Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. HUDSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise this evening to offer an amendment to the Energy and Water Appropriations bill that would prohibit the funding for any program included that is not authorized by law.

For far too long, Congress has continued to appropriate spending on government programs with little to no oversight. Our country has essentially been on autopilot towards a cliff of fiscal and economic disaster.

This has resulted in a massive and out-of-control bureaucracy that is wasteful and inefficient. In this bill alone there are 23 unauthorized programs. Some of these programs were last authorized in 1981, and there are others that have never been authorized. In total, these unauthorized and unchecked programs in this legislation receive around $25 billion.

With over $17 trillion in debt, we owe it to our constituents to review each agency and program to determine if they are the best use of taxpayer dollars to serve the public need.

Additionally, the rules of the House require that appropriations may only be made for purposes authorized by law. The prohibition on unauthorized appropriations cannot be enforced because the rules that bring appropriation bills to the floor routinely prevent a point of order from being raised.

My amendment prohibits spending on unauthorized programs, but it exempts defense-related programs because these were authorized by the House when we passed the defense authorization bill in May.

This amendment parallels with my bill, H.R. 3847, the Federal Sunset Act of 2014, which would force Congress to evaluate each agency and program and consider recommendations to reform or abolish specific entities to ensure the best use of our resources.

Mr. Chairman, this type of sweeping reform would dramatically overhaul the way that Washington budgets and spends hard-earned tax dollars and allow Congress to finally take back control, scale back our bloated bureaucracy, and provide accountability to the Federal Government.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. HUDSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise this evening to offer an amendment to the Energy and Water Appropriations bill that would cut spending back to the fiscal year 2008 level.

While I appreciate the work of the Appropriations Committee in crafting this important bill that does decrease spending, we must all recognize that a cut of $50 million is a rounding error here in Washington.

My amendment makes an across-the-board cut of 7.48 percent to the bill in order to decrease the amount back to the fiscal year 2008 level. The Congressional Budget Office confirms my amendment would reduce budget authority by $1.34 billion. Defense accounts are exempt from these savings because this House just addressed defense programs in the National Defense Authorization Act a few months ago.

Mr. Chairman, we are on a path to a horrific debt crisis in this country. When I ran for Congress, I repeatedly said the first step we must take to reduce spending and get our fiscal house in order is to go back to 2008 levels, and then let's go program by program and find savings, find duplicative programs that we need to cut, find the waste.

Again, Mr. Chairman, we have got to get our fiscal house in order, get ourselves back on track. My amendment does just that, allows us to return to a point where we can finally get serious about making real substantive cuts to begin to pay down our debt and save future generations from this horrific debt crisis that we are on a collision course with as things now stand.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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