[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 100 (Thursday, June 13, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H3979-H3980]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        CULTURE WARS IN THE NDAA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Michigan (Ms. Slotkin) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. SLOTKIN. Mr. Speaker, the annual National Defense Authorization 
Act is the Pentagon's budget. It is perhaps one of the most important 
tasks we fulfill here in Congress, protecting our national security and 
taking care of servicemembers, their families, and their housing.
  It has been one of the few places where we have bipartisan agreement 
despite what you see on TV. This year, the House Armed Services 
Committee again did their job and, on a bipartisan basis, passed the 
National Defense Authorization Act out of committee 57-1. That includes 
a bunch of investments for the quality of life of our military members 
and military families.
  The bill was good to go when it left committee. Unfortunately, once 
it left committee, it was transformed into a document that my 
colleagues have turned into a culture war document.
  Most disappointing is, despite my colleagues saying that they were 
good with overturning Roe v. Wade but then will leave it to the States 
to decide what to do beyond that, we are once again watching them try 
to strip away a basic right to provide reproductive healthcare to women 
in uniform. It is dividing us at a time when we should be coming 
together on national security challenges.
  It says specifically that uniformed women do not have the right to 
get some time off to leave the State to get an abortion if they need 
it.
  If you are forced to be based in Texas and get pregnant and don't 
want to be pregnant, they are trying to repeal that woman's right to 
take time off to travel to another State to get an abortion.
  They also are trying to repeal the right for a servicewoman to take 
time off to help her daughter get an abortion in another State, not 
even a woman in uniform.
  I am deeply disappointed in my colleagues' constant attempts to 
repeal a woman's right to choose. Again, in public they may say that 
they were good with Roe, that they are thrilled that Roe was overturned 
but now are leaving it alone. In this Congress alone, in the past year 
and a half, we have voted 15 times to strip a woman of the right to 
choose in some form or fashion. Sometimes it is the right to travel. 
Sometimes it is the right to medication. Sometimes it is the right to 
understand if a healthcare center is actually able to perform an 
abortion or not. It is misinformation. It is disinformation.
  I am deeply disappointed that we are again in this place where my 
colleagues won't stop attacking a woman's right to choose, now 
including the rights of a woman in uniform, someone who is putting her 
life on the line to serve her country.
  We have seen a ton of other divisive amendments come into the NDAA, 
something that should never be a place where we do culture wars. I am 
also very disappointed in the refusal of a very bipartisan amendment to 
be brought to the floor preserving our National Guard's tactical air 
capability that underwrites our national defense.
  We asked, on a bipartisan basis, that the Pentagon show us their plan 
to recapitalize their aircraft as they bring down the number of planes 
that they have in the U.S. Air Force. We asked what their plan was.
  If my colleagues are worried about conflicts with China, worried 
about issues abroad, for every two planes we are retiring, we are 
creating and initiating only one new plane to replace them.
  Places like Selfridge Air National Guard Base, which are home to 
important fighter aircraft, don't know what

[[Page H3980]]

the plan is after the A-10s depart. We had a bipartisan agreement that 
would ask the Pentagon to tell us what their plan is. We would like to 
know what fighters are coming behind that.
  Unfortunately, it was ruled out of order, and we weren't able to talk 
about it. Despite having 30 bipartisan cosponsors and a tremendous show 
of support from the Air National Guard, this will not receive a vote on 
the floor.
  As a CIA officer and Pentagon official and someone who has spent my 
entire life looking at national security issues not through a political 
lens but through a national security lens exclusively, it is hard to 
watch my colleagues across aisle turn the Pentagon budget into a 
culture war buffet.
  Particularly on the issue of choice, as we have the Supreme Court in 
real time making decisions about a woman's right to choose, do not 
believe my colleagues when they say that they now are done pursuing a 
woman's right to choose. Look at what they do, not what they say.

                          ____________________