[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 148 (Wednesday, September 14, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4609-S4611]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   National Defense Authorization Act

  Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, my colleague from Tennessee was just 
talking about priorities of this administration and this Senate, and I 
want to continue on that area of focus, relating to what many of us 
believe is probably the most important priority we have in the U.S. 
Senate, and that is defending our Nation.
  Budgets are a reflection of an administration's values and an 
administration's priorities. And as I mentioned, many of us--and I 
believe on both sides of the aisle--see that the No. 1 priority we 
should have in the U.S. Senate is making sure we are a strong nation, 
to defend this great country of ours and to make sure we have the most 
lethal, well-trained military anywhere in the world, and that we take 
care of our troops and their families.
  But this is not what this administration--the Biden administration--
believes at all. In fact, President Biden's budgets clearly not only do 
not prioritize our military; they put them consistently last. And that 
is not a one-time thing. This is a pattern with this administration.
  Here was the President's proposed budget last year. Take a look at 
it. We all know it was trillions and trillions. Department of Commerce, 
28 percent increase. EPA, 21 percent. Interior, 16 percent--on and on. 
There are double-digit increases everywhere except--except--in the two 
Agencies that actually protect the Nation: the Department of Defense 
and the Department of Homeland Security.
  Last year, the Biden budget put forward a budget that, if it was 
adjusted for inflation, was almost a 3-percent cut to the Department of 
Defense.
  Priorities matter. This administration has not prioritized our 
military at all.
  Guess who was really pleased by that budget, by the way? The dictator 
in Beijing and the dictator in Moscow. No doubt when they saw that, 
they loved it.
  Thankfully, the Armed Services Committee, on which I sit, said: Do 
you know what, Mr. President? With all due respect, this is nuts. We 
are not going to stand for this.
  We put forward in the National Defense Authorization Act last year a 
3-percent real increase to the Department of Defense budget. It was 
very bipartisan in the committee, a complete rebuke to the President of 
the United States, saying: We don't believe in cuts. We are going to 
increase. The appropriators, thankfully, did the same.
  So that was the Biden administration's prioritization of our military 
last year.
  Now, what happened between last year and this year, when the most 
recent budget came out? Well, I think a lot of us know, but I am going 
to talk a little bit about it.
  Russia invaded Ukraine, and at an April Armed Services hearing, the 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley, said that the 
invasion was ``the greatest threat to the peace and security of Europe 
and perhaps the world in any of my time of 42 years in uniform.''
  So this is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff saying we are 
likely seeing one of the most dangerous periods anywhere in the world 
in terms of national security in the last four decades.
  That was testimony from the President's own Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff.
  That is Russia. And, of course, their ally China is also taking 
incredibly aggressive actions all around the world. They are beginning 
to outcompete our country on many fronts--critical minerals, energy, 
technology.
  Certainly, Xi Jinping, the dictator of Beijing, has increased China's 
aggression all around the world--in India, threatening to invade 
Taiwan, economic aggression toward Australia, snuffing out liberty in 
Hong Kong.
  What else has China done? It is dramatically increasing its defense 
spending--more than 7 percent this year--increasing a navy that is 
almost becoming larger than ours.
  This is how General Milley, again, put it in a hearing last April:

       We are now facing two global powers, China and Russia, each 
     with significant military capabilities, both of whom intend 
     to fundamentally change the current rules-based global order. 
     We are entering a world that is becoming more unstable and 
     the potential for significant international conflict between 
     great powers is increasing, not decreasing.

  So that is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, again.
  Now, what do you think the President did, seeing we had this 
incredibly dangerous period internationally, with his next budget? Last 
year, as I mentioned, he cut the Pentagon defense budget by almost 3 
percent and dead last with Homeland Security in terms of Agencies.
  So did he listen to his Chairman? Does he really think it is that 
dangerous? Let's see.
  This is this year's defense budget and other priorities from this 
administration's multitrillion dollar budget, and, once again, you see 
the EPA coming in at a 24-percent increase. Commerce, HHS, and Labor 
are all double-digit--Interior, DOJ.
  What about the Department of Defense? It is a 4-percent increase with 
almost 9-percent inflation. We are talking close to a 5-percent real 
cut to the Department of Defense. This is outrageous.

  Last year, the President put forward almost a 4-percent cut to 
defense spending. In the interim period, we had one of the most 
dangerous wars that has happened--certainly in Europe and maybe in the 
world--in a generation. The President's own Secretary of Defense and 
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff come before the Senate Armed 
Services Committee and say it is an incredibly dangerous time--a 
period, maybe, in almost 50 years in

[[Page S4610]]

which we haven't seen so many threats to the international order. And 
the President does what? He, once again, prioritizes our defense almost 
dead last--almost dead last. Adjusted for inflation, it is a 5-percent 
cut.
  Now, with this posture hearing for the Secretary of Defense and 
Chairman Milley, I asked the question: Gentlemen, with all due respect, 
you just said it is the most dangerous period in almost the last 50 
years. How can you come before this committee and put forward a budget 
that is almost a 5-percent cut to the Department of Defense and our 
troops?
  They didn't have a good answer. The truth of the matter is, I am 
quite certain that the uniformed military and probably even Secretary 
Austin do not support this budget, but they are good soldiers. They had 
to salute the Commander in Chief and try to support it. But we don't 
have to support it, and I know the American people certainly don't 
support it. Once again, I do know two people who support it. Vladimir 
Putin and Xi Jinping look at this, and this is something they are very 
pleased with.
  Once again, the Armed Services Committee, when we met to mark up the 
NDAA, voted in an overwhelming bipartisan fashion--23 to 3--to, once 
again, dramatically rebuke the President in a bipartisan way and 
significantly increase the top line for the Department of Defense to 
make sure we have a strong nation and that our troops are taken care of 
and their families by almost $45 billion over what the President 
requested. It was a bipartisan rebuke, once again, of this 
administration that won't prioritize our national security and that 
keeps putting forward budgets that prioritize the defense of our Nation 
last.
  We also started in this NDAA to course-correct, which we need to do 
dramatically at the Pentagon. We have had civilian leadership, 
primarily driven by the Biden administration's far-left nominees, who 
have not been focusing the Pentagon on its top priority, which is to 
win our Nation's wars and to make sure we have the most lethal military 
of any country in the world. So I was able in this NDAA to put forward 
some amendments that I was glad to get bipartisan support on, that are 
in the current NDAA, to start a course correction.
  First, one of my amendments directs the Pentagon to discontinue any 
further investment in the DOD-wide effort to root out so-called 
extremism within the ranks. This has been an obsession of the civilian 
leadership at the Pentagon, many of whom know nothing about the 
military. It is an obsession, given the incredibly low rate of 
extremist activity in our military as determined by the Secretary of 
Defense's own working group on this topic.
  The press didn't write about that because they love to kind of weave 
into the story that somehow our military is full of extremists. 
Unfortunately, some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
play that up too. One Senator, at one point, said 10 percent of the 
military might be extremist--a ridiculous besmirching of the men and 
women in our armed services. The actual report from the Secretary of 
Defense's office found fewer than 100 cases of extremist activity in a 
total military force of over 2 million people. When you do the math, 
that is less than .005 percent.
  So let me be clear: Extremism has no place in our military and must 
be rooted out when discovered, but these numbers simply don't warrant 
the time and investment that our senior military has put into this 
issue. So, in the NDAA, we have said we are not funding it anymore.

  There is a second issue in the NDAA for which I was able to put 
forward an amendment. The Department of the Army and the Department of 
the Air Force, according to press reports, were starting to devise a 
policy that would allow each servicemember to veto their duty 
assignment if they disagreed with the laws and regulations in a State 
or in a community where they were going to be assigned by the military.
  Could you imagine the chaos that would result if every soldier, 
marine, sailor, or airman could say: ``You know, I don't want to go to 
California; its regulations on the Second Amendment are overly 
burdensome on my Second Amendment right,'' or for any other reason?
  So we said, in the NDAA, a policy that gives service men and women 
the ability to veto their assignments based on whether they want to go 
somewhere or not is not the way our military is going to operate. That 
has been nipped in the bud.
  Finally, there is a very simple amendment that I put forward that 
just provides clarity to the men and women of the Department of 
Defense. All it does is remind them of what their job is. The military 
is too often asked to do so many different things--to focus on climate 
change and to focus on so many other issues. The military has one job: 
to provide combat-credible military forces needed to deter our 
adversaries, to protect the security of our Nation, and to win our 
Nation's wars when called upon to do so.
  I put forward an amendment that said just that: Here is your 
priority, and here is what you are supposed to do. It is needed because 
of all of the things that our top civilian leaders are now telling the 
troops they should be focused on. They should be focused on prevailing 
in a war if they are called on to do so, and that is what my amendment 
did. Believe it or not, a number of Senators voted against it, but that 
also made the Defense Authorization Act this year.
  In addition to significantly increasing the Department of Defense's 
authorized budget, we are starting to, once again, get the military 
focused on their primary job: lethality and winning wars.
  So we need to bring the NDAA to the floor. We have passed it 66 years 
in a row. As I mentioned, the administration's priorities are clearly 
not with regard to national defense and our military. We can tell by 
the budget that has been put forward. In the Senate, priorities are 
often determined by the time on the floor to get a piece of legislation 
moving. It is clear to everybody who has been here that the majority 
leader does not prioritize the military in the same way that the 
President of the United States doesn't.
  We passed the NDAA in June--the Armed Services Committee did--in a 
huge bipartisan vote. The House passed its NDAA in the House in July. 
So we are waiting to bring up one of the most important pieces of 
legislation we work on every year: the legislation that sets the policy 
and funds our troops and their families.
  Where is it?
  Senator Schumer, where is it? When are we going to bring it up?
  You have Democrats and Republicans who are looking at this floor time 
in September, saying: We need to bring up the NDAA.
  The rumor, right now, is that the majority leader plans to bring it 
up in December.
  Think about that, America.
  I don't even know what we are doing right now on the Senate floor--
minor nominations. We should be bringing up the NDAA to protect this 
country and to make sure the men and women in our military know we have 
their backs. Right now, nobody has any idea--maybe the majority leader 
does--as to when we are actually going to bring this most important 
bipartisan piece of legislation to the floor.
  This is why I joined in a letter that we sent out today, led by 
Senator Tuberville, who serves on the Armed Services Committee with me, 
signed by 20 of my colleagues. By the way, I know it would have been 
signed by some Democratic colleagues as well. They didn't want to put 
their names on the letter, but they feel the same. It says to the 
majority leader: You control the Senate. You control the priorities of 
this body. Bring up the NDAA by the end of September.
  Here is the letter. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                  U.S. Senate,

                               Washington, DC, September 13, 2022.
     Hon. Charles E. Schumer,
     Majority Leader, U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Leader Schumer: At the founding of our nation, then-General 
     George Washington penned, ``When the civil and military 
     powers cooperate, and afford mutual aid to each other there 
     can be little doubt of things going well''. Two centuries 
     later, that still rings true. Yet should this body fail in 
     its top Constitutional responsibility of providing for a 
     common defense, our armed services will be left 
     directionless, lack stable

[[Page S4611]]

     funding, and be devoid of civilian Congressional oversight.
       Chairman Reed and Ranking Member Inhofe saw to it that the 
     FY2023 National Defense Authorization Act remained bipartisan 
     and the result safeguards the United States. Additionally, 
     the bill invests in technology advancements and procurement 
     through a $45 billion budget topline increase, provides 
     service members with a 4.6 percent pay raise, and strengthens 
     our forces in cybersecurity, space, the Indo-Pacific, 
     personnel management, and many other areas.
       Members of the House passed their NDAA on July 14th, by a 
     vote of 329-101. For the bill to go to conference and make it 
     to President Biden's desk, our colleagues must have the 
     opportunity to debate the Senate version with an open 
     amendment process. As such, we the undersigned respectfully 
     request that you call the James M. Inhofe National Defense 
     Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 to the Senate floor 
     before the conclusion of the September work period.
           Respectfully,
       Tommy Tuberville, John Cornyn, Todd Young, Charles E. 
     Grassley, Mike Braun, Joni K. Ernst, Thom Tillis, Roger W. 
     Marshall, Roger Wicker, Tom Cotton, Kevin Cramer, Rick Scott, 
     Deb Fischer, Marsha Blackburn, M. Michael Rounds, Dan 
     Sullivan, Cynthia M. Lummis, Michael S. Lee, James E. Risch, 
     Cindy Hyde-Smith, Mike Crapo, Ted Cruz, Ron Johnson, U.S. 
     Senators.

  Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, the letter says:

       At the founding of our nation, then-General George 
     Washington penned, ``When the civil and military powers 
     cooperate, and afford mutual aid to each other there can be 
     little doubt of things going well.''

  As General Milley said, at one of the most dangerous times in recent 
history, it is vital that our civil and military powers cooperate.
  What we need to do in this body right now is get back to the 
important work of bolstering our economy, of fighting inflation, of 
bringing down energy costs, of unleashing American energy, and, most 
importantly, of passing the NDAA so we can bolster the national 
security of this great Nation in very dangerous times.
  I call on the majority leader, along with 20 of my colleagues and 
some of my Democratic colleagues, to bring the NDAA to the floor and 
not wait until the end of the year, which is what we hear he is 
planning to do.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ossoff). The Senator from Minnesota.

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