Date: 2005-03-16
Speaker: GENE GREEN (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Speaker. I rise today in support of this Wartime Supplemental bill but not without some hesitation after questioning why some funding is included in what should be a bill solely to support our troops and their ongoing efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. I applaud my colleagues who are working to include at least some FY2006 funding for Iraq and Afghanistan in the FY2006 Budget. The Congressio nal Budget Office predicts that the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq could reach $458 billion over the FY 2005 to 2014 period. on top of the more than $200 billion already expended. An emergency is something unforeseen. but these war costs can be estimated far in advance. In his FY2006 budget request. President Bush did n6t include funds for construction of the U.S. Mission in Iraq. Instead. a week after submitting his FY2006 budget to Congress. the President sent Congress an FY2005 emergency supplemental funding request which included more than $1.3 billion for the embassy in Iraq. This hardly seems to be emergency funding since we have known we will need to operate and maintain an embassy in this country. yet there has been funding for the U.S. embassy in Iraq included in the previous two wartime supplemental bills. and again in this bill. There is also $36 million dollars included for the construction of a new detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Cuba in this supplemental. We have been detaining suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay since shortly after September 11. 2001. this is clearly a need seen far in advance and should be included in the Defense appropriations bill. not in this bill. Additionally. this bill should not be used as a means to move controversial legislation. but the rule for this bill includes a provision to attach the text of H.R. 418. This bill was brought to the Floor of the House in February without a hearing in the Judiciary Committee. circumventing the legislative process.. H.R. 418 includes language that allows the Secretary of Homeland Security to waive any law necessary to construct barriers and roads along our borders. With over one thousand miles of border in Texas alone. I did not feel it was appropriate to allow the Secretary of Homeland Security to waive environmental regulations. undermine the competitive bidding process and threaten the ability of workers to be paid a prevailing wage on these projects. The most important part of this issue is catching people who are here without proper documents. In December of 2004. I voted to authorize 10.000 new border patrol agents over the next 5 years. however the Presidents budget would fund only 210 of the 2.000 authorized border patrol agents. 143 of the 800 authorized interior investigators and only 1.920 of the 8.000 detention beds promised by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. H.R. 418 will not solve our immigration problem if we do not put agents on the border and increase the capacity of detention centers. I do strongly support a number of provisions in this bill. however. which will better protect the men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. better provide for the families of those who gave their lives serving in these countries. and better equip our troops. It is time that we .increase the military death gratuity benefit to $100.000 and the subsidized life insurance benefit to $400.000 for the families of soldiers who died or were killed on active duty while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan after October 2001. We must take additional steps however. to improve benefits for the families of our troops not addressed in this bill. When families of our service members do not have access to healthcare because they cannot find a provider that has a contract with Tricare. there is a major problem We need to address the excess paperwork and low reimbursement rates in the Tricare system to ensure family members do not have to worry about their health care while their loved ones are serving our country. In addition. after continually hearing stories from the men and women serving in Iraq about the lack of protective armor. this supplemental addresses these problems by providing $75 million for body armor protection and $611 million for addon vehicle armor kits which was $48 million more than requested. We also provide necessary oversight on the vehicle armor kits and several other procurement requests. while offsetting increases in funding for our troops with decreases in unnecessary foreign aid. In addition. we rightly increased the request for the family of mediumtactical vehicle. or FMTVs. to $735 million after recognizing wartime operations are causing much greater wear and stress on these vehicles than peacetime operations. I support this bill because it provides necessary benefits and equipment to our troops. but I do not believe it should be used as a vehicle for projects that could and should be funded through the annual budget. During this time of soaring deficits. we must practice fiscal discipline. however this bill fails to do that by adding projects unrelated to the immediate wars in Iraq and Aghanistan. This bill should be solely about providing our troops with necessary resources for their mission in Iraq and Afghanistan. Anything not directly related.to that does not belong in this bill.