Obviously, I meant FY 2017, which started four months before Trump took office.
If you are claiming that Obama’s FY 2017 budget had zero dollars for fence replacement, please send me a link, because I don't believe that.
Re: CBP and DOD Money
I made a careful effort to distinguish between Customs and Border Patrol money - which is for replacement fence only - and Pentagon money - which is for replacement AND new fencing on un-fenced land.
Re: “The money for this 46 miles comes from DoD Counter-Narcotics accounts”
I can't find any reference to that.
On 03 September 2019, the Secretary of Defense sent a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee that states all $3.6 billion will come from “deferred military construction projects.”
In addition, the Secretary does not even mention your 46 mile and 13 mile El Paso projects. He specifically cites a 23 mile and a 6 mile project.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/03/politics/sasc-border-wall-military-funds-letter/index.html
Re: “New Barrier”
All of Trump's press releases talk about “new” fences.
None of Trump's press releases explain that Congress has only appropriated funds for replacement fences.
By the way - the replacement fences that were in Obama’s budget are only 18 feet tall - not 30 feet.
Re: “The last report by the Acting Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (Mark Morgan) was 65 miles complete.”
Please send a link.
According to the last CBP press release on The Wall:
“As of August 9, 2019, CBP has constructed approximately 57 miles of new border wall system since 2017.”
All of that is replacement wall.
Re: “The 2017 appropriations were not passed into Law until May 5, 2017.”
Re: “The President released his 2018 budget on February 27, 2017...it was formally enacted on March 23, 2018.
LOL - I think you need to clean those numbers up and get back to me.
Re: 11 DOD projects totaling 175 miles
All 11 projects are explained in detail in my link to the Secretary's letter - 100 miles are new fence on currently un-fenced land.
Your Bottom Line....
Your comments overflow with “recommendations” and “in the pipeline” fantasies.
My Bottom Line...
After 32 months in office Trump has built 57 miles of replacement fence and zero miles of new fence.
“The money for this “replacement” fence was appropriated in 2017.”
Obviously, I meant FY 2017, which started four months before Trump took office.
Money is not appropriated until congress votes on it, and the President signs it - they are usually late. The FY17 money was not appropriated (not available to spend) until May of 2017, seven months late.
“If you are claiming that Obama’s FY 2017 budget had zero dollars for fence replacement, please send me a link, because I don’t believe that.”
If you don’t know, you should not claim it as fact (its wrong). Try Google.
“I made a careful effort to distinguish between Customs and Border Patrol money - which is for replacement fence only - and Pentagon money - which is for replacement AND new fencing on un-fenced land.”
Only the 2017 appropriation had any restriction on “new” barrier. The Rio Grande Valley (most of the “new” miles), is mostly funded with CBP money (33 miles in 2018, 55 in 2019 appropriations).
““The money for this 46 miles comes from DoD Counter-Narcotics accounts”
I can’t find any reference to that.”
This guy has a spreadsheet of contract awards, which includes funding sources (https://www.trumpwall.construction/) for convenience, but I put “DoD 46 miles” into Google, and the first hit worked to find out such a basic fact. (https://www.tomudall.senate.gov/news/press-releases/udall-speaks-out-against-plans-for-46-miles-of-new-mexico-border-wall-presses-defense-department-for-answers-following-attempted-transfer-of-1-billion-in-military-personnel-funding-to-pay-for-president-trumps-wall)
“On 03 September 2019, the Secretary of Defense sent a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee that states all $3.6 billion will come from “deferred military construction projects.”
In addition, the Secretary does not even mention your 46 mile and 13 mile El Paso projects. He specifically cites a 23 mile and a 6 mile project.”
Read your own reference. Under El Paso Project 2 (Third Segment), where it says “extending 12.84 miles” - I rounded that to 13 (the first and second segments are way down in the boot heel, near Arizona and the Antelope Wells Port of Entry). The 23(.51) mile number is a total of the three segments within El Paso Project 2 - not a separate segment. The 46 miles project is not listed on that memo, because it was a separate action, using different funds (Counter-Narcotics, not Military Construction), authorized under a separate law, months earlier. In fact, it was even a different SecDef then (Shanahan), who approved the 46 mile project.
“All of Trump’s press releases talk about “new” fences.”
The Trump Administration does not agree with the Leftist word game spin (designed to mislead) that if you build new barrier, it is not new - unless there was nothing there before - and therefore is worth less somehow. It is brand new construction, where it is needed most, regardless of whether something ineffective was there before, or not.
“None of Trump’s press releases explain that Congress has only appropriated funds for replacement fences.”
That has not been true since the 2017 appropriation. The 2018 and 2019 appropriations from Congress were predominantly for so-called “new” miles, where no barrier existed before in the Rio Grande Valley Sector (FY18 - 33 miles, FY19 - 55 miles).
“Re: “The 2017 appropriations were not passed into Law until May 5, 2017.”
Re: “The President released his 2018 budget on February 27, 2017...it was formally enacted on March 23, 2018.
LOL - I think you need to clean those numbers up and get back to me.”
Those are all objective, historical facts.
First the President prepares a budget, then he submits it to Congress, and then later they enact it into law. They don’t do it on October 1st, even though they are supposed to. They have continuing resolutions, until there is finally an agreement. If the continuing resolutions expire without an agreement, we have a Government shutdown (in fact the longest Government shutdown in history was over President Trump’s fight for border wall funding).
So the President submits a budget about six or eight months before October 1st (usually on the Monday following the State of the Union Address), and Congress generally enacts the appropriations some months after October 1st. Some specific appropriations bills (there are twelve standard ones), like Defense, tend to be done earlier. This is not the first time this has happened - it has been the norm.
LOL, please see the Sesame Street episode on how a bill becomes law. Or engage your brain by verifying facts (or Google), before assuming them (or wrongfully mocking those who are correct). I have really been shocked how the majority of what you cite as facts, are incorrect.
Maybe you have been misled by Miss Coulter, whose motivation is to sell books, and be controversial enough to get booked on frequent paid media appearances.
“All 11 projects are explained in detail in my link to the Secretary’s letter - 100 miles are new fence on currently un-fenced land.”
Technically, if you want to be consistent, Secondary barrier is not on un-fenced land - the primary barrier is already there. The major 52 mile run North from the Laredo Colombia Port of Entry is really “new” - wide open land with thick vegetation, super hard to police. The construction there leads me to believe that the plan is ultimately to run basically continuous barrier from Falcon Lake South of Laredo (the biggest city on the border without significant barrier) to the Box Canyon/Amistad Reservoir North of Del Rio (which has received a major increase in traffic, shifted from elsewhere) - a couple of hundred more new miles likely to get funded in 2020 (by hook or by crook). Most of the “new” miles will be in Texas, where the river as border and extensive private landownership made barrier much more difficult in the past.
““in the pipeline” fantasies.”
It is patently obvious, that building border wall will take time, and there will necessarily be a “pipeline” of work in progress. Construction does not happen over night. Between groundbreaking and completion, time will elapse (typically years for major construction, which is why construction appropriations are valid for five years). There are also contracting actions (like bidding) required by law and the Federal Acquisition Regulation, that require contracting lead time (typically about a year for Federal construction projects).
Contracting lead time + Construction time = Pipeline.
How many miles do you believe are in these categories? (hint: around 460)
Now that the extensive up-front work of standing up offices to manage the effort, analysis, prioritization, design, specification, land acquisition, legal defense and so on have been largely accomplished, it is mainly a matter of adding enough money, to make more incremental miles real.
As they say in Federal acquisition, a vision without funding, is an hallucination. The funding is the bottom line. It is the hard tangible reality of the acquisition process - not just some hypothetical “recommendation”.
Funding for 529 miles has already been acquired. More is likely coming. Barring a Supreme Court ruling against using the $3.6 billion from Military Construction under the Emergency declaration (unlikely, given the explicit authorization in the law), 529 miles is the least we will ultimately see from President Trump’s first term.
Next year will be an election year, so all bets are off for firm predictions, but I do anticipate something on the order of hundreds of additional miles from next year’s funding - potentially enough to complete the rest of the 1,100 total miles in the Comprehensive Plan.
Congress has been plugging along in 2018 and 2019, appropriating the roughly $1.4 billion dollar annual wedge that is in the underlying ten year budget baseline. I think that is the most likely appropriation (the President has asked for much more, and Senate Republicans have penciled it in so far, but it risks being cut back in reconciliation with the House (who want to claw back funds, rather than give more).
Administrations are historically able to raise a few billion internally for their priorities and the Trump Administration has already demonstrated that it is willing and able to do so for the border wall.
“As of August 9, 2019, CBP has constructed approximately 57 miles of new border wall system since 2017.”
We started this year building at a rate of about a mile every two weeks. We are now running about two miles per week, and accelerating sharply.
The increasing pace of contract awards has more and more crews working concurrently though, increasing the rate of barrier construction.
Here is a report from yesterday on Fox News, where the Acting CBP Commissioner reports 65 miles complete: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RodO1ANqvs
He has been using that number for a few days though, so it might be closer to 66 by now.
We are ramping up toward a rate of about a mile per day (or more) by early next year.
When those 11 projects from the Military construction funds break ground (some of which are multiple segments, with potentially multiple crews working), it is going to be really hard to keep up with an accurate current tally.
The Program is now in the stage of full scale deployment, and the President’s use of extraordinary measures to secure funding, has us off to the races, building the new Trump Super Barrier, where Border Patrol needs it most.
San Diego, the biggest city on the border, will be effectively buttoned up by Christmas. By then we will be chipping into the Rio Grande Valley in earnest (five contracts have already been awarded), and even more so in Yuma, where almost the entire Yuma Sector of the Border is getting 30 foot bollards. The local effects will become quite apparent next year.
Just like the Barrier Program is ramping up quickly this year (full scale deployment phase), so too are the technology Programs. Very powerful new detection, identification and tracking capability is deploying more quickly, and more widely, than is barrier. Although only 1,100 miles are planned for barrier, every mile is planned to be persistently monitored, barrier or not.
Pretty much the entire Arizona border will be brought under persistent surveillance with just the 2019 funding for just one of the many technology Programs (Integrated Fixed Towers).