[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 175 (Monday, November 14, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6641-S6642]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   National Defense Authorization Act

  Madam President, well, the Senate is back in session and all anyone 
back in Tennessee wants to know is: What will this Chamber get done 
next? What is it that the Democrats are going to push next?
  And they are not feeling very optimistic right now. One thing is 
clear, and that is that my Democratic colleagues have completely 
ignored the stress that they are causing Tennessee servicemembers and 
their families by dangling the NDAA in front of them and then snatching 
it away.
  Inaction sends a very powerful message, and right now, all they are 
hearing is that the military has become a political football, and that 
does not inspire confidence.
  We have passed the Defense Authorization Act 61 years in a row, and I 
am confident that there will be bipartisan support for No. 62, which 
makes this tight timeline even more unnecessary.
  The American people don't have all the details on what this 
authorization will do, but they don't need them to know that it is the 
only thing standing between us and getting steamrolled by the CCP--the 
Chinese Communist Party--and the new axis of evil, which is Russia, 
China, Iran, and North Korea.
  Our servicemembers might not know every line item in the 2,000 pages 
of the bill, but they know that its contents will determine the course 
of their lives for the next 5, 10, or 25 years. Passing this bill is 
the bare minimum as far as the Senate is concerned, but it means a lot 
to our men and women in uniform.

  We are ready to get this thing done. I know that the Presiding 
Officer, as a Member of the Armed Services Committee who has worked so 
hard on this, joins me in being ready to get it done. We finished our 
committee work back in June on this bill. We considered more than 400 
amendments. We adopted about 200 of those amendments, and it passed out 
of Armed Services Committee 23 to 3. So when I say we are ready to go, 
we are. There is bipartisan support for getting this finished.
  As we prepare to move forward on this legislation, I want to 
highlight two of my own proposed amendments that, unfortunately, fell 
victim to partisanship. But, first, here's a little background.
  The Tennessee National Guard has a reputation for answering a cry for 
help no matter where it comes from. Last month, they deployed to Warren 
County, TN, to help first responders gain control of a wildfire. In 
September, members of the 194th Engineer Brigade, the 278th Armored 
Cavalry Regiment, the 230th Sustainment Brigade and the 1-230th Assault 
Helicopter Battalion deployed to Florida to help with the cleanup in 
the wake of Hurricane Ian.
  In July, members of Nashville's 1-230th Assault Helicopter Battalion 
pulled people to safety after flash floods destroyed communities in 
Kentucky.
  This year, the Guard has rescued multiple hikers who got into trouble 
on or near the Appalachian Trail. And last September, members of the 
269th Military Police Company, the 913th Engineer Company, and the C 
Company, 2d Battalion, 151st Aviation Regiment made it home after 
spending more than a year helping law enforcement officials in Texas 
try to contain the border catastrophe.
  The sight of that National Guard uniform makes people in this country 
feel safe when things are going wrong. But the continued enforcement of 
the COVID-19 vaccination order will inevitably jeopardize that sense of 
security.
  I introduced two amendments to the 2023 NDAA that would have injected 
sanity into these vaccination requirements. The first would have 
prohibited involuntary separation of any servicemember for refusing the 
COVID-19 vaccine until each service achieves its end strength 
authorized by last year's NDAA.
  The second amendment would have made sure that members of the 
National Guard or Reserve maintain access to pay and benefits while 
their request for a religious or health accommodation was pending. This 
is about as noncontroversial as you can get on the issue of vaccine 
mandates. These amendments would create a simple rule to stop this 
Biden Department of Defense from railroading their own troops.
  There is nothing political about preserving readiness and a basic 
sense of fairness, which has been completely absent in this process.
  I am going to use the Army as a case study to show you how 
destructive this mandate has been for the military. Now, the Army has 
not achieved the end strength authorized in the 2022 NDAA. What does 
that mean? It means that we don't have enough men and women doing the 
job, filling the slots that the Army has.
  The data backs this up. If you head over to Fort Campbell and ask 
anyone in uniform if this is true, they will tell you that I am 100-
percent correct. They do not have enough people. Members of the 160th 
Special Operations Aviation Regiment have been consistently deployed 
for more than 2 years. And we thank them for that service.
  I would encourage my Democratic colleagues to ask them what this 
Democrat-led administration's lack of attention to readiness and force 
strength could mean for our national security. What kind of impact does 
this have? This mandate has already separated 1,796 active duty 
soldiers from their service. What is worse, the Army has only approved 
less than 4 percent of medical exemption requests and just over 1 
percent of religious exemption requests.
  The Guard is still in a holding pattern on the issue of separation, 
but their exemption denial statistics are just as troubling: 15 percent 
of medical exemptions have been approved but only 0.0047 percent of 
religious exemptions.
  The Reserves are not faring much better. The Army has only approved a 
little more than 5 percent of the medical exemptions and 0.004 percent 
of their religious exemptions.
  Prospects are looking bleak for guardsmen with legitimate exemption 
claims, and it is pretty bleak for the military as a whole. The 
National Guard is already missing recruitment goals, and they are set 
to lose 9,000 members in fiscal year 2023 and 5,000 in fiscal year 
2024.
  In the United States, the number of new servicemembers joining the 
military has reached a record low. The Army alone fell 15,000 soldiers 
short of its goal for 2022 and is projecting a deficit of 21,000 
soldiers for 2023. This administration knew manpower was a problem, but 
still they chose to fire servicemembers who were perfectly healthy and 
ready to defend this great country. And so we shouldn't be surprised 
that 18-year-olds in this country don't feel that they can trust this 
Democrat-led administration at the Pentagon with full control of their 
young lives.
  The fact is, the Democrats have a perfect record of making decisions 
that end in a disaster. They spent trillions of dollars, provoked 
recordbreaking inflation, and hired 87,000 new IRS agents to squeeze 
small businesses who are struggling to survive in communities all 
across the wonderful State of Tennessee.
  They have abandoned the southern border and caused the worst illegal 
immigration crisis we have ever seen, the worst humanitarian crisis we 
have ever seen. And, remember, it would be even worse if the Tennessee 
National Guard hadn't come to the rescue.
  They latched on to the Green New Deal and replaced American energy

[[Page S6642]]

independence. They backed shutdowns and mandates that destroyed the 
American workforce. They shuttered American businesses and sent our 
supply chains into a shambles. And let's be clear--they didn't make 
these decisions blindly. They have the same data that each Member of 
this Chamber has. They watch the news. They knew what they were doing. 
They knew it was wrong. They did it anyway. It was intentional. They 
are focused on an outcome, and now they are applying that same 
destructive strategy to the members of the U.S. military.
  Every year, we come into this Chamber and fight as hard as we can to 
make our military the most lethal fighting force in the world. We 
authorize billions of dollars for aircraft, for equipment, for 
weaponry. The NDAA represents an incredible investment in the future of 
this country. But it also represents the trust the American people put 
in this Congress to keep them safe and to keep the enemy at bay.
  I join my Republican colleagues in asking Leader Schumer to bring the 
NDAA to the floor so that we can get this very important piece of 
legislation to the President's desk. There is no reason for delay.
  And I also implore all my colleagues to remember that the greatest 
military in the world is nothing without the brave men and women and 
their families who have volunteered to be a part of this. We ask so 
much of them. They are already busy enough putting out fires, fighting 
wars. The least we can do is spare them the pain of fighting our 
political battles.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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