Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I stand in strong support of the Ryun amendment. This is a commonsense amendment. To quote the amendment of the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Ryun), the letter of June 8, it says his amendment simply prohibits foreign visitors from sensitive countries, and those are constituents that are such staunch U.S. allies as China, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Russia, from entering national laboratories unless the Secretary of Energy grants a waiver to individuals deemed necessary to our, the United States', national security. Frankly, given the track record of this administration, I hate to see them have the ability to grant waivers. I would love to have some language in there that said unless they have been giving to the campaign, but I do not want to go that route. I think we have already hashed that out. We know the relationships that have caused some of these breaches in security. But let us look at some of the statistics: 742 Chinese scientists visited Los Alamos National Laboratory, but only 12 were given background checks; 23 Iraqi and Iranian scientists visited the Sandia National Laboratory, none were given background checks; 1,110 Russian scientists visited Los Alamos National Laboratory, yet only 116 were given background checks. Come on. This is national security.”