National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017

Floor Speech

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Chair, yes, we would surely like to do what my colleague suggests. However, it does leave us rather vulnerable to terrorism, terrorism that would be carried out by those who might want to get their hands on highly enriched uranium or other elements to either make a bomb or to create a dirty bomb.

The money comes from a very, very important fund, a fund that the National Nuclear Security Administration uses to secure loose nukes and highly enriched uranium and other kinds of material that might be used in making a bomb. It would be wonderful if we could carry out what our colleague would like to do for the surface-to-air missiles. I mean, those are important. But don't take the money from this account.

This account is extremely important in preventing the proliferation of nuclear materials as well as how we need to convert those reactors around the world, including here in the United States, that are capable of producing plutonium and highly enriched uranium.

I don't have a problem with where the gentleman tends to augment the surface-to-air missile defense program or the air-to-surface program but, rather, from where he is taking, the account. I would suggest to the gentleman that we would be far better off finding a different place, one that has far less risk to us.

The terrorists are out there. They are looking to get their hands on this kind of fissile material, and they will be able to do so unless we use the money in this program from the National Nuclear Security Administration, atomic agency, to secure these sites and materials.
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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Chairman, every day men and women from Travis Air Force Base fly the big C-17s and C-130s and other heavy, large aircraft into harm's way in Iraq, Afghanistan, and over and around Syria. Every day they are at risk. They are at risk from being shot down by a shoulder-fired missile.

There is a defense for this. It is called the Large Aircraft Infrared Countermeasures defense system. It is one of the unfunded requests that the Air Force has made of us. This amendment would fund at least part of that request and provide a higher level of safety to the men and women in the Air Force that fly these large aircraft into harm's way.

I don't think there is one of us here on the floor, in the House, or even in the Senate that would deny that flying these aircraft into the airfields of Afghanistan, even into Bagram, and certainly into Baghdad, is always safe. It is not.

There is a proliferation of these shoulder-fired MPADS, and they are increasingly available to the bad guys, who our men and women are trying to take out.

So we are looking here to move $17-plus million from an account that is not needed--at least, the money is not needed at this time--over to something that is desperately needed, a defensive system for our large Air Force aircraft, removing the money from the new Minuteman IV intercontinental ballistic missile program, which is not scheduled to be fielded until 12 years from now, and taking that just short of $18 million out of that account and moving it over so that our pilots and crew members can be safer.

We don't need that money for these new intercontinental ballistic missiles that are 12 years away. What we need is to protect our men and women today with Large Aircraft Infrared Countermeasures equipment. That is what this is all about.

It is pretty simple. It is a matter of choices: do we choose to protect our men and women today or augment a program that doesn't need the money, according to the GAO. I choose to protect our men and women today and not to fund a program that the GAO says doesn't need this $17.9 million.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Chair, this is most assuredly not a disarmament. We are scheduled to spend a trillion dollars on this kind of program. It is hardly a disarmament. We are talking about $17.9 million; yet, this nuclear security program is a trillion over the next 25 years. It is hardly a disarmament.

The reality is that this money is not needed now. This money is going to be reprogrammed by the Air Force to be spent next year--without our authority, but I suppose with summary programing authority--when we know that the Air Force has C-17s, C-130s, and other large aircraft that can be shot out of the sky now, not in 2028 and beyond, but now.

Are we unwilling to protect our airmen and -women that are on these airplanes? This is not disarmament. This is about protecting the men and women that are flying dangerous missions into Afghanistan, into Iraq, into other places where the terrorists do have MPADS and can shoot them out of the sky.

Don't give me that business that this has something to do with disarmament. This has to do with protecting the men and women that are flying our large aircraft and giving them the protection that they need.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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