National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Ms. PELOSI. Madam Speaker, I rise to support this bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act: which honors our values, supports our servicemembers and families, strengthens our security and advances our leadership in the world.
Thank you to Chairman Smith, the Committee and staff for their patriotic, persistent leadership on this legislation, which reflects the brilliance and diversity of the whole House.
This bill honors our responsibility to meet the needs of the servicemembers who sacrifice for our freedoms, and their families. It does so by:
Providing a pay raise for our men and women in uniform,
Strengthening parental leave for caregivers,
Expanding access to child care,
Improving the financial security of military members, including those who are low-income and have family members living with disabilities,
Protecting military communities from PFAS ``forever chemicals.''
This NDAA also makes historic changes to better combat sexual assault in the military, including creating an Office of Special Victim Prosecutor within each service to prosecute crimes and criminalizing sexual harassment under the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice).
And it improves military health care, including related to mental health, women's reproductive health and suicide prevention.
In terms of protecting our security, there are many provisions of which to be proud in this NDAA. This legislation helps America combat our adversaries and invest in our alliances--with strong action to deter China and Russia, fight transnational threats and counter violent extremism.
And it brings our defense further into the 21st Century--with an historic 36 percent increase in defense-wide research & development, $2.5 billion to fix aging infrastructure & support security-related R&D, $1 billion in new cybersecurity investments, over $1 billion for artificial intelligence efforts and investments in new partnerships with the private sector and academia, including HBCUs and Minority- Serving Institutions.
This NDAA builds on Congress's bipartisan action in passing Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) legislation to provide for the relocation of our Afghan allies and partners, as it authorizes $500 million for this effort.
This bipartisan policy bill has been signed into law for 60 consecutive years. We all look forward to seeing the Congress continue this proud tradition, as we pass this NDAA on a bipartisan basis and send it to the President's desk for his signature.
Doing so allows us to honor the vision of our Founders, as set out in the Preamble, to ``provide for the common defense,'' and ``secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.''
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source