Committee Funding Resolution

Floor Speech

COMMITTEE FUNDING RESOLUTION -- (House of Representatives - March 08, 2007)

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Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from California giving me time.

I rise in opposition to this closed rule and to the unprecedented creation of a new panel with no legislative jurisdiction and no authority to take legislative action. Mr. Speaker, it is like being air-dropped into this usually noncontroversial resolution without any committee oversight or consideration being given.

The cost to the taxpayers for this lopsided new committee to study the serious issue of climate change but that is not given the power by the Democrat leadership of actually doing anything; yet it costs $4 million.

This resolution also represents an increase of 14.3 percent over last year's Congress, raising the funding levels for these committees and staff salaries from just over $250 million to just over $291 million, one Congress to the next.

But with all of this new spending, the Democrat majority cannot find a way to adequately fund one of the most vocally stated priorities, at least on the campaign trail, the Ethics Committee.

This lack of funding is hindering the committee's struggle to untangle the confusingly drafted new ethics package passed by the new Democrat majority and to provide the training mandated by House Rules.

So, today, the American people can see where the Democrats' true priorities lie, in crafting and creating an unfunded mandate and leaving a campaign promise unfilled, while spending millions of taxpayer dollars on a new panel that has no authority to do anything.

Mr. Speaker, I do encourage all my colleagues to hear the straight story, and I also encourage them to vote against this rule and to defeat it.

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