National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, turning to the underlying legislation that
we are debating, the Defense authorization bill, I can't think of
anything more basic or fundamental to the Federal Government's
responsibility than national security and defense and to make sure we
provide our men and women in uniform with the resources they need in
order to do the job they volunteered to do on our behalf. Of course,
many of us have commented time and again on this floor and elsewhere
about the increasing complexity of the threats facing our national
security and the security and peace of the world.

This legislation enables our troops to get the funding and the
resources and the authorities they need in order to have success on the
battlefield. As we consider the current state of the world, it is clear
why this bill is vital. We live in a world marked by constant dynamic
threats to our way of life. For example, parts of the Middle East and
North Africa have been overrun by the Islamic State, and the region
continues to be a hotbed of failed states and ungoverned places. If we
have learned anything from 9/11, it is that ungoverned spaces are a
threat to our national security, because that is where our adversaries
will organize and train and then export those threats to our homeland.

Despite ongoing negotiations, Iran remains an enemy of the United
States and continues its campaign to achieve regional domination and
become a threshold nuclear State, threatening our most trusted allies
and partners in the region. In Europe and in Asia, Russia and China
continue to threaten our allies in their respective neighborhoods,
using a growing array of soft-power and hard-power tactics to twist
arms and to coerce our friends and allies. These new dynamic threats
include cyber attacks, which have been much in the news today,
including espionage and just outright theft of our intellectual
property in seed corn created from the brains and ingenuity of American
entrepreneurs and creators. Today, our courageous men and women in
uniform are tasked with the challenge of facing these many threats and
many others in regions all around the world.

So it is astounding to me that the Democratic leader, in the face of
these threats and in the face of our grave responsibilities to meet
these challenges, would come to the floor and suggest that debating
this bill would be what he called a ``waste of time'' and go further to
say that the Democratic minority would consider filibustering this
legislation. It is just unbelievable.

This blatant disregard for our responsibilities and for our troops is
very troubling, particularly because this bill has historically been
one that has enjoyed broad bipartisan support. In fact, as our
colleague, the senior Senator from Arizona, pointed out in an op-ed he
wrote yesterday, Congress has passed a Defense authorization bill for
53 consecutive years--53 consecutive years--because it is a national
priority. It should be, and it is. Up to now, this bill has been marked
by strong bipartisan backing in the committee. The bill sailed through
the Senate Armed Services Committee with a bipartisan vote of 22 to 4.
We don't get much more bipartisan in today's Senate than that.

Yet, with all of the support from both sides of the aisle and even with
such a clearly demonstrated need as the funding and well-being of our
troops and their families, the President himself--the Commander in
Chief--has threatened to veto this bill--a bill that actually provides
the full funding levels he himself requested.

It is important to note--because some of our colleagues on the other
side have said that the problem with this bill is that it doesn't spend
enough money or that we ought to reallocate our nondefense
discretionary spending to increase that, as well--that this bill
includes the exact same level of funding that President Obama himself
requested in his budget. So why in the world would the President
threaten to veto a bill that meets the funding levels that he himself
identified in his budget?

For some reason, instead of focusing on our most fundamental
responsibilities of funding the brave men and women in our Armed Forces
and making sure they have the resources they need to keep our country
safe, our Commander in Chief and the minority leader are threatening to
hold this bill hostage to extract more government spending for
nondefense discretionary spending for organizations and agencies such
as the Internal Revenue Service. So why in the world would we hold
national security spending hostage so we can spend more money on the
IRS? It is just a complete upside-down view of our priorities.

So the President's lack of strategic depth or his understanding of
our Nation's most fundamental duties is really astounding. I am
troubled to say this, but I think it is actually true: I think the
President understands our Nation's fundamental duties very clearly. The
problem is that this threat to hold this bill hostage is just cynical.
It just uses a political tool to try to gain advantage when it comes to
raising the caps on nondefense discretionary spending. For a President
who admits that he doesn't have a complete strategy to defeat the
Islamic State, I find his comments to be irresponsible. He is
threatening to veto this bill to satisfy the far leftwing of his party,
which doesn't believe government could ever spend too much money and
that government is ever big enough. The government is never big enough
or spends enough for some of our colleagues across the aisle and some
of the political base in the President's party.

Just this morning, the Washington Post reported that Senate Democrats
have now come up with a brand-new political strategy, and this time
they are going further--to threaten to block all funding bills for the
rest of the summer, including the Defense appropriations bill, which I
know the majority leader is scheduling to be debated and voted on right
after we complete our work on this legislation. As a matter of fact,
the Democratic leader said this morning: ``We're headed for another
shutdown.'' Senator Reid said: ``They did it once, they're going to do
it again. . . . They want to wait until the fiscal year ends and then
close up government.''

It is bad enough that Democrats are threatening to filibuster the
defense spending bill, but now they are claiming that it is really the
Republicans' fault. In other words, they are saying: We are not for
stopping the Defense authorization bill.

We are for funding our national responsibilities when it comes to
national security. But because our Democratic friends wish to hold the
Defense authorization bill and the Defense appropriations bill hostage,
they somehow now are claiming that we are the ones responsible. Because
we won't accede to their insatiable demand for bigger government and
more government spending, and we won't allow them to hold our troops
and their families and our national security hostage, we are the ones
at fault.

But, today, as we know, thanks to the Washington Post, the
filibustering of this and other bills is just part of a political
strategy.

One point I have to acknowledge is the candor of our colleagues on
the other side of the aisle. If we want to know what they are planning
to do, all we have to do is read the newspaper, because they are more
than happy to tell us exactly what they are going to do and what their
plans are.

This is all part of a cynical political strategy to keep the Senate
from working and to deny funding to our Armed Forces while bulking up
Federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the
IRS. This is shameless, and it is hypothetical, and the American people
will not be fooled by it.

I wish to remind our colleagues across the aisle that stifling debate
and blocking votes is a pretty lousy political strategy, as well. It is
what lost them control of this Chamber last November. It is a losing
strategy, it is bad policy, it is cynical politics, and the American
people understand that. It is simply shameful that they are trying to
use our troops, who protect this great Nation, as some sort of leverage
in some sort of political game.

I don't have to remind the Presiding Officer, who continues to serve
honorably in our military services, that we live in a very dangerous
world. Somehow, we don't pay enough attention to that until something
reaches out and bites us or injures someone we love. Our Armed Forces
face new and growing threats on a daily basis. Our troops deserve our
full attention and every resource they need as they serve and defend
our country around the world.

So that is why I have come to the floor, to say: Why in the world,
after 53 consecutive Defense authorization bills, would the Democratic
leader--and indeed with the complicity of the President of the United
States himself--say they are going to hold this Defense bill hostage
until they get what they want when it comes to spending more money?

This bipartisan bill, which focuses squarely on the needs of our
warfighters and authorizes funding at the same level the President
himself suggested, should not be held hostage to political
gamesmanship. So I would encourage the more sensible Members across the
aisle to focus on the troops and their families, not on the partisan
agenda of their leadership, and pass this legislation to provide the
funding our troops need to continue to do their courageous work of
keeping our country safe.

One way my colleagues could play a constructive role and move this
legislation forward, instead of threatening to filibuster, is to work
with us on commonsense amendments, such as the one I have filed that is
pending on the underlying bill.

Under current law, the President has discretion to allow energy
exports to vulnerable allies, our partners in Europe, and around the
world when it is deemed to be in our national interest. The amendment I
have offered in the underlying bill simply reaffirms the existing
authority of the President of the United States but encourages the
President not to allow our adversaries, such as Vladimir Putin, to use
energy supplies for vulnerable countries in Europe as a weapon. It
would also commission a report that would allow us to get an accurate
assessment of just how dependent our allies in the region are on those
who would wield their energy supply as a weapon.

This amendment is a commonsense measure that serves as a first step
to addressing the requests--the pleas in some cases--of our allies and
partners in an increasingly unpredictable world, and it doesn't change
the existing authority the President already has.

I would urge our colleagues to put down the political playbook and
work with us in a constructive way on the underlying legislation. This
has been the great tradition of the Defense authorization bill and one
that is being threatened by the political gamesmanship that we see
threatened by the Democratic leader and, indeed, even with the
complicity and the fingerprints of the President of the United States.

We owe it and so much more to our troops, who are relying on us to
act today. Even more than that, we have a duty to the country to make
sure we maintain the security of the American people.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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