udall: mr. president, let me first say to senator cardin who led our delegation, senator cardin's the ranking member on the foreign relations committee. foreign relations has a lot to do with this issue. he showed great leadership, and i believe he's passionate about this issue in finding solutions. and so we were somewhat disappointed that ten of us that went, all democrats. we were disappointed that republicans didn't join us. this is an issue that really needs bipartisanship. we need to join republicans and democrats to an issue that threatens our national security, threatens our economy, threatens our environment. it is an issue that is looming out there and needs attention. and so we look forward to work with our friends on the other side of the aisle to move forward on this issue. as i looked over there and saw what was happening, i remember many of the briefings we've had and everyone that has looked at this challenge of global warming, of climate change says that we need to do two things

udall: mr. sampler, do you have any comment on the size of this from your perspective on aid that indicate to you that there is a real sincere effort on the part of the taliban to be a part of a peace process? mr. sampler: in order to be a player in the economic growth we hope will occur in that part of the world, they would have to be a legitimate partner and a legitimate player. there are in no way considered legitimate at this point. mr. udall: as you talk about economic development, the security -- the security affected -- i am trying to probe now -- if on the economic someok, what the status of of the major mining, energy, and other capital products -- projects that investors such as china and india have subscribed to, what projects are underway in producing revenue, if any? you talked about the exports to pakistan, but i am talking about these bigger projects that you are aware of, i'm sure. mr. olson: certainly. one of the things that encourage me about the president's cabinet is that he

i want to thank jonathan black and senator udall's -- in senator udall's office as well, as andrew wallace to took up -- took up the tosca reform leadership following senator lautenberg, and thanks to zack baye in senator vitter's office, mihal friedov in senator markey's office, adam zipkin in senator booker's office, adrian debonay in senator merkley's office and emily enderly with senator whitehouse. things to all -- thanks to all the staff. people don't realize how much work the staff does. when we passed the transportation reauthorization bill, it was hundreds and hundreds of hours. this one, because of a technicality, has been held up for about a month and a half. and that has been worked out, and so i'm just real pleased that we're able to do it. and again, i -- i think this is a tribute to frank lautenberg and his wife bonnie. frank lautenberg's -- i will say to my friend from new mexico, i think now that frank lautenberg 's legacy has been fulfilled. mr. udall: chairman inhofe, i couldn't agree with you more. i -- i know that you knew of senator -- that you knew senator lautenbe

and one guy said about mo udall for president? and it was i do not know, i have only met him twice. another of my favorite stories is he walked into a barbershop, said i am morris udall from arizona and i am running for president of the united states. and the barber said "yeah, we were just laughing about that this morning." [laughter] sen. mccain: so i want to thank all of you. just for a few minutes, i am privileged to serve as chairman of the armed services committee. i promise you the world has never been in more crises and threats than at any time since the end of world war ii. the events in san bernardino certainly authenticated that. and we do not have a leader who leads. it is a leader who continues to want to withdraw from the world stage. a leader who refuses to knowledge that these are radical islamic terrorists. even refuses to acknowledge that. my friends, we will suffer another attack on the united states of america if we do not change what we are doing. i regret deeply to tell you that. i can also tell you that this guy and i predicted what has happened. as we have wa

a guy in new hampshire said to another guy, what do you think about mo udall for president? and it was i do not know, i have only met him twice. [laughter] another of my favorite stories is he walked into a barbershop, said i am morris udall from arizona and i am running for president of the united states. and the barber said "yeah, we were just laughing about that this morning." [laughter] so i want to thank all of you. just for a few minutes, i am privileged to serve as chairman of the armed services committee. i promise you the world has never been in more crises and threats than at any time since the end of world war ii. the events in san bernardino certainly authenticated that. and we do not have a leader who leads. it is a leader who continues to want to withdraw from the world stage. a leader who refuses to acknowledge that these are radical islamic terrorists. even refuses to acknowledge that. my friends, we will suffer another attack on the united states of america if we do not change what we are doing. i regret deeply to tell you that. i can also tell you that this

mo udall is exactly right -- it won't be easy. and in order to succeed, we must answer our opponent's polished and appealing rhetoric with a more telling reasonableness and rationality. we must win this case on the merits. we must get the american public to look past the glitter, beyond the showmanship to the reality, the hard substance of things. and we'll do it not so much with speeches that sound good as with speeches that are good and sound; not so much with speeches that will bring people to their feet as with speeches that will bring people to their senses. we must make -- we must make the american people hear our "tale of two cities. " we must convince them that we don't have to settle for two cities, that we can have one city, indivisible, shining for all of its people. now, we will have no chance to do that if what comes out of this convention is a babel of arguing voices. if that's what's heard throughout the campaign, dissident sounds from all sides, we will have no chance to tell our message. to succeed we will have to

udall: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new mexico. mr. udall: thank you, mr. president, for the recognition. thank you very much. last night was an historic moment in the united states senate. after years and years of negotiations and collaboration, after working with stakeholders across the country, we made tremendous progress toward historic, bipartisan environmental reform. the frank r. lautenberg chemical safety act for the 21st century passed the senate on unanimous voice vote with 60 bipartisan cosponsors and with overwhelming support. this is a great milestone. first i want to thank senator vitter, senator vitter and i introduced this legislation for one reason, one basic reason: to fix our nation's broken chemical safety law. i remember over two years ago we had a very quiet dinner and we walked away from that dinner saying, we're going to form a team and we're going to get this done. it was after senator frank lautenberg had passed away and senator vitter is a man of his word, and we stuck to it, and we're making significant historic progress. and i t

i thank her partner on the subcommittee, the senator from new mexico, senator udall. working together had to provide a framework in which the omnibus reflects an appropriation that we'll vote on later this week containing $1.6 billion for fire funding suppression. that's $500 million more than last year, so i consider it a very good down payment. congress has recognized that it's very important to provide funding for fire suppression and that at sufficient levels so that agencies can address the issues of prevention and hazardous fuel reduction. and this is something that is critically important. so i'm pleased that this is a very large increase in firefighting accounts this year, besides the 50% increase in fire sup pregnancy. as my colleague mentioned, a $317 million in hazardous fuel reduction and new grants to local communities to decrease their fire hazards, additional fuel reduction projects like controlled burns in our forests and research on protecting homes during massive wildfires. this is critically important to my state as they have over the last two seaso

another of my favorite stories is a man walked into a barbershop said i am morris udall from arizona and i am running for president of the united states. and the barber said "yeah, we were laughing about that this morning." [laughter] sen. mccain: so i want to think about -- so i want to thank all of you. just for a few minutes, i am privileged to serve as chairman services committee. i promise you the world has never been in more crises and threats than at any time since the end of world war ii. the events in san bernardino certainly authenticated that. and we do not have a leader who leads. is a leader who continues to want to withdraw from the world stage. a leader who refuses to knowledge that these are radical islamic terrorists. even refuses to acknowledge that. my friends, we both offer another attack on the united states of america if we do not change what we are doing. thatret deeply to tell you . i can also tell you that this guy and i predicted what has happened. as we have watched america failed to lead. a president who thinks, because if you withdraw from wars that wars

mo udall is exactly right -- it won't be easy. and in order to succeed, we must answer our opponent's polished and appealing rhetoric with a more telling reasonableness and rationality. we must win this case on the merits. we must get the american public to look past the glitter, beyond the showmanship to the reality, the hard substance of things. and we'll do it not so much with speeches that sound good as with speeches that are good and sound; not so much with speeches that will bring people to their feet as with speeches that will bring people to their senses. we must make -- we must make the american people hear our "tale of two cities. " we must convince them that we don't have to settle for two cities, that we can have one city, indivisible, shining for all of its people. now, we will have no chance to do that if what comes out of this convention is a babel of arguing voices. if that's what's heard throughout the campaign, dissident sounds from all sides, we will have no chance to tell our message. to succeed we will have to

when senator tom udall and i visited alan gross in prison in february -- i'm sorry, in november of last year, just one month prior to his release, he was in a bad way. he had lost a lot of weight. he lost some of his teeth. it was a tough time to be in prison. and he missed so many events at home with his family, being there for five years. i can't imagine coming out of that experience and feeling still the compassion that he has for the cuban people. just last night it was announced that the u.s. and cuba have agreed to enter into a bilateral agreement on flights to allow american airlines from america, u.s. carriers to fly to cuba. and instead of just charter flights, we'll now have directly scheduled flights. that will allow americans to travel to cuba easier and more inexpensively. i would encourage all americans to, who can find themselves in one of the 12 categories for travel to do so. there are a group of cubans who came to the united states a while ago, and they were asked what can america do for you. these were cuban entrepreneurs who are looking to change the system in cuba.

senator udall worked with senator vitter on chemical safety. the energy bill that came out of committee depended upon senator cantwell as well as senator murkowski. the mental health bill that came out of our committee came from murray and alexander. the cybersecurity bill that passed the senate was the work of senator feinstein as well as senator burr. the trafficking victims law was mccaskill and cornyn. the terrorism risk insurance was brown-shelby. iran nuclear review act -- a pretty extraordinary bill -- was first menendez then cardin along with senator corker. the veteran suicide prevention act, durbin and mccain. and i haven't even mentioned all of the important legislation that came through the senate this year, madam president. so it's perfectly possible for us to deal with very important pieces of legislation if we work together, and those democratic senators and republican senators have all shown that they -- that they could. so, madam president, i look forward to the vote tomorrow at 10:45. i have eight unanimous consent requests fo

senator udall. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you both for your service to the country. we appreciate your hard work in what are difficult circumstances. ambassador olson, you mentioned in your opening statement here the administration remains committed to a stable and secure afghanistan and we remain convinced it is the surest way to end the conflict. i'm wondering -- it have the sae impression that senator ]ñkaine does. i'm not on the arm services committee, but there's a very stark difference here between some of the intelligence. that aside, let me ask if we're wanting to get them to the peace table in this afghan-led peace process, isn't the taliban have to be at a point in the situation, in the conflict where they feel there's a reason for them to come to the table where -- and looking at it from my perspective, your testimony and others here, that they're d resurgent, they're doing better, capturing cities, releasing people from prisons. they're making major gains. and so what is -- and we're drawing our forces down. what convinced me they really want in good fai

that is very much tied to our leasing of oil and gas offshore, and certainly my colleague, senator udall, knows that program inside and out. he's been an incredible champion for it. his father made it happen when he was secretary of interior. i would conclude my remarks and thank you again for allowing me to engage in this colloquy, and thank our colleagues for being able to work on a bipartisan basis. ms. heitkamp: i know, mr. president, that we're up against the clock, and i promised my friend from the south that i would in fact conclude, but i saw someone that i worked very closely with on this unusual come on to the floor, and i want to extend my great appreciation for the hours that we spent together talking about this issue and the hours that we spent with the senior senator from alaska basically educating as a first step and then finally delivering a product that we can all be proud of, i think. and so i want to extend my congratulations and my appreciation for the chairwoman of the energy committee for the work that she did and for her belief along with my belief that we could in

. >> yes, senator udall, thank you so much. that's very thoughtful a question.ouple of things that give us some leverage in this situation. first of all, the --ózy> the tn do seem to desire some degree of international political legitimacy. they recognize, apparently, and i have to -- i will say at the outset that i think we have to be cautious about what we know about the taliban and what we presume, but it does appear that as a result of their historical experience when they were governing in the 1990s and were isolated and cut off from the outsid9m2?oyworld, and afghanis is a country that has always been reliant to some extent on external assistance. i think that they look t«qxx0.s international legitimacy as an important objective, and the only way that that could be achieved is through some kind of political settlement. the second element is what i alluded to before, which is the question of pressure, and i think it's significant in this regard, that we have the language coming out of the trilateral statement last week, in islamabad, talking about the use

evolving to udal produce the information. one of them, most of them need information.nd our responsibility as providing information to help them understand what the possible benefits are and helping them to get that. doris: final question -- in the front. >> thank you, doris. thank you, madam minister. two questions on specific groups -- there is a number of mexican citizens living in the u.s. who don't have birth certificates for mexico. this becomes noticeable when they apply -- they're eligible for programs where they can adjust their status. the consulates are trying to get their birth certificates from the original state. can you comment on what the mexican government can do. we also see americans moving into mexico. more americans moving into mexico then mexicans into the united states. quite often taking with them children who are u.s. citizens, right? and who have been educated in the united states and may or may fluently.spanish do you have any thoughts on the issues and the bilateral agenda? doris: thanminister ruiz-massiek you. earlier this year, we enabled