C. W. Bill Young: “the author of the amendment has suggested all the things that we can do under his amendment. But there are some things…”

“the author of the amendment has suggested all the things that we can do under his amendment. But there are some things that we cannot do. We restrict the ability under this amendment to move into some types of technology that really look like they might be very promising and very clean and very efficient. I would give the example, the U.S.-Israeli program referred to as Nautilus, a laser program missile defense program. It seems to have a tremendous amount of promise, and we are funding it in this bill. Except for the range involved, it is not unlike the type of laser that we might be talking about. The point is that may or may not be the system that we would deploy eventually. But we should not deny ourselves the opportunity to investigate, to search out, to find out what really would be the best way to defend our Nation against a rogue attack or in the future, who knows, against an intentional attack. We know the threat is growing. The point is that we do not have the ability to defend this Nation against an incoming missile.”