6 Things to Know About the 'Security Minibus'

July 20, 2017
Press Release

CLICK HERE FOR A FULL SUMMARY OF THE 'SECURITY MINIBUS'

The House is expected to consider an Appropriations package next week made up of the Defense, Military Construction & VA, Legislative Branch, and Energy & Water Appropriations bills, in addition to funding for a border wall.  Here are 6 important things to know:

  1. It wastes $1.6 billion on a useless, immoral border wall.

The majority has indicated it will include President Trump’s full 2018 request to begin construction of new sections of wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

  1. The numbers are fraudulent.

The majority claims the bill would increase defense funding, but those additional funds would be sequestered without a fix to the Budget Control Act defense cap.The majority’s slate of bills would breach this cap by more than $72 billion, resulting in a mandatory 13.2% sequester of all defense accounts.

  1. It guts critical investments in clean energy and advanced energy research.

The Energy & Water division would eliminate ARPA-E advanced energy research and the Title 17 Innovative Loan Guarantee Program, and would slash Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy investments by nearly $1 billion.

  1. It includes poison pill riders.

The Energy & Water division would hinder the Corps of Engineers’ ability to prevent water pollution, allow firearms on Corps of Engineers lands, and prohibit inter-agency coordination on ocean policy.

  1. It strips a provision requiring Congress to debate use of force.

The Appropriations Committee adopted a bipartisan amendment to the Defense bill authored by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) requiring Congress to do its job and debate the legal basis for ongoing military conflicts.In an underhanded and undemocratic step, majority leadership stripped this bipartisan provision in the dead of night without a vote.

  1. It leaves nondefense Appropriations with no path forward.

The 8 Appropriations bills not included in this minibus cannot gain Democratic votes because they gut services and investments critical to working families; without Democratic votes, they cannot be enacted into law.Yet majority leadership has failed to work with Democrats on a new budget agreement raising caps on defense & nondefense spending, raising the threat of a disastrous Republican government shutdown.

CLICK HERE FOR A FULL SUMMARY OF THE 'SECURITY MINIBUS'

115th Congress