase that we have right now in 2008 for these transportation projects so --

SEN. MURRAY: The emergency funds are at zero.

MR. NUSSLE: There are other funds that can be re-obligated within and transferred within those accounts in order to meet those challenges when there are emergencies.

SEN. MURRAY: Mr. Chairman, I would just like to point out that the president's budget request for 2009 slashes our highway and airport investments by $2.6 billion. I'm not sure where we're going to be transferring funds from.

MR. NUSSLE: Well, and as the senator is well aware it's in part because the highway trust fund itself is running out of money because of the challenges of not only over-obligation but also challenges from the gas tax.

SEN. MURRAY: Absolutely, and Congress needs to deal with that but the fact is that when you send over a budget request that is $2.6 billion below what we need we're going to have to make that up, and I take exception in my last 15 seconds here to your comments that well, Congress isn't doing its job because we're not doing our appropriations and you've heard the majority leader say he may do it after the election. No surprise.

When we get budget requests that are well below what any member of Congress can support and we can't fund them because they don't adequately meet the needs of America and what we here -- we get budgets from your office that slash highway funding by $2.6 billion -- highway and airport -- we had hearings in Senator Dorgan's committee on the Corps of Engineer projects and those poor individuals that are sent over here to testify before us and have to defend their budgets when they know they can't because we are not adequately investing in critical projects across the country or for a Hanford cleanup where the administration's budget didn't even come close to meeting its moral and legal obligations, and yet you say to us if we make up those funds they get vetoed.

So rightfully we're saying well, we are not going to pass budgets that are just going to go over there and get vetoed one after the other simply on some partisan basis. We are going to do them in a responsible way and if that means that we have to wait until we get a president who's willing to meet us and work with us that's what this Congress is going to do.

SEN. BYRD: (Inaudible) -- Patty. Senator Dorgan?

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