On the recordFebruary 10, 2015
I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to thank all of my colleagues on the committee for the hard work that has been put into this bipartisan authorization. It is not perfect by any means. There are plenty of things that, between now and the time that we see this go to the President's desk for his signature, we will continue to have input on. I look forward to working with my colleagues on the committee and our colleagues in the Senate to make sure that we get to the end point. As I have said and as Ranking Member Johnson has said as well, we look forward to working on a bipartisan, multiyear authorization. Having put this one to bed, we actually now have demonstrated to ourselves and to the American public that we have the ability to get this done. In closing, I want to thank the committee staff--Allen Li, Pam Whitney, and Dick Obermann--for all of their work and my personal staff, Anne Nelson, as well as the staff on the other side because it really did take an awful lot of staff work and Member work to see this to the finish line. I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
