National Defense Authorization Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I join the Senator from Missouri, the Senator from Alaska, and the other Senators in calling for the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act.

This bill is the last of a breed. It is a bill we have passed with a large bipartisan majority in Congress every single year for 58 straight years. It hasn't been derailed by petty, partisan politics or grievances between the parties. It has gotten large bipartisan majorities because Congress has understood that for those 58 years, the national defense must come before politics. It is the definition of a must-pass act, but time is short to get it right, unfortunately, because of those very kinds of petty, partisan politics.

This bill is an opportunity for us to continue rebuilding our military after 8 years of stagnation and cuts by the last administration. The bill would increase funding to our troops by $22 billion--money that would be spent on cutting-edge technologies, like new vertical-lift jet engines, to give our troops an edge in future conflicts.

This kind of investment is essential, especially as storm clouds brew in the Western Pacific from a rising China. The Communist Party of China is not derailed by petty, partisan politics; therefore, it is investing huge sums to transform its military into a world-class force that will be capable of rivaling and, it hopes, ultimately, of defeating our own military. At the same time, China is pursuing an aggressive technology strategy to dominate the next generation of military hardware. Beijing's ultimate goal, of course, is to replace us not just as the most powerful country in the Western Pacific but in the entire world. So we must invest in our military right now or else we will reap that whirlwind in the future.

There are many other important measures that have been included in this year's Defense bill that will not pass--that will not even see the light of day--on the Senate floor if we fail to pass the bill.

There is the Fentanyl Sanctions Act, which is my bipartisan legislation, that would crack down on foreign criminals--mostly Chinese--who smuggle deadly poisons across our border. Synthetic opioids kill tens of thousands of Americans every year, and that toll will continue to rise if we don't start to bust up the criminal networks that originate in China and then come through Mexico to poison our communities. Let's pass the Defense bill to give law enforcement the tools of the Fentanyl Sanctions Act.

There is also the PCS Act, which is my legislation that would help military spouses transfer their occupational licenses across State lines. When your husband or your wife is in the military, you follow his or her career, and if you are a lawyer or a nurse or a teacher or any of the other hundreds of jobs that require an occupational license in this country, you face barriers to working and putting food on the table for your family. This bill would allow military spouses to continue to pursue their careers uninterrupted, which would therefore allow their military servicemembers to focus on their own missions and not worry about their spouses' jobs.

There is also our legislation to honor the 241 American victims of the Beirut marine barracks bombing that was perpetrated by an Iranian suicide bomber 36 years ago last month. The Defense bill would designate the anniversary of that bombing as a national day of remembrance and strengthen our resolve to fight the terrorist forces that carried it out and that threaten our security to this day.

There is also the opportunity to strengthen trade restrictions on Huawei by including in the Defense bill the Defending America's 5G Future Act. Huawei is the eyes and ears overseas of the Communist Party of China, so we must deny it access to our sensitive networks and the networks of our allies. There are 91 Senators who voted to instruct the conference committee to include that legislation in the Defense bill. They still hope it will be included, but, first, we will have to pass the Defense bill. If we don't, then China's spy company stands to gain.

This is far from an exhaustive list of the reforms that are or could be included in this year's Defense bill. It is just a sample of the many valuable and bipartisan measures that are under consideration. They also underscore the importance of passing the Defense bill in the first place.

Consider the alternative to passing the National Defense Authorization Act--that being a terrible stopgap spending measure that would include zero reforms and that would degrade, even as we face rising threats from China and Russia every day, the fighting capability of our military. A stopgap spending measure would freeze defense spending at last year's levels. That is not to say that business would go on as usual. No. Inflation would continue to erode the purchasing power of last year's funding levels, and the military would have to tear up and renegotiate many of its multiyear contracts with defense companies. Renegotiating those contracts would cost billions in administrative expenses that would otherwise go to the pay and benefits of our fighting men and women, to a new aircraft, to new ships, to new guns, or to new munitions. This so-called spending freeze would, in fact, cost taxpayers an arm and a leg.

This is all the more reason for Congress to act, once again, to pass the National Defense Authorization Act, as we have for 58 years, without being divided by petty, partisan politics.

I urge my colleagues to put aside their partisan objections on issues that are really not even related to our military. I urge them to make the hard compromises necessary in order to pass this bill and give our troops what they need.

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