Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise to further discuss the fiscal year 2021 national defense authorization bill. Senator Inhofe will be speaking later today on the bill, and I again want to thank him for his leadership and bipartisanship throughout the drafting of this very important legislation. As I noted last week, the Committee on Armed Services adopted this bill with the strong bipartisan support of 25 to 2. I am hopeful that we can have a productive consideration of this bill on the floor this week, with votes on amendments and packages of cleared amendments, so that we can conduct further efforts to improve and amend this legislation. The bill authorizes $662.3 billion in base funding for the Department of Defense and Energy's nuclear programs and an additional $69 billion for overseas contingency operations, which align with the caps established in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019. I want to applaud the chairman for providing the Department with the resources it needs while remaining within the constraints we set under the Budget Control Act. The bill before us will provide much needed stability and predictability to the Department of Defense. For the Army, the bill supports many modernization objectives, including critical priorities such as Long Range Precision Fires and the Future Vertical Lift Program. It also fully funds critical legacy platforms such as the M1 Abrams tank that the Army needs until new systems are fielded in the future.…”