National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, at some point during the course of this debate on the National Defense Authorization Act, the Senate may have an opportunity to vote on a McCain amendment authorizing a base realignment and closure round.

As Members know, I have the utmost respect for the chairman of our committee, and I hold him in high regard. But I will certainly be voting against the McCain amendment because I do not believe authorizing a base realignment and closure round at this particular time is in the best interests of the United States or the security of Americans. I do that for two reasons.

No. 1, whether you agree or not that base closings are a savings in the long run, almost everyone will agree that in the short term, a base closing round costs money. So it would be costly in the next fiscal year and in the fiscal year after that to have a base closing round.

This is the very time when we don't need an additional expense, because we are dealing with the readiness problem we have in our various branches right now.

As chairman of the Seapower Subcommittee, I can tell you that we have readiness problems with our fleet; we have readiness problems in the Marine Corps--those services in which I have a particular interest in my subcommittee. We need that money for readiness, and we need it in this fiscal year and in the next fiscal year. So for reasons of the short-term costs that BRAC would cause us to incur, I urge my colleagues to vote no on the McCain amendment.

Further, it is my understanding that the wording of this particular amendment takes away the commission part of a base realignment and closure round. If you do believe we ought to move toward this concept-- which I do not believe we should do at this point--but if you do believe that, then we ought to at least have the independence that a commission gives to the process. It is the sort of process we have had time and again when we have had a BRAC round. It is what we had the last time the U.S. Congress faced a base realignment and closure round.

So for those two reasons, I submit to my colleagues that a ``no'' vote is called for. This is something we may need to discuss in 2020.

It may be something we need to do later on, and I will be open to suggestions about that. But when we have a readiness crisis facing U.S.

security at this moment, this is no time to be taking money away from those immediate needs. For that reason, I will be voting no on the McCain amendment, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

I yield the floor.

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