Political Quotes

“First of all, I want to thank Chairman DeFazio, Ranking Member Sam Graves, Subcommittee Chair Carbajal, and Ranking Member Gibbs for their bipartisan efforts on this legislation. I want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi), my friend, for working with us to ensure that American mariners are given a level playing field, and I want to thank all Members involved for the efforts to help to bolster the Coast Guard. Mr. Speaker, the Coast Guard is often described as a Swiss Army knife. You take all the laws that are enforced on terrestrial grounds, and we effectively put all of those on the Coast Guard men and women to be carried out or enforced on America's oceans, on our seas, and our near-shore waters. This is an incredible task. Everything from maritime safety, maritime security, counter drug, alien interdiction and many, many other missions. We have got to make sure if we are going to ask them to do such a challenging task that we give them the equipment. This bill authorizes the twelfth National Security Cutter. It authorizes six of the Fast Response Cutter, the Sentinel-class vessels that are going to bring better interoperability, better offensive capabilities, faster transit speed, the ability to operate in much more adverse conditions in regard to sea state, many, many other things.…”