Industry, commerce, and security are the surest roads to the happiness and prosperity of our people.

We are there to make sure that freedom of navigation is maintained and to advocate for the rules-based order.

We agree 100 percent. And as the Secretary said in his opening statement, you can recruit a sailor, but you are going to retain a family, and a lot of those decisions are going to be made based on childcare.

About 67 percent of our economy is directly tied to the seas, and about one-third of the world's trade flows through the South China Sea.

China has taken a bit of a different approach, unilaterally constructing a series of islands and then militarizing those islands.

If there is one word I think that describes the major takeaway, it's 'stability.'

I strongly request that the Congress act to correct this most painful problem.

As the Secretary of Defense has said, we will continue to fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows, including in the Arctic region, to protect the U.S. national security interest in preserving global mobility.

Why can't we build the solar panels? Why can't we build the components of the wind turbines going up?

It just doesn't make sense to have our entire economy based on one thing that is subject to these boom-and-bust cycles.

even if the Defense Department receives the additional $38 billion above the budget caps... our military would still remain at the lower ragged edge of manageable risk.

the Defense Department has grown larger but less capable, more complex but less innovative.

the self-inflicted wounds of the Budget Control Act and sequestration-level defense spending have made all of these problems worse.

continued sequestration-level defense spending puts American lives at greater risk.

So the patent trolls are living under the bridge to tomorrow, and as we are trying to progress and move forward, they are slapping duct tape over our face.

The train is coming around the bend. It gives us more opportunity for common sense dialogue about what we can do to really address the core issues that are going to raise employer costs and make it harder to create jobs and bring…