Political Quotes

“I rise to bring up an issue which I brought up earlier last week and which I continue to fight, and that is that the U.S. Navy has done it again. The day before yesterday I was informed that yet another U.S. naval vessel, the USNS Kiluea, is going to be sent to a South Korean shipyard for scheduled maintenance. The USNS Kiluea is one of several U.S. flagged Navy vessels that transport ammunition to our surface fleet, and recently the USNS was stationed with U.S. forces operating in and around the peacekeeping mission in East Timor. Several weeks ago, the Navy and the Military Sealift Command issued a Far East request for proposal seeking bids for ship repair work on the USNS Kiluea. To the surprise of no one, the bid that won was a foreign shipyard because it can dramatically underbid U.S. shipyards. And so once again, Mr. Speaker, the U.S. Navy and MSC is spending U.S. tax dollars to repair American naval vessels with foreign workers in a foreign land. Incredibly, it seems that the U.S. military is bent on spending precious tax dollars in Japan, Korea, or Singapore to keep their shipyards operating and their workers employed but will not lift a hand for U.S. workers. That is the outrageous facts. Many of these vessels are entitled U.S. Navy ships.…”