TUCSON, Ariz. — Funding for a Ft. Huachuca project that was diverted to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border was not included in a defense spending package passed by Congress this week.
The planned ground transport equipment building was scheduled to receive $30 million to begin construction next year. But in February, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to divert military funding to pay for the wall after Congress refused to pay for it.
Sen. Martha McSally says the Ft. Huachuca project was already stalled for "unforeseen environmental issues at the construction site," and that she's received assurances the project will be funded in the next fiscal year.
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"The Senate voted in a landslide bipartisan way (86 – 8) to fund affected military construction projects in this year’s defense bill," McSally said in a statement Thursday. "Now, Democrats are refusing to fully fund these military construction projects due to political games around border security. Shame on them."
Democratic Senate candidate Mark Kelly, who is running against McSally in 2020, says McSally has made the project's future uncertain.
“Senator McSally made promises she couldn’t keep and put funding for Arizona’s military bases on the chopping block, instead of putting our state first," Kelly said in a statement released Tuesday.
The spending bill does include hundreds of millions of federal dollars for bases across Arizona, including $132 million for the A-10 based at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson.
