National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017

Floor Speech

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Mr. MORAN. Madam President, I am once again on the Senate floor in a series of conversations we have had with my colleagues about the importance of my amendment I would like pending to this national defense authorization bill.

I am discouraged and disappointed that over the weekend no resolution on a variety of issues has been reached, and therefore there would be objection once again if I offered this amendment.

What I am attempting to do and what we have talked about so many times here on the floor and in the hallways of Congress is that Kansans generally are opposed to the closing of Guantanamo Bay as a detention facility and particularly opposed to bringing these detainees to the United States and especially opposed to bringing the detainees to Fort Leavenworth, KS. Unfortunately, this bill includes an amendment offered in committee that allows for the design and planning and construction of a facility, and my amendment is the simple removal of those provisions from this legislation.

It is clear to me that throughout the entire time of the administration of this President, this administration has been unable to provide any cohesive, comprehensive, legally justifiable closure and relocation plan. Yet this plan authorizes the planning and design.

So I rise to once again express my dissatisfaction and anger with the Senate for its inability to do its job. Whether or not my amendment would prevail at the moment is not the issue; it is whether or not there can even be a vote on what I consider to be a very important issue to Kansas and to the country.

I appreciate the efforts by the chairman of the committee, who has assured me that he supports this amendment, and through no fault of his own, we are unable to take a vote to demonstrate that support in the Senate.

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