On the recordJune 10, 2015
I rise today to support the underlying bill we are talking about on the floor, which is the Defense authorization bill. At a time of a rapidly deteriorating security environment around the world, we need to modify our policies. From the violence in Iraq and Syria to China's aggressive land reclamation in the South China Sea to Russia's activities on the eastern border of Ukraine as we speak here today--all of this is going on. We live in a world that is a lot less safe and less friendly to U.S. interests. Every day we see more of this. Frankly, it is time for us here in the Senate to help by changing some of our policy approaches to address this changing and more dangerous situation we see around the world. I would hope we can do this on a bipartisan basis. Our differences with regard to other issues tend to be more pronounced, but with regard to national security, normally we come together. I am concerned with what I am hearing, at least from some of the debate I have heard on the floor, where it sounds as though some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle would like to actually shut down this debate and not have a debate on some of these amendments and not have some votes on some of these amendments and not have a vote on this bill to try to adjust our national security posture so that we can address these new challenges around the world. It doesn't mean that everything that this side of the aisle wants to do would be accepted.…
