Providing for Consideration of H.R. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year and Providing for Proceedings During the Period From May Through June 2018

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Byrne) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, the National Defense Authorization Act is one of the most important items Congress considers. It is among the few authorizing bills we take up, and the only authorizing bill considered by the House every year.

It is legislation designed to meet some of our most important obligations: increasing our military's readiness, supporting our troops, and safeguarding our national security.

But as critical as this measure is, the base bill is rarely perfect. That is why hundreds of amendments are submitted to the Rules Committee every year by Members on both sides of the aisle. Our meetings on this bill are usually the longest the committee holds all year because so many Members bring forward so many ideas.

That is how the committee is supposed to function. And debating those ideas on this floor, even amendments we disagree with, is how the House of Representatives is supposed to work. That kind of process should not be the exception. It should be the norm.

I know this may seem like a radical idea to the majority, but the world's greatest deliberative body should regularly debate.

Instead, this majority has developed a pattern: Every now and then they make a bunch of amendments in order on larger bills like this. But most of the time, they don't allow any amendments on most bills.

Roughly 55 percent of all the rules that the majority has implemented this Congress have been closed. So Members cannot do their job offering amendments here on the House floor to address the biggest issues we face.

Under a closed rule, I will remind my colleagues, you can't even fix a typo in a bill.

Now, I know my Republican friends want to be congratulated for not considering this bill under yet another closed rule. After all, they broke their own record for closed rules this week, a sad milestone that makes this Congress the most closed Congress in history.

This is the most closed Congress ever in the history of the United States of America.

In fact, Speaker Ryan is the only Speaker in the history of our country to never have a truly open rule.

But I think the American people hold the majority of this House to a higher standard. Just consider what Republicans have blocked from even getting a debate under this rule.

The majority on the Rules Committee decided to block the bipartisan McGovern-Jones-Lee-Garamendi-Kildee-Welch amendment. Now, this is a straightforward measure. It says that if the President and the Pentagon want to escalate the number of U.S. troops deployed in Afghanistan in the next fiscal year, they need to send a report to Congress. We would then have 30 days to either disapprove of this escalation or allow it to move forward.

It is simple, because all it asks is for this Congress to do its job, to stop abdicating its responsibility. It has been 17 years since Congress last passed an AUMF. We have been told year after year, Congress after Congress, that this is not the time to debate our role abroad.

Well, Mr. Speaker, when is the time?

We submitted this amendment to the Rules Committee last year during the FY 2018 defense authorization. But rather than making it in order, the majority moved forward with an alternative amendment that called for a report from the administration on our Afghanistan policy.

The President signed that NDAA into law with that amendment. And guess what? Congress never got the report. It is more than 70 days past due.

Clearly, asking for a study isn't working. In fact, the President is ignoring it altogether. And over the last year, the administration decided to increase the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan by more than 4,000 additional servicemembers. That is on top of the more than 8,400 troops that are already there. The response from this majority has either been silence or to ask for a study.

Mr. Speaker, I don't need some study to tell me that this Congress needs to do its job. Issues of war and peace are among the toughest we consider, but we must take them up all the same. It is why we were sent here and it is what our men and women in uniform expect.

Why is the majority afraid of a fair fight? Let's debate whether President Trump should increase our engagement in Afghanistan even further.

I am tired of being told that this is not the time for that vote because I believe it is past time. I have stood here year after year, Congress after Congress, as Speaker after Speaker told us to hurry up and wait.

I remember when Speaker Boehner said it wasn't right for the 113th Congress to be voting on an AUMF. We are now in the 115th Congress and another Speaker has told us the same thing. But again this year, a vote on an AUMF has been blocked.

The majority also blocked debating amendments under this rule on other important issues, like striking the provision in this bill allowing for the transfer of machine guns between contractors and a separate measure to strike the provision here giving the President leeway to avoid implementing Russian sanctions.

That is disappointing, and it is a disservice to this institution and to the people we represent. For all of the talk from the majority about how many amendments are included here, let's not forget what is being blocked.

This bill is incredibly important. It authorizes money for more than half of the Nation's discretionary budget. That is about 54 cents of every tax dollar that pays for government programs other than entitlements. We should be having a robust debate on these issues here and now.

Yes, we appreciate quantity; that is important. We want a lot of amendments made in order, but we would like quantity and quality. So substantive amendments like the issues that I just mentioned ought to be made in order.

When it comes to our national defense, when it comes to debating the issues that are important to the American people, I want to let my colleagues know we Democrats aren't cheap dates. We want to have our ideas presented and debated. And the American people aren't cheap dates either. They can't understand for the life of themselves why on issues of war and peace, on issues like our involvement in Afghanistan, which is now the longest war in history, why we don't think it is important enough to debate that issue. We have men and women deployed in harm's way, but we can't be bothered on the House floor.

We have roadblocks thrown in front of us so we can't bring these amendments to the floor. We have a thousand excuses about why we can't deal with some of these issues, why this is not the time. Enough. I mean, this is what we are here for. If you don't want to talk about these issues, if you don't want to debate these issues, leave, go into another business, but don't take up space here in Congress spending all of your time trying to block these amendments from being brought to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I know a more open process is a foreign concept to the majority, but they should try it once in a while. This is the most closed Congress ever. Let's let the sunlight in. Let's have a process that is more accommodating.

And on this defense bill, yes, there are a lot of amendments that have been made in order, but there were a lot of important, vital amendments that have been blocked, and I find that very disappointing.

Mr. Speaker, I want to say to my colleague from Alabama, I appreciate the fact that he wants to defend what I think is indefensible, this process that the Republicans have implemented to run this House. I would be embarrassed to, but I know he has a job to do, and that is what he is doing.

He talks about all of these amendments that were made in order. What he doesn't tell you about is the over 2,000 amendments that they have blocked this session already, including a lot of Republican amendments that have been blocked, as well.

It is always puzzling to me that the Republicans just kind of go along to get along, and they get shut out of the amendment process and they still vote for a rule. Maybe the day that they stop voting for these rules is a day that maybe we will see some changes.

I also want to point out, and I don't think he really appreciates this point and this is why this has become the most closed Congress in the history of the United States of America, that the majority of bills that have been brought to the floor are unamendable. They are totally closed. I can't even offer an amendment to put a punctuation mark in a bill. I can't change a comma. I can't change the spelling of a word.

The majority of bills have been totally closed, shut out to everybody. If that is the process that this majority wants to embrace, fine. I think that is the kind of process that we want to move away from because that is the kind of process that we see in authoritarian regimes, not in deliberative bodies like the United States Congress, not in the United States of America.

The gentleman talks about that he trusts the administration on Afghanistan. Well, I don't trust this President on anything, to be honest with you. I don't know if he has ever been to Afghanistan, but I have, and the troops that I talked to in Afghanistan and those who are returning ask me the same thing over and over, and that is: What the hell are we doing? What is our mission?

Now, if you think the mission is on target and everything is great, fine. Then vote to increase the number of troops there. But we ought to have a debate here on the floor on whether that is the right thing to do.

On AUMFs, I am happy that the gentleman is cosponsoring a number of AUMFs. He says it is not appropriate to talk about it here in a defense authorization bill or a Defense Appropriations bill; that is a Foreign Affairs Committee bill, and we ought to deal with it there.

When is the last time we have had a Foreign Affairs Committee bill that has been brought before us that we could amend to do an AUMF on? I don't know.

Maybe the gentleman may know when this AUMF is coming out of the Foreign Affairs Committee. I haven't seen it. I have been waiting for years. They are in charge. They run this place. They control everything.

So that is just another excuse, and it really is insulting to the men and women who put their lives on the line for this country. I mean, there is always an excuse why we can't debate something.

This has to stop, and I hope it stops soon. If not, maybe the elections will result in a change of leadership here. I hope that, if we have the privilege to take over, you see a much more accommodating process and, certainly, a process where important issues like this get to be debated.

Mr. Speaker, the protests by thousands of teachers across the Nation have exposed not just low wages, but also severely dilapidated facilities. The 2016 State of Our Schools report determined that there is an annual State and local spending gap of $46 billion on school facilities. These facilities pose significant health and safety threats to more than 50 million students.

In the richest country in the world, it is absolutely shameful that we allow our children to attend schools without heat and with dangerous mold, not to mention the thousands of schools lacking access to the connectivity necessary for digital learning.

For this reason, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up Education and the Workforce Committee member Bobby Scott's bill, H.R. 2475, the Rebuild America's Schools Act. This legislation would provide the necessary funding to address critical physical and digital infrastructure needs in our schools, creating over 1.9 million jobs in the process.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, to discuss our proposal, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

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Mr. McGOVERN. Lee).
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I just want to say to my Rules Committee colleague that I agree with her that this place is pretty dysfunctional. But I just want to point out, in case she has forgotten, that the White House is controlled by Republicans, the House is controlled by Republicans, and the Senate is controlled by Republicans. So the gentlewoman can blame everybody she wants, but the Republicans are in charge of everything.

Lee) to respond to Mr. Byrne.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a May 22 letter signed by 32 former Republican and Democratic defense and foreign policy officials rejecting the building and use of low-yield nuclear warheads and opposing their authorization and their funding. May 22, 2018. Hon. Jim McGovern, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Representative McGovern: We write to respectfully request that Congress reject the Trump administration's request for new, more usable, ``low-yield'' nuclear warheads for Trident missiles. There is no need for such weapons and building them would make the United States less safe. These so-called ``low-yield'' weapons are a gateway to nuclear catastrophe and should not be pursued.

To justify this dangerous proposal, the Trump administration is promoting a false narrative that the United States has a ``gap'' in its ability to deter the use of nuclear weapons by Russia. Officials allege that Moscow believes that an American president would not respond to Russian use of ``tactical,'' or lower yield, nuclear weapons if his only options include ``strategic,'' or high-yield, ones. The president, they argue, would be ``self-deterred.''

To plug this supposed ``deterrence gap,'' the Trump administration wants to develop and deploy new low-yield nuclear warheads on Trident II D5 missiles on Ohio-class submarines. The administration is asking Congress for $88 million in FY2019 for this new warhead, in a program that would be completed in that fiscal year under the aegis of the W76 Life Extension Program. Yet this justification for new Trident warheads fails on many levels:

1. There is no ``deterrence gap.'' The United States has a massive nuclear arsenal of some 4,000 warheads, half of which are deployed on land-based missiles, submarines, and bombers. The administration is in the process of rebuilding this arsenal at an estimated cost of $1.7 trillion, with inflation, over the next 30 years. While this immense program is excessive, adds to a new arms race with Russia, and should be scaled back, Russia cannot doubt that the United States is serious about maintaining an unambiguously strong nuclear deterrent.

2. The United States already has many low-yield nuclear weapons. As part of that massive arsenal, the United States already has about 1,000 nuclear weapons with low-yield options, which are being modernized at great expense. If the president ever needed to use a low-yield nuclear weapon, he has many options.

3. Nuclear war cannot be controlled. Perhaps the biggest fallacy in the whole argument is the mistaken and dangerous belief that a ``small'' nuclear war would remain small. There is no basis for the dubious theory that, if Russia used a ``low-yield'' nuclear weapon and the United States responded in kind, the conflict could stay at that level.

Indeed, it is unlikely that there is such a thing as a limited nuclear war; preparing for one is folly. As George Shultz, Secretary of State for President Ronald Reagan, recently noted, ``A nuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon. You use a small one, then you go to a bigger one. I think nuclear weapons are nuclear weapons and we need to draw the line there.'' Secretary of Defense James Mattis similarly declared, ``I don't think there's any such thing as a tactical nuclear weapon. Any nuclear weapon used at any time is a strategic game changer.''

Ultimately, the greatest concern about the proposed low- yield Trident warhead is that the president might feel less restrained about using it in a crisis. When it comes to using a nuclear weapon, restraint is a good thing. The proposed ``low-yield'' Trident warhead is dangerous, unjustified, and redundant. Congress has the power to stop the administration from starting down this slippery slope to nuclear war. We call on Congress to exercise that authority without delay. Sincerely,

The Hon. George P. Shultz, Former U.S. Secretary of State; The Hon. William J. Perry, Former U.S. Secretary of Defense; The Hon. Richard G. Lugar, United States Senator (Ret.), Former Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee; The Hon. Byron Dorgan, United States Senator (Ret.), Former Chairman, Energy & Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, Senate Appropriations Committee; The Hon. Gary Hart, United States Senator (Ret.), Former member, Senate Armed Services Committee; The Hon. Mark Udall, United States Senator (Ret.), Former member, Senate Armed Services Committee.

The Hon. Jerry Brown, Former Governor of California; The Hon. Barney Frank, U.S. House of Representatives (Ret.); The Hon. John Tierney, U.S. House of Representatives (Ret.), Former Chairman, House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, Government Oversight and Reform Committee; General James Cartwright (USMC, Ret.), Former Vice Chair, Joint Chiefs of Staff; Lt. General Robert G. Gard (USA, Ret.), Former President, National Defense University; The Hon. John Holdren, Former Chief Science Advisor to the President; The Hon. Thomas Countryman, Former Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation.

The Hon. Andrew Weber, Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs; The Hon. Thomas Graham Jr., Former Special Representative of the President for Arms Control, Non- proliferation and Disarmament; The Hon. Susan F. Burk, Former Special Representative of the President, Nuclear Nonproliferation; The Hon. Laura Kennedy, Former US Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament; The Hon. Steven Pifer, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and Ambassador to Ukraine; The Hon. Anne M. Harrington, Former Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, U.S. Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration.

Ben Chang, Former Director for Press & Communications and Deputy Spokesman at the National Security Council; Philip E. Coyle, Former Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Steve Fetter, Former Principal Assistant Director for National Security and International Affairs, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Colin Kahl, Former Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor to the Vice President; Richard Nephew, Former Director for Iran for the National Security Council; Ned Price, Former Special Assistant to President Obama and Spokesperson for the National Security Council.

Ben Rhodes, Former Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications, The White House; Frank von Hippel, Former Assistant Director for National Security, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Jon Wolfsthal, Former Special Assistant to the President for National Security and Senior Director for Nonproliferation and Arms Control at the National Security Council; Alexandra Bell, Former Director of Strategic Outreach in the Office of the Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security; Bishop Garrison, Former adviser and Executive Director, Homeland Security Science & Technology Advisory Committee; Morton Halperin, Former Director of the Policy Planning Staff, Department of State; Newell Highsmith, Former Deputy Legal Adviser, Department of State.

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Mr. McGOVERN. This letter is co-led by former Reagan Secretary of State George Shultz and former Clinton Secretary of Defense William Perry.

Mr. Speaker, as the letter states, ``there is no such thing as a limited nuclear war and preparing for one is folly.''

George Shultz, Secretary of State for President Ronald Reagan, recently noted: ``A nuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon. You use a small one, then you go to a bigger one.''

Secretary of Defense James Mattis also recently declared: ``I don't think there's any such thing as a tactical nuclear weapon. Any nuclear weapon used at any time is a strategic game changer.''

Mr. Speaker, the underlying bill, for all of its many positive developments, is seriously deficient in this particular area. It authorizes funding for new low-yield nuclear weapons.

The U.S. already possesses low-yield nuclear weapons. If these weapons are not effective deterrents, we should examine why before building and deploying a new generation of weapons.

We should listen to our seasoned elder statesmen and -women and stop walking down a road that begins a nuclear war that can rapidly escalate. Any use of a nuclear weapon is a catastrophe. We should be destroying nuclear weapons, not building new ones.

I urge all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to work together and make sure this funding is not included in the final version of the FY19 NDAA.

I would say to the gentleman that we already have low-yield nuclear weapons. I don't know why we need more.

We heard the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), talk about the amendment he would like to see made in order to help reinforce our schools. I think most people watching also appreciate the fact that our national defense includes things like the quality of life for people here in this country, including the quality of our schools, whether people have jobs, whether people have good healthcare.

We are shortchanging all these domestic investments, and I think the concern we have is when you start investing in more nuclear weapons, not only is it not a good use of our taxpayer dollars, but it also increases insecurity for the people of this country.

Mr. Speaker, this is the most closed Congress in the history of the United States of America. Let me repeat that. This is the most closed Congress in the history of the United States of America.

The majority is very proud of this rule. They have made a bunch of amendments in order on a handful of bills to run up their numbers, but let's remember one thing: On most bills, the majority of the legislation that comes to this floor, they do not allow a single amendment. Not one. On most bills that come to the floor, no Member of this House, Democratic or Republican, can offer an amendment.

This rule before us today is not closed, but let me highlight a few germane amendments from the 281 amendments that this rule blocks.

Several bipartisan amendments were blocked, such as an amendment by Representatives Denham, Foster, Curbelo, and Panetta which allows Dreamers who grew up in the United States to gain legal status, provided that they serve out the terms of their enlistment honorably.

So we are talking about rewarding people who served in our military. That was the amendment. That was brought before the Rules Committee. That was blocked.

There was another bipartisan amendment from 25 Members, including myself, that expresses the sense of Congress that the lessons of past genocides should be applied to help prevent future war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

I say to my colleagues: When did a sense of Congress on the atrocities of genocide become such a controversial topic? But that was blocked.

This rule blocks an amendment by Representative Keating to test ticks for an increased number of tick-borne diseases. When did fighting tick- borne diseases become too sensitive for the House to debate?

This rule, once again, blocks us from having one of the most important debates we could have. It prevents us from debating whether or not to send our sons and daughters into harm's way.

The bipartisan amendment by Representatives Lee, Jones, and Ellison would repeal the 2001 AUMF after 240 days of enactment of the act, giving Congress ample time to debate a new AUMF.

The Constitution of the United States says the Congress has the power to declare war. This is our job, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the gentleman from Alabama saying: Well, the Foreign Affairs Committee deals with that, not us. We hear that every year. Every year that goes by, we don't see any bill from the Foreign Affairs Committee dealing with these topics.

The bottom line, let's be honest, is we don't deal with it because Members in the majority don't want to deal with this difficult issue. I have always said that our failure to act on an AUMF, our failure to debate these issues, represents moral cowardice.

What about our workers? Representatives Ellison, Pocan, and Grijalva had an amendment blocked that would have prohibited Federal contracts with companies that have repeated and willful wage theft violations. Why would we knowingly reward companies that hurt our workers?

The list goes on:

An amendment by Representative Lieu to require a public report on all DOD expenditures to support Presidential visits to entities owned or significantly controlled by the President or a member of his immediate family.

The American people deserve to know if the President and his family are directly profiting off of this Presidency. Blocked. Blocked.

An amendment by Representative Veasey that would prohibit the deportation of family members of servicemembers on Active Duty. How can we, with a good conscience, deport the family members of brave young men and women putting their lives on the line for all of us and fighting for our safety everyday? Blocked.

An amendment by Representative Torres, a distinguished member of the Rules Committee, that would have prevented DOD in helping the Department of Homeland Security from deporting spouses, parents, and sons and daughters of certain military personnel, veterans, and enlistees.

Mr. Speaker, I could spend the rest of the week describing the thousands of amendments that this Republican leadership has blocked, but I would much prefer to be debating the ideas that Members from both parties have put forward in good faith.

This is the most closed Congress in history. Dana Milbank recently described it as the most authoritarian Congress in history.

You know, 180 Democratic Members have had an amendment blocked in this Congress alone. That is 180 elected Members.

I would like my Republican friends to listen closely to my next point. This Congress, 180 Republican Members have also had their amendments blocked this Congress. You are all voting to block your own ideas. Stop it. Read the rules that you are voting on.

The vast majority of Republican Members have had their proposals blocked from even getting a vote. I don't understand why you keep voting to block proposals that you supposedly believe in. Hundreds of Republican amendments have been blocked by the Rules Committee. Most Republicans voted to block them. They are your amendments. I don't understand why it is such a radical idea to debate any of the amendments I just spoke about. We can do so much better.

Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of amendments that have been made in order. There is a lot of quantity. But a lot of the amendments that really shine in quality and that are important in terms of substance have been blocked. This is nothing new.

Again, the majority of bills that come to this floor are under closed rules. You can't amend them. Nobody can. Take it or leave it. The majority of bills that come to this floor are closed.

I know it is uncomfortable for my Republican friends to hear that they have presided over this closed process, but my hope is they will be so embarrassed and so ashamed that they will want to change things. They can still redeem themselves. We are only in May. They have a long way to go. Whether it is on the defense bill, on an education bill, or whatever bill it is, there are good ideas that are being brought forward.

I will close with this. I met with a group of young students who were engaged in the nationwide protest asking Congress to do something on gun violence. And the most frustrating thing they said to them is the fact that when they were lobbying Members of Congress, it's not even about telling them how to vote on an issue; they are frustrated because you can't get a vote on any of the issues that are related to gun violence. We won't let anything come to the floor. It is wrong.

I just say to my friends, in closing, if this place becomes more accommodating, if the Speaker decides to live up to the words that he enunciated when he became Speaker of the House, to have a more open process, to respect all ideas, let me tell you something; you are going to see a decrease in polarization. You are going to see more bills passed a bipartisan way. You are going to see more good bills going forward. Legislation will be better. If you have a lousy process, you end up with a lousy bill.

Again, I respect all the time and energy that went into crafting this NDAA. I respect the chairman and the ranking member, Democrats and Republicans alike, but there are a lot of important amendments here that are being blocked that are really important and that most of our constituents would believe deserve a debate and a vote on this floor.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question. Vote ``no'' on the rule. And I plead with them, let's bring some accomodation and some respect to differing ideas and just regular order to this House, because this is certainly not what I think any of us could possibly believe is the way our government should be run.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

A recorded vote was ordered.

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