Anthony Albanese Quotes

We know that the most fundamental responsibility of our Federal Government is to ensure the safety of its people and to protect and ensure our National security. And clearly port security has been left in limbo.

Ports are the gaping hole in America's homeland security.

These funds will ensure that ports will be able to pay for adequate security measures to protect all Americans against terrorist attacks from our seaports.

From protecting our natural resources to providing maritime security and national defense, the Coast Guard's duties are broad in scope, and the performance of those duties has never been more important.

The Merchant Marines fight piracy all over the world. We fight piracy in the Philippines, the east and west coast of Africa, and the east and west coast of South America.

The Coast Guard has a strong presence in Mississippi and on its waterways.

In my opinion, any navy less than that which would give us the habitual command of our own coast and seas would be little short of useless.

The Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act is an important authorization for our country and for our citizens, as we have seen so vividly in the last few weeks.

). Dozens of nations have agreed to join in monitoring and, if necessary, intercepting and boarding ships on the high seas in the event they are suspected of engaging in one or both of these threatening activities.

We need to have a strong defense focused on areas that are in the greatest vulnerability. I have been very concerned about America's 361 seaports as a point in which terrorist activities and materials could be brought into the country.

First at the outset, let me commend the great men and women of the United States Coast Guard for what they do.

We've been a country that's been fortunate to be protected by two oceans, to not have serious attacks on our territory for most of our history. And we were unfortunately reminded in a very devastating way of our vulnerability.

Port Security is one of our weakest security links, and it must be one of our highest priorities.

Each year over 2,500 commercial vessels enter the Port of Hampton Roads alone, so adequate funding for port security is a significant issue for those of us who live in Richmond and Hampton Roads.

If the area were on or near the U.S. continental shelf, such data could well provide an enemy with strategically invaluable insights into undersea access routes that could be used to attack some of the millions of Americans who live on or near our coasts.

We're working with our neighbors Indonesia and Malaysia to fight terrorism in our own common seas.

Over the last five years, the Administration and the majority in Congress have appropriated less than $900 million for port security grants - despite the Coast Guard's determination that $5.4 billion is needed over 10 years.

My colleagues, while it is good that the Nation is finally focused on the critical issue of securing our ports, our rhetoric and our passion about Dubai must be matched by the funding necessary to keep our ports and our citizens safe.

While port security remains one of our single greatest vulnerabilities, it makes little sense to give operational control of our ports to a foreign nation without first doing proper investigations.

Our ports are owned by local governments who are responsible for the ports. It is the Coast Guard and Customs that provide security. The federal government will never outsource our security.

The Coast Guard has long been known as the armed service that gets more done for less.

The royal navy of England hath ever been its greatest defense and ornament; it is its ancient and natural strength; the floating bulwark of our island.

It were, indeed, a vain and dangerous illusion to believe that in the present or probable condition of human society a commerce so extensive and so rich as ours could exist and be pursued in safety without the continual support of a military marine -- the only arm by which the power of this Confederacy can be estimated or felt by foreign nations, and the only standing military force which can never be dangerous to our own liberties at home.

He is the rock on the beach of our national ocean against which the breakers dash and roar.

Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk, does not even one American soldier and is located in a critical region for American national security.