If
adopted, the bill will immediately proceed to final passage, as
amended. In last year's election, no campaign rhetoric was more infamous than
the President's promise to ``build a great, great wall on our Southern
border'' and ``make Mexico pay for it.''
The reality is the funding would come from U.S. taxpayers, not from
Mexico, as the President promised. This motion to recommit strikes the
$1.6 billion appropriation for construction of nearly 74 miles of
border wall. Beyond the initial 74 miles, we have no idea of how many miles of
border wall the President plans to build or how much it will cost
because we have not received the required report on the long-term plan
and justification for border security investments. Even with the plan, we will need time to evaluate whether investments
in the border wall are more cost effective than alternatives and more
urgent than clearly established unmet needs. With $1.6 billion, we could buy two of the four heavy Coast Guard
icebreakers we need to protect U.S. interests in the Arctic. This
purchase would help minimize the danger highlighted in a National
Academies of Science report, which concluded the Coast Guard requires
four new heavy icebreakers to protect U.S interests in the Arctic,
where Russia has an ever-increasing presence.
Keywords matched
border wall border security