Political Quotes

“First of all, I want to join the chairman in thanking him for the working relationship that he and I have enjoyed now through 4 years and four national defense authorization acts. It is one of the main principles of our committee in that it is bipartisan, that we work together, and we produce a product every year--52 straight years, the National Defense Authorization Act. That doesn't happen as a starting point, unless the chair of the committee takes the responsibility very seriously to make sure that our committee remains bipartisan. We have had a whole series of chairmen during my tenure who have done that, and Mr. McKeon has followed that tradition just as well as his predecessors. He has worked very closely with us. We do not always agree, but we work closely together, understanding that, at the end of the day, we have to produce a bill. So I thank him for that, and I recognize that this will be his last NDAA. In fact, this is the Buck McKeon National Defense Authorization Act. Mr. Thornberry and I were proud to cosponsor the amendment in committee to name this after Buck, for his great service to our committee. As always, I also want to thank the staff. I can't thank them enough for the work that they do and for the hours that they put in. They spent yesterday going through 320 amendments.…”