National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020

Floor Speech

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Mr. BROWN of Maryland. Mr. Chairman, I thank Chairman Smith for unprecedented bipartisanship in bringing this bill to the floor.

This year's NDAA provides the strategic funding we need to maintain a robust military that can tackle our global challenges, reversing the President's soft stance on Russia by bolstering the European Deterrence Initiative with our NATO allies, and collaborating with our allies to contain North Korea and counter China's expansionist moves throughout the Indo-Pacific.

It makes greater investments in training, equipping, and providing for our Armed Forces, funding a 3.1 percent pay raise for servicemembers, the largest in a decade.

In this year's NDAA, we have the opportunity to increase research capacity for Historically Black Colleges and Universities. We empower the Department of Defense to identify the scope of white nationalism, extremism, and violent misogyny in the military, and we pursue a new diversity and inclusion strategy within the DOD to ensure minorities are more fully represented in our officer corps.

We also rise to the challenge set forth before us and reverse some of the administration's worst policy decisions. We deny the increase of low-yield nuclear warheads that would lower the threshold for nuclear war. We prevent the President's use of the military as a piggy bank for his border wall.

With additional amendments, we will allow transgender Americans to openly and honorably serve our country in uniform, and we will ensure that the President cannot put us on the path to war without congressional approval.

It is clear that we will pass, perhaps, the most progressive and robust defense authorization in years, and I am proud to support it.

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Mr. BROWN of Maryland. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of Congresswoman Speier's amendment.

As an African American veteran, my service and my background lead me to believe that all Americans who want to serve and can meet our military standards should be afforded the opportunity to serve. This amendment, which codifies the military's existing nondiscrimination standards for all Americans, would end President Trump's ban on transgender servicemembers and would realize President Truman's promise of the equality of treatment and opportunity for all those who serve in our country's defense that he made when he desegregated the Armed Forces.

Those who argue against transgender service often say it disrupts unit cohesion, erodes morale, and reduces effectiveness. These arguments, regrettably, were used to keep African American, women, lesbian, and gay members from serving. Transgender servicemembers, we need their service; we need their skills; we need their experience; we need their courage; we need their patriotism; and they need our support.

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