WASHINGTON – Congresswoman Renee Ellmers (R-NC-02) released the following statement from her office in Washington this afternoon:

"I commend Secretary Hagel for acting on the urgent requests made by myself and my colleagues to end the unjustified furloughs of civilian defense employees. Fort Bragg employees across my district have been suffering due to the political games being played in Washington and I am grateful to the Defense Department for taking my letter seriously and acting immediately to allow employees to return to work on Monday."

"As I have said throughout this crisis, I came to Washington to shutdown Obamacare, not the federal government. Here in the House, we passed a bill nearly a week ago to provide payment to our troops AND civilian defense employees prior to the government shutdown when it was becoming evident that Senator Harry Reid was not going to work with us.This was signed into law by President Obama and has been in effect since Monday. Yet until this afternoon, the administration refused to enforce it."

"I have been fighting against this shutdown every day and will continue to work to ensure that President Obama and Senator Reid come to the negotiating table and work with us to provide a reasonable solution to this that ensures we act responsibly for all Americans."

This afternoon, Secretary of Defense Hagel announced that he would order back to work over 400,000 defense employees who were furloughed due to the shutdown. The Wall Street Journal reported:

Soon after the shutdown took effect, President Barack Obama signed a law ensuring that the 1.4 million active-duty service members around the world, including troops in Afghanistan, would continue to get paid. The law also allows the Defense Department to recall civilians and contractors supporting the active-duty forces.

Lawmakers from both parties aggressively lobbied Mr. Hagel to embrace a broad interpretation of the law to bring back defense workers and contractors—especially those working in their own states.

Click here to view the letter Congresswoman Ellmers sent to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel yesterday to demand action on Fort Bragg employees who have been furloughed in spite of law allowing them to continue working.

Click here to read yesterday's article in the Fayetteville Observer on Congresswoman Ellmers' fight to get Fort Bragg employees paid and working during the shutdown.

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