(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) released the following statement today after the Senate passed the 2010 Department of Interior appropriations bill.

 The Senate accepted Coburn amendments strengthening border security, promoting transparency and requiring competitive bidding of earmarks.  The Senate rejected a Coburn amendment requiring the Senate to prioritize spending on maintenance.

 “The public has a dim view of Congress because we continue to ignore reality.  The Senate is continuing to spend taxpayer dollars as if the economy is booming and the treasury has a surplus of funds.  Across America, families are making tough decisions and prioritizing their spending.  Members of Congress, however, continue to believe that every spending bill deserves a significant increase.  This bill, for instance, increases Department of Interior by $4.6 billion (16 percent) over last year’s funding, which doesn’t even account for the more than $10 billion the department received in stimulus funding,” Dr. Coburn said.

“The American people are smart enough to know that an underfunded Department of Interior is hardly one of our most pressing economic challenges, particularly when the department just received a $10 billion bonus,” Dr. Coburn added.   “What does concern the American people is the fact that Congress is now borrowing from future generations 43 cents for every dollar it spends.  Americans are making sacrifices every day.  It’s time for members of Congress to start making tough choices as well.”

“What is outrageous about the Senate’s actions, however, is not just its new spending but its complete failure to examine what taxpayers are already financing.  The priority of the federal government should be to maintain the one-third of the land in our nation that it already owns, beginning with clearing the more than $13 billion maintenance backlog for critical projects like levees and dams.  Our priority should not be to spend more money, take property from private citizens and leave what we already own to fall to decay and disrepair.  With every bill the Senate is passing we are earning our dismal approval ratings,” Dr. Coburn said.

 This bill authorizes nearly $400 million for land acquisition while the Department of Interior currently faces a maintenance backlog ranging from $13.2 billion and $19.4 billion.  There are over 303 earmarks in the bill costing taxpayers $244.5 million.  The Environmental Protection Agency was given a 33 percent budget increase.  The national inflation rate is currently 1.6 percent.  

Following Thursday’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the canceled missile defense site in Eastern Europe, U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), a senior member of the committee stated, “Obama’s plan makes us more vulnerable.”

“Everyone agrees that Iran poses a threat to our nation’s security by developing nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them,” Inhofe continued.  “Everyone also agrees that we need to have the necessary defenses in place to defeat this threat before Iran reaches its goal.

 The Ground Based Interceptors (GBI) that were supposed to be located in Eastern Europe would have provided such a defense by 2013.  Even now, despite the setbacks the administration handed the program, the European-based Third Site could be fielded the same year that intelligence estimates have said Iran would have a long-range ballistic missile capability – 2015.”

“The Obama administration’s alternative, the SM-3 2B, is only a concept and will not provide the same type of protection that the Third Site would have provided until 2020, leaving us more exposed for five years.
 This is unacceptable.  While abandoning our commitment at the last minute is dangerous for our allies in Europe, we must be even more concerned about the safety and security of America.

 The new plan the administration wants to pursue leaves us more vulnerable to a missile attack for five years, from 2015 to 2020.  It is not too late to scrap the Obama plan, and reestablish the multi-layered Eastern European missile defense shield that includes

GBI which could intercept and destroy long range Iranian missiles capable of striking Europe and the United States between 2015 and 2020.”