[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 181 (Wednesday, November 13, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6531-S6534]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
National Defense Authorization Act
Mr. President, in the shadow of Veterans Day, we are here on our side
of the aisle to talk about why we are not doing what we need to be
doing to fund the military. In my following Senator Sullivan, there are
multiple Dan Sullivans who are in politics in Alaska. The first time
Senator Dan Sullivan was on my radar, how could I tell them apart? This
one is Afghan Dan. There is Afghan Dan because he was willing to serve
just like the Presiding Officer was willing to leave law school and not
go to the JAG Corps but to go to the Active, fighting forces of the
country. We are grateful for that. Both of them speak with authority on
these issues, but the whole Senate and the whole Congress would have a
chance to speak with authority on these issues if we would just decide
to do our jobs.
The way communities decide they are going to honor Veterans Day, I
think, is unique among them. I had a couple of events scheduled on
Monday. One was in Hartville, MO. Those in Hartville were creating a
wall of people over the history of the country who died in service. If
you are in elementary school in Hartville today and you look at that
wall, I am confident you will see some of the same last names of the
kids in your school.
I was at a high school event in Camdenton at which we had about 20
World War II veterans on the stage. I represent 500,000 veterans. My
guess is the chances of finding 20 in 1 county in 1 State is fairly
hard to do these days, but they were all there. We were also talking
about the beginning of a new Junior ROTC Program at that high school
that will start in January. There are 82 high school students who are
signed up to be part of that Junior ROTC Program, which they have spent
10 years trying to put in place.
For those who have served and for those who are willing to serve, the
one thing we can do in Congress is to pass the two pieces of
legislation that are necessary to support that service. Unlike in World
War II and unlike in many past conflicts, fewer than one-half of 1
percent of the population today serves in the military. The other 99.5
percent needs to stand up and do what it can to be sure our military is
the best supported military in the world. We never want an American
soldier, sailor, airman, marine, or a person in the Coast Guard, in the
National Guard, or in the Reserves to be in a fair fight. We always
want them to be in an unfair fight, wherein they have advantages in
that fight.
The only way you can be sure they will have those advantages is to
have the training dollars, to have the equipment dollars, and to have
the command structure that allows that to happen. For 59 straight
years, the Senate has passed the National Defense Authorization Act.
This is the act that defines what Congress believes should be the
guiding principles for the military for that year--the places in which
money should be invested, the equipment that should be bought, and the
other changes that need to be made.
The other bill we passed is the appropriations bill that takes that
authorization bill and really puts the money by it that allows it to
happen. For 59 straight years, it is the only authorization act we have
passed every year. I think we could have a really good debate as to why
it is the most important of what we do and is the most important thing
the Federal Government does. We have done it, but we can't seem to get
it done this year. The bill that will have the biggest pay raise in a
decade for the people in the military has somehow been negotiated
since, roughly, June 27 of this year. It should have been a 1-week
effort, not a weeks' and months' effort. When somebody is assigned to a
new base, this bill will have the money in it to encourage spouses to
go to work and do what they do as quickly as they can possibly do it by
the bill's facilitating and expediting State certification.
In January, we had our first military spouse sworn in as a member of
the Missouri bar. Her husband had come to take a command position at
Fort Leonard Wood. During the first week she was in Missouri, she was
able to be sworn in to the Missouri bar and go to work. Whether as a
therapist, a teacher, a truckdriver, an electrician, an engineer, or a
welder, if you have those skills and if you have followed your spouse
to a new assignment, we should make that a top priority.
That is what happens in this bill. It supports the readiness center
in Springfield, MO. It supports the vehicle maintenance facility at
Whiteman Air Force Base and the C-130 flight simulator facility at the
Rosecrans Air National Guard Base. As a Senate, we decided all of those
things needed to happen. Now we need to decide as a Senate and a
Congress how to make them happen. Whether they be 24 F/A-18 Super
Hornets that the Navy wants that will be built in St. Louis, MO, or 15
F-15s for the Air Force, these things will not happen unless they are
authorized. Let's get them authorized. Let's appropriate the money. We
are already weeks late. We don't need to be months late. It is better
to have the money the day you are supposed to have it if you are going
to spend it as wisely as we would hope you would be able to spend it.
I join my colleagues and, I know, the Presiding Officer in saying we
need to get this work done. It is critical. It is
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a priority. I am glad to join my colleagues on the floor in fighting
for those who fight for us.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). The Senator from Arkansas.
Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I join the Senator from Missouri, the
Senator from Alaska, and the other Senators in calling for the passage
of the National Defense Authorization Act.
This bill is the last of a breed. It is a bill we have passed with a
large bipartisan majority in Congress every single year for 58 straight
years. It hasn't been derailed by petty, partisan politics or
grievances between the parties. It has gotten large bipartisan
majorities because Congress has understood that for those 58 years, the
national defense must come before politics. It is the definition of a
must-pass act, but time is short to get it right, unfortunately,
because of those very kinds of petty, partisan politics.
This bill is an opportunity for us to continue rebuilding our
military after 8 years of stagnation and cuts by the last
administration. The bill would increase funding to our troops by $22
billion--money that would be spent on cutting-edge technologies, like
new vertical-lift jet engines, to give our troops an edge in future
conflicts.
This kind of investment is essential, especially as storm clouds brew
in the Western Pacific from a rising China. The Communist Party of
China is not derailed by petty, partisan politics; therefore, it is
investing huge sums to transform its military into a world-class force
that will be capable of rivaling and, it hopes, ultimately, of
defeating our own military. At the same time, China is pursuing an
aggressive technology strategy to dominate the next generation of
military hardware. Beijing's ultimate goal, of course, is to replace us
not just as the most powerful country in the Western Pacific but in the
entire world. So we must invest in our military right now or else we
will reap that whirlwind in the future.
There are many other important measures that have been included in
this year's Defense bill that will not pass--that will not even see the
light of day--on the Senate floor if we fail to pass the bill.
There is the Fentanyl Sanctions Act, which is my bipartisan
legislation, that would crack down on foreign criminals--mostly
Chinese--who smuggle deadly poisons across our border. Synthetic
opioids kill tens of thousands of Americans every year, and that toll
will continue to rise if we don't start to bust up the criminal
networks that originate in China and then come through Mexico to poison
our communities. Let's pass the Defense bill to give law enforcement
the tools of the Fentanyl Sanctions Act.
There is also the PCS Act, which is my legislation that would help
military spouses transfer their occupational licenses across State
lines. When your husband or your wife is in the military, you follow
his or her career, and if you are a lawyer or a nurse or a teacher or
any of the other hundreds of jobs that require an occupational license
in this country, you face barriers to working and putting food on the
table for your family. This bill would allow military spouses to
continue to pursue their careers uninterrupted, which would therefore
allow their military servicemembers to focus on their own missions and
not worry about their spouses' jobs.
There is also our legislation to honor the 241 American victims of
the Beirut marine barracks bombing that was perpetrated by an Iranian
suicide bomber 36 years ago last month. The Defense bill would
designate the anniversary of that bombing as a national day of
remembrance and strengthen our resolve to fight the terrorist forces
that carried it out and that threaten our security to this day.
There is also the opportunity to strengthen trade restrictions on
Huawei by including in the Defense bill the Defending America's 5G
Future Act. Huawei is the eyes and ears overseas of the Communist Party
of China, so we must deny it access to our sensitive networks and the
networks of our allies. There are 91 Senators who voted to instruct the
conference committee to include that legislation in the Defense bill.
They still hope it will be included, but, first, we will have to pass
the Defense bill. If we don't, then China's spy company stands to gain.
This is far from an exhaustive list of the reforms that are or could
be included in this year's Defense bill. It is just a sample of the
many valuable and bipartisan measures that are under consideration.
They also underscore the importance of passing the Defense bill in the
first place.
Consider the alternative to passing the National Defense
Authorization Act--that being a terrible stopgap spending measure that
would include zero reforms and that would degrade, even as we face
rising threats from China and Russia every day, the fighting capability
of our military. A stopgap spending measure would freeze defense
spending at last year's levels. That is not to say that business would
go on as usual. No. Inflation would continue to erode the purchasing
power of last year's funding levels, and the military would have to
tear up and renegotiate many of its multiyear contracts with defense
companies. Renegotiating those contracts would cost billions in
administrative expenses that would otherwise go to the pay and benefits
of our fighting men and women, to a new aircraft, to new ships, to new
guns, or to new munitions. This so-called spending freeze would, in
fact, cost taxpayers an arm and a leg.
This is all the more reason for Congress to act, once again, to pass
the National Defense Authorization Act, as we have for 58 years,
without being divided by petty, partisan politics.
I urge my colleagues to put aside their partisan objections on issues
that are really not even related to our military. I urge them to make
the hard compromises necessary in order to pass this bill and give our
troops what they need.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cotton). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, the world is more dangerous today than at
any time in my lifetime. We face five threats across five domains:
China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and terrorism. The domains have
gotten very complicated--air, land, sea. Now we have to deal with cyber
and space.
But in that background, three times over the last 50 years, this
government, under the leadership of three different Presidents, has
disinvested its military significantly--under President Carter, under
President Clinton, and indeed under President Obama. They cut the
military by 25 percent at least in each one of those administrations.
The last one was extremely draconian. We saw the impact of that on
our readiness, the fact that our modernization program had been killed,
and we found ourselves falling behind what we ought to now call near-
peer competitors. I would say they are peer competitors now. When you
look at the money China is spending on their military, when adjusted
for purchasing power parity, it is exactly the same as we are spending.
And they don't have the regulatory overhang and they don't have the
legacy costs we have here in the United States, so they can get things
done quicker and cheaper. In the meantime, the world continues to
become very dangerous.
Yet here we are in the second month of our fiscal year under a
continuing resolution. As we now are becoming educated about, this is
devastating our military and has been. This is the 187th time since the
1974 Budget Act was put into place that we have executed a continuing
resolution. It sounds really easy. Well, we can't get agreement on how
much to spend for the next year, so we will just keep spending at the
same level. Some businesses do that, but in this case with the U.S.
military, it is devastating because it locks them into existing
programs.
For example, we did an audit last year. It was the first audit in the
history of the United States of the Department of Defense--the third
largest line item on our expense sheet. We did an audit. In that audit
was found and identified by the Department of Defense $4 billion of
obsolete programs that nobody really wanted to keep and continue
spending on--$4 billion a year. So right now, under this continuing
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resolution, not only are we not able to give a 3.5-percent pay raise--
the largest in 10 years--to our military, not only are we not able to
improve their housing, but right now we are obliged to keep spending $4
billion a year on obsolete programs that the Defense Department doesn't
even want. This is ludicrous.
Right now, I would say we are in gridlock. We had 88 votes here in
this Senate where we voted to approve the National Defense
Authorization Act several weeks ago--very bipartisan, negotiating in
committee. I was on the Armed Services Committee, and we took this very
seriously. We debated, and it was a definite fight, but we reached
compromise. We reached bipartisan agreement to support and defend our
military and to make sure they are able to do the things they want to
do to make us competitive and defend our country. Yet here we are, 6
weeks into this fiscal year, and we still don't have this year funded.
We are under a continuing resolution that devastates the military. For
six decades--58 years--each year we have been able to do that. Yet,
this year, we can't seem to come to an agreement because the House and
the Senate can't get together in conference and agree on exactly what
it is they want to do.
That is all window dressing. It is no more complicated than this: The
Democratic brethren in this body and in the House simply do not want to
allow this President to spend another dime on building a wall around
our southern border.
Let's put this in perspective. First of all, we have seen on this
floor just in the last 2 hours two different comments: Well, we all
know that building a border wall doesn't really work. It doesn't change
anything.
Well, that is absolute propaganda. Barack Obama built 135 miles of
wall. This body approved that. And wherever that wall was built,
illegal crossings at the southern border went down 95 percent. That is
not propaganda; that is fact. It is another example of the
obstructionism we have been witnessing here since the day this
President was sworn in.
On Inauguration Day, January 20, 2017, the headline of the Washington
Post was ``The campaign to impeach President Trump has begun.'' Since
day one, they have been obstructing this President. We saw that in the
confirmation process here. For the first time in 230 years, we saw the
minority party not waive the 30-hour debate rule and allow this
President to get his nominees confirmed. It has been the slowest ever.
So we sit here today not being able to build the space force that
both sides have agreed on. Eighty-eight people in this body agreed that
we need to go ahead and start spending money and doing that. We can't
do that. We can't put in the building blocks for the Advanced Battle
Management System, which is so important to deal with the modern fight.
We can't rebuild our nuclear triad, which is in absolutely critical
shape. We can't seem to get at our readiness right now because of the
lock we have, under this continuing resolution, on the existing
contracts out there. As was just mentioned a few minutes ago, we have
to go in and renegotiate all these contracts.
Last year was the first time we did not have a continuing resolution,
and there was such a sigh of relief inside our military because it was
the first time in a long time--over a decade--that they didn't have
that for the first quarter of the year.
This is devastating. It has become habit, and we have to stop it. It
is absolutely insidious. It is killing our military and keeping us from
doing the things that both sides want to do because of petty politics.
We need to modernize our force, and we need to do it right now. This
NDAA allows us to do that. We need to rationalize our expenditures to
make sure that every time we are spending on our military, it is
exactly what we should be spending it on.
We have a Volunteer Force, and we can never take that for granted. We
have to take care of our people in uniform wherever they are in the
world. That means working on their mental health, their physical
health, and their housing.
I come from a State that has nine military installations. We take
national defense very seriously in Georgia and always have.
People are concerned that this gridlock is endangering our country.
It is time that we get together, pass this NDAA, move on the
appropriations bill, and get this done. People back home are watching,
the people in our military are watching, and more importantly, our
potential adversaries are watching.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, I want to join my colleagues today and
speak on the importance of passing the fiscal year 2020 Defense
authorization bill.
As others have mentioned, the process of negotiating the national
defense bill is one that has a long history on Capitol Hill. For the
past 58 years, the Congress has found a way to come together and unite
behind a bipartisan bill that supports our servicemembers and enables
the defense of this Nation. We must continue this tradition, and that
means recommitting to the principles of bipartisanship and compromise
upon which it is built.
Thanks in large part to the hard work and the leadership of Chairman
Jim Inhofe and Ranking Member Jack Reed and the members of the Senate
Armed Services Committee, the Senate passed an overwhelmingly
bipartisan version of this year's National Defense Authorization Act.
The House of Representatives, however, passed a very different bill.
The conference process is ultimately about finding the best solution
that supports our men and women in uniform, but we have to be willing
to compromise and find consensus. We cannot resort to political
brinksmanship.
As the chairman said last week and as some of my colleagues have
mentioned here today, we are running out of time. It is essential that
our colleagues in the House come to the table to pass the fiscal year
2020 NDAA.
We live in a rapidly changing world and unfortunately one that
contains a growing number of threats and challenges that our military
must face head-on. These threats demand that we be ready, and our
military can effectively confront those threats only if we provide our
servicemembers with the support they need to execute the missions,
defeat the enemies of freedom, and safeguard the Nation.
Providing for the common defense is the highest responsibility this
body has, and that is why it is so essential that we pass this
legislation in a timely manner.
As I said before, for 58 years the NDAA has been the subject of a
bipartisan consensus in Congress despite all of our other
disagreements. No matter what other issues arise, the one area in which
we must forge agreement is in authorizing the resources our men and
women in uniform need.
Time and again, we have heard from our senior military leaders that
their greatest obstacle is budget uncertainty and unpredictable
funding. If we do not come together and pass this year's NDAA soon, we
are at risk of damaging our military capabilities and jeopardizing our
ability to confront threats from China, Russia, and other malign
actors.
It is essential that we work swiftly to secure an agreement so that
we do not fail to provide the Department of Defense with the
predictable funding they need. We must do our part and honor the
service of all our men and women in uniform by moving this process
forward and passing the fiscal year 2020 National Defense Authorization
Act.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, first, I want to thank Senator Fischer for
all of her work on the Senate Armed Services Committee and in so many
other areas. I am here to talk about the same subject, the National
Defense Authorization Act.
It may be difficult to understand the difference between
appropriating and authorizing. We have two different sorts of
committees here. One focuses on the resources funding their use, but
they can't be used unless they are authorized. So every year for 58
years, we have come into the committee, we have heard differing
opinions on priorities, but at the end of the day, the amazing thing
about the Senate Armed Services Committee when it comes to
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the National Defense Authorization Act is that we always reach a
bipartisan agreement. It passed out of the Senate Armed Services
Committee with I believe unanimous support, and then it got passed out
of the Senate.
Normally, this happens in the June timeframe, maybe the July
timeframe. Now here we are in November. Not only have we not passed the
National Defense Authorization Act, but we are at risk of not passing
anything. Now what we are hearing about is a so-called skinny bill that
would just be the basic authorities while we are leaving everything
else on the table.
I am going to talk a little bit about the Personnel Subcommittee,
which I chair, but what do authorities mean? It means research on new
weapons systems. It means research for men and women in a dangerous
situation to make sure the best possible technology and training is
available to make it as safe as it can be in an unsafe environment.
There are hundreds of authorizations in the National Defense
Authorization Act that are at risk of sliding another year for the
first time in 58 years.
Now what I want to talk about is what is at stake if we can't reach
an agreement with Speaker Pelosi specifically in the Personnel
Subcommittee.
I actually requested the Personnel Subcommittee because I wanted to
focus on the business of the Department of Defense, and I wanted to
focus on military families and on the soldiers' health and safety.
If we do not pass provisions that passed out of my subcommittee and
that are in the National Defense Authorization Act that passed out of
the Senate, here is what is at stake:
There is a pay raise for every soldier, sailor, and marine--a 3.1-
percent pay raise that they could lose this year as a result of not
gaining agreement.
We have a lot of provisions in there for military housing. I am from
North Carolina, and we have two very large installations in North
Carolina--Fort Bragg, the home of the Global Response Force, and Camp
Lejeune, home to a bigger population of marines than any military
installation in the world.
They are in housing today that needs to be outfitted. They are in
housing that, quite honestly, is unsafe. This National Defense
Authorization Act makes progress to make sure that the families that
are housed on bases are in safe, clean settings, and quite honestly, in
some cases, they are not today, which is why we have bipartisan support
for the provisions we put into our subcommittee mark.
Another thing that we are working on--it is very difficult for one
who doesn't come from a military background to understand how
challenging it is for a spouse to get a job for the brief period of
time that they may be in one military installation or another. This
mark has provisions in it to make sure that military spouses get
employment opportunities as quickly as possible and to cut through a
lot of the red tape that they are dealing with today. That provision is
at risk.
We have also taken major steps and tried to prevent or reduce
military sexual assault. Provisions in this bill, I am convinced,
because they were voted out on a bipartisan basis, are at risk because
we can't seem to get agreement with Speaker Pelosi's House.
Another very important area is in places like North Carolina. In
North Carolina, Camp Lejeune alone experienced over $3.5 billion in
damages as the result of the most recent hurricane, and Fort Bragg is
still trying to recover from a hurricane that happened about 2 and a
half years ago. There are authorities in there to make sure that we can
rebuild these facilities. Military housing, as well as offices and
other training facilities at Camp Lejeune, could slip another year if
we allow what I think right now is the impasse between the House and
the Senate to move forward.
These are all very, very important provisions in the National Defense
Authorization Act. These are all provisions that got bipartisan support
from this body. If you all have been watching Congress, you know that
we can have our disagreements. There are certain things that we just
simply aren't going to see eye to eye on, but we see eye to eye on the
National Defense Authorization Act. That is why I do not understand how
the House would not come to the table and pass something that we have
successfully passed for every year of my life.
I am 59 years old. This could be the first time in 58 years that we
run the risk of not showing the respect that I think the men and women
in the military, in uniform, deserve, to give them the authority to be
trained properly, to not run the risk of working with old authorities
that could diminish training and readiness and capabilities. This is
about these folks that have sworn to defend the Constitution and our
freedom, and we can't take the time to bridge the gap and eliminate the
other reasons that divide us and at least come together on something
for 58 years we have seen our way clear to passing and making progress,
for men and women in uniform, for soldiers, sailors, and marines and
for their families.
So I am for the Speaker of the House and the Members of the House to
come to terms and pass what we have done successfully for decades. We
owe it to the men and women in uniform, and we owe it to every American
to understand what is at stake if we all of a sudden slide for a year
while our adversaries continue to gain ground.
I hope that my colleagues will continue to come together and pass
this bipartisan legislation. It is within reach and absolutely an
expectation, I think, of every Member of Congress to show our men and
women in uniform respect by doing our job.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.