[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 123 (Tuesday, July 18, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2967-S2968]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   National Defense Authorization Act

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, later today, the Senate will take the 
first procedural step to begin consideration of our annual Defense 
bill.
  For more than six decades, Democrats and Republicans have worked in 
good faith to pass the NDAA. This year's Defense authorization bill is 
a prime example of how Senate D's and R's can work constructively to 
provide our Nation's defense, take care of our servicemembers and DOD 
civilians, and make the investments necessary to innovate and build up 
our military intelligence capabilities.
  I hope we can have an open and constructive amendment process for the 
NDAA, without needless delay or dilatory tactics. I certainly hope we 
do not see the kind of controversy that severely hindered the NDAA 
process over in the House. Both sides should defeat potentially toxic 
amendments and refrain from delaying the NDAA's passage.
  So far, we have thankfully avoided all of that. Over the weekend, 
nearly all the committees across the Senate worked around the clock on 
a substitute, with a managers' package that has 51 amendments--21 from 
Republicans, 21 from Democrats, and 9 bipartisan. We have had many 
great amendments. This is a good start, and we are working toward a 
second managers' package with even more priorities for Democrats and 
Republicans.
  I want to thank Chairman Reed, Ranking Member Wicker, all the other 
chairs and rankers, and all of my colleagues and the staff who worked 
long and hard over the weekend for their good work on this bill.
  There are a few items that are in the bill that deserve some 
attention, and, in the largeness of the bill, I would like to highlight 
them. I want to highlight a few items added to the managers' package 
that are very important and bode well for our country's future, 
particularly on AI, on outcompeting the Chinese Government, and on 
tackling our Nation's fentanyl crisis.
  First, I am pleased that the managers' package includes an amendment 
I worked on with Senators Rounds, Young, and Heinrich that takes some 
early initial steps on AI legislation, the first steps this body is 
taking in a

[[Page S2968]]

while. The Senate has already done important preliminary work to bring 
ourselves up to speed on this issue, but the NDAA will be the Senate's 
first opportunity this year to pass real AI legislation.
  My AI amendment includes provisions that will boost AI oversight 
within the national security space, including an increase in data 
sharing within the DOD, new risk studies to examine explainability and 
similar issues, and it provides for ``bug bounty programs'' that will 
help sniff out vulnerability in AI systems used by the DOD.
  This year, our first managers' package also makes a critical down 
payment on the Senate's efforts to outcompete the Chinese Government. 
We have over a dozen amendments related to our ongoing competition with 
the Chinese Government, including measures that make progress on the 
AUKUS defense cooperation agreement between the United States, the UK, 
and Australia. Senator Menendez and I wanted more, but we have a good 
compromise in the bill, and I hope we can add more in the amendment 
process.
  We have provisions to strengthen our partnership with Taiwan, boost 
the development of quantum information technologies, and strengthen the 
United States' position in the Indo-Pacific region, to name a few.
  As you know, we are working on a bipartisan China competition package 
that will deal with the excesses and wrongs of the Chinese Government. 
But this, in the DOD bill, is a good first start.
  And I also want to praise my colleagues Tim Scott and Sherrod Brown 
for their work to combat our Nation's fentanyl crisis. This is one of 
the most devastating health crises happening in our country.
  In 2021, the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Agency, seized enough fentanyl 
to give every single American a lethal dose--every single American. A 
lot of blame for this crisis lies at the feet of the chemical suppliers 
located in China that operate with little or no accountability, which 
represent the bedrock of the international fentanyl supply chain.
  I felt this is very important that we do more to stop the scourge of 
fentanyl from coming into our country. So I pushed very hard to get 
this amendment in the managers' package, and I am glad it was--
championed, as I said, and passed in the Banking Committee, by Chairman 
Brown and Ranking Member Scott. It declares the international 
trafficking of fentanyl a national emergency and adds teeth and 
potential sanctions to the administration's ability to hold wrongdoers 
accountable. The ability to declare this a national emergency gives the 
President broader powers and allows him to do more to stop the flow of 
these precursor chemicals coming from China and other countries. The 
bill was passed unanimously, I am proud to say, by the Banking 
Committee--another great example of regular order here in the Senate.
  Finally, I am pleased the NDAA will include my amendment on 
increasing transparency on UAPs, Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. UAPs 
generate a lot of curiosity from many Americans, and with that 
curiosity, sometimes comes misinformation. My amendment will require 
the National Archives and Records Administration to create a collection 
of records from across government Agencies that can be declassified for 
the public's use, similar to the approach used in 1992 with the J.F.K. 
Assassination Records Collection Act. These records will carry a 
presumption of immediate disclosure, which means they can only be made 
classified with good reason.
  I thank my colleagues who worked with me on this legislation--
Senators Rounds, Rubio, Heinrich, Gillibrand, and Young--for their 
partnership on this amendment. And as many know, my mentor and dear 
friend whom I miss so much, Harry Reid, was passionate about this 
issue, and so were Senators Stevens and Inouye. So I am glad we could 
get this into the managers' amendment.
  For these and many other reasons, I look forward to beginning floor 
consideration of the NDAA bill today. The four things I mentioned--
dealing with fentanyl, dealing with competition with China, dealing 
with AI, and making public the UAP phenomena and what we know about 
them in an unclassified way--are all important additions to the Defense 
bill. I am glad we added them in.
  I thank both sides for their good work, and I hope we can pass this 
important bill without needless delay or controversy.