Providing for Consideration of H.R. Preserving Choice in Vehicle Purchases Act; Providing for Consideration of H.R. Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2024

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of a bipartisan amendment that is made in order and will be offered by Representatives Gaetz and Jacobs to prohibit the transfer of cluster munitions.

Since 2009, the United States has refused to use, produce, transfer, or sell cluster munitions. As a Nation, we could take pride in this decision.

Cluster munitions are indiscriminate weapons. They explode when touched by a soldier, a farmer, or a child. They contaminate an entire field of combat, and they remain a deadly threat long past the end of a conflict. Rain and other events can move them from where they first landed to who knows where.

Yet, the Biden administration recently chose to send cluster munitions to Ukraine. I condemn Russia's use of cluster munitions on Ukraine, but two evils do not add up to a greater good. The United States should not have provided cluster munitions to Ukraine, and this amendment is necessary to ensure such a transfer does not happen again.

I also support this amendment because it is not specific to Ukraine. Now that the United States has opened the door to using cluster munitions, we have no idea where else the U.S. might decide to send them.

An international treaty exists to ban cluster munitions. Mr. Speaker, 112 countries have ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions since May 2008, and 12 more have signed. Nigeria ratified the convention on February 28, and South Sudan did so on August 3.

The United States and Russia are not parties to the treaty, and now each of us has brought these terrible weapons into play inside Ukraine.

Mr. Speaker, the only thing that can undermine the ban on cluster munitions is the willingness of governments to use or transfer these terrible, indiscriminate weapons.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the Gaetz-Jacobs amendment and prohibit the United States from any further transfers of cluster munitions.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding so I can vent a little bit.

Mr. Speaker, I just saw a Roll Call story that is reporting that Republicans are pulling their continuing resolution today to weigh more cuts. I mean, are you kidding me? Their crummy CR contained an 8 percent across-the-board cut in almost every program that helps people, everything from medical research, WIC, Head Start, housing. Even border security is cut by 8 percent. The only thing that is exempt is the military budget, the biggest bureaucracy in our government.

They are okay with cutting fuel assistance for poor people by 65 percent. Money to help people be able to heat their homes in the winter, they are okay with cutting that, but they believe you can't find one penny of savings in a missile system in the Pentagon with huge cost overruns. I mean, it is pathetic. As the Republican whip said: The patients are running the hospital around here.

The gentleman from Oklahoma said this is about a negotiation. My Republican friends can't even negotiate with themselves, and we have 11 days to go before there is a shutdown, and they are going in the wrong direction. It has become more and more difficult to get to an agreement.

Enough, I mean, enough. The Republican leadership of this House is incompetent. They are so incompetent; it takes my breath away. They are letting the clowns run the circus. It is time the Speaker of the House develop a spine and stand up to the most extreme elements on the Republican side and actually sit down and negotiate an agreement that deals with the reality of our government.

The Republicans only control barely just one branch of our government, the House. The Senate is under Democratic control. The White House is run by a Democrat. You are going to have to negotiate, and you are moving in the wrong direction. Time is running out. Stop this nonsense. Get serious. Get to the negotiating table. Enough of this.

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