I thank the gentleman from Virginia, and especially also my dear friend and colleague, the gentleman from North Carolina, as managers of this important legislation. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 6116, a bill to…

Again I cannot express enough my deepest appreciation to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) and my good friend, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble) for their management of this bill. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong…

As a Vietnam veteran, I rise in opposition to H.R. 1410. In 1967, I was deployed to Vietnam and served my country in Nha Trang. My brother also served, and has since passed away. On the matter of human rights, the U.S. cannot assume the…

I think it was somewhat dismissive of me in not realizing that what I consider to be the roll of honor, not only for Ambassador Chris Stevens, Mr. Sean Smith, Mr. Glen Doherty and Mr. Tyrone Woods should be remembered names and not just…

Primarily our number one priority is to make sure that our strategic and military interests are protected.

But why are you objecting to this inflationary index?

the principle involved here that I am concerned about, and as I have said and it has been my criticism publicly for all these years, as a matter of our basic foreign policy to this region, we have no policy.

I have been very, very disappointed, both Democratic and Republican Administrations have never really taken the Pacific Island countries of this region of the world seriously.

I am utterly disappointed, the fact that for 2 years we have been dragging this issue.

Can I get assurance from you, sir, that there is going to be no undue influence on the part of the U.S. To say that this is the way it is going to go, you are not going to get any money?

How can we be making recommendations on economic improvements or reforms the Palauans make if we can't even handle our own economy? Does that make sense?

You know what they say about the golden rule? He who has the gold makes the rule.

I appreciate your comments, but it just doesn't simply add up to what we have had to endure for the last 2 years from the Administration.

Because in exchange for this agreement we have--our relationship with Palau is significant in terms of the United States national security interest in the Pacific.

I just wish the rhetoric would match the substance in terms of how we really have been treating these island countries of this region.

Not to speculate, let me just give you a little sense of history here.

The question that we have now that we have to answer, is Palau relevant to our overall strategic and military interest right now in the Pacific?

Why are we treating Palau differently from the other two free states?