Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Chairman, I want to begin by thanking the committee for the excellent job that they have done under Chairman Calvert's leadership with bringing this appropriations bill in under budget. It is $3 billion below the President's request. There is still $30.17 billion in proposed funding in this bill.

I come before you today to offer an amendment that I regularly offer to these appropriations bills, which is a 1 percent across-the-board spending cut. Let's go in and let's take one more penny out of every dollar and use that to bolster the good work that our committee has done.

You know, one of the things that I like about this bill is there is a 9 percent reduction in the EPA budget compared to last year. We all know we need to rein in the EPA. We are all for clean air, clean water, clean environment. We have different ways of getting there.

The burdensome regulations that are out there negatively impact--they negatively impact our communities. But we know there is more work that we have to do on this $30 billion budget.

My amendment would reduce the discretionary budget authority by $292 million and would reduce outlays by $193 million.

Now, I know that this is not a popular amendment with a lot of those who feel like we have cut, cut, cut and we can't cut any more.

I disagree with that. I think that you can look at the GAO reports and the inspector general reports and see there is plenty of room to cut. We just recently went into the last 4 years of inspector general reports. Guess what. We found $165 million of identified waste in the Department of the Interior.

It is time to engage our rank-and-file employees in our Federal Government, to make them a team and a partner with us as we work on this issue of getting our budget right-sized.

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

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Chairman, just a couple of comments.

Underfunded? No. We are overspent in this town. We have $18 trillion worth of debt, and it is time to get a handle on that.

Moral obligations? How about the moral obligation to our children and grandchildren?

Admiral Mullen has said the greatest threat to our Nation's security is our Nation's debt.

Let's put the focus on our priorities: keeping our sovereignty and keeping our Nation safe and secure.

This is something we do for our children. It is something we can do for our national security. A penny on a dollar to get this spending under control.

Our approach? Guess what. State and local government use this all the time. They can't go print money and run up debt.

When I was in the State Senate in Tennessee, what did we do? We didn't go home until we balanced the budget because we had an obligation to get it done right the first time, before we walked out the door.

And I do hope that we will put attention on our entitlements. But that is no excuse for not addressing what is in front of us today. To not address what is in front of us today is to kick the can down the road.

I have a lot of constituents who aren't making and taking home as much as they were in 2005. They think we should reduce Federal spending even more, reduce the Federal workforce even more, because government is getting too expensive to afford.

Let's engage Federal employees in this process. It has worked for the States. It will work for the Federal Government. Let's get our fiscal house in order. A good place to start is right here with this amendment that would save another $193 million in outlays and $292 million in discretionary budget authority.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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