mr. inhofe: mr.president, i ask unanimous consent that i be recognized in morning business for up to 15 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: mr. president, first of all, let me just make a comment. or make a permission here. i have seven requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and the minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted. mr. inhofe: also, let me just follow up with my friend from iowa. i think we have all, most of us around this chamber have had a chance to meet judge kavanaugh. i am in kind of a unique situation in that i am not a lawyer, so i ask different questions than most people do. i was already convinced, judging from his history of voting and his adherence to and commitment to the constitution, that he is my kind of guy. i even sent a message to him saying don't bore wasting your time -- bother wasting your time on me because you don't need to. but nonetheless, he came in. what's in

mr. thornberry: i was saying that senator inhofe has done a great job on senator mccain's behalf and this conference report bears senator mccain's unmistakable stamp. he has once again made a strong positive difference for the men and women in uniform and for the national security of the united states of america. we certainly wish him and his family the best in his current fight. we thank him and we attempt to honor him and his scout -- outstanding service to our nation with this legislation. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas reserves his time. the gentleman from washington is recognized. mr. smith: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield myself five minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. smith: thank you. i want to thank the chairman for his leadership of the committee. our committee is committed to completing this process every year. i think it is a great example of how the legislative process should work. it is bipartisan and it follows regular order. and the chairman deserves a great deal of credit

mr. thornberry: i was saying that senator inhofe has done a great job on senator mccain's behalf and this conference report bears senator mccain's unmistakable stamp. he has once again made a strong positive difference for the men and women in uniform and for the national security of the united states of america. we certainly wish him and his family the best in his current fight. we thank him and we attempt to honor him and his scout -- outstanding service to our nation with this legislation. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas reserves his time. the gentleman from washington is recognized. mr. smith: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield myself five minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. smith: thank you. i want to thank the chairman for his leadership of the committee. our committee is committed to completing this process every year. i think it is a great example of how the legislative process should work. it is bipartisan and it follows regular order. and the chairman deserves a great deal of credit

mr. chairman. thank you, senator carper. this hearing is extremely important. i think all of our witnesses of the i have the opportunity to be the ranking democrat on the infrastructure subcommittee with senator inhofe and as we are looking at the infrastructure authorization for america on transportation clearly technology issues need to be part of those conversations. i think this panel is particularly important. we support enhanced use of technology to make transportation more efficient, make it more friendly, to make it safer certain challenges are brought out by this you already mentioned some. how this come out of the maintenance budget i thought was interesting concept as compared to construction and we don't have enough resources right now into the transportation infrastructure. so, unless we have an adequate funding source it seems to me that technology is not going to get the attention it needs, in the planning of infrastructure. so, secondly, i would point out that technology will help make prance -- transportation more efficient, which we want to make it more efficient but revenues coming in to support the infrastructure gets lower, it is less. once again it is so important as we look at

mrs. feinstein, was my bipartisan cosponsor. i'd like to thank senator crapo, chairman of the banking committee, who ushered this legislation through that committee, passed unanimously, and senator inhofe for leading the conference here on the senate side, and from seeing that this important piece of legislation was included. in june, president trump called on congress to pass a strong piece of legislation to modernize what's known as the committee on foreign investment in the united states or cfius, and now we are going to do exactly that. the senate version of the bill updates cfius so we can guard against attempts primarily by china but not only by china to acquire sensitive dual-use technology and know-how by exploiting gaps in the u.s. rules on foreign investments. this legislation takes a carefully tailored approach to updating the review process without hamstringing our ability to meaningfully engage in trade with partners around the world. it is not antiforeign investment. just the opposite is true. but it is all about protecting our crown jewels when it comes to leading edge technology that can be easily acquired through creative investment strategies and then along with the i

mr. inhofe: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call in progress be vitiated. the presiding officer: we're not in a quorum call. the senator is recognized. mr. inhofe: thank you, mr. president i -- first of all, we're about to go to conference, the first of three votes here, very, very soon. they are yet to be considered among the most considered consequential votes of the year. we've been working closely with the president, with -- in our john s. mccain national defense authorization act is going to be a reality. it's going to be going to conference. we have actually spent -- we've done this through regular order in a very effective way. we've had our committee, the senate armed services committee has been in concert with our combatant commanders, with secretary mattis, with the service chiefs, with the president. we have a markup in our committee markup. we actually had over 300 amendments. i'm disturbed that we can't change this policy that we've had for a long period of time th