Conference Report on H.R. William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank both Mr. Smith, the chairman of the committee, and Mr. Thornberry, who I have had the opportunity to work with through the years. Both of them are leaders who have focused on America's well-being, America's national security, and the well- being of our troops who serve in uniform and support those who are at the point of the spear.

I believe that we have and our country has been advantaged by the leadership of both and by the fact that they have been able to work together collegially to accomplish objectives on behalf of the country, not on behalf of party.

So, I thank both Mr. Smith, the chairman, and Mr. Thornberry, the ranking member who was the chairman. They have both held the responsible positions of leading this committee and its work.

I rise in strong support of this year's authorization bill. Let me say at the outset, as the majority leader, I schedule legislation for the floor. Mr. Smith and I have had long conversations, and Mr. Thornberry and I have had conversations in the past.

This bill should not be on the floor in December. This bill has historically passed in May through the committee and has been to the floor before we break for the August break. I have had discussions with Mr. Smith and will tell successors on the Defense Committee that it will be my intention to urge the committee to mark up its bill and have it ready to report to the floor by May.

Now, there have been exigencies from time to time which made that impossible. That was certainly the case when the government was shut down, and it has been this case through the pandemic, which has obviously slowed up our work as well.

But I am hopeful, Mr. Speaker, that I will be able to bring this bill, at the instance of the chairman and the ranking member, to the floor either in late May or very early June, the first week in June before, frankly, we get to the appropriations process, which is really how the process ought to work, as opposed to the other way around.

Mr. Speaker, this is a major piece of legislation, one of the most important we pass each year and one, frankly, that we need to pass each year.

I just said we need to do it in a timely fashion, but it is never too late to do the right thing. What we are doing today is the right thing, passing a bill which provides for the security of our country.

Again, I want to thank both of those leaders who I have referenced. This conference report will ensure that our men and women in uniform can continue to protect our Nation and meet global challenges.

Now, I hope that President Trump does sign this bill. He ought to sign this bill. This is about our national security. It is not about partisanship. Taking issue with one provision or another in such a large and important bill is no reason to block the whole of it. That is particularly true when this bill would take a major step forward to right a historic wrong.

But let me say, with respect to a veto, I hope the President does not veto this. I hope that we have, as previous speakers have said, overwhelming bipartisan support on both sides of the aisle.

Of course, there are specifics in a bill this large where one can say: ``I don't like that provision.'' Well, I don't think there is a bill that you can't have a significant number or one of us say: ``I wish that provision were different.'' But we ought not to have our focus on the doughnut hole. We ought to have our focus on the doughnut, on the whole of what makes this bill so critically important for our country.

In our founding document, it states that all are ``created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.''

It said: ``All men are created equal.'' None of us would argue that all men should be exclusively perceived as being created equal. We believe that all human beings are created equal, whether they are men or they are women, or they are Black or they are White, or they are yellow or they are red. Whatever the differences may be, it is our perception and articulation in this Declaration that it is God who created the soul that is colorless, that is genderless, that is of no one nation.

It is the soul that is imbued in us, as we say in our Declaration, by our creator. While these rights may have been self-evident, I tell people, they are not self-executing. It fell to future generations of Americans to secure them in practice.

Less than a century after our Nation's founding, it was torn apart by a Civil War, with Southern States waging war to protect the evil institution of slavery. All of us would agree that one human being owning another human being is untenable. But it is what we fought a war over.

The names of those who fought violently to perpetuate slavery and who rebelled against the United States do not deserve the honor of being associated with the installations housing, training, and equipping those who serve today under our flag of freedom and democracy.

Now, without getting into that argument, it would have been perverse to drop an amendment adopted by 93 percent of the Senate, not because they voted on the individual amendment but because it was included in the bill and 93 percent of the Members of the United States Senate voted for it.

It simply says what is the right thing to do: remove a name from a base on which an African-American sailor, an African-American soldier, an African-American marine, an African-American coastguardsman serve. An African American of whatever service, at whatever time, should not have to serve on a base named for somebody who believed that person ought to be enslaved.

I congratulate both the chairman and the ranking member for making sure that that language was kept in. I know the President has said he doesn't like that language, but as I said, I am convinced that any one of us could point to something in this bill we don't like. But we need to keep our eye on the ball, the national security of our country.

This National Defense Authorization Act requires the military to remove the names. I think that is appropriate, and I congratulate them for leaving that language whole.

I had made it clear that I felt this bill needed to pass. But I felt that if that provision were left out, it would be inappropriate to put it on the floor.

Additionally, I also want to mention that this conference report will ensure that all Federal employees can access 12 weeks of paid parental leave. That is now the practice in most, if not all, certainly, but many of the largest corporations in our country. Why? Because they believe it is good for their employees. They believe it is good for their children. They believe it is good for America. We have now adopted that, and I praise the committee for doing so.

Unfortunately, some Federal employees were left out last year when we enacted paid parental leave, and we have now included them. Today, we are fixing that and making sure that it applies to all Federal workers.

Mr. Speaker, it is also important that we are able to include language in the conference report that will close corporate loopholes, which were referred to by Ms. Waters, the chair of the Financial Services Committee, eliminating loopholes which allowed dark money to enter the U.S. financial system from Russia and other malign actors.

That beneficial ownership provision is a major win in the fight against foreign kleptocrats and oligarchs seeking to undermine America's security and fund those who wish to do us harm.

Congratulations to Mr. Smith, congratulations to the ranking member, and congratulations to the committee for that.

Mr. Speaker, we have an opportunity today to do right by our servicemembers and by the principles they uphold. Let us do so by passing this conference report and doing our part, as President Lincoln said, to bind up the Nation's wounds.

I urge all of my colleagues, not because they will come to the conclusion that this is a perfect bill--there are no perfect bills. But it is a bill essential for the defense of our values, our people, and our land. This bill needs to pass overwhelmingly.

I urge all of my colleagues to vote for it.

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