[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 14756-14757]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             APPROPRIATIONS

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, first, I should note how much I agree 
with the senior Senator from New Hampshire and her comments about the 
appropriations process. I mentioned on the floor yesterday that in the 
Appropriations Committee, we reported 12 bills, including the State and 
foreign

[[Page 14757]]

operations bill. It passed, 30 to 0. It and the other bills have now 
been put on a shelf to collect dust by the House Republican leadership. 
We will probably never get a chance to vote on them. By doing so, by 
deciding to put the government on autopilot and drafting another 
continuing resolution instead, they will reduce by almost $500 million 
the amount that the Senate provided for fiscal year 2017 for the 
security of our diplomats and embassies abroad. It is very similar to 
what the House did when they refused to support the Senate's higher 
amount for embassy security prior to the Benghazi attack. They didn't 
want to admit it, as they spent tens of millions of dollars of 
taxpayers' money investigating the lack of security in Benghazi, 
blaming everyone but themselves. It will be interesting to see if they 
acknowledge that they are again cutting funds for embassy security.

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