As every Member of this Committee knows full well, one of the most complex challenges facing this Committee and Congress over the next several years will be the growing backlog of veterans disability claim appeals.

the failure of some of the GCC countries to engage more directly in the threat that we believe that the Islamic states pose.

I urge the Committee to support this simple measure which will provide some immediate help to relieve the crisis.

Actually, that is not what I have understood from people who are dealing with the refugee challenges as a result of Syria.

I just wanted to go back to a statement that one of you made about the GCC countries and their complete opposition to Assad continuing in his position.

I think the confusion and where it gets very difficult is in Syria, where we talk about the GCC as if it were one entity.

As a matter of basic fairness to our Nation's veterans, we have got to do better.

I would be all for taking the backlog of funding and putting it into LWCF. I think my colleague raises some real reforms that could be made to LWCF. In fact, there is legislation in the comprehensive energy bill that Senators Murkowski and…

for 50 years the Land and Water Conservation Fund has done amazing work protecting our land, waterways, forests, State parks, and critical wildlife habitats. This is particularly true in New Hampshire, where since 1965 LWCF has funded more…

I have been in a lot of airports where people feel like efficiency is also important.

I would just like to for the record acknowledge that we just had a very big visit in this country from the Pope.

The results from those tests were so concerning that the inspector general halted the audit before it was completed.