When the agreements come to the United States to Congress, there is a briefing of Congress and Congress can act by resolution of disapproval to disapprove an agreement.

The first of the 23 agreements that had a gold standard provision was the UAE agreement.

I am concerned that we will be increasingly marginalized if we do not explore changes to the current process for congressional approval.

And Congress has the ability to disapprove an agreement, which it has never done.

Maintaining uninterrupted civilian nuclear cooperation is important for U.S. political and commercial interests.

I do hope that our government witnesses will address the reasons for concluding that this was the best approach.

If the Vietnamese are willing to buy their nuclear fuel on the international market, why aren't they willing to agree to legally binding language forswearing enrichment and reprocessing technologies?

I am concerned that the administration will not hold the line on advanced consent for enrichment and reprocessing.

These are not one-way deals. The countries that are engaged in these 123 negotiations with us--they really have something to gain from these negotiations.

So would it be fair to say that with respect to the claim that the approach to these agreements is ad hoc, that there are nine criteria that are specified by Congress that have to be met with respect to all of these agreements?

We should examine whether it is time to call on Congress to provide a resolution of approval on all agreements prior to them becoming law.

Has any House of Congress disapproved? Not a total disapproval, but has any House of Congress disapproved of one of the 23 earlier agreements?

We haven't done a budget in 4 years.

Sequester, which is what we did when there was no budget deal, has been hurting the military and hurting veterans.

the best part about the deal is that there was a deal, and a standard feature of a budget compromise is that there are some pieces that I don't like and I hope to fix.

the fact of the deal is something that I think House, Senate, Democrats, Republicans, inside, outside Capitol Hill, should be glad that we've finally shown we can get it.

Are you glad that we have a 2-year budget? Is that a good thing for the military?

We need to get back to following the rules around this Congress.

I believe that it is, it is a promise.

We were told in this city repeatedly if you like your health care plan you get to keep it, period.

Talking each other down is no way out of any of the challenges that we have.

I believe we will fix this and fix it promptly.

I agree completely that this is a provision that needs to be changed and I think we will change it.

I thank my colleague from Arizona for pointing out to all in the Chamber my tardiness, and I should not have been tardy because I do not like to follow the Senator from Arizona. I would rather begin before him. But I want to thank him for…

Corruption is a bigger threat, existential threat, to Afghan society than security challenges are.