[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 29 (Monday, February 13, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S334-S335]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                      Unidentified Flying Objects

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I don't know what is up in the skies, 
what is going around, flying around, being spotted, and I think there 
are a lot of questions that need to be answered. If it is a threat to 
the United States in any way, shape, or form, it is absolutely 
unacceptable, and I think we all agree--both political parties. But 
when we start giving advice to this President and the Department of 
Defense in these matters, we have to stop and reflect on the manager of 
my local car wash in Springfield, IL.
  I went there about a week ago when the first balloon was spotted.
  He said: Senator, what is going on up there?
  I said: I don't know. I think China is responsible for it.
  He said: What are they trying to tell us?
  I said: Whatever it is, we better answer them and answer them 
decisively. We don't need anybody from China or any other country 
flying in our airspace and endangering Americans in the process.
  Then he said to me: But what about those cowboys in Congress who want 
to shoot it down wherever it is? Are they thinking about what is going 
to happen if the debris from that--whatever it is--falls on a city, 
hospital, school playground? They don't want to do that, do they, 
Senator?
  Well, I hope they don't. But I wonder, when I listen to the comments 
of some people here who argue that we should have shot down that 
balloon when it was going across the United States, if they reflect on 
what might have been the collateral damage. We didn't know what was on 
that balloon. We knew it was the size of three schoolbuses. That is not 
a small operation. And whether it included anything that was dangerous 
to us, radioactive or some sort of explosive, we just didn't know.
  I think we did the right thing. We waited until it was off the coast, 
the Atlantic Coast, still near our own territorial waters, and shot it 
down, and now we are recovering what was in it.
  As for the other elements, we are going to be briefed this week on 
China, and I believe those questions are certainly going to be asked 
and should be asked. I will be there on a bipartisan basis, as I was 
last week. It is serious, and we ought to take it seriously. But the 
notion that we would shoot this down over Louisville, KY, or 
Springfield, IL, or Chicago--that is not responsible. I trust our 
military to make that decision and to understand where the debris field 
might be that would endanger people.

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