National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020--Conference Report
Floor Speech
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Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, Stephen Carr has been described by friends as a ``gentle giant'' and ``all-American boy.'' He enjoyed hunting and fishing. He played on the offensive line at Southwest Baptist University.
He came from a law enforcement family. He always knew he wanted to be a police officer, so it was little surprise when Stephen joined the Fayetteville Police Department 2\1/2\ years ago. He served with professionalism and valor in those 2\1/2\ years as a patrol officer in the Dickson Street entertainment district.
Sadly, Officer Carr was in his patrol car Saturday night when he was ambushed by a gunman looking for an officer to kill. Carr's fellow police heard the gunshots and responded to the scene within seconds. With little regard for their own safety, they pursued the gunman down an alley. When confronted, they met force with force and took him down. The whole incident took just minutes from start to finish.
Emergency services were on the scene within an instant, but despite their best efforts, they couldn't save Officer Carr. He succumbed to his wounds on the scene, as did his killer. Officer Carr was only 27 years old.
This tragedy reminds us of the terrible risks officers face every day when they put on the uniform and the badge, not knowing whether they will be alive to take it off that night. Already this year, 118 officers across America have been killed in the line of duty. Some were the victims of random tragedies. Others, like Officer Carr, were targeted by a criminal class that hates what the police represent: law and order.
Since Officer Carr's killing, two more officers have fallen in the line of duty. Detective Joseph Seals, a 15-year veteran of the Jersey City Police Department, was shot to death while approaching two suspected killers. Sergeant Kaila Sullivan, a 16-year veteran of the Nassau Bay Police Department, was struck and killed by a fleeing suspect in a vehicle. All of these fallen officers will be remembered as heroes.
In Arkansas, especially, we will remember Officer Carr, whose watch ended on December 7, 2019. May he rest in peace. Honoring Storekeeper 1st Class John William Craig
Mr. President, Navy Storekeeper 1st Class John William Craig of Monroe, AR, perished aboard the USS Oklahoma on December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy. On that day, Imperial Japanese bombers shattered the morning calm at Pearl Harbor, killing Petty Officer Craig and more than 2,000 of his brothers in arms.
Nearly eight decades later, however, his remains were listed as unknown and interred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. He was reported as missing in action, but Petty Officer Craig is missing no more. Thanks to the outstanding work of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, his remains were accounted for in 2017, and just last weekend, on the 78th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, he arrived home in Arkansas to his final resting place.
Petty Officer Craig's burial is a long-overdue moment of honor for a brave sailor. It is also a moment of hope for our many military families whose loved ones haven't yet been found--a reminder that our Nation will not rest until every one of our missing heroes is back in our arms or laid to rest with honor.
We have now fulfilled this solemn pledge to Petty Officer Craig. Nearly 80 years after his disappearance, we have affirmed once again that the United States leaves no man behind on the battlefield. Fentanyl Sanctions Act
Mr. President, synthetic opioids like fentanyl kill tens of thousands of Americans each year. They are a terrible accelerant that has fueled the worst drug crisis in our Nation's history, killing more people every year than died in the entire Vietnam war.
These drugs aren't made here in the United States. No, they are flooding across our borders from overseas, trafficked by cartels, and, even unwittingly, sometimes by the U.S. Postal Service.
Synthetic opioids are often produced in superlabs by the drug cartels that are terrorizing our border communities. But the ingredients for those drugs--and sometimes the drugs themselves--can be traced back to a different source: China, whose vast pharmaceutical and chemical industries frequently have been abused to poison our fellow citizens.
The Chinese Communist Party has been waging an opium war in reverse against the United States for far too long. As tens of thousands of Americans have perished from overdoses, Chinese officials have turned a blind eye to the drug criminals who have profited off of our pain. But now, desperate for a trade deal to save its sputtering economy, Beijing has finally promised to crack down on fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. But we would be naive to trust any promise from Chinese Communists, especially this one.
It is time that we take matters into our own hands. That is exactly what we will do in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which includes my bill introduced with Senator Schumer to sanction foreign drug dealers in China, Mexico, and elsewhere. The bill also urges the President to work with our allies to impose even tougher multilateral sanctions against foreign drug dealers. It authorizes new funding for law enforcement and the intelligence community for counternarcotics activities. It establishes a commission to find new ways to stop the flow of drugs from overseas.
This bill will soon be signed by the President and become law. This is welcome news for law enforcement and for families who are battling the crisis of opioid addiction, and it is bad news for the Chinese Communist Party and foreign drug dealers around the world who are responsible for the poisoning of so many Americans. Protecting Europe's Energy Security Act of 2019
Mr. President, 70 years after the creation of NATO, the biggest external threats to the alliance are our revisionist adversaries--China and Russia. Unfortunately, however, the alliance faces some internal threats, too, among the allies themselves, who too often fail to take these adversaries seriously. Instead, they strike dangerous deals with the very powers that threaten to destroy all of us.
Consider the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project between Germany and Russia. Germany touts the pipeline's commercial benefits, but Russia sees it differently--as a strategic tool to divide Europe and thus to strengthen its fictional claim to dominion over parts of Eastern Europe.
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline would effectively double the amount of natural gas Russia could export to Europe along a route that bypasses the alliance's eastern frontier. This would deepen the NATO members' reliance on Russian gas while it would enhance Putin's ability to engage in energy blackmail, just as he has done in the past. For example, in 2009, Russia shut off the flow of natural gas to Europe during a dispute with Ukraine, causing energy shortages across the entire continent in the dead of winter. Putin's opportunities for such blackmail will only increase if Nord Stream 2 is completed because he will be able to ship his gas to Western Europe without its transiting Eastern Europe. Therefore, he will be able to blackmail Eastern Europe while the Germans will sit warm and toasty in their living rooms-- indifferent to the plight of their NATO allies to the east.
This pipeline is almost complete, so the timeline for action is short. Thankfully, the National Defense Authorization Act includes our bill to impose mandatory sanctions on companies that are constructing, insuring, or financing Vladimir Putin's pipeline to Europe. These sanctions are a demonstration of our commitment to the strength and security of the whole NATO alliance.
I urge the German Government and all companies involved in this dangerous endeavor to pull back before it is too late and to consider the serious consequences that Nord Stream 2 could have for their security as well as for the security of the NATO alliance as a whole. Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps Homeschool
Mr. President, homeschooling parents sacrifice a lot when they make the legitimate and indeed very admirable choice to personally educate their children. In effect, these parents are making the choice to go back to school themselves so that their kids may receive well-rounded and faithful educations.
Their sacrifices pay off in spades. Homeschooled students consistently prove to be outstanding citizens because they are taught the importance of patriotism, faith, hard work, and sacrifice--virtues exemplified by their parents and their teachers.
Homeschooled students, therefore, ought to be prime candidates for our Armed Forces for this very reason, but until now, in some places, it hasn't been clear as to whether homeschooled students have been eligible to join their local Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps Programs. Now that is going to change.
The 2020 National Defense Authorization Act includes my bill--also sponsored by Senator Jones--which clarifies that homeschooled students may indeed enroll in their local JROTC Programs. Our bill will ensure that the Nation's 2.5 million homeschooled students will have the opportunity to sharpen and deploy their skills in service of our country. This will move us closer to being a society that fully accepts and indeed celebrates homeschooling families for the noble paths they have chosen. PCS Act
Mr. President, the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act includes many valuable reforms. One such reform is the PCS Act, which is legislation I introduced with Senator Shaheen, that helps military spouses keep their occupational licenses even when they are on the move across State lines.
One in three military spouses works in a field that requires one to have an occupational license, and too many spouses are forced to recertify every time they move between States. That can be very often. Most military families move every 2 to 3 years, and when each move requires an expensive, time-consuming recertification process, many military spouses might as well kiss their jobs goodbye. These occupational licenses are a costly burden for military families, who have already sacrificed so much for our country.
Our PCS Act will alleviate this burden by empowering the Department of Defense and the States to negotiate interstate compacts for occupational licenses in fields in which military spouses often work. These compacts, which are made possible by our bill, will ensure that military spouses will be able to pursue their careers uninterrupted even while they are moving their families from State to State and base to base. Most importantly, the PCS Act will allow military families to focus on their mission, which is to protect and serve our country with honor.
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