Senator Thomas J. Umberg Calls on US Congress to Overturn Trump’s Misuse of Military Funding
(Sacramento, CA) – Today, Senator Thomas J. Umberg (D-Santa Ana) introduced Senate Joint Resolution 2 (SJR 2), which urges the United States Congress to stand in unity, and block President Trump’s national emergency declaration by overriding the President's veto of House Joint Resolution 46 (2019). SJR 2 also urges the President to reconsider his motives and decision and allow military, defense, and counterdrug funds to be used for the purposes for which they are needed and for which they were made available.
“We cannot stand by without calling upon the entire bi-partisan United States House of Representatives to stop this ill-conceived and unilateral action before it does real harm to Californians, our women and men in uniform, and our national security,” said Senator Umberg. “This resolution is not necessarily about the wall per se; it is about the diversion of much-needed funds from the National Drug Control Policy.”
Citing a 2019 report on National Drug Control Strategy, Senator Umberg emphasized, “We all can agree that there is an epidemic in the United States concerning opioids, their abuse, and the consequences thereof. We can all agree the President, and his experts, put together a National Drug Control Strategy. Nowhere in the president’s strategy does it mention a wall.” Umberg continued to say “This resolution (SJR 2) is about the fact that the president is going to divert funds from the National Drug Control Strategy, to another purpose. This diversion of funds is going to be harmful to Californians.”
On February 15, 2019, President Donald Trump declared an undefined national emergency, in an attempt to revert and repurpose funds already approved by Congress, to combat drug cartels and nations acting as drug cartels. The President and his officials have identified $8 billion in funding for this purpose, $7.5 billion of which is proposed to come from military construction funding, military family funding, and counter narcotic operations.
Umberg concluded, “We should send a very strong message, to Republicans and Democrats alike, that this diversion of funds is antithetical to our health and welfare, our well-being economic and otherwise, in California.”
Appropriating these funds originally intended for military construction projects and counterdrug activities in California comes at the expense of troop readiness and department wide efforts to address the military’s aging infrastructure. These funds, if not diverted, would otherwise be used to: construct and update critical infrastructure for the U.S. Naval Weapons Station in Seal Beach, construct a new hanger at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, fund a C130 flight simulator facility at the Chanel Islands Air National Guard Station in Oxnard, improve potable water distribution, update maintenance and storage facilities for military vehicles, build new combat training facilities, construct a shooting range complex, and build a close combat training facility located at the Navy SEAL Campus in Coronado, California. The funds would also be used to update runways and landing pads at the Naval Air Station in Lemoore, renovate a Defense Distribution Depot located in Tracy, remove lead paint and update hazardous living conditions in service members' homes statewide, and update hospitals that treat wounded soldiers.
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Senator Thomas Umberg represents the 34th Senate District 34 which includes the cities of Anaheim, Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, Garden Grove, Long Beach, Los Alamitos, Midway City, Orange, Santa Ana, Seal Beach, and Westminster. Umberg is a retired U.S. Army Colonel, former federal prosecutor, and small businessman. He and his wife, Brigadier General Robin Umberg, USA (ret.), live in Orange County.