EGLIN AFB — Money programmed — but not yet allocated — to two construction projects planned for Eglin Air Force Base could be steered to construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall under terms of President Donald Trump's declaration of a national emergency.

U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., whose Northwest Florida district includes Eglin AFB, confirmed Monday that a proposed $34.9 million outlay for an F-35A training center, and a proposed $28 million outlay for an F-35A student dormitory, are part of the $3.6 billion in military construction funding that Trump could tap for construction of the border wall. The F-35A is the Air Force version of the fifth-generation F-35 stealth fighter jet. Eglin serves as the testing center for the F-35, and it also trains F-35 pilots and maintenance personnel from the U.S. military services and partner nations.

"We may have to wait on those" two facilities, said Gaetz, who worked to have both projects included in the National Defense Authorization Act, the military spending and policy bill for the current fiscal year, which runs through Sept. 30.

"We need those facilities," Gaetz said, but he added that even without them, "we are able to execute the mission" of F-35 training at Eglin AFB.

President Trump declared the national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border after Congress reached a compromise spending plan, aimed at avoiding a second government shutdown for the current fiscal year, that included $1.4 million for fencing at the southern border. Trump had sought $5.7 billion in funding for a wall along parts of the border.

Under the emergency declaration, President Trump has access to more than $600 million in the U.S. Treasury's asset forfeiture fund and $2.5 billion in Department of Defense funding for counter-drug activities.

The president has indicated he would use that money before dipping into the proposed military construction outlays for the current fiscal year, a point noted by Gaetz in a Monday interview.

A staunch supporter of border security, Gaetz is less enthusiastic, although still supportive, of the president's declaration of a national emergency at the southern border of the United States.

"Unilateral executive action," Gaetz said, "should be a last resort. ... I don't love it, but I stand with the president."

Asked whether he would lobby the president not to use the Eglin dollars if it became necessary to use military construction funds for the wall, Gaetz said, "I think we have to see the full array of funds" that would be available for use.

"I never enjoy the hard choices that delay enhancing the military mission in Northwest Florida," the congressman said.

Other Florida military construction projects that could be affected by the president's emergency declaration are an $83 million combat ship support facility and a $39 million combat ship instructional facility at Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, along with the $3.1 million relocation of Air Force refueling tanker simulators to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.

A number of previously funded security enhancements at Eglin AFB are not affected by the emergency declaration, Gaetz said.

The emergency declaration is already facing legal challenges. On Monday, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who served as a Democratic member of Congress from 1993 to 2017, announced that a dozen states, including his own, are challenging the emergency declaration in court. NBC New confirmed that three states, New Jersey, Colorado and Connecticut, are involved in the lawsuit.

A flurry of other challenges have come from groups including legal advocacy organization Public Citizen, the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife and the Animal Legal Defense Fund, according to media reports.