Jim Inhofe: “in an effort to try to get this bill through, which America desperately needs now, I had about 16 amendments on which I…”

“in an effort to try to get this bill through, which America desperately needs now, I had about 16 amendments on which I worked out arrangements and understandings with other people so that I am down to only three amendments. Of these three amendments, as was suggested by the Senator from Michigan, one is without controversy, I thought, until about 5 minutes ago. My understanding is one Republican Senator is going to object to it. That being the case, we will have to have a rollcall on that amendment. I would like to explain that amendment and hopefully that one Senator would be available and tell us if she is not going to object to it. Mr. President, for quite a number of years we have had a debate, when we do our defense authorization bills, on an issue that is in place in order to keep an internal ability to handle depot maintenance in areas where it might be considered to be core maintenance; in other words, areas where it is necessary to have that ability in order to fight a war. The concern has been this: With the decreasing number of defense contractors and the decreasing number of people who are able to perform certain maintenance functions, if we are in a war, we would not want to be held hostage by a single contractor who would be able to keep us from being able to do it internally.”