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Floor Speech

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to support three extraordinarily qualified Department of Defense nominees: Melissa Dalton, to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs; Dr. David Honey, to be Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering; and Dr. Celeste Wallander, to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs.

These three individuals have been nominated to serve in critical national security positions, and they are tasked with confronting those challenges of national security and securing U.S. interests at home and abroad.

As a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, I attended the committee nomination hearings for all three nominees, and I came away convinced that all three were qualified for their positions and deserving of swift confirmation.

Melissa Dalton previously served as a career civil servant in various positions at the Department of Defense--for a decade--under both President Bush and President Obama. So she had bipartisan support, clearly, in that position. She also was a senior fellow and director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

If confirmed, one of Ms. Dalton's core responsibilities as Assistant Secretary for Homeland Defense would be overseeing the Department's ability to operate through impacts to critical infrastructure, an area in which we have increasingly seen our adversaries are trying to exploit, particularly through cyber attacks. As Ms. Dalton has said, the resilience of our capabilities and infrastructure at home strengthens deterrence of aggression abroad, and DOD must be able to demonstrate its resilience.

The recent news of increased threats from Russia's cyber attacks, associated with their unprecedented troop buildup near Ukraine, underscores the need for this position to be filled as quickly as possible.

I also want to express my support for Dr. David Honey, who has dedicated a lifetime of service to the defense of this country. Dr. Honey has served in various research and development positions at the Department of Defense, including roles at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, which is so important to our innovation. He has also served on the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board and as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research.

Today, more than ever, we need talented, qualified individuals like Dr. Honey at the forefront of DOD's innovation and technological efforts. Seemingly every few weeks we hear in the press about shocking technological breakthroughs made by the Chinese military that raise concerns about eroding our technological advantage. Former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Hyten, described the Chinese test of a fractional orbital bombardment system last summer as ``stunning.''

Our technological advantage has been a foundational part of deterrence for decades, and if lost it would be enormously destabilizing for global security. But if we are truly committed to preserving our defense technological superiority, it is vital that we confirm Dr. Honey as quickly as possible.

Finally, I want to speak to support Dr. Celeste Wallander, who is the nominee to serve as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. And as part of that role, she is responsible for defense policy toward Europe, NATO, the Middle East, and Africa--all places right now which are hotbeds of potential conflict.

In light of the ongoing and unprecedented Russian threat to post-Cold War European stability and Ukrainian sovereignty, Dr. Wallander's nomination comes at a particularly critical time. Dr. Wallander has demonstrated a history of expertise on Russia. As former President of the U.S.-Russia Foundation, top Russia expert on the National Security Council, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, Dr. Wallander is highly respected on both sides of the aisle.

With a bipartisan delegation, I traveled to Ukraine several weeks ago. We met with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and his national security team to discuss the Russian threat and how we can do everything possible to help our Ukrainian friends. You can't turn on the radio, read a paper, or watch the news at night without seeing the Russian troops that are massed on Ukraine's border.

The message from the Ukrainians was clear when we met with them. They see their future in partnership with the West. They share our democratic values, and the people are proud of their hard-won independence.

And every step that Putin takes toward escalating the situation at the border is a step closer to threatening not only Ukraine's future but the liberal democratic system that he fears and that we all have benefited from.

I can think of no one more qualified for this position at DOD at this time of immense instability than Dr. Wallander.

So, for these reasons, I believe we must move to confirm these three nominees as quickly as possible so they can fulfill the duties of these crucial positions that are so vital to our national security.

476, 692, and 694; that the Senate vote on the nominations en bloc without intervening action or debate; that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that any statements related to the nominations be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague's grandstanding on Afghanistan when he knows that in the NDAA, we passed a provision to create a Commission to look at Afghanistan. And I want those answers just as much as he does. I stood up and said, when the President announced the withdrawal, that I didn't support that withdrawal.

But that is beside the point that we are dealing with now because what we are dealing with now and what my colleague from Missouri is doing is making us less secure because he is holding nominees--he is complaining about the problems we have in Russia and Ukraine, and he is making it worse because he is not willing to allow those nominees who can help with that problem to go forward.

He is absolutely incorrect about Nord Stream 2. I opposed Nord Stream 2. I authored the legislation with Senator Cruz to sanction Nord Stream 2. For the 4 years that the previous President was in office, they didn't take any action to sanction Nord Stream 2 until the day Donald Trump left office.

The fact is, that pipeline is not operating now because it hasn't been certified, and so Russia is not making any money from the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. So he needs to get his facts correct.

He sits on the Armed Services Committee with me, where he has access to the same information about our pressing national security challenges. Yet he is holding up these nominees. He is disregarding the threats that we face because he would rather stand here and grandstand on Afghanistan. Well, we do need to get answers, and I am willing to work with him on that, but this is not the way to do it.

So let's remember that Senator Hawley declared China as the biggest threat to American security, and that is a quote. Yet he is blocking the confirmation of Dr. Honey, whose job would be to ensure that our defense research and development efforts are continuing on par with China's. So if his goal is to ensure that China's technological capabilities surpass ours, I can think of no better way to do that than to refuse to confirm Dr. Honey.

On Russia, my colleague has claimed that the Biden administration has coddled Russia. We heard him say it just now--that they failed to aid Ukraine. But in a recent op-ed, my colleague made his views clear on the current Russian-created crisis. In it, he suggests that the United States is better off closing NATO's doors to Ukraine and stating that our Nation's history of promoting and defending liberal democratic values across the globe has been a failure. Well, I am not going to agree to that.

We have an international order that developed after World War II that has had as a large part the containment first of the Soviet Union through NATO and now of Russia. Part of that world order says that a sovereign nation should be able to help determine their own future.

So I am not going to be part of some agreement that says we are going to turn our backs on NATO, we are going to turn our backs on Ukraine, and we are going to say to Russia: You go ahead; you go into Ukraine.

He argues that we should reduce our commitments to places like Europe because, he claims, Russia poses a greater threat to our European allies than to the United States. Well, the last time I looked, when the United States got attacked in 2001--and maybe he doesn't remember 9/11 because he was too young--the countries that came to our aid were our NATO allies.

So, with all due respect, I find my colleague's assessment both disturbing and shockingly uninformed. As members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, my colleague and I have been briefed on the multitude of evidence of Russia's attempts to subvert democratic institutions--including right here in the United States, by the way--to attack our own infrastructure, and to compromise the sovereignty of our allies around the globe.

In 2018, Russian private military contractor forces even assaulted an outpost of Americans in Syria. They were forced to defend themselves, and, of course, they did, and they ultimately routed the Russian force.

So my colleague's stated sentiments do just what Vladimir Putin wants. He wants to divide the United States from our NATO allies and other democracies. He wants to diminish U.S. presence in Europe and to rewrite the European security order in a way that favors his authoritarian interests. We simply cannot allow that to happen.

I could not disagree with my colleague any more on how he has chosen to associate himself. Continuing to block qualified leaders such as Dr. Wallander, Dr. Honey, and Ms. Dalton does not make us stronger, it does not contribute to productive discourse over our national priorities, and it doesn't accomplish what he is trying to accomplish.

If what he wants is answers on Afghanistan, then work with us. Let's work together. Let's make this Commission that we passed in the NDAA-- let's make it work. What he wants casts us an unreliable partner to our allies, and it forces the Department of Defense to operate with one hand tied behind their back.

So I am disappointed to hear my colleague--and he talks about regular order. Well, in the last 24 hours, we have confirmed three nominees by regular order. We held up the Senate to get cloture votes. Then we passed Alexandra Baker, the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, 75 to 21. We passed Douglas Bush, Assistant Secretary of the Army, 95 to 2. I don't know if Senator Hawley was one of those two. I assume he was. We passed Patrick Coffey, general counsel for the Navy, 79 to 17. Then on February 2, by unanimous consent, we passed Gabriel Camarillo, Under Secretary of the Army, and Andrew Hunter, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, by unanimous consent.

So this is not about regular order; this is about trying to use the Senate process for his own personal ambitions, and that is unfortunate. It is unfortunate because it doesn't get us the individuals we need to get confirmed to make government run, and it is unfortunate because it doesn't accomplish what he says he wants.

So I am disappointed to hear that we are not going to move these nominees forward, and I hope at some point my colleague will reconsider.

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