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Washington, DC - Senator Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations, delivered the following statement on the Senate floor regarding H.R. 2608, the House-passed Continuing Resolution:

"Mr. President, the Senate is considering H.R. 2608, a continuing resolution to ensure that our vital federal programs can continue in operation while the Congress completes its action on our appropriations bills for fiscal year 2012.

             "As all my colleagues are aware, I do not welcome the reality that we once again need to approve a stopgap measure as we prepare to begin the next fiscal year, but that is the position we are in. The acrimonious and time-wasting debate on raising the debt ceiling has led us to this place. Put simply, we have no choice but to pass a short-term measure.   I would like to point out, however, that unlike last year we see this as a short-term need, not a long-term remedy.

           "Because, even though there was neither an agreement on spending levels nor an allocation to the Appropriations Committee for discretionary spending until the August recess commenced, I am happy to inform my colleagues that the Appropriations Committee has completed its work on 11 of the 12 bills required to fund our federal agencies.

           "In the past three weeks, the Appropriations Committee has met to review and favorably approve 10 bills for fiscal year 2012. Eight of those bills were reported out of Committee on an overwhelmingly bi-partisan vote. The Senate has received five of these bills from the House. The Appropriations Committee is ready to take up any of these bills on the floor when time allows.

           "In the interim, enacting a continuing resolution is essential before the Congress goes on recess. The bill passed by the House provides the bare bones minimum required to ensure that government functions will be continued without interruption. It also includes a few critical legislative provisions to sustain vital programs which would otherwise be terminated. There were many more items which the Administration and members of this body would have liked to include, but the House did not agree to include them.

         "The House CR also provides a limited amount of disaster funding which has been addressed by others. I want to state for the record that I am particularly disturbed at the position of the House that fiscal year 2011 emergency disaster assistance would be offset by cancelling the Advanced Technology Vehicle program.

           "It has long been the tradition of the Congress to approve disaster assistance without need for offset. Mr. President, others will likely come to the Senate floor to challenge that remark. They will point out that in many, if not most, emergency supplementals the Congress has recommended using rescissions to offset the cost of the bill. They are correct, but as usual the details tell the true story.

        "The Appropriations Committee annually reviews unobligated balances that remain in programs and those that are unnecessary are recommended for rescission or reapplication to other programs. However, in the case of disaster assistance, I challenge my colleagues to review all Appropriations bills for the past decade and find a single instance where the Committee paid for disasters by rescinding funds from other programs. No one would find an example, because quite simply there aren't any.

           "Equally important, as noted above, year after year the Congress rescinds unobligated funds, but only when they are no longer needed. In the case of the remaining balances for the Advanced Technology Vehicle Program, the funds are truly needed.

        "Mr. President, hardly a day goes by that someone doesn't come to the floor and note the need for job creation. Here is a program that is creating jobs - good jobs - jobs with a future. Investing in new technologies to make the nation more competitive in the international marketplace is exactly the type of program where Federal government intervention makes sense.   The notion that our Republican colleagues in the House would propose rescinding $1.5 billion in funding from this program in the current economic climate borders on nonsensical.

        "Finally, I would note that today's balances in the Disaster Relief Fund are now at $175 million. Our people are in need of assistance now. The Congress cannot wait any longer to address this need. All of my colleagues should come together in a bi-partisan agreement to strip out the ATV offset, approve meaningful disaster assistance today, and return this bill to the House for reconsideration."

Chairman Inouye Statement on House CR

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