Funding could be threatened with ‘national emergency’
Representative Sean Patrick Maloney is cautioning that a national emergency declaration could threaten $252 million worth of funding already allocated for construction projects at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
“A national emergency declaration would allow the president to raid funds from the military construction budget to pay for his proposed wall along the border with Mexico,” Maloney said this week. “The president noted in an interview recently that he may announce an emergency declaration during the State of the Union. Threatened projects at West Point include a state of the art engineering facility, the West Point Cemetery, a water treatment plant, and a parking structure.”
Maloney released that statement on Monday afternoon. At a ‘Speak with Sean’ session in Highland Falls a week earlier, he alluded to his concern about West Point funds being pulled.
“It doesn’t matter if you support building a wall or not — we can’t steal funding from the next generation of military leaders to do it”
Representative Sean Patrick Maloney
“We set money aside to pay for projects like the engineering center and getting clean water for our cadets — not a wall. Congress has the power of the purse and we make the calls on where money is going. It would be incredibly irresponsible of the president to exceed his authority and raid other funding which was set aside by Congress because of a contrived national emergency.”
The funds the president could pull are ‘unobligated’ in the military construction budget, Maloney said. Unobligated means approved in West Point’s budget, but no contracts have been awarded for the work.
Maloney said projects that could be affected are:
$95,000,000 for an Engineering Center: Funding will be used to support the work of the Military Academy’s Center for Innovation and Engineering. This will allow the cadets greater access to project based learning, a unique aspect of the USMA chemical and manufacturing engineering curriculum.
$22,000,000 for the West Point Cemetery: Allocated as part of a larger effort to expand the number of burial plots available at the West Point Cemetery. The project will develop the Old PX Gas Station into burial grounds that will accommodate official government upright headstones.
$70,000,000 for the Water Treatment Plant: Funding will allow the construction of a new wastewater treatment plant on campus. This will play a large role in the general modernization of West Point.
$65,000,000 for a new parking structure: To build a new parking garage in the central post area of campus. This will allow more visitors to park in the central area of campus and allow more cadet parking.
