[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 73 (Wednesday, May 13, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H2940-H2948]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2016
General Leave
Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous materials on H.R. 1735.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Texas?
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 255 and rule
XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House
on the state of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 1735.
The Chair appoints the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Graves) to
preside over the Committee of the Whole.
{time} 1750
In the Committee of the Whole
Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the
Whole House on the state of the Union for the consideration of the bill
(H.R. 1735) to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2016 for
military activities of the Department of Defense and for military
construction, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal
year, and for other purposes, with Mr. Graves of Louisiana in the
chair.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The CHAIR. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered read the
first time.
The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry) and the gentleman from
Washington (Mr. Smith) each will control 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes.
Mr. Chairman, I am proud to bring to the floor H.R. 1735, the
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016. This measure
was reported by the Armed Services Committee by a vote of 60 members
voting for and two members voting against. Of the two members, there
was one from each party.
This bill follows the bipartisan tradition of the committee working
collaboratively with an integrated staff to support the men and women
who serve and protect our Nation.
All members of the committee have contributed to this product, and I
am very grateful for all of their efforts throughout the year. I am
especially grateful to the efforts of the ranking member, Mr. Smith,
not only for his contributions and for his partnership in the committee
but doing so at a time where he has been dealing with surgeries and a
variety of things. But it has been a true pleasure and continues to be
to work with him for the benefit of our Nation.
Mr. Chairman, this bill authorizes spending for the Department of
Defense at a level that is consistent with the congressional budget
resolution and a level that is consistent with the President's budget
request. So there have been differences, and there will continue to be
some differences about how some of that spending gets categorized, but
when you add it all up together, this authorization measure meets
exactly what the President has asked for, which is essentially $611.9
billion for national defense.
Included is a program-by-program authorization for all of that
spending; whether it is in the overseas contingency account or the base
budget, it is all authorized program by program.
This bill also contains some significant reforms, including
acquisition reform, to improve the way the Department purchases goods
and services. We have been working with the Pentagon and with industry
to thin out regulations, simplify the process, and make it easier to
hold industry and government personnel accountable for the results.
This bill has overhead reform to reduce the amount of money that we
are spending on overhead and bureaucracy so that more resources can be
devoted to the men and women on the front lines.
This measure has reform in the area of personnel pay and benefits. Of
the 15 recommendations by the personnel commission, this measure does
something in 11 of those 15 so that we can be in better shape to
continue to recruit and retain the top quality people that our Nation
needs for decades to come.
Now, some people say, Well, there is too much reform here. Some
people say, Well, there is not enough reform here. There isn't enough
if enough means you solve all the problems. But there is a start at
significant reform that helps make sure we get better value for the
money we spend and also that the Department is more agile in meeting
the national security challenges we face.
Mr. Chairman, this morning in reading the papers, I made some notes
about the headlines just in one newspaper today, May 13, 2015. Some of
those headlines are ``Kerry Meets Putin,'' ``U.S. Weighs Plan to
Confront China in the South China Sea,'' and ``Fresh Earthquake Rattles
Nepal.''
By the way, Mr. Chairman, I know that the Marines and their families
who were involved in the helicopter, which has not yet been found to my
understanding, are certainly in our thoughts and prayers. Our military
is called upon to do humanitarian efforts.
The CHAIR. The time of the gentleman from Texas has expired.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself an additional 1 minute.
``Somali Men Plead Guilty in Terror Plot,'' ``North Korea Executes
Defense Chief,'' and ``Assad Still Has Chemical Arms.'' The list goes
on and on. This is the world that we face. This is the world we send
our men and women out into to protect us and to defend our Nation. They
deserve the best from us. They deserve something other than political
games. They should not be used as pawns to make a point.
We should give them our best by doing our job under the Constitution,
just as they give us their best in defending this country. Therefore,
Mr. Chairman, I think this bill, H.R. 1735, deserves the support of all
Members in this House, and I hope they will do so.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 minutes.
Mr. Chairman, I want to congratulate the chairman--this is his first
year as chairman--on his hard work on this bill, and there are a lot of
very good things in this bill. I think most prominently is the reform
the chairman mentioned, the compensation reform. We formed a commission
to study how we do personnel compensation and the retirement system. In
a very rare move, we actually followed some of the advice of that
commission in this bill and made, I think, some very positive reforms
to the personnel compensation system. There are a variety of other
reforms the chairman has worked on that are important. There is also a
whole slew of provisions in there that do, in fact, do an excellent job
of providing for the men and women who defend our country. So there are
a lot of very positive things about this bill.
[[Page H2941]]
I appreciate the hard work of everyone involved.
Unfortunately, for the first time in 19 years, I am going to be
opposing the NDAA on the floor for two reasons, but one is really the
big one, and it is understanding how our budget has worked.
We have not had a normal budget appropriations process since 2011,
and this has affected every single government agency--and keep that
fact in mind--not just the Department of Defense. I will talk about the
Department of Defense at length. But the lack of a normal
appropriations budget process has impacted every single Federal agency:
transportation, infrastructure, education, housing, on down the line.
Ever since 2011, Mr. Chairman, they have faced one government
shutdown and a succession of threatened government shutdowns and
continuing resolutions. This has made it absolutely impossible to plan
long term and also has cut a pretty dramatic amount of money out of all
of these agencies. It has been particularly hard on the Department of
Defense, which tries to do a 5-year plan when they are figuring out
what they can procure. This sort of halt, stop, we are going to fund
you, we are not going to fund you, we are going to shut down the
government, CR, has had a devastating impact on the ability to fund
government.
The budget resolution passed by the House and the Senate this year
does not fix that because it relies on the overseas contingency
operation fund, which is limiting. It is 1 year of money. It, again,
does not allow the Department of Defense to be planned. I want everyone
to know the Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, in the Senate, testified
on why OCO, funding $38 billion of the Defense bill through OCO, is
unacceptable, and he doesn't support it and doesn't support this bill.
But the reason we oppose this--and this is very important to
understand--to fix the problem, to get us to the point where we can
fund Defense and everything else in a reasonable way, we need to get
rid of the budget caps from the Budget Control Act. That is the only
way. And we do not do that here. We take money out of the overseas
contingency operation fund to give Defense 38 billion additional
dollars.
But, in one sense, Mr. Thornberry is wrong when he says that in all
senses what we do here matches what the President did. Within the
Defense budget, the number is the same. But the President's budget also
lifted the budget caps for the 11 other appropriations bills.
I know we serve on the Armed Services Committee, and I have heard
members of the Armed Services Committee say, ``Don't talk to me about
that stuff. I serve on the Armed Services Committee. That is not my
department.''
{time} 1800
I would love to know what district those people are living in because
roads and bridges and schools and housing, it affects all of us, and
those budget caps remain in place.
What this Defense bill does, unfortunately, is it locks in the
Republican budget. It locks in the deal they made with the Senate to
continue to provide devastating cuts at the Budget Control Act level
for everything else and then let Defense and only Defense out of jail
in an awkward sort of backdoor way through the overseas contingency
operations.
To agree to this bill is to agree to cuts in those 11 other bills--to
cuts in transportation, to cuts in research, to cuts at NIH and CDC, in
all of these programs that we care about. If we accept this, then those
cuts are locked into place.
Don't get me wrong. I support spending $38 billion more on the
Defense budget; I support the President's level; I support this level,
but I also support lifting the budget caps for all of the other areas
of our government that are facing the same sort of devastating cuts and
difficulties that the Defense Department has. If we agree with this, we
lock in the budget.
Lastly, I want to point out that the President has said he does not
support this process. He opposes all the appropriations bills, and he
will oppose this Defense bill. The President hasn't gone away. There is
not a sustainable veto override number for those appropriations bills
in the House and the Senate.
The CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. SMITH of Washington. I yield myself an additional 2 minutes.
Everything that we are doing on this bill and in the appropriations
bills between now and October is--and I know the Republican plan is to
hope the President just sort of changes his mind and signs all those
bills; I consider that highly unlikely--so what is going to happen is
we are going to get to October, and this is all going to blow up anyway
because the President is not going to sign it.
He is still there. I know the Republicans won the Senate, but the
President didn't go anywhere, and the Constitution didn't change, and
nothing becomes law unless he signs it.
What I urge is that the President, the House, and the Senate--all
three--sit down and come up with a budget solution that ends the budget
caps for all of these bills so we can start working on something that
is real. I mean, this $38 billion is great, but like I said, between
here and when it heads up Pennsylvania Avenue, it is going away, and
then we are going to have to double back and try to fix this anyway.
I guess all I am saying is we should start now instead of risking
another government shutdown, risking another continuing resolution, and
get a true budget agreement that actually addresses the Budget Control
Act in its entirety, doesn't just find a sort of awkward workaround
through the overseas contingency operations just to take care of
Defense.
I support this level, but not this way. It has too devastating an
impact on the rest of our budget, and as Secretary of Defense Ash
Carter said, OCO funding is no way to fund the Defense Department if it
is not legitimately for OCO expenses.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds.
Mr. Chairman, I have enormous respect for the distinguished ranking
member. I think, however, it is a very hard argument to make that we
are going to oppose the bill that takes care of our men and women in
the military because we want to try to pressure Congress and the
President to reach an agreement on spending on other stuff.
How could that possibly happen in this bill? It can't. That requires
other legislation. I think that is a poor reason to oppose this bill.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr.
Wittman), my friend and colleague, the chairman of the Subcommittee on
Readiness.
Mr. WITTMAN. Mr. Chairman, I want to commend Chairman Thornberry and
the members of the Armed Services Committee on a very strong mark. I
want to especially thank my distinguished ranking member, Madeleine
Bordallo, for working with me to address some of our most critical
readiness challenges.
The FY16 National Defense Authorization Act makes notable strides in
restoring full spectrum readiness in helping move us away from what the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dempsey, referred to as
the ``ragged edge'' of being able to execute the current Defense
strategy.
Specifically, this year's NDAA prohibits the Department from pursuing
an additional BRAC round or any other effort aimed at locking in unwise
force structure reductions during a time of accelerated transition and
uncertainty, but does task the Department to conduct an assessment of
where we may be overcapitalized in facilities so Congress can make
informed decisions going forward.
We must be strategic about our long-term decisions, such as how we
treat our headquarters and civilian personnel. We need to keep those
things in mind. They do important work for this Nation, and on their
behalf, we owe it to them to take the time to look at how provisions in
this bill could negatively affect their efforts.
This year's NDAA also restores many critical shortfalls across the
force. For example, for the Navy, the bill fully funds the operation
and maintenance accounts for an 11th carrier and the 10th air wing,
aircraft maintenance reset, and ship operations.
For the Army, the bill fully funds collective training exercises
resulting in 19 Combat Training Center rotations for brigade combat
teams, as well as fully funding the initial entry rotary
[[Page H2942]]
wing training program and restoring funding to meet 100 percent of the
flying hour program requirement.
The bill also provides the Marine Corps with additional resources to
meet aviation readiness requirements to ensure adequate numbers of
mission-capable aircraft.
For the Air Force, the bill provides additional training resources
for high-demand areas such as pilots for unmanned systems, joint
terminal controllers, cyber operations, insider threats, and open
source intelligence.
Finally, the bill addresses several other shortfalls by resourcing
many of the Department's most pressing unfunded requirements.
I am proud of what we have accomplished in this year's bill and
encourage all of my colleagues to support its passage.
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to myself
just to respond briefly to Mr. Thornberry's remarks.
The problem, too, why this won't actually fund our troops is it is
OCO funding to begin with; and, as the Secretary of Defense said, it
makes it very difficult to do it in any sort of comprehensive way.
More importantly, when we get to the end of the process, if the
President doesn't agree to it, then we haven't funded the troops at
this $38 billion additional level. If that is where he is at on the
veto on these appropriations bills, then we haven't done it. We simply
run the clock out for another 4 or 5 months.
We have got to get to a budget agreement that the President agrees
to, or we are not going to fund the troops at the level that I agree
with the chairman that we need to fund them at, and this bill does not
do that.
I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis),
the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Military Personnel.
Mrs. DAVIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank Dr. Heck and
the committee staff for working in a bipartisan manner to develop this
bill, and I also want to thank Chairman Thornberry and Ranking Member
Smith for their leadership during this process.
The bill takes important steps toward personnel reform by including
recommendations from the Military Compensation and Retirement
Modernization Commission, and I think we all want to thank them for
their work.
A key provision is the modernization of the military retirement
system. While maintaining the 20-year defined retirement, a thrift
savings plan is added not just for retirees, but for all
servicemembers. This will positively impact the 83 percent of the
force--I am going to say it again--83 percent of the force that leaves
prior to the 20-year mark.
The NDAA continues the committee's critical work towards the
prevention of and response to sexual assault. Several provisions will
increase access to better trained special victims counsel, prevent
retaliation against servicemembers, and increase awareness and training
to better aid male victims of sexual assault.
Once again, the bill does not contain the Department's request to
administer changes to the commissary system, reductions to the housing
allowance, or TRICARE reform, but we must address these issues in some
way in the future. Reform of the military healthcare system is crucial
to ensure that care is elevated to a level befitting our
servicemembers, our wounded veterans, retirees, and their families.
Important issues were addressed in this bill, and I support many of
the provisions and all the hard work that went into it. However,
national security is borne from many factions, including the education
of our people, investment in science and technology, and the support of
sustainable resources and infrastructure.
All of these realms, Mr. Chairman, must be funded adequately and
properly in order for our military to remain the most elite force in
the world. I am disappointed that this NDAA, although meeting the
President's budget number request, does not follow the funding rules we
have abided by in the past, thereby placing our national security in
jeopardy.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Virginia (Mr. Forbes), the chair of the Subcommittee on Seapower and
Projection Forces.
Mr. FORBES. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the National Defense
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016.
I want to commend the leadership of Chairman Thornberry in bringing
this bill to the floor. His leadership has been instrumental in
tackling many of the tough issues this committee has had to address and
in getting this bill finished on schedule.
That being the case, I am absolutely perplexed by a President that
would even suggest that he would veto a bill or Members of Congress who
would suggest they would support him in vetoing a bill that gives every
dime he requested for the support of the men and women who are fighting
to defend this country and for the national security of this country
unless he gets everything he wants for the EPA and the IRS and whatever
part of his other political agenda he wants to keep.
Mr. Chairman, it is time that we put national security and the men
and women that defend this country first and leave politics for another
day.
As to the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, this bill
fully funds the carrier replacement program, two Virginia class
submarines, two Arleigh Burke class destroyers, and three littoral
combat ships.
It reverses the administration's request to close the Tomahawk
production line and keeps the Ticonderoga class cruisers in active
service. It also accelerates the modernization of our existing
destroyers and increases valuable undersea research and development
activity and sustains our next-generation tanker and bomber programs.
I am pleased with the Seapower and Projection Forces' effort in this
bill and believe that it is another positive step on a long road to
adequately support our national security. Perhaps that is why the bill
passed out of committee with such an overwhelming bipartisan margin of
60-2, with so many people on the other side of the aisle being for it
before they were against it.
I urge my colleagues to support the National Defense Authorization
Act for Fiscal Year 2016.
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Speier), the ranking member of the
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
Ms. SPEIER. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the chairman and the
ranking member for their accepting amendments to address military
sexual assault, increase oversight, transgender rights, whistleblower
protection, and equal access to contraception for military women; but,
despite these improvements and many others from my colleagues, I cannot
support this bill in its current form.
Instead of making tough decisions with our limited resources, this
bill uses an accounting gimmick to further parochial and political
interests above the readiness of the men and women protecting us and
the interests of taxpayers we represent.
We chose to address the sage grouse rather than the elephant in the
room. By irresponsibly sheltering $38 billion--above the self-imposed
budget gap--in the OCO account, this bill attempts to decouple national
security from economic security.
In reality, these are one and the same. Our military leadership gets
it, but this seems to be lost on us. Admiral Mullen, former Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs, stated that the deficit that we are unwisely adding
to in this bill is the single greatest threat to our national security.
Rather than empowering our military to align our force structure with
the capabilities we need, we tied their hands; and, rather than
addressing wasteful overhead, needless spare parts, or outdated weapon
systems, we chose to ensure that corporations that move their
headquarters overseas to avoid taxes continue to get Defense contracts.
Provisions of this bill also attempt to force the DOD to keep our
detention facility in Guantanamo Bay open. GTMO is a propaganda tool
for our enemies and a distraction for our allies. Those aren't my
words; they are George W. Bush's and 15 to 20 retired generals and
admirals.
Another provision of this bill prevents the military from saving
lives by
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purchasing alternative fuels. Costly refueling operations and convoys
are extraordinarily dangerous; yet, because the existence of climate
change is a political talking point, somehow, servicemember safety is
second rate.
The military is not separate from the rest of the country. Along with
defending us, members of the military need to drive on roads that are
not crumbling, cross bridges that are not falling, and send their
children to public universities that are not bankrupt.
It also makes it difficult to fund basic research, which has been a
key element to our global competitive advantage and the source of much
of the technology that our military relies on.
We are choosing to spend vast quantities of money on planes that the
military does not want, while refusing to address problems that
everyone in the Nation, including military members, needs fixed.
We have to face the reality that we can't keep our Nation secure if
we let our country rot from the inside.
I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill.
{time} 1815
Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
South Carolina (Mr. Wilson), the chair of the Subcommittee on Emerging
Threats and Capabilities.
Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support
of the National Defense Authorization Act and also to thank Chairman
Mac Thornberry for his leadership and hard work to bring this important
bill to the floor.
Committee support was bipartisan--60-2--and politics should not be
raised to obstruct. I am honored to serve as the chairman of the
Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, which oversees some
of the most forward-looking and critical aspects of the Department of
Defense, including defense-wide science and technology efforts; Special
Operations Forces; Cyber Command and the cyber forces of the Department
of Defense; and many other programs and activities that deal with
evolving and emerging threats, from weapons of mass destruction, to
Putin's aggression against Ukraine, to the rise of the Islamic State of
Iraq and the Levant, ISIL or Daesh. The Emerging Threats and
Capabilities Subcommittee has been active in conducting oversight in
all of these important areas.
It is also worth noting that much of the oversight conducted by the
subcommittee is classified and takes place behind closed doors where we
review and remain current on sensitive activities and programs involved
in Department of Defense intelligence capabilities, Special Operations
Forces, and cyber forces. The subcommittee takes this sensitive
oversight role very seriously as we consider Department of Defense
authorities and programs that enable these sensitive activities.
Overall, our portion of the bill provides for stronger cyber
operations capabilities, safeguards our technological superiority, and
enables our Special Operations Forces with the resources and
authorities to counter terrorism, unconventional warfare threats, and
to defeat weapons of mass destruction.
I thank Chairman Thornberry, and I would like to thank my friend and
subcommittee ranking member, Mr. Jim Langevin of Rhode Island.
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney), the ranking member of the
Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces.
Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Chairman, at the outset, I want to extend my
compliments to the chairman of the committee for his first NDAA bill
and for the way he conducted a 19-hour markup that went until close to
5 o'clock in the morning. I also thank the ranking member, who provided
just really great leadership in terms of moving that process along, and
the strong vote that came out of the committee.
On the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee--and Mr. Forbes
ticked off some of the priorities that came through the report--I just
want to add one item which, I think, is really important to note. In
terms of the future challenges for the shipbuilding of this country,
the replacement program for the ballistic submarine program, the Ohio
replacement program, is going to cost, roughly, $70 billion to $80
billion. It has been identified by Secretary Carter on down as the top
priority of the Defense Department as well as the Department of the
Navy. The question is not about whether or not we are going to build
that sub. The question, really, is: What is going to happen to the rest
of the shipbuilding account?
This year's NDAA bill activates the national sea-based deterrence
fund, which is an off-shipbuilding budget account to build this once-
in-a-multigeneration program, using clear precedent of the past of the
national sea-based deterrence account, which took that program off the
shipbuilding budget's shoulders, and we are using that same approach to
make sure that, in meeting this critical need, the Ohio replacement
program is not going to suffocate the rest of the shipbuilding account.
$1.4 billion is going to be infused into this fund with the Defense
Authorization Act, and that is going to provide a path forward to make
sure that we meet this critical need as well as to make sure that we
have a viable, 300-plus-ship Navy, which every defense review over the
last few years or so has identified as critical.
This is an important item which, I feel, as part of this evening's
debate, should be identified, and it is something that was a bipartisan
effort on both sides of the Seapower and Projection Forces
Subcommittee. I look forward to a vigorous debate over the next 2 days.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Ohio (Mr. Turner), the chair of the Subcommittee on Tactical Air and
Land Forces.
Mr. TURNER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 1735, the
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016.
I had the privilege of serving as the chairman of the Tactical Air
and Land Forces Subcommittee. I want to thank my ranking member,
Loretta Sanchez, for her support in completing the markup of this bill,
and I want to extend my thanks to the subcommittee's vice chairman,
Paul Cook. I also want to thank our chairman, Chairman Thornberry, for
his leadership and his bipartisan work.
Now, I had a sentence here where I said I was thanking Ranking Member
Smith for his work on a bipartisan basis because of his support for
this bill when it came out of the committee, but due to his recent
opposition to this bill, I am going to cross that part out.
Mr. Chairman, the committee's focus, though, has been on a bipartisan
basis, and you will hear the members stand and talk about the
provisions that we worked on on a bipartisan basis, and that is why it
actually deserves, I think, everyone's support.
It supports the men and women of the Armed Forces and their families.
It provides the equipment they need and the support that they deserve.
I believe that the committee's bill strikes the appropriate balance
between equipping our military to effectively carry out its mission and
providing oversight.
Under this bill, Congress provides additional funding for new
National Guard Blackhawk helicopters, F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, Navy
strike fighters, unmanned aerial systems, lethality upgrades for
Stryker combat vehicles, improved recovery vehicles, Javelin antitank
missiles, and aircraft survivability improvements for Apache attack
helicopters.
We support the National Guard and Reserve component. This bill
provides additional funds as part of a National Guard and Reserve
equipment account to address significant equipment shortages and
modernization equipment for the Guard and Reserve.
This bill also calls for continued action to eradicate sexual assault
in the military. I want to thank Congresswoman Tsongas, Chairman
Wilson, my ranking member, Ms. Sanchez, and Ranking Member Susan Davis
for working on a bipartisan basis for these provisions. This bill
provides greater access to Special Victims' Counsel for Department of
Defense civilian employees. It addresses issues of retaliation against
victims and those who report sex crimes. It enhances sexual assault
prevention for male victims. It prohibits the release of victims'
mental health records without an order from a judge, and it provides
additional training for our military leaders.
I urge my colleagues to support this bill.
[[Page H2944]]
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the
gentlewoman from Guam (Ms. Bordallo), the ranking member of the
Subcommittee on Readiness.
Ms. BORDALLO. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank Ranking Member Adam Smith
and my dear friend, Chairman Wittman, for working collaboratively with
me on the readiness section of the NDAA.
I believe that this bill provides our servicemen and -women with what
they need to be prepared to face the challenges that are constantly
thrown at them by a dangerous and unpredictable world. However, as
Chairman Thornberry often likes to remind us, this gets us to the bear,
ragged, lower edge of what is required to respond to the full spectrum
of the challenges we face.
In addition to funding our readiness requirements, our bill looks to
the future by requiring GAO reports on Army and Air Force training
requirements, a review of the Army's Pacific Pathways program, and an
assessment of the adequacy of support assets for the Asia-Pacific
rebalance. These reports will provide the information necessary to
enable us to determine whether the programs are achieving their
intended purposes or will allow us to take corrective action if they
are not. The bill also authorizes a 2.3 percent pay increase for all
servicemembers.
The bill continues our strong tradition here in the House of
supporting the rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region. I am pleased that
this bill authorizes funding for the relocation of marines from Okinawa
to Guam and authorizes the improvement of critical infrastructure on
Guam. Further, we have provided clear language that, for the first time
ever, shows support from Congress on the need for continued progress on
the development of a Futenma replacement facility as the only option
for the marines on Okinawa. This bill also requires the administration
to develop a Presidential policy directive that would provide guidance
to each of the agencies and departments on how to resource and support
the rebalance strategy.
As I have been saying for some time, the best thing we could do to
increase our readiness above the minimum threshold that we are on is to
eliminate sequestration and get away from the gimmick of using OCO
funding, which adds to our Nation's credit card bill. I agree with the
President and with the Secretary of Defense that OCO funding is not a
permanent solution and that it hampers DOD's ability to utilize funding
in a responsible manner and to plan for future years. I do hope, Mr.
Chairman, that this Congress can, once and for all, find a solution and
fix this bill to end sequestration across the board.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Alabama (Mr. Rogers), the chair of the Subcommittee on Strategic
Forces.
Mr. ROGERS of Alabama. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support
of H.R. 1735, the fiscal year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act,
the 54th consecutive Defense Authorization Act, which recently passed
out of the Armed Services Committee by a vote of 60-2.
I want to thank Chairman Thornberry for his leadership in getting us
here today. Without his guidance, we might have been here with a bill
that failed to provide the $612 billion requested by the President for
national defense. I wouldn't have been able to have supported that
bill. Instead, we do have one that does meet the minimum needs as
outlined by Chairman Martin Dempsey.
I am also particularly proud of the provisions of the Strategic
Forces Subcommittee's jurisdiction:
We authorize $475 million for the Israeli missile defense, including
the U.S.-based coproduction;
We direct development of U.S. military capabilities to counter
Russia's violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
Putin must recognize that his illegal actions will have real
consequences;
We require the adaptation of the Aegis Ashore missile defense sites
the U.S. is deploying in Romania and Poland so that they are capable of
self-defense against airborne threats. It is simply immoral to deploy
U.S. personnel to these sites and then remove an intrinsic self-defense
capability;
We strengthen our decision made last year to end U.S. reliance on
Russian rocket engines by putting real money behind a new rocket engine
program;
We set priorities in NNSA by controlling the size of the bureaucracy,
ending ineffective nonproliferation programs, and seriously tackling
the $3.6 billion deferred maintenance backlog that we suffer at our
nuclear weapons complexes. We can no longer ask the best and the
brightest we have to work in decrepit infrastructure.
I am also pleased that language was included to prohibit furloughs at
Working Capital Fund facilities, like the Anniston Army Depot, provided
there is funded workload. Also included was my amendment with
Congressman Rob Bishop that would exempt civilian jobs funded by the
working capital fund, like those jobs at the depot, from the planned 20
percent reduction at headquarters.
The Anniston Army Depot is one of the largest employers in east
Alabama and is the most efficient production and maintenance facility
the Army has.
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my
time.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman
from Missouri (Mrs. Hartzler), the chair of the Subcommittee on
Oversight and Investigations.
Mrs. HARTZLER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the fiscal year
2016 NDAA, and I want to thank Chairman Thornberry for bringing this
important bill to the floor.
We have a proud tradition in the Armed Services Committee of
supporting our national defense in a bipartisan manner, and I hope that
tradition will continue this year.
This country is facing a vast array of threats, both from state and
nonstate actors, and I am pleased that the NDAA provides for the
resources needed to address those threats today while also preparing
for those of tomorrow.
As Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee chairwoman, I am proud
of the provisions included to address issues related to detainee
transfers. I remain frustrated and concerned with the administration's
lack of cooperation in the investigation of the Taliban Five transfer.
I consider it prudent to withhold funding from DOD until more
information and support is given so that we may continue proper
oversight.
This bill is good news also for the men and women at Fort Leonard
Wood and Whiteman Air Force Base. One of my top priorities since I got
to Congress has been to support Whiteman commanders' requests for the
construction of the Consolidated Stealth Operations and Nuclear Alert
Facility. This facility is included in this NDAA, and it will bring
substantial, immediate, and long-term benefits to the base and to its
B-2 operations. Additionally, I requested the provision to authorize 12
additional F/A-18F Super Hornets. These aircraft will fill an immediate
need in the fight against ISIL and allow them to be converted to
airborne electronic attack Growlers later, if necessary.
After a marathon 18-hour-long debate throughout the day and night, my
colleagues on the House Armed Services Committee and I have produced a
bipartisan bill that allocates vital funds for our Nation's defense. I
am proud of this bill, and I urge Members to support its passage.
{time} 1830
Mr. COURTNEY. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Nevada (Mr. Heck), chair of the Subcommittee on Military Personnel.
Mr. HECK of Nevada. Mr. Chairman, the military personnel provisions
of H.R. 1735 are the product of an open, bipartisan process. The mark
provides our warfighters, retirees, and their families the care and
support they need, deserve, and earned.
Some highlights from this year's proposal include continued emphasis
on the Department of Defense Sexual Assault Prevention and Response
program by addressing shortfalls in the program identified in the
Judicial Proceedings Panel initial report.
There is also rigorous oversight and consideration of the
recommendations made by the Military Compensation and Retirement
Modernization Commission. Specifically, the mark would require the
Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to establish
a joint formulary that includes
[[Page H2945]]
medications critical for the transition of an individual undergoing
treatment related to sleep disorders, pain control, and behavioral
health conditions.
It requires the Secretary of Defense to establish a unified medical
command to oversee medical services to the Armed Forces and other DOD
health care beneficiaries.
And it modernizes the current military retirement system by blending
the current 20-year defined benefit plan with a defined contribution
plan allowing servicemembers to contribute to a portable account that
includes a government automatic contribution and matching program.
It also requires the Secretary of Defense and the military service
chiefs to strengthen and increase the frequency of financial literacy
and preparedness training, establishing a more robust training and
education program for servicemembers and their families.
I want to thank Ranking Member Davis and her staff for their
contributions to this process. We were joined by an active, informed,
and dedicated group of subcommittee members, and their recommendations
and priorities are clearly reflected in the NDAA for fiscal year 2016.
Mr. Chairman, I have always said that I felt myself lucky to serve on
the Armed Services Committee because I thought it was the most
bipartisan committee in Congress. We, over at least the past 4 years,
have been unified in making sure that our men and women in uniform have
the resources they need to keep themselves and our Nation safe.
That is why today I find myself very confused and disappointed by the
comments made on the floor. This is the National Defense Authorization
Act, whose sole purpose is to provide for the common defense, not
education, not transportation, not any other government function.
To vote against this bill is to breach the faith that we have with
our men and women in uniform and is unconscionable. I, therefore, urge
my colleagues to support this bill.
Mr. COURTNEY. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. THORNBERRY. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr.
Franks), the distinguished vice chair of the Subcommittee on Emerging
Threats and Capabilities.
Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I thank the gentleman for yielding me the
time.
Mr. Chairman, I rise today to join in this chorus of support for the
fiscal year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act. I want to
sincerely congratulate Chairman Thornberry in this, his inaugural bill
as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, which passed with a small
vote of 60-2.
While this bill sets DOD policy, it also reflects the House-passed
budget figure for authorized spending at the Department of Defense. It
represents the will of Congress that we ought to be spending more on
national security, as nearly every corner of the world has become less
safe under President Obama's continued foreign policy failures.
The fiscal year 2016 NDAA makes needed reforms to strengthen civilian
retiree packages and begins to reform the way that we buy weapons and
other systems at the Pentagon, which will save tax dollars for years to
come.
I also want to thank the chairman and the committee for including
some of my amendments to reestablish the EMP Commission, beginning an
initial concept for development of a space-based missile defense
system, and guaranteed assistance to the Kurdistan regional government.
As we know, President Obama has, unfortunately, issued a veto threat
toward this bill. Mr. Chairman, the NDAA has been passed year after
year for 53 straight years, under both Democrat and Republican
administrations.
Among the provisions the President stands ready to reject are a joint
formulary to ease troop transition from the Department of Defense to
the VA; providing aid to Ukraine in the midst of Russian-backed
attacks; providing full funding to the Department of Defense which he,
himself, requested; a stronger missile defense and cyber capabilities;
a greater accountability for political reconciliation in Iraq; greater
protection of our troops from sexual assault; and better pay and
benefits to those who serve us so that we may stand here and debate
this bill today. These are among the provisions of this bill Mr. Obama
opposes.
I want just to reiterate to my colleagues that this bill did pass out
of the Armed Services Committee 60-2, and this list of accomplishments
is too long. So I will just express congratulations again to Mr.
Thornberry for his leadership under this massive undertaking. I urge
adoption of the bill.
Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Washington (Mr. Smith), the ranking member of the Armed Services
Committee.
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I just want to respond briefly
when basically it is called unconscionable to oppose something. Aside
from being unbelievably arrogant, it is wrong to say that there is no
reason whatsoever to vote against this bill.
I mentioned earlier that there were--I am sorry, if he can call me
``unconscionable,'' I suppose I can call him ``arrogant.'' I don't
know; it seems fair.
At any rate, there is another reason not to vote for this bill, and
that is that it underfunds readiness once again. It says this matches
the President's budget, and overall it does, but it has $2.4 billion
less in money for readiness. Last year's bill had $1.5 billion less in
readiness. Why?
Because every effort that the Department of Defense makes to cut just
about anything--the movements that they wanted to make to start a BRAC,
the changes that they wanted to make to the National Guard to save
money, the plan they had to lay up 11 cruisers, the efforts to get rid
of the A-10--efforts to move anything around are blocked by this
committee, and they take that money out of readiness to fund what
really amounts to a personal priority.
What does it mean to take money out of readiness? It means that our
troops do not get the training that they need to be prepared to fight.
It is just that simple. Readiness money is the money for the ammo. It
is the money for the fuel. It is the money for the mechanic to fix
equipment. That has been going down and down and down and down as we
block every effort to save money anyplace else because just about
anything the Pentagon is going to do is going to affect somebody's
district. The A-10 is in somebody's district. Every other project is
made in somebody's district.
We protected all that at the expense of readiness, and I think that
is the worst thing that we can do. It has created a situation where we
may well be sending our men and women off to fight unprepared and
untrained. And you talk to the people who are serving. They are not
able to fly as much as they used to. They are not able to train as much
as they used to. They are not able to use their weapons as much as they
used to because of those continuous cuts to readiness, because we fund
other priorities. That is number one.
Number two. Funding through OCO, as the Secretary of Defense has
said, is not the same as actually funding the Department of Defense
through a regular appropriations process. It is one-time money. What
the Secretary of Defense has said is:
Giving us this one-time money makes it impossible to plan. We don't
know if it is going to be there next year. You can't have a 5-year plan
under OCO money. You are restricted in where you can spend it and how
you can spend it. So this is not adequately funding our troops.
I do take offense at the notion that opposition to this bill means
that you just don't support our troops. That is the bumper sticker--
sorry, I won't use that word. It is wrong to say that about anyone who
opposes this bill. I oppose this bill because I don't think it does
adequately fund our troops. It doesn't take care of the budget problems
that are in front of us.
The CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. COURTNEY. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.
Mr. SMITH of Washington. The only way to adequately fund our troops
is to get rid of the Budget Control Act, so we can actually fund it
under regular order with a normal amount of money that allows them to
plan for over 5 years.
Lastly, I am sorry, but the infrastructure of this country matters.
The fact that bridges are falling down matters. The fact that we don't
have
[[Page H2946]]
enough money to do research on critical disease matters. Yes, it is
important to defend this country. Yes, that is the paramount duty. But
if the country itself crumbles while we have a military to defend it,
that too is a problem and one I think worth fighting for, worth
standing up and saying we are not going to accept a budget that guts
all of these other things and uses the overseas contingency operation
as a work-around to fund defense.
It is basically acting like this is free money. Well, it is not free
money. It costs, and it undermines the entire rest of the budget. Let's
get rid of the Budget Control Act. Let's get rid of the caps. Let's get
rid of sequestration. We don't do that in this bill, and it is my
contention that if we don't do that, then we are not adequately funding
our troops and adequately funding our defense.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds.
Mr. Chairman, I will just make two brief points. One is the extra OCO
funding that has been so criticized is 100 percent for operations and
maintenance, for readiness. That is what it all is devoted to in this
mark.
Secondly, if we start holding our troops hostage because we want more
spending over here or we want some other change in law over there,
where does that stop? Where does that stop? What are we not going to
hold our troops hostage to because a Senate and a House and a President
can't agree on some other issue? I think it is dangerous to start down
that road.
At this time, Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Colorado (Mr. Lamborn), the vice chairman of the Subcommittee on
Strategic Forces.
Mr. LAMBORN. I thank the chairman of the committee for his great work
on this bill and for yielding me this time.
Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the National Defense
Authorization Act of 2016. This is an important bill that provides
funding and authority for the men and women in uniform who are willing
to go in harm's way to keep our country safe. This bill takes some of
the important steps to reform the Department of Defense, both in
acquisition and in retirement benefits. It includes a number of
provisions that I worked on regarding military space, missile defense,
and tunnel detection, to name just a few.
This is a bipartisan bill. Dozens, if not hundreds, of provisions
were authored by Democrats. It came out of committee by a vote of 60-2.
Only one Democrat voted against it in committee. Nothing substantive
has changed; only now Nancy Pelosi is calling the shots, and Democrats
have flip-flopped.
I understand that Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats want to increase
taxes and increase spending on domestic programs, but that debate
should not be fought on the backs of our troops. If you vote against
this bill, it is a vote to cut our defense budget. It is even a vote
against President Obama's requested defense budget.
Today we have troops doing humanitarian relief in Nepal, dropping
bombs on ISIS, fighting the Taliban, deterring Iran in the Straits of
Hormuz, and supporting our European allies in the face of Russian
aggression. Now is not the time to cut the defense budget. Let's
support our troops, not Nancy Pelosi's partisan agenda. Vote ``yes'' on
H.R. 1735.
Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Chairman, could I inquire how much time remains on
both sides?
The CHAIR. The gentleman from Connecticut has 9\1/2\ minutes
remaining, and the gentleman from Texas has 7 minutes remaining.
Mr. COURTNEY. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman
from New York (Ms. Stefanik), the vice chair of the Subcommittee on
Readiness.
Ms. STEFANIK. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the fiscal
year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, and I would like to first
thank and applaud Chairman Thornberry on his leadership and commitment
to this thoughtful and comprehensive bill. Additionally, I am grateful
to our subcommittee chairs for their exhaustive efforts.
While the end results may not be perfect, it is a strong, bipartisan
piece of legislation that I am proud to support. Our committee spent 19
hours debating this bill, and all members put forward their ideas. We
worked together across the aisle, which led to significant strides in
maintaining and establishing our Nation's defense policy.
In today's unstable global environment, we are asking our Armed
Forces to do more with less over and over again, and as a
representative of Fort Drum, home of the 10th Mountain Division, such a
high operational tempo unit, I too am concerned about long-term impacts
due to the budget cap constraints.
Recently, I had the honor to attend a small congressional delegation
visit to CENTCOM's AOR. On this trip, I was able to get a firsthand
perspective on the detrimental effects these budget caps have on our
Nation's overseas missions.
Thankfully, the fiscal year 2016 NDAA provides our U.S. Armed Forces
with the tools and resources to maintain current efforts, and it passed
out of our committee on an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 60-2. I
want to remind my colleagues, 60-2.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for putting forth a great bill that I
am pleased to support. I urge my colleagues to support this bill,
particularly those colleagues on the committee who already have.
Mr. COURTNEY. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
New Jersey (Mr. MacArthur), the vice chair of the Subcommittee on
Military Personnel.
{time} 1845
Mr. MacARTHUR. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of the
National Defense Authorization Act. It is a bipartisan bill that passed
the full Armed Services Committee with nearly unanimous support, as we
have already heard.
This bill meets our national security needs; it cares for our troops,
invests in next-generation weaponry, and brings necessary reforms to
the Pentagon.
No bill is perfect, and I urge my colleagues not to allow the perfect
to be the enemy of the good. And there is certainly a lot of good in
this bill.
As vice chairman of the Military Personnel Subcommittee, I am
especially proud of our work to care for our troops and their families.
This bill acts on 11 of the 15 recommendations of the Commission on
Military Pay and Benefits, including things like revamping our military
retirement system to bring it into the 21st century, providing
increased financial literacy for our troops.
I am especially pleased that the bill includes an initiative I
proposed to help our retiring military personnel transition to civilian
jobs.
Importantly, this bill precludes another round of base realignment
and closure, or BRAC, which threatens to shutter military bases around
the country. We have seen that BRAC is simply not cost effective. In my
home State of New Jersey, we have seen the devastation it brings to
local communities. The last round of BRAC cost $14 billion more than it
was supposed to, and the savings were reduced by 73 percent. It doesn't
even break even for 13 years.
I am a businessman, and spending more to save less while you ruin
local economies and weaken our military just makes no sense.
Finally, this bill fulfills our constitutional duty to provide for
the common defense of our Nation. We face new threats like the Islamic
State, a newly resurgent Russia, and our military has to be ready to
face them head-on.
This bill funds the Pentagon at the level it needs and avoids the
disastrous blind cuts of sequestration that hurt our military's
capability and readiness.
I urge my colleagues to support this bill.
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of
my time.
Let me emphasize again that there are a lot of good things in this
bill. I won't disagree with anything that was said. The reform agenda
that Mr. Thornberry has, I think, taken a leadership role on is
incredibly important, and I think that is a huge positive.
There are a lot of programs in this bill that are absolutely critical
to our
[[Page H2947]]
national defense, but the most critical thing, I think, to our national
defense is getting us back to the normal budget process, getting us out
from under the Budget Control Act, out from under the budget caps, and
having a normal appropriations process. If we vote for this bill, we
allow that unnatural process where the Pentagon does not have long-term
funding and long-term predictability to continue.
The biggest thing that has changed since we were in committee is,
number one, the President did not issue a veto threat. I actually had a
conversation with leadership before we went to committee as to where
they were at on that. The fact that the President has now said that he
will not support this bill with the additional OCO funding is a major
change. It means that what we are working on here is not going to
happen. And that is not political; that is substantive. We have to have
a bill that the President will sign if we are, in fact, going to fund
our troops.
The second thing that happened was the budget resolution, which was
being debated back and forth. The House passed one and the Senate
passed one, but they came together and it became clear that the budget
resolution was the budget resolution, and they were locking in place
the budget resolution that I have described that takes advantage of the
OCO fund to basically create free money--money that doesn't count under
the Budget Control Act--to plus-up defense and keep everything else
where it is at.
Once that was locked in and the President looked at that and said he
would not support that appropriations process, we created a situation
where what we are doing here is not going to pass. It is not going to
be sustainable. We are not going to fund our troops doing it this way.
Unless we make those other changes in the budget process, we are just
not going to get there.
On the gentleman's comments about the BRAC round, the military said
they are over capacity in facilities. They are spending money on
facilities that they don't need to spend just because they can't close
those bases. Yes, in the short term it costs more money, but in the
long term, the first four rounds of BRAC have saved us hundreds of
billions of dollars over the long term.
So not being willing to do BRAC, not being willing to make cuts in
certain programs, is undermining readiness.
Yes, it is good that we took the OCO money. And because OCO money is
so fungible, you can do it this way. You took the rest of the money and
you funded all of these programs that the Pentagon was trying to cut,
and then you tried to backfill as much as you possibly could with the
OCO money and readiness. And that is better than not, but it is still
less to $2.4 billion short of what the President's budget was on
readiness.
And I still contend that we are shortchanging readiness to fund the
priorities that are more parochial and more political, and that is
something that I mentioned last year that put me on the edge of whether
or not I could support last year's bill. Because at the end of the day,
the one thing I think we owe our troops is that if we send them into
battle, they are ready. They are trained and they are ready to fight.
If they don't have the equipment and they don't have the readiness
dollars, then they won't be. So for those two reasons, I am opposing
this bill.
I am hopeful between now and when we come back from conference that
we can reconcile this issue and that we can actually adequately fund
the military and work through this, because I totally agree we need to
do this. But where we are at right now is a bill that I don't think
does adequately fund our troops in a predictable enough way to give
them the training they need and to give the Pentagon leadership the
predictability they need in terms of budgeting to have a defense
budget.
So, reluctantly, I will oppose this bill. And I hope we continue to
work to get to a bill that we can support in the end. I do not view
this in any way as the end of the bipartisan tradition of our
committee. We worked very closely together on putting together this
bill, and we will continue to work closely together to find a bill that
did actually pass through the entire process.
Again, if the President doesn't sign it, then all of our work is for
naught, and it is the troops who suffer. So we are going to have to
work on finding a way to reach an agreement with all the people who
need to approve this bill before it becomes law. I pledge to continue
to do that.
I do want to thank the chairman and the Republicans on this issue. I
think they have done a fabulous job of working on this bill. I just
disagree on that one fundamental point that, frankly, has more to do
with the Budget Committee than it does with our committee, but it does
have a profound impact on our product.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, let me just take up where the gentleman from Washington
left off.
You have heard from a number of speakers that the product before us
is a bipartisan product, that our committee works in a bipartisan way.
Just to put a little bit of quantification on that, over the course of
our markup in committee, 96 amendments sponsored by Democratic members
of the committee were adopted; and prior to that, at least 110 specific
requests by Democratic members of the committee were incorporated into
the committee and subcommittee marks. So it leaves one wondering: If
Democratic Members are forced to oppose the bill because of something
the Budget Committee hasn't done, how can this bipartisan tradition
continue?
That is one of the things that concerns me, because it is something
that I think we are all very proud of, that we worked together, that we
put the national defense interests ahead of these other differences
that we have.
This makes it harder when we don't fix the budget or we don't fix
health care or we don't fix the environment or we don't fix taxes.
There is no end if that is the way that this is going to go.
I think it is ironic, Mr. Chairman. I believe we need to find a
better way to impose fiscal responsibility in our government than the
Budget Control Act, and I am absolutely anxious to work with any Member
who wants to find a better way to go ahead. But we can't do it on this
bill. It is impossible.
And so what we are doing, for those who would oppose this bill, is to
hold the pay and benefits of our troops, all of these decisions, we are
holding that hostage to something that we can't resolve here in this
measure.
As the gentleman from Washington said at some point, this is not the
end of the process. This is a step in the process. There are a lot of
things to go with appropriation bills and conference reports and so
forth before the President ever has an opportunity to veto a bill. As a
matter of fact, Mr. Chairman, this President has threatened to veto, I
think, pretty much all the defense authorization bills at some point in
the process. That is not a reason for us not to take the next step.
I think we should build upon the bipartisan work that came out of
committee. I suspect there will be bipartisan work with amendments from
Republicans and Democrats on the floor and that we should pass this
measure, go to conference with the Senate, and keep working towards the
end of the process where, hopefully, we can have something better than
the Budget Control Act. But to say I am not going to support our troops
unless we do that first I don't think is the proper way to go.
This is a normal budget process. We have a House and Senate budget
resolution for the first time in years.
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. THORNBERRY. I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. SMITH of Washington. It is not a matter of not supporting our
troops. To say that the decision to oppose the defense bill is because
you don't support the troops I hope the gentleman would agree is not
where we are coming from.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Reclaiming my time, I do not mean to say that is the
intention of the gentleman or those who might oppose this bill. It is
the effect, however, because there are 40 essential authorities that
have to be in a defense authorization bill. One of those authorities is
to pay the troops. Without those authorities, it doesn't happen.
Mr. Chairman, I believe this bill should be supported, and I yield
back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, I ask that the following exchange of letters be submitted
during consideration of H.R. 1735:
[[Page H2948]]
House of Representatives,
Committee on Agriculture,
Washington, DC, April 28, 2015.
Hon. William M. ``Mac'' Thornberry,
Chairman, Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Thornberry: I am writing concerning H.R. 1735, the
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016.
This legislation contains provisions within the Committee
on Agriculture's Rule X jurisdiction. As a result of your
having consulted with the Committee and in order to expedite
this bill for floor consideration, the Committee on
Agriculture will forego action on the bill. This is being
done on the basis of our mutual understanding that doing so
will in no way diminish or alter the jurisdiction of the
Committee on Agriculture with respect to the appointment of
conferees, or to any future jurisdictional claim over the
subject matters contained in the bill or similar legislation.
I would appreciate your response to this letter confirming
this understanding, and would request that you include a copy
of this letter and your response in the Committee Report and
in the Congressional Record during the floor consideration of
this bill. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
Sincerely,
K. Michael Conaway,
Chairman.
____
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, May 1, 2015.
Hon. K. Michael Conaway,
Chairman, Committee on Agriculture,
Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: Thank you for your letter regarding H.R.
1735, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year
2016. I agree that the Committee on Agriculture has a valid
jurisdictional claim to a provision in this important
legislation, and I am most appreciative of your decision not
to request a referral in the interest of expediting
consideration of the bill. I agree that by foregoing a
sequential referral, the Committee on Agriculture is not
waiving its jurisdiction. Further, this exchange of letters
will be included in the committee report on the bill.
Sincerely,
William M. ``Mac'' Thornberry,
Chairman.
____
House of Representatives, Committee on Education and the
Workforce,
Washington, DC, May 1, 2015.
Hon. William M. ``Mac'' Thornberry,
Chairman, Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: I am writing to confirm our mutual
understanding with respect to H.R. 1735, the National Defense
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016. Thank you for
consulting with the Committee on Education and the Workforce
with regard to HR. 1735 on those matters within the
Committee's jurisdiction.
In the interest of expediting the House's consideration of
H.R. 1735, the Committee on Education and the Workforce will
forgo further consideration of this bill. However, I do so
only with the understanding this procedural route will not be
construed to prejudice my Committee's jurisdictional interest
and prerogatives on this bill or any other similar
legislation and will not be considered as precedent for
consideration of matters of jurisdictional interest to my
Committee in the future.
I respectfully request your support for the appointment of
outside conferees from the Committee on Education and the
Workforce should this bill or a similar bill be considered in
a conference with the Senate. I also request you include our
exchange of letters on this matter in the Committee Report on
H.R. 1735 and in the Congressional Record during
consideration of this bill on the House Floor. Thank you for
your attention to these matters.
Sincerely,
John Kline,
Chairman.
____
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, May 1, 2015.
Hon. John Kline,
Chairman, Committee on Education and the Workforce,
Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: Thank you for your letter regarding H.R.
1735, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year
2016. I agree that the Committee on Education and the
Workforce has valid jurisdictional claims to certain
provisions in this important legislation, and I am most
appreciative of your decision not to request a referral in
the interest of expediting consideration of the bill. I agree
that by foregoing a sequential referral, the Committee on
Education and the Workforce is not waiving its jurisdiction.
Further, this exchange of letters will be included in the
committee report on the bill.
Sincerely,
William M. ``Mac'' Thornberry,
Chairman.
____
House of Representatives,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Washington, DC, May 1, 2015.
Hon. William M. ``Mac'' Thornberry,
Chairman, Committee on Armed Services, Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Thornberry: I write to confirm our mutual
understanding regarding H.R. 1735, the ``National Defense
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016.'' While the
legislation does contain provisions within the jurisdiction
of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, the Committee will
not request a sequential referral so that it can proceed
expeditiously to the House floor for consideration.
The Committee takes this action with the understanding that
its jurisdictional interests over this and similar
legislation are in no way diminished or altered, and that the
Committee will be appropriately consulted and involved as
such legislation moves forward. The Committee also reserves
the right to seek appointment to any House-Senate conference
on such legislation and requests your support when such a
request is made.
Finally, I would appreciate a response to this letter
confirming this understanding and ask that a copy of our
exchange of letters be included in the Congressional Record
during consideration of H.R. 1735 on the House floor.
Sincerely,
Fred Upton,
Chairman.
____
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, May 1, 2015.
Hon. Fred Upton,
Chairman, Committee on Energy and Commerce, Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: Thank you for your letter regarding H.R.
1735, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year
2016. 1 agree that the Committee on Energy and Commerce has
valid jurisdictional claims to certain provisions in this
important legislation, and I am most appreciative of your
decision not to request a referral in the interest of
expediting consideration of the bill. I agree that by
foregoing a sequential referral, the Committee on Energy and
Commerce is not waiving its jurisdiction. Further, this
exchange of letters will be included in the committee report
on the bill.
Sincerely,
William M. ``Mac'' Thornberry,
Chairman.
The CHAIR. All time for general debate has expired.
Under the rule, the Committee rises.
Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr.
Babin) having assumed the chair, Mr. Graves of Louisiana, Chair of the
Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union, reported that
that Committee, having had under consideration the bill (H.R. 1735) to
authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2016 for military activities
of the Department of Defense and for military construction, to
prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for
other purposes, had come to no resolution thereon.
____________________