Mike Thompson

I note that the bill deletes a provision of current law that permits national party committees to raise soft money to pay for their office buildings. Can the sponsors discuss the intent of the law concerning the raising of non-Federal…

Section 213 of the bill allows the political parties to choose to make either coordinated expenditures or independent expenditures on behalf of each of their candidates, but not both. This choice is to be made after the party nominates its…

I believe this would be the wrong approach. As we have heard many times tonight, just a year ago the administration predicted Congress would be able to operate under the Federal debt limit for the next 7 years. Now we are being asked for a…

I am introducing today the Presidential Appointments Improvement Act of 2001 on behalf of myself and Senator Lieberman, and Senators Akaka, Durbin, Lugar, and Voinovich. This proposal reflects multiple recommendations made by the many…

I'd like to bring to the attention of the Senate an important information technology program. The Defense Personnel Records Imaging System (DPRIS) is the follow-on records management system needed to process, store, and distribute military…

No, I think you can assume in most cases, if you are talking about that very small part of the economy that has to do with unemployment benefits, that those checks probably are spent. My concern, I suppose, is that if you expand that…

I think the difference has to do with short term versus long term. The history I have read on the subject concerning a concerted effort by the Government, with Federal spending programs over a period of time-- whether it be the United…

The mission of the Hacia la Seguridad project is to increase transparency throughout Ecuador's legal system as a means of promoting bureaucratic and judicial accountability, effective governance and law enforcement, and improved access to…

The attacks of September 11 demonstrated that we had not done all we could to prevent or mitigate them. But even these events weren't necessary to show us that. We have known for some time that airport security was less than acceptable…

tonight I will vote to support our efforts to stop terrorism. This is going to be a difficult vote for me. Since early in 1970, when I stepped off an airplane in Vietnam and joined my infantry unit, it has been my dream and it has been my…

we meet here today to express our outrage even though words cannot express the sorrow and anger that fills our hearts. But we must express these feelings--on behalf of the family and friends of thousands of innocent victims, many whose…

it took only a matter of minutes to forever change our nation. The worst fears of a free society have come true, and we will live with both the physical as well as the emotional scars from this tragedy for years to come. Today is a day for…

First of all, on the deemed export issue, we have had concerns on this side that the legislation did not adequately address the problem of deemed exports. As most who follow this issue know, a deemed export comes about when, in a typical…

I still must respectfully oppose this bill. This bill is going to pass by a large margin. I understand that. The business community is strongly behind it. The administration supports it. The majority of both sides of the aisle support it…

this has to do with commodity classification. We have had some concern that when people in the business of exporting items come into the Department of Commerce and they get a different classification for a commodity--in other words…

one final note. We have had some discussion in this Chamber concerning the possibility of an amendment that would create a so-called blue ribbon commission to address additional concerns as to how our export policies might be affecting…

I do not think we want to belabor the matter any more than necessary. I must say, we have had some very good discussions this morning on both sides of export administration in this country. We are still talking, and we may be able to come…

Foreign availability, one might say, was in the 1979 act, but foreign availability has been greatly expanded in this act. In the 1979 act, foreign availability was allowed to be considered as one of several factors in determining whether…

Will the Senator agree the issue is whether or not it is good policy to require the Secretary to cut off an end user, if postshipment verification is not allowed, but would give the Secretary discretion to cut off or not cut off a country…

I certainly will, and I express appreciation to the leadership for allowing us to do this unfettered and unhassled because I know the Senator wants to finish and move on to other things. We have accomplished a couple of different things in…

It seems to me what we are getting down to is that if a foreign availability determination has been made, the President has the discretion of operating under 211, going through the notice requirements, going through the consultation…

That gets to my second point, if I may. I go back to my original question. If that is the case, then why is the section under 212--the set-aside that has to do with the President's actions in the case of set-aside, which has to do with…

I have heard it referred to again that the agencies apparently do not want this, and it may be politically incorrect for me to say this, but it is quite obvious the administration has passed the word they want this bill passed without…

This amendment provides additional exceptions from acquired time periods for processing license applications if the reviewing agency requires more time due to the complexity of the analysis or if the reviewing agency requires additional…

I see what the Senator is saying. If you are assuming that the determination made by the Secretary of foreign availability and the President's decision to set that aside were made simultaneously, I am wondering whether or not there could…