Democratic appropriators demand list of military projects that would be defunded for wall

Top Senate Democrats are demanding a list of military projects that would lose funding under President Trump’s plan to divert resources to pay for a long-promised border wall.

“We have strong concerns about hitting the pause button on such readiness initiatives that Congress already approved when it exercised its constitutional appropriations prerogative,” the lawmakers, led by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), wrote in a letter to acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan.

{mosads}“We request that you provide to us the list of the projects deemed less important than building a wall along the southern border, along with the military criteria used to justify those decisions.”

The letter was signed by every Democratic member of the military construction and the Defense Appropriations subcommittees.

Trump declared the national emergency last month to allocate roughly $8 billion for barriers along the southern border. Of those funds, more than $6 billion would come from the Department of Defense. He moved to divert the funds after a congressional spending bill fell short of his demands for his signature campaign promise.

“By using such authority, [the Department of Defense] will have to cancel or delay approximately twenty percent of the military construction projects previously reported to Congress as top priorities for the military. We request that you provide to us the list of the projects deemed less important than building a wall along the southern border, along with the military criteria used to justify those decisions,” the appropriators wrote.

“We believe that cancelling or delaying military construction and family housing projects would have damaging short- and long-term impacts. The decision to do so imposes known and unknown risks on the military services’ ability to train the force, maintain readiness, and support military missions.”

Democrats were swift to condemn Trump’s emergency declaration, echoing criticism that the diverted funds would harm military readiness and instead pay for what they slammed as a fabricated crisis.