with the chairman's permission, I would like to speak on the Defense bill. Mr. President, I wish to thank Chairman Levin. I wish to thank Senator McCain. I wish to thank the entire Armed Services Committee and all the dedicated staff for…

I would ask consent that the Defense fellow in my office, MAJ John Flynn, be granted floor privileges for the duration of S. 1867, the Defense authorization bill. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: S. 1916 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of…

From your perspective, the commercial approach, such as used by companies as SpaceX and Orbital, and now Boeing is in that competition as well, versus the government approach to launch vehicle development--describe for us the differences…

What it does is, it funds two lines of rockets in parallel.

I just want to underscore what you all said, because a lot of people miss the significance of this in all the detail.

And the Congress has spoken with regard to the direction.

NASA has come out very well.

I think if we put the work into it on the front end, firmly define our requirements, as Director Coats has said, we will be able to get to an answer that provides the vehicle that we need, with the proper insight, and is safe, and allows…

In this budget that Senator Hutchison and Senator Mikulski passed, that for the modernizations, for you to re-do the ground facilities to accommodate these new rockets, plus the 21st century, you're looking at funds available up to $484…

And I hope that this message is getting back to Jack Lew down at OMB.

That is good news, a good positive direction.