This seems to me to be a priority going forward, given the experience we have had with cost overruns and given how many elements that this committee is trying to juggle. The demands on the committee, I think, are remarkable. It is not a…

I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy and his leadership on this, and I think he laid it out very clearly. This is an imaginary problem, but it is an area that actually needs to have some attention to it. He referenced recent problems in…

One of the great tragedies of our time is our failure to adequately deal with the needs of our veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan. We sent over 2 million brave men and women to fight under very difficult circumstances, to…

I wanted to refer back to an amendment that was in the previous en bloc that dealt with the special immigrant visas. I want to express my appreciation to the committee, the chairman, the ranking member, and to the staff. This is a…

I listened to the frustration of the chairman describing the process, and I sympathize with that. I have sat and admitted that this committee has one of the most difficult tasks, because as long as we are sort of unhinged here from the…

I am prepared to close. I am going to close when you have exhausted your speakers.

I have an amendment at the desk. The CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment. The text of the amendment is as follows: At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the following: Sec. __. None of the funds made available…

How much time remains? The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Rhode Island has 2 minutes remaining.

I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy in permitting me to speak on the en bloc amendment, and I appreciate the committee having accepted the amendment dealing with cost accountability for the B-21 bomber. This is a new weapon that has both…

There is nobody who I have more respect for than my friend, the chairman of the subcommittee. But I take modest exception. This amendment does not dictate treatment options. It is not interfering, it is not superimposing anybody's judgment…

I suggest this is the least-effective part of our overall defense inventory. I would hope that, in the future, when maybe we have a new administration willing to turn a page, when we have a Congress that is willing to entertain a broad and…

For over the last decade, I have been working with a bipartisan group to deal with helping some of the foreign nationals in Afghanistan who helped Americans' mission be able to escape the tender mercies of the Taliban and others with long…

I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy, and I strongly support everything he just said. We are in a situation today where we have a massive epidemic of opioid abuse. We are prescribing it in unimaginable volumes, and many times people are…

I hope this is a first step for us to have a systematic effort at the Federal level to be able to support these important programs to keep it out of the medicine cabinets and out of the sewer systems. I have introduced legislation that…

There is a major front on the war on drugs that is only now getting the attention it deserves. We will be discussing it later today on the floor dealing with opioid addiction. Instead of arresting or citing over 600,000 people for…

The compromise that was struck, and one that I thought was healthy, was to provide bonuses based on performance.

I appreciate that part of this is process and part of it is performance.

I personally have found the charade we went through for some 17 years kind of embarrassing, dancing away from an event we know nobody had any expectation should happen.

Last week I had the opportunity to be an official observer at the United Nations as they had a special meeting dealing with the international war on drugs. Much has happened since President Clinton addressed the Global Drug Summit at the…

Today is primary day in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast States, the so-called Acela Primary, the five States all served by Amtrak. Fortunately, we are going to get a break, briefly, from a primary season that is truly cringe-worthy. But for…

In reclaiming my time, if I may reframe the question, because I am not trying to trick the gentleman. I want to know what the impact would be on 7.3 million people if there were no money available to implement the Affordable Care Act. I…

I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy. Mr. Speaker, I like the notion of accountability. It is true that we are up for election every other year, and I am sure that my friend from North Carolina has a system in his office to make sure that…

In reclaiming my time, I would appreciate the gentleman, on his own time, elaborating on this, and the gentleman is not answering. What would be the impact, as the gentleman said in his opening statement, if the money were not allocated to…

I hope that there is an opportunity here for us to take a hard look at some of the issues surrounding the Republican assault on the IRS. We have documented that they have dramatically cut not just the resources, but the ability of people…

I enjoyed listening to my friend from Michigan, and I would just say why shouldn't we lead by example here in Congress, to whom much has been given? Shouldn't we have the credibility? I would have supported this bill in Ways and Means…