National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020

Floor Speech

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Chair, I rise in support of this legislation. It is a good piece of legislation.

I thank Chairman Smith; Ranking Member Thornberry; and my colleague, Mr. Lamborn, for working with our committee. We worked closely with members of the committee on and off to ensure that the bill addresses four priority areas affecting our military.

First, we ask the question: Is the military ready for climate change? It is not. In the last 12 months, severe storms have devastated Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, Tyndall Air Force Base, and Offutt Air Force Base. This NDAA will accelerate and enhance readiness by requiring the Department of Defense to plan for and respond to the threat that climate change poses to military installations and operations.

Second, the bill includes a number of bipartisan provisions aimed at addressing problems associated with the management and oversight of military housing for families.

Third, the bill authorizes additional funding and includes bipartisan provisions to mitigate drinking water contamination resulting from fluorinated compounds used in military installations.

Fourth, the bill continues to uphold the committee's responsibility to conduct oversight of, and provide support for, military training maintenance and infrastructure. For example, the mark authorizes $256.4 billion, an $8.8 billion increase over fiscal year 2019 authorized levels, for operation and maintenance accounts. This includes an additional $834 million to address submarine and surface ship maintenance shortfalls and an additional $309 million for the Air Force weapon systems sustainment accounts. It also includes $11.5 billion for military construction, family housing, and implementation of previous Base Realignment and Closure activities.

This includes $168 million above the budget request for construction projects associated with the European Deterrence Initiative and authorizes 31 additional programs.

Mr. Chair, today I rise in support of the fiscal year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). I would like to start by thanking Chairman Smith and the House Armed Services Committee staff who have worked many long nights putting together this year's NDAA. The bill that is before the House is a good bill and I encourage my colleagues to support its passage.

As the Chairman of the Readiness Subcommittee, I worked closely with members on and off the committee to ensure the bill addressed three priority areas affecting our military. First, the bill includes a number of bipartisan provisions aimed at addressing problems associated with the management and oversight of military family housing. The bill does the following:

Requires the military services to establish a tenants' bill of rights for residents of privatized military family housing;

Requires the Secretary of Defense to develop an assessment tool to identify and measure health and safety hazards in housing;

Prohibits the use of non-disclosure agreements in connection with entering into, continuing, or terminating a lease for on-base military housing;

Authorizes an additional $140.8 million to hire additional civilian personnel to improve oversight and management of military family housing; and

Creates a public database for complaints related to military housing, requires annual financial audits of randomly selected privatized military family housing, and annual congressional reports on the condition, maintenance, and management of privatized military family housing.

Second, the bill authorizes additional funding and includes bipartisan provisions to mitigate drinking water contamination resulting from fluorinated compounds around military installations:

Prohibits the release of fluorinated firefighting foam (AFFF) at military installations except in cases of emergency response or in limited circumstances;

Requires the Secretary of Navy to complete a new military specification by January 2025 for a fluorine free firefighting agent to be used at all DoD installations and a complete ban on fluorinated foams on military installations by September 2029, or sooner if possible;

Authorizes the National Guard to access Defense Environmental Remediation Account funds, for five years, for the limited purpose of addressing Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) exposure and contamination;

Prohibits the use of fluorinated AFFF in training exercises and encourages the Department to ensure adequate training for individuals in regular contact with AFFF about the potential dangers associated with PFAS;

Requires a report on the Department's understanding of best-practices for cleanup and disposal of PFAS;

Provides an additional $121.3 million in environmental restoration accounts for remediation activities related to perfluorinated chemicals in drinking water on or near military installations; and

Authorizes DoD to provide fresh water and treatment of contaminated water for agricultural purposes adjacent to a military installation where water is contaminated due to military activities.

Third, the bill contains a number of sensible provisions requiring the Department of Defense to plan for and respond to the threat that climate change poses to military installations and military operations:

Requires DoD to develop installation master plans that assess current climate vulnerabilities and plan for mitigating the risks;

Limits DoD's ability to spend planning and design funds until it initiates the process of amending the building standards for military construction to ensure that building practices and standards promote energy, climate, and cyber resilience at military installations;

Requires all proposals for military construction projects to consider potential long-term changes in environmental conditions, and increasingly frequent extreme weather events, as well as, industry best-practices to withstand extreme weather events;

Authorizes an additional $40 million for the Department's Energy Resilience and Conservation Investment Program; and

Directs the Secretary of Defense to develop a climate vulnerability and risk assessment tool to assist in providing standardized risk calculations of climate-related impacts to military installations and capabilities.

Further, the bill also includes important provisions to reform border deployment and ensure funding for our military is spent wisely and as Congress intended, and not on an unnecessary border wall:

It prevents the President from diverting Defense funding to pay for an unnecessary border wall;

Includes a blanket prohibition on funding for the construction of a wall, barrier, or fence along the southern land border;

Prohibits reprogramming of funds into the counter drug account, which has been used by the Administration to do construction along the southern land border;

Does not include the $7.2 billion requested by the Administration to backfill MILCON projects and/or forward fund portions of the wall;

Modifies an authority the DoD uses when deploying active duty personnel to the border to require all support to be reimbursable and require a wavier that the deployment won't affect readiness, the support task aligns with the unit's mission, the task is inherently government and can't be contracted; and

Amends the emergency construction authority (10 USC 2808) to limit the total cost of military construction projects undertaken during a national emergency to $500 million, with a further limit of $100 million for construction projects within the United States and would add elements to required congressional notifications.

In addition, the bill continues to uphold the committee's responsibility to conduct oversight of, and provide support for, military training, maintenance, and infrastructure. For example, the mark authorizes $256.4 billion, an $8.8 billion increase over fiscal year 2019 authorized levels, for operation and maintenance accounts. This includes an additional $834 million to address submarine and surface ship maintenance shortfalls and an additional $309 million for Air Force weapon systems sustainment accounts. The mark also included $11.5 billion for military construction, family housing, and implementation of previous Base Realignment and Closure activities. This includes $168.6 million above the budget request for construction projects associated with the European Deterrence Initiative and authorization for 31 additional construction projects valued at over $1 billion, that were not included in the budget request, but that the committee were able to accelerate from the military departments' unfunded priority lists.

Additionally, this year's NDAA funds important priorities at Travis and Beale Air Force Bases in my district. The military construction projects authorized in this bill will support the new KC-46 mission at Travis Air Force Base and will improve resilience and power supply at Beale Air Force Base, enabling it to continue to support intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and multidomain operations.

I'm proud of the funding authorized by, and legislative provisions included in the Readiness mark. I believe the mark ensures Congress fulfills its oversight responsibilities, helps advance our military's near-term readiness goals, and drives the Department to plan for and take action against long-term threats.

I'm also pleased this NDAA includes a 3.1 percent pay raise for our troops and includes the text of my bill, H.R. 2617, the Occupational and Environmental Transparency Health Act. This will require DoD to input any Occupational Environmental Health hazards exposure into servicemembers' records while deployed, so it is tracked throughout their career and into veteran status. It will also require the VA to retroactively update records based on information contained in the Burn Pit Registry, since many veterans' health records do not account for their exposures.

Additional provisions I'm pleased are included in the fiscal year 2020 NDAA are included below, many of which are related to the critical oversight the Strategic Forces Subcommittee is conducting over our nuclear weapons enterprise:

Requires a report from the Secretary of Defense on military-to- military dialogue with foreign countries to reduce the risk of miscalculation, unintended consequences, or accidents that could precipitate a nuclear war;

Prohibits funding for the deployment of new, low-yield nuclear missile warheads;

Clarifies the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board's authorities by providing prompt and unfettered access to defense nuclear facilities for independent nuclear oversight;

Facilitates implementation of the Open Skies Treaty and prohibits funding for withdrawal unless Russia is in material breach or DoD and State provide a certification that withdrawal is in the best interest of national security and have consulted with U.S. allies;

Increases funding for Nuclear Command, Control and Communications.

Repeals the requirement to demonstrate plutonium pit production of at a rate of 80 pits per year by 2027, and instead prioritizes producing 30 plutonium pits per year by 2026;

Until the National Nuclear Security Administrator submits an analysis of alternatives with respect to replacing the ICBM W78 warhead, this bill cuts $103 million from the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent, cuts $59 million from the related warhead, and fences remaining funding for the warhead;

Requires an independent technical study of the W78 replacement and potential problems; and

Repeals the conventional requirement for the Long Range Stand Off Weapon.

I'm proud of the hard work that's been done to put together a strong National Defense Authorization Act this year, and I urge my colleagues to support the fiscal year 2020 NDAA.

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