Speech of Rep. Greg Ganske (R-Iowa), March 29, 2000

Speech of Rep. Greg Ganske (R-Iowa), March 29, 2000
[Page: H1508]
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske).

Mr. GANSKE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) for yielding me the time. He is a true gentleman. And so I sadly rise in opposition to this emergency supplemental appropriations bill because it funds too many nonemergency programs.

For example, this bill includes $20 million for a new FDA laboratory in Los Angeles. Did somebody just all of a sudden find out that the current lab is in dangerous disrepair? We should take care of this in the HHS appropriations bill.

This so-called emergency supplemental also includes $96 million in economic assistance for countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, $104 million for an embassy in Sarajevo, $49 million for our weapons labs, $75 million for staffing at NASA; $55 million for atomic energy plant personnel and infrastructure improvements; $35 million for foster care and adoption assistance; $20 million for abstinence programs; $19 million for weatherization grants.

Mr. Chairman, many of these programs are valuable and I think should be funded, but they should be funded through a normal appropriations process, not an emergency bill.

And let us not forget the really big ticket items. This bill includes $2.1 billion for operations in Kosovo and East Timor. How long will we continue to support the extended deployment of our troops? An amendment is to be offered today to add $4 billion to address our military readiness problems. The reason our military is stretched is because we have sent too many of our soldiers on too many missions to too many countries.

And that leads us to Colombia. Should we send more than $1.7 billion to Colombia in the form of emergency funding? I do not think so. We do have a serious drug problem. We should spend that money on drug treatment and increased border patrol. Our involvement in Colombia is just too important a decision to be made in limited debate in a supplemental spending bill.

I support provisions in this bill to help victims of natural disasters, but we should not fund normal programs in an emergency bill.

And so, Mr. Chairman, let us clean up this bill and help get those true emergency funds to those who need it. I urge a `no' vote on this supplemental.

As of March 30, 2000, this document was also available online at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r106:H29MR0-173: