Rob Bishop: “As is customary for this conference report, this is a closed rule which provides for the consideration of the conference…”

“As is customary for this conference report, this is a closed rule which provides for the consideration of the conference report to accompany H.R. 4310, the Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013, and provides 1 hour of general debate, with 30 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking minority member of the House Armed Services Committee. I'm actually pleased to stand before the House today in support of the rule as well as the underlying legislation, which was H.R. 4310, and the conference report that accompanies the Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013. I also have to, at the beginning, thank the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Mr. McKeon, for his hard work and his steady leadership on this bill, as well as the ranking member, Mr. Smith of Washington, for continuing the time-honored tradition of close cooperation and bipartisanship when it comes to defense and producing this conference report. I also thank the professional staff, which has worked closely together on literally hundreds of very difficult and often very technical issues and has done so cooperatively in an extremely responsible manner. I'm very proud that the Armed Services Committee produced a bill in a very bipartisan manner. I'm proud of the floor of the House who voted and passed, in a bipartisan way, this bill back in May. The Senate has finally decided to pass the bill in December. That the Senate has passed a bill is commendable.…”