National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I rise to highlight a number of important issues related to this year's defense authorization act.

Let me begin with a few words about the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. It is fitting that the bill is named after the senior Senator from Arizona, as the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act. His imprint is clear and direct, all throughout this bill. The bill makes clear America's strong commitment to our allies-- from Europe to Asia. It also demonstrates our clear commitment to defend those allies from our enemies whenever and wherever the need arises.

Those are principles held by every Member of this Senate. But there are few who can defend those principles more vigorous to friend or foe than the senior Senator from Arizona. As he noted in a speech last fall, ``The international order we helped build from the ashes of world war, and that we defend to this day, has liberated more people from tyranny and poverty than ever before in history. This wondrous land has shared its treasures and ideals and shed the blood of its finest patriots to help make another, better world. And as we did so, we made our own civilization more just, freer, more accomplished and prosperous. . . .''

Even though he cannot be here, he is here with us, and we are there with him. I would also like to thank the ranking member and the senior Senator from Oklahoma for their work to protect our national defense and provide for our servicemembers.

One area that I wish to highlight--and the defense authorization highlights this year--is the U.S. investment in maintaining our technological edge. We recently held a classified hearing in the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee on this subject. The short of it is that America cannot take its advantages for granted.

It is not clear to me that the Federal Government has its head in the game. In the 1960s, Federal investment in R&D reached as high as 2.23 percent of GDP. In 2016, that had plummeted to 0.77 percent. In 1995, the U.S. ranked fourth globally for R&D expenditures as a share of GDP. By 2015, it ranked tenth. Recent history is no better. Last year, the President proposed a 17-percent cut to Federal R&D, a greater annual cut than any in the postwar era, including a 5 percent cut to defense R&D.

I appreciate how strongly this year's defense authorization highlights the importance of this issue, including increased emphasis on high priority emerging technologies like hypersonics, artificial intelligence, space, and cyber. Chairman Shelby and I will do our part as appropriators to maintain a strong emphasis on innovation and technology, and I appreciate hearing a similarly clear message from the Armed Services Committee.

One area I am concerned about is the state of our defense personnel. Last year, Congress approved a 2.4-percent increase in pay for our military personnel and our Defense civilians. This year's budget requests a 2.6 percent increase, but only for our military personnel.

Our men and women in uniform deserve this pay raise, and I am glad that this increase will continue to ensure that America maintains the best all-volunteer military in the world, but denying three-quarters of a million Defense civilian employees a similar pay raise makes no sense.

Oddly enough, the Pentagon recently issued a Defense Business Operations Plan in April, which highlighted the importance of these civilian employees. It argues, ``Recruiting, developing, and retaining a high-quality military and civilian workforce is essential for warfighting success.'' The report also notes that the Pentagon plans to increase defense civilians in the next several years.

If we have any hope of recruiting, sustaining, and growing our Defense workforce, we have to be willing to provide appropriate compensation. Congress must act this year to ensure that the Department remains competitive in this area.

I am also concerned about the provisions in the bill related to nuclear weapons. During markup, the Armed Services Committee adopted an amendment on party lines an amendment to remove Congress's right to have a say in the creation of new nuclear weapons.

Under current law, the President must come to Congress for permission in order to create a new nuclear weapon. It was a compromise brokered more than 10 years ago by the senior Senator from Rhode Island and the then-senior Senator from Virginia, John Warner.

It was a very good provision. Nuclear weapons are unlike any other weapon in the US arsenal, with the power to literally end life on Earth. They are unique and deserve extraordinary scrutiny. It is shocking that Congress would cede its oversight responsibility in this critical area. I support the amendment by the ranking member to reverse this foolish provision, and I hope that we can address the issue in conference.

We were unable to address several of these issues during floor consideration of the defense authorization bill. I hope that the conferees will address them during the next phase of the bill. In the meantime, I reiterate my thanks to Chairman McCain, Ranking Member Reed, and Senator Inhofe for their work on this bill.

Madam President. I am disappointed an amendment authored by Senator Inhofe waiving the Immigration and Nationality Act's terrorism bars is included in the National Defense Authorization Act. This amendment would create a special immigration carveout for two groups from the African country of Rwanda that committed serious war crimes.

Under our immigration laws, any foreigner who is a member of a terrorist organization or provides material support to a terrorist organization cannot be admitted to our country. The Inhofe amendment would give the Trump administration the unreviewable authority to waive these terrorism bars for two Rwandan groups--the Rwandan Patriotic Front, RPF, and the Rwandan Patriotic Army, RPA--for activities prior to August 1994, a period when these groups reportedly engaged in crimes against humanity.

This is the precise time when members of the Hutu tribe, which makes up the majority of the population in Rwanda, were perpetrating a horrific genocide against the Tutsis, the second largest group in Rwanda. What is not as well known is that Tutsi armed groups--the RPF and the RPA--also committed gross human rights violations during this period. Listen to what Human Rights Watch says: ``In their drive for military victory and a halt to the genocide, the RPF killed thousands, including noncombatants as well as government troops and members of militia. As RPF soldiers sought to establish their control over the local population, they also killed civilians in numerous summary executions and in massacres. They may have slaughtered tens of thousands during the four months of combat from April to July [1994].''

Providing a blanket immigration waiver to two groups whose members committed these atrocities is a serious concern. If this provision becomes law, individuals responsible for war crimes and other human rights violations could find safe haven in our country.

To be clear, these immigration provisions, known as the terrorism- related inadmissibility grounds or TRIG bars, are too sweeping and can prevent innocent people from coming to our country. The TRIG bars are so broadly drafted that they apply not just to groups who have clearly engaged in serious human rights violations, like the RPF and RPA, but also innocent people who may have provided a meal or a few dollars to a member of a foreign rebel group, even a group supported by the United States.

In 2007, I held a hearing on the TRIG bars that featured testimony from a nurse from Colombia who was kidnapped by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia--also known as FARC--and forced at gunpoint to provide medical care to FARC guerrillas. She escaped and fled to the United States in fear for her life. However, she was denied asylum in our country because, under the TRIG bars, she was considered to have provided material support to terrorists.

In response to absurd cases like this one, Congress passed bipartisan legislation granting the executive branch authority to exempt deserving groups or individuals from the TRIG bars. In 2014, the Obama administration used this authority to issue exemptions to the TRIG bars for insignificant support that was not intended to support terrorist activities. These exemptions were designed to protect refugees who innocently interacted with a member of an armed rebel group. For example, a refugee who gave a bowl of rice or cigarette to a member of the Free Syrian Army or paid an opposition group to ensure safe passage out of Syria could be exempted from the TRIG bars.

If individuals associated with the RPF or RPA have been unjustly swept up in the TRIG bars, they should be eligible for the existing exemptions. Unfortunately, the Trump administration has signaled it plans to rescind these waivers. Rather than creating a blanket statutory waiver that could benefit individuals that have committed serious human rights violations, as the Inhofe amendment would do, Congress should come together on a bipartisan basis to oppose the Trump administration's efforts to undo the existing exemptions that protect innocent refugees.

It is also troubling that Congress could provide this kind of special immigration benefit to war criminals at a time when the Trump administration is deporting immigrants who have lived in this country for years and have committed no crimes.

For all of these reasons, I urge my colleagues on the Senate and House Armed Services Committees to remove this problematic provision from the final conference report.

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Mr. DURBIN. Duckworth), and the Senator from New Hampshire (Mrs. Shaheen) are necessarily absent.

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Mr. DURBIN. Duckworth) and the Senator from New Hampshire (Mrs. Shaheen) are necessarily absent.

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