Sequestration

Floor Speech

Mr. GARAMENDI. I rise today to tell the story of how northern California communities that I represent will be harmed by sequestration.

Travis Air Force Base in my district makes sure that the equipment and personnel that our military needs are delivered quickly and safely around the world. They're the world's first responder when disaster strikes. Thirty-two hundred civilians will be furloughed beginning next week. They will have a loss of some $30 million of income over the next 6 months.

Near Marysville, California, Beale Air Force Base operates an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance mission that supplies our Nation's military with timely information to save American lives on the battlefield. Fourteen hundred civilians will be furloughed, with $13 million in lost wages.

Families and their income are important. But so is national security, which will be compromised by sequestration.

Yuba City, one of the major places in the United States prone to flood problems, will see their critical levee protection that the Army Corps of Engineers is working on delayed and not completed for next winter's floods.

The University of California-Davis will similarly be harmed.

It's time to end sequestration, and I ask unanimous consent that H.R. 699 be brought up for a vote.

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