Kelly Ayotte

I just have one final question for you, Admiral Smith. One of the issues that I had focused on as well is our servicemembers and our DOD civilians, you know, the jobs that they are doing--is ensuring that they have access to good…

This is a real issue for us, and I really appreciate your coming forward and testifying.

I appreciate your February 11 response, and I appreciate that you took the time to visit the facility.

Thank you for your leadership and all that you have done for the country, for the Navy, and we are so grateful for the sacrifices and service of you and your family.

I wanted to follow up--I--on the maintenance issue that was raised earlier.

My sense is that naval shipyard dry-dock capacity is substantially inadequate to serve the future life-cycle depot-level maintenance needs of the U.S. Navy fleet.

I know today, in fact, every Senator who is representing a public shipyard is supporting legislation that I have introduced.

I would say that this is one where I really am concerned that we're not keeping faith with them, if they have deployed multiple times and we're going to give them an involuntary separation.

I want to thank Senator Booker, because he has been very focused on this issue and making sure that we continue to reform our framework for handling UAS to spur innovation while also we need to make sure that we protect safety and privacy.

He told me that he is concerned that, in fact, criminality, terrorists, and returning foreign fighters are, clearly, a daily part of the refugee flow now.

the sanctions the administration did put in place... are having absolutely no impact, given that they are now continuing to test ballistic missiles.

I think it would be helpful for us to understand the fentanyl numbers, too, and whether those have increased along with heroin.

Well, I appreciate it, and I'm glad to hear that you also have thought of a strategy for the smaller ports so that we can get some of that support.

Essentially, what it would do is require an assessment of the current state of the border between Canada and the United States--and, to me, that makes sense as we look at resources.

We have got to get that immediately. You cannot afford it, right, so we have got to----

if you are out of business, then we no longer have our fishermen.

I very much thank the Senator from Rhode Island for the work that we were able to do together on this important legislation, for his leadership, and, really, his passion for this issue that is devastating my State--the heroin and opioid…

I see our fishermen also trying to take on new creative ways, obviously, to market fish and different species.

I certainly share Senator Shaheen's concerns and am so glad that this hearing is happening today.

I have said before, but having our small fishermen--it is iconic.

they are violating the intent of Congress to pay for the at sea monitoring

we do not want to put this fee on our fishermen because we do not want them to go out of business

NOAA is not following through on it

this is something that I think is a great tradition that is being devastated, basically eliminated.

what has happened, essentially, is that the catch share rules and the dramatic increases--cod is a prime example of this--have put our fishermen in such a difficult position where they cannot make a living.