Cloture Motion

Floor Speech

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Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise to join Chairman Inhofe in support of the fiscal year 2020 Defense authorization bill. I thank the chairman for his great bipartisan leadership, thoughtful, sensible, and delivering what I think is an excellent piece of legislation.

It was based on thorough hearings, discussions, and debate on both sides of the aisle, and it came out of the committee with strong bipartisan support. I hope it enjoys that support on final passage.

As the chairman indicated, the bill provides for many different aspects that are necessary to our national defense. It provides a pay raise for the men and women of our Armed Forces who do so much for us. It includes over 30 provisions to address the privatized military housing crisis. It authorizes military construction in almost every State in this country. It provides funding and authorities for our military personnel on the frontlines and for those who are back in the United States building the ships and the tanks and advancing the technologies we need for the future fight.

This bill also contains numerous amendments from many of my colleagues, again, on both sides of the aisle, on other issues of great importance, such as the Intelligence Authorization Act, the authorization of the Maritime Administration, and provisions addressing the fentanyl crisis and the dangers of PFOS-PFAS in our water.

There are numerous provisions here that go beyond the narrow definition of the defense establishment. They are bipartisan, and they are strongly supported by both sides of the aisle.

Again, let me thank Senator Inhofe for his leadership. It made a great difference in terms of his approach to this important legislation.

Finally, I would like to thank the committee staff. Particularly, I would like to thank the majority staff and their staff director, John Bonsell. He did a superb job--they did. ``Diligence,'' ``professionalism,'' and ``bipartisanship'' were the watchwords of their efforts. I thank them for that.

Let me thank my staff. In particular, Jody Bennett, Carolyn Chuhta, Jon Clark, Jonathan Epstein, Jorie Feldman, Creighton Greene, Ozge Guzelsu, Gary Leeling, Kirk McConnell, Maggie McNamara, Bill Monahan, Mike Noblet, John Quirk, Arun Seraphin, Fiona Tomlin, and my staff director, Elizabeth King, who, with John Bonsell, did a superb job.

Let me thank the floor staff who have helped us over the last few days immensely.

I urge all of my colleagues to join the chairman and me in supporting this excellent legislation.

Vote on Amendment No. 764

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