I rise this afternoon to say a few words about a critical challenge and opportunity facing the United States. For months many of us have been on the floor debating some of the important foreign policy and national security issues that our…

listening to the last two speakers, I am reminded what a privilege and honor it is to be able to serve in the Senate alongside great Americans--the President pro tempore, the Senator from Utah, and the Senator from Arizona, John McCain…

I rise to express my deep disappointment that what has transpired at the end of everything we debated with regard to the Iran deal is that we have chosen, as a body--a minority of this body--to filibuster the Iran agreement. For…

All I am saying, Administrator, is your agency has, on a number of occasions, according to this article, criminally charged people for accidental spills, and some have gone to jail on spills smaller than what you just described.

If you think that the EPA should be held to the same standards as private sector companies or a higher standard, do you think anyone from the EPA should be held criminally liable or go to jail for what happened?

Do you believe that agencies like the EPA should be subject to the same transparency in reporting requirements that the public is?

I think you need to reread these cases, because that is exactly what the Supreme Court said.

I know it is not EPA's responsibility, but on BLM land, we have wells that are still leaking oil right now.

Let me talk more broadly. I am assuming you also believe the EPA should be following the law like the private sector and U.S. citizens have to do, correct?

These are just three instances in the last year and a half, two Supreme Court cases where the EPA has either violated the Constitution, the Clean Water Act or the Clean Air Act.

we also believe that the Government should be held to the same standards as it requires of the public and the private sector.

I rise to add my voice for the bipartisan disapproval of the President's nuclear agreement with Iran that we have been debating all week and that we will continue to debate. I do so in the spirit that resulted in 83 U.S. Senators from both…

I can tell you my team and the members in this congressional delegation, Senator Murkowski and Congressman Young, will not rest until, working together, we get to a better place.

It is because of its one-size-fits-all design that the implementation of the Choice Act in Alaska has been nothing less than an unmitigated failure for our veterans.

The Choice Act is not working. TriWest and the VA are not communicating at all.

It is accountability for TriWest. It is accountability from the VA. It is accountability from Congress.

We are trying to bring Washington, DC, to Alaska.

America's veterans have lost faith in the VA.

We are here for a simple reason: to bring together key players responsible for delivering health care and benefits for Alaska's veterans so they can fix a problem, a big problem for our State, the implementation of the Choice Act, which is…

What we need are answers.

As a Nation, we wrote the check when we sent them to war, and now it is incumbent on all of us to honor that agreement and their service.

This is completely unacceptable.

But I do not think they are choosing.

I did not think the Federal Government could require if the State of Alaska is building the road, do we have to mitigate that under the Federal rules?

Pretty tough words are used when we hear whether it is from Wainwright or Nuiqsut or Craig or the folks at Great Northwest. But the word is extortion.