this is a very serious process, and this process did not start here. It started in the battlefield in Afghanistan and in the fleet and in the expeditionary marine units that are engaged in war in a remote part of the world right now on…

what we do have is $15.7 billion for DOD. That is $1.7 billion over the President's request. If the gentleman is suggesting that supplemental appropriations bills that come to this floor should never be passed if they have anything…

The problem here is we are not dealing with the amendment as the gentleman from Massachusetts would rewrite it. We are dealing with the amendment as it is written, because that is the amendment that is going to be dealt with by DOD…

Mr. Speaker, there is no plan, no funding, no blueprint to use nuclear-tipped interceptors. In fact, we do not have them. We used to, and we disassembled them. But the Soviet Union, now Russia, does indeed have them; and we are doing…

My colleagues, we are in space. We are in space in a way that is inextricably linked with not only our missile defense system but almost all of our systems. If we take a look at the architecture for our space systems, we have in space…

Just to conclude, Mr. Chairman, this is a three-sentence amendment. When it takes a colloquy to explain what a three-sentence amendment means, we know we are in trouble. This amendment, as it is written, would freeze our present programs…

I also wanted to talk for just a minute about an area that I think is pretty important to all of us from an environmental standpoint and also from a security standpoint, and that is our reserve fleet of ships, many of which are in very bad…

I think it is clear now that as we enter this new century that we entered with such great optimism a few months ago that this century is going to be as dangerous as the last one in which we lost 619,000 Americans killed in battlefields…

I just wanted to follow the minority leader's comments with the observation that we are in a war right now. We have people on the battlefield whose survival depends on good training. At many of our training bases around the United States…

We have moved from the era of confrontation with the former Soviet Union to what I would call the era of engagement, and the engagement needs to be pursued in a number of areas. A couple of areas that are very important to this Member, and…

let me just say that there has been a policy among a number of nations in the Western democracies, including our allies, that would respond to chemical or biological attack with nuclear systems. We have never foreclosed that.

Mr. Chairman, we are in this amendment proposing to kill what could be the centerpiece of a certain deterrent capability that is important to us. We want to send a message to anybody who would strike America, whether on a conventional…

I support the Issa amendment, which would make excepted employees of INS employees and give them, I think, more accountability in a very, very serious and very critical position.

this is the first day of the Masters, one of the most prestigious sports events in our Nation and, indeed, the world. And I rise today to commemorate the fact that for only the second time in 45 years, one of the great golfers of this…

If we look across the array of defense requirements, what our men and women in uniform need in terms of ammunition, spare parts, equipment, pay, this budget starts to turn the corner from what I call the Clinton era. If we look…

I, as all my colleagues know, do not like Fast Track, I do not like free trade. But I like less the idea of weakening this President in this time of great national emergency. For that reason, this time, this once, I am voting yes.

I hope that this is the start of a bipartisan effort to put together a defense bill in the coming year which is adequate to serve our country's needs. Let me just tell my colleagues that from my perspective, and I heard the gentleman from…

Another thing has happened since September 11, and that is a lot of Americans realize there are people in the world who do not care about mutual assured destruction; and there are people who have technology, who understand how to leverage…

You are probably right; he probably did. We have all seen that the great thing about great Republican Presidents is you continue to love them even when their bureaucracy sometimes does not measure up to their measure of goodness. I think…

That is true. I think one reason Bob was so helpful on aerospace issues and on military issues and was so good to this House and such a leader in the House is that Bob Dornan loved and appreciated American air power. Somebody mentioned the…

That is true. Bob Dornan, I think, went to more States for George Bush than anybody else.

It did not just happen. It is a function of a lot of great expertise, leadership and technology, and guys in the House of Representatives like Bob Dornan. Bob was one of a kind in supporting that continued superiority of air power. You…

There is one other area that Bob was very concerned about, and I think most Americans today, especially in the wake of the September 11 attacks are concerned, and that is the problem that we have, and the problem is that we have no defense…

We just had an attack by people who did not care about mutually assured destruction.

That is the offering that George Bush, President Bush, is making to the American people with this defense budget. He is requesting the dollars to expand our missile testing range, which presently is in the Pacific. We fire our missiles…