On the recordJuly 19, 2012
I rise to engage in a colloquy with my colleagues and good friends, a member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, Mr. Frelinghuysen, and the ranking member of the subcommittee, Mr. Dicks. First of all, I'd like to thank the chairman and the ranking member for their hard work on this very important legislation. Their efforts to strengthen our national defense and support our men and women in uniform have been tireless, and they truly should be commended. Moreover, I'm very pleased that they make key investments in areas of great interest and concern to me, the first of which is the Virginia class submarine, as well as cybersecurity. I believe that our technological edge is critical to ensuring that our warfighters not only can do what we ask them to do in the future, but can do so as safely and efficiently as possible. In addition to the Virginia class submarine and cybersecurity, no family of technologies shows as much promise to this end as directed-energy weapons. With that, I would yield to the gentleman.
