Skip is a native Floridian. He is a graduate with high honors of the University of Florida and the University of Florida Law School.

He has been extremely involved in our community, and later after Mel came to the Senate, Skip came up here and gave 6 months of his life as Mel's general counsel here in the Senate office.

I want to give some special note to the staff that is seated behind you because they are the ones that go through all of the laborious tasks.

for years, I have fought to keep oil rigs off the coast of Florida--both in federal waters and Cuban waters. As we've seen, an oil spill even hundreds of miles away from Florida can send the black stuff onto our beaches and close our…

On August 21, 1944, laden with precious cargo for the Pacific theatre, the USS Mount Hood, the lead ship of her class for the U.S. Navy, departed Norfolk on her first mission. On board were 296 sailors and 22 officers. The USS Mount Hood…

I have been a strong proponent of benchmarks with metric measurements for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I would hope that we would do so, recognizing that from that point forward, that we would expect the Iraqi Government to pick up a bigger share of the cost that we would incur.

But if we are in a position to where we are requested and we make the decision to continue some relationship there, would it be possible to look at that from the standpoint of the budget?

I would hope that we would make that a part of the negotiations because that is what we would have to do.

A major argument for the new tanker that has been described is the 1960s vintage KC-135 airframes are wearing out.

Let me add my appreciation for your service, and all the men and women wearing the Air Force blue, supporting all the efforts around the world.

I hope that as we do that, we will continue to find a way to do it, obviously, as efficiently and as cost effectively as possible but not be short on personnel simply because we may end up with fewer pilots.