Political Quotes

“I rise because we have passed the 13th conference report on the 13 appropriations bills. As we prepare to return to our home States, everyone here in the Chamber and everyone in the Senate can find some aspect of the conference report on Defense to which to object. In the end, what we have to do is consider the work as a whole--as a complete body of work--and make our judgments on it as not any one single item or issue but the whole notion of how we protect our Nation's interests across the globe. On that, this measure deserves my support, and has gotten my support, and obviously the support of a majority of our colleagues. As we dispose of the conference report on the Defense appropriations bill, I regret that we leave behind other issues involving security for our country at home. I want to mention those today. I hope before we adjourn at the end of this day, we will have had the opportunity to bring to this floor several measures that will be brought up by unanimous consent, and I hope with no objection. One of those deals with the security of our ports. As it turns out, for the hundreds of ports across and around our Nation where ships travel in and out of them every single week, the security we provide for those ports and for the people who live in the areas around those ports is inadequate. The opportunity for someone to bring terrorist devices into our ports and into heavily populated areas possibly is very real.”