Tim Kaine: “we are currently in consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act, and the leadership is working out a timing…”

“we are currently in consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act, and the leadership is working out a timing agreement for a vote possibly on one or more amendments and then a vote on the NDAA. The Defense bill is the most important thing I work on every year as a member of the Armed Services Committee, and I think the Defense bill that our Armed Services Committee did with strong bipartisan support is a very strong one. The timing isn't to my liking, that it took so long to reach an agreement with the House. But it is what it is. The Defense bill is strong. We are likely to have a vote on an amendment tomorrow offered by my friend and colleague Joe Manchin dealing with permitting reform, and I wanted to stand on the floor to express my objection not to the topic and even not to much of the substance but to one particular provision that I think is horrible policy and I think will cause me to oppose the amendment. Do we need to do permitting reform to accelerate infrastructure in this country? We do. We do. Many of the permitting reform rules--FERC, for example--are decades old, and they haven't kept up with new technologies or new needs of our population. I am strongly of the belief that we should do permitting reform, and I have introduced my own bills going back years to make at least that permitting process work better.…”