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Thank you, Chairwoman Granger and Chairman Rogers. It has been a pleasure to work with you on this bill, and I greatly appreciate your continued commitment to our development and diplomacy efforts worldwide.

The agencies and programs funded by this bill are a vital part of our national security and foreign policy. They also directly impact our ability to focus on domestic priorities like rebuilding the middle class and restoring our economy by providing stability and preventing costly security threats abroad.

Mr. Chairman, I want to congratulate you on the bipartisan and transparent manner in which you crafted the Fiscal Year 2015 Energy and Water bill. I also want to express my gratitude to Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Lowey, and the other members of the Subcommittee for their efforts. Finally, I would like to thank the majority Subcommittee staff and your personal staff for their great work, as well as Taunja Berquam, on our side, for her exceptional diligence and expertise and Ryan Steyer.

Thank you, Chairwoman Granger, not only for your continued bipartisan approach to this bill but also for your friendship. It is a pleasure to work with you. Thank you, also, to the full committee chairman, Mr. Rogers, for the bill allocation's recognition of the importance of foreign assistance and diplomacy.

I rise having cosponsored this bill as the ranking member on the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee. I have to say that I think we have worked very well together. We have worked together as chair and ranking member over a period of time. It is an interesting perspective. I think we have crossed the cultural divide when a Californian can understand the language of an Alabaman, and we have become friends.

Mr. Chairman, I want to congratulate you on beginning the markup process for the Energy and Water bill. I would also like to thank the majority Subcommittee staff and your personal staff for their great work.

As you have already pointed out, the allocation for Energy and Water is essentially flat when compared to 2014. I know you were faced with very difficult decisions with this allocation, particularly on the Defense allocation.

Chairman Frelinghuysen, I want to congratulate you on the bipartisan and transparent manner in which you crafted the Fiscal Year (FY) 2015 Defense bill. In your inaugural year as the Chairman of the Defense Subcommittee, you have continued the strong collegial tradition set by our predecessors. Further, you have been an unrelenting advocate for the oversight responsibilities and constitutional prerogative of the Subcommittee – thus our full Committee – in areas of the Department of Defense (DOD) that have lapsed and ignored the import of Article I, Section 9.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I am pleased that we are beginning consideration of HR 4745, the FY 2015 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies Appropriations bill.

I want to thanking Chairman Latham for his work on this bill. He has been a good friend and great Chairman over these last few years and I have enjoyed working with him.

I also want to thank the staff on the majority and minority side. They have worked well together over these last few months.

Mr. Chairman, I want to begin by commending you for leading another open, collaborative, and bipartisan process in constructing the appropriations bill the subcommittee is considering today. We will never agree on every issue or funding level, but you and your staff have consistently worked with our side of the aisle in good faith, and have accommodated members of both parties in many instances. So I will be supporting the chairman's mark, and I encourage my colleagues to do the same.