[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 222 (Wednesday, December 30, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7980-S7982]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT

  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I would like to rise and discuss the Fiscal 
Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act.
  First, I would like to salute the chairman. He has done an 
extraordinary job. We have both served on the committee for many years, 
and this is probably the most challenging year we have had due to many 
different factors: the pandemic, the virtual hearings, all those 
things.
  And this has been particularly challenging, and the chairman, at 
every point, stood up to the challenge and led us. I want to thank him 
for that. It was a pleasure working with him.
  We all recognize that this legislation passed both Chambers, the 
House and the Senate, by overwhelming bipartisan majorities. And it is 
very important legislation. That is why it earned this bipartisan 
support.
  It enhances our national security. It strengthens our military 
readiness and defense capabilities. It protects our forces and their 
families and supports the defense industrial base.
  Despite all that it does for our troops and their families, President 
Trump waited until the 10th day after he received it and vetoed it the 
last day he could exercise his veto. That was December 23, which made 
quite a Christmas for our military personnel and for all of my 
colleagues who are here today to start the process of responding to 
that veto.
  The House already took the first step. They returned on Monday. Once 
again, by an overwhelming vote, over 300 Members of the House overrode 
the President's veto. Now we face the same task in the Senate. It is my 
hope we can quickly and resoundingly override

[[Page S7981]]

the President's veto and provide our troops with what they need.
  I will echo what the chairman said. You can go through all the 
thousands of pages, literally, but what is the most significant aspect 
of this legislation is keeping faith with the men and women who wear 
the uniform of the United States. So if anyone has any thoughts about 
their vote, just think about those men and women who are all across the 
world putting their lives at risk while their families share that risk 
and that sense of danger and sacrifice. That is what I think has 
motivated the chairman and myself and all of our colleagues on the 
committee and throughout this Senate to work hard to get this bill 
passed.
  There are several reasons being advanced by the President for 
suggesting that this bill should be vetoed--the veto should be upheld. 
One reason is that he claims the bill fails to include critical 
national security measures. Yet this legislation provides critical 
tools and authorities for the Department of Homeland Security to 
perform network hunting for threats and vulnerabilities on Federal 
networks. These tools and authorities would help to counter breaches 
like the SolarWinds hack, which is possibly the largest intrusion into 
our system we have ever seen by a foreign nation state adversary. We do 
not yet know the extent and the degree of intrusion that we have 
suffered. In fact, we weren't aware of this intrusion for many, many 
months.
  One of the disconcerting aspects is that it was discovered by a 
private company that is one of the most, if not the most sophisticated 
cyber intrusion expert in the world. Yet they were penetrated.
  So we have a serious, serious situation on our hands. This 
legislation would start giving basic tools, which would allow our cyber 
security experts to go into other Departments to look at their 
procedures, their policies, all of their cyber activities, and 
recommend corrections.
  In fact, this bill has done more, I think, for cyber based on the 
work of the Cyber Solarium Commission, which was chaired by Senator 
Angus King and Congressman   Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin and also aided 
significantly by my colleague Congressman  Jim Langevin of Rhode 
Island. They put the work together. We took a lot of the Solarium's 
work and put it into this bill. So there is absolutely no credence to 
the issue that we have not dealt with national security and cyber 
intrusions in particular.
  Then again, the President, in his veto message, wrote that one of the 
reasons is the failure to essentially repeal section 230 of the 
Communications Decency Act. But this issue has nothing to do with the 
military--nothing at all. It was designed years ago to provide legal 
protections to social media companies so that they could expand and 
grow. Frankly, I think it has worked beyond our wildest imaginations. 
Everyone recognizes it should be reformed, but reform requires 
thoughtful, responsible analysis of the legislation. The effects of the 
legislation should offer both sides the opportunity to explain 
positions. None of that was done, and none of that can be done before 
we conclude this legislative session.
  It is more, I think, a personal feud of the President, the section 
230 repeal, than it is one of careful, deliberate, thoughtful 
legislation by the Senate.
  There is another reason the President has used, and that is we have 
established a commission to make recommendations for the renaming and 
removal of symbols, displays, monuments, and paraphernalia that honor 
or commemorate Confederates who served voluntarily with the 
Confederacy. There is a clear exemption, by the way, for gravestones 
that we would absolutely respect. But these individuals--many of them 
who were on Active service with our Army or Navy at the time--decided 
to consciously fight against the United States of America. It is that 
simple. Yet we have bases that are named after them.
  The President said this is part of the American heritage of victory 
and freedom, but, again, these are named after men who took up arms 
against the United States. In some cases--in most cases, they weren't 
particularly exemplary generals, with some exceptions. And it was done 
in a way that I think was not to honor the service of these individuals 
but to advance other forces.
  I think it is time that this history be changed, that this chapter be 
closed, and the senior Defense Department officials have indicated they 
are open to these changes. There is bipartisan support for cooperation 
on this issue. It passed the committee. It passed the floor. It passed 
the House. Now, it is in this legislation.
  When the President vetoed the bill, he also said it is a ``gift to 
China and Russia.'' I would strenuously disagree. This is one of the 
strongest bills yet on countering the threat China poses to the United 
States and our partners, including allies such as India, Taiwan, and 
other countries and regions.

  Among the provisions of this legislation is the Pacific Deterrence 
Initiative. That is a new authority for the Department of Defense, 
modeled after the European Deterrence Initiative and authorizes an 
additional $150 million in funding.
  This was the work--I was proud to collaborate, but the lead was the 
chairman, Chairman Inhofe, and I was his copilot on that one. This is 
the first time we really stepped back and said: We have a new threat--
significant threat--rising in the Pacific. We have to take a holistic 
review of strategy, capabilities, equipment, and we have to make this a 
top priority.
  So rather than doing nothing about China, as the President alleges, I 
think we have made one of the most significant steps forward in 
consciously recognizing the relationship that has developed between 
China and the United States.
  With regard to Russia and Europe, the conference report enhances our 
ability to deter Russian aggression, maintains strong support for 
Ukraine, and reaffirms our commitment to the transatlantic partnership, 
including by calling for a strong U.S. force posture in Germany.
  Now, President Trump also vetoed this legislation because he wants 
the ability to remove our military from ``far away and very 
unappreciative lands.'' Those are his words. Particularly, I have 
concern about the situation in Afghanistan. First--and I have been to 
Afghanistan somewhere close to 20 times--since the beginning.
  In fact, I was on the first congressional delegation to go in January 
after the invasion. I have tried to pay attention to what is going on 
there. And one point is that the Afghan people have struggled and 
fought with us side by side. They have suffered greatly. I don't think 
it is right to say they are unappreciative. I think every day they have 
been suffering casualties. They have been fighting with our soldiers--
in fact, in some cases, saving and helping our soldiers survive on the 
field.
  Second, essentially, the provision allows the President to make the 
decision. In fact, he can waive all the provisions we built in by 
simply declaring that it is in the national security interests of the 
United States and communicating that to the respective leaders in the 
House and the Senate. That is something that is almost pro forma. So 
the notion that this seriously hampers his ability is misplaced.
  What it does, though, is signal that we have to be very careful in 
recognizing all of the equities that are involved in Afghanistan. The 
fact is that there are numerous terrorist groups there, and we have to 
maintain a counterterrorism presence; the fact that, as I indicated 
before, the Government of Afghanistan, the Afghan people, in many 
cases, have suffered more than we have considering the onslaught of the 
Taliban and other forces. So, again, I don't think that reason measures 
up to the demands.
  The National Defense Authorization Act has passed for 59 years. We 
need to ensure it will pass for 60 years by overriding the President's 
veto. The House, as I said, has already done that--322 to 87. I 
encourage my colleagues to show similar support for our military 
personnel and their families and override this veto.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, let me elaborate a little bit on something 
that my good friend from Rhode Island said about China.
  I think it is very, very significant that we realize that this is the 
toughest bill on China that has ever been

[[Page S7982]]

passed. That didn't come just from me; that came from the American 
Enterprise Institute, which has all the credibility in the world. They 
talk about the serious things that are going on, and they actually said 
this bill has the most substantial and consequential China-related 
provisions since--in, probably, history.
  That is significant because all of us remember--I know that Senator 
Reed and I have both spent time in the South China Sea, the seven 
islands that they are doing right now. China--it is illegal, but they 
have taken over--no, they have created seven islands in the South China 
Sea. When you go down there, it looks as if, on those islands, they are 
preparing for World War III. A lot of our allies in that area are very 
much concerned because they are making a lot more noise than we are, 
and they are demonstrating very clearly some of the things that they do 
that we haven't done. Hypersonics is an example. That is a state-of-
the-art thing that we do in modernizing our military equipment and 
abilities. It has been very successful, but they are still ahead of us, 
so we are in catchup mode.
  I would say this: When you go and you look and you see the buildups 
that they have--I can remember--it wasn't long ago that every time 
China got involved in any kind of an effort, they did it from their own 
city limits there. Now they are all over Djibouti, Tanzania, and all 
around the world.
  We made this bill to establish the Pacific Deterrence Initiative. 
That is $2.2 billion for foreign posture to put ourselves in the 
position where we are going to pass, with this bill--we will pass 
China, and then we will be shifting the supply chains away from China--
semiconductors and printed circuit boards, the pharmaceuticals--
stimulating the U.S. economy, protecting weapons systems and our 
troops, and bringing China's malign national security activities into 
light to make sure everybody knows what they are doing there.
  We have a new report in this bill on the true China defense security 
spending, new assessments of China's industrial base, new list of 
Chinese companies operating in the United States and making it more 
difficult for them to do that. It is all in this bill. There is a new 
report on the fishing fleets they have out there. It extends the 
successful China Military Power Report, supports Taiwan and a new plan 
against--that is better than anything we have ever done before.
  Yesterday, I put this into the record--all the things that we are 
doing just concentrating on the threat that is posed to the United 
States from the country of China. It is all in this bill. So this is 
something we have taken great pride in because we recognize the threat 
that is posed to our country from the Chinese.
  This is a good bill. It is one that deserves overwhelming support. I 
will say one more time that a lot of work went into this from both 
sides of the aisle. We were in agreement on it with huge margins of 
support in both Chambers of the House and the Senate. We will have a 
chance to move procedurally toward that and make that a reality before 
the end of the week.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.

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