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Floor Speech
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Mr. ROY. Madam Chair, the amendment that I have offered increases funding for the inspector general by $20 million for an Office of the Special Inspector General for Ukraine Assistance, if authorized, to enhance the oversight and accountability measures for funds appropriated for Ukraine, increasing the inspector general by $20 million.
Over the last year and half, Congress has appropriated approximately $113 billion in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
I am one of these individuals that believes that we did have agreements with Ukraine, and we have got to recognize those from the mid-1990s when we asked them to denuclearize and work with our partners in Eastern Europe.
I also don't believe that we ought to be just providing an endless supply of funds to Ukraine with no clear mission, with no clear accountability of the dollars, and without clear accountability of whether NATO and our European allies are upholding their end of the bargain.
This is a step to try to rectify at least one part of that: by making sure there is a fully empowered inspector general, to make sure that the information that we have is complete, and that we have a full understanding of every dollar that has already been appropriated and might be appropriated in the future, and to make sure that we are tracking it to the level that is necessary.
There have been a number of different issues that we have identified in the past. For example, if you look at other conflicts like Afghanistan, the lead for the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan found at least $19 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds sent to Afghanistan was lost to waste, fraud, and abuse from 2002 to 2020.
It is critically important that we track this and follow it and understand it.
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Mr. ROY. Madam Chair, I thank the gentlewoman for her comments, and I think we have a general agreement on what we are trying to accomplish.
I would note that in the NDAA we passed an authorization for this, and this would be the appropriation necessary to carry it out. That was the desire of our efforts to try to put a birds-eye view on this across agencies to ensure that dollars are being spent the way they are supposed to.
Madam Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Womack).
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Mr. ROY. Madam Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Indiana (Mrs. Spartz).
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Mr. ROY. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. ROY. Madam Chair, the amendment I am offering reduces the salary of Cyrus Salazar, the director of the Department of Defense's Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to $1. You might ask why we would do that.
It is a power that we have in the House of Representatives under the Holman rule to try to restrain the executive branch, both in terms of expense, dollars and how they are being used, and in terms of what they are being used for.
The American people are frankly getting a little tired of a Department of Defense that is being taken far too often off mission, I hear it all the time. I hear it from veterans. I hear it from Active- Duty servicemembers. I hear it from recruits. With recruiting numbers at low levels, with morale at questionable levels, we need to re- instill in our military a crystal clear focus on mission first.
Importantly, when we are--to use the gentlewoman's term, which I take to heart--pinching pennies and trying to find dollars, we need to stop racking up $33 trillion in debt when we can't even figure out how to fund the salaries of our rank-and-file men and women in uniform at the level that we might need to when we are dealing with issues of increasing health costs, when we are dealing with issues of having a fully armed military with the latest and greatest technology to defeat China.
It would seem questionable that, for example, we would have positions like the following: The Air Force is looking for a supervisory Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion accessibility officer in Arlington, Virginia, that will pay between $155,700 to $183,500 per year.
Another one, the Air Force is looking for a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion manager to work at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, that pays between $94,199 to $122,459 per year. There is another position in Alaska. There is another position in Alabama. I could go down the list, and this is the top of that pyramid.
What we are trying to say is we shouldn't do this. We need to stop this. We need to stop diverting the mission of the military, which is a laudable goal of ensuring you got a workforce that is representative of the population of this country. You don't need an entire bureaucracy within the Pentagon to do it that is then perpetuating a lot of divisive policies.
For example, West Point Academy slides told cadets that ``whiteness'' is ``a location of structural advantage, of race privilege,'' is ``a standpoint or place from which White people look at themselves and the rest of society,'' and ``refers to a set of cultural practices that are usually unmarked and unnamed.''
There is another, Kelisa Wing, former chief diversity officer at DOD's schools. ``I'm so exhausted at these White folx in these PD [professional development] sessions. This lady actually had the CAUdacity to say that Black people can be racist too.''
This is not the kind of thing that should be going on at the United States military and the Pentagon. This is one step of many that we need to take to return the military to its core mission and end this social engineering wrapped in a uniform, rather than doing the job of defending this great country.
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Mr. ROY. Madam Chair, the United States military is one of the few institutions in America where the skills of the men or women on either side of you could mean the difference between life and death.
At the end of the day, it embodies I think Dr. King's notion of judging men and women on the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Yet, the Biden administration is infatuated with divvying us up by race, with divvying us up by our immutable characteristics.
The fact is, with all due respect--and I appreciate the gentlewoman's remarks and the tone in which they were offered--corporate America is slashing DEI officers amid a backlash of diversity programs across the country.
There is a story right here about the numbers of how many offices have been slashed over the last year, in part because they don't add much value to the bottom line in which the economy is hurting and people are suffering; and also in part because they are getting a backlash from having so much focus on divvying us up by race and all these characteristics--it is not actually good.
We are seeing this in countless corporations across the country. There is story after story, if you just Google it and see what is going on out there. I think the Department of Defense should be in line with where we are seeing our society recoil at this divvying us up by race. This is one way to accomplish that objective.
Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. ROY. Mr. Chair, the amendment that is being put forward here would say that none of the funds made available by this Act may be used to carry out the observance of Pride Month authorized by the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness for the Cultural Observances and Awareness Events list.
First of all, that whole title should give you a little bit of pause. At the end of the day, in line with the amendment that I just offered, the goal here should be to ensure that our military is focused on the mission and building cohesion to accomplish the mission.
Now we have got the Department of Defense focusing on, for example, the Air Force releasing a memo entitled Department of the Air Force Observance of LGBTQ Pride Month which empowered installation commanders to plan and conduct appropriate activities in honor of Pride Month, which they then did. That then resulted in, for example, the Department of the Navy issuing a memo declaring June's month theme, ``Peace, Love, Revolution.'' There was a flyer advertising Robins Air Force Base 2023 Pride Month events, which included information for servicemembers and their families to attend the Pride Night game night and unity and diversity color run. Because some of the colleagues voiced opposition, Nellis Air Force Base approved and then canceled a scheduled drag show to celebrate Pride Month.
What on Earth are we doing? I represent Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. I represent countless veterans attached to or who have served at Joint Base San Antonio or otherwise in central Texas. My constituents come to me, and they just shake their heads, and say: What are we doing? What happened?
We need to beat China. We need to be able to be in a position to carry out multiple-front wars around the globe, if necessary. We need to have the finest fighting force in the world with the best technology and the best training.
Again, it is one thing to respect someone's private life and differences, but to carry out your objective in the office without having the Department of Defense promoting events dividing us up by our various characteristics. That is the reality.
On social media, the marines tweeted a Pride Month image with rainbow-tipped bullets on a marine helmet featuring the words: Proud to serve. I am sure the Chinese military is quaking in its boots with the rainbow-tipped bullets being tweeted around the world.
The Air Force tweeted an image with the silhouette of an airman saluting in front of a Pride flag. The Navy changed their logo on social media to ships and aircraft in front of a rainbow flag.
Again, that is the flag right there: Red, white, and blue. That is the flag--no other flag--when we are talking about what the United States military should be standing in front of and should be projecting.
I have very few constituents who disagree with this sentiment that we should be focused on having a military that is designed to, when called upon, blow stuff up and kill people in defense of this country, as needed, and to be the best fighting force to accomplish that objective in the world. They need to be trained and to have a clear mission. And, oh by the way, side note, while I am sitting here on the floor talking about the Department of Defense appropriations, the military should not be engaged in endless conflict without congressional engagement in terms of authorization of the use of military force, which, by the way, we were supposed to be addressing by the end of this month. I will save that for a different speech.
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Mr. ROY. Mr. Chair, I will be brief in the interest of moving things along. The only thing I would note is, with respect to the difference, for example, of talking about Christmas trees and celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and putting up a Pride flag, I would say those things are different.
I would also note that there have been problems at the Department of Defense with people expressing their faith. In fact, there are Christians who are being limited in their ability to have Christian displays in their offices, and we had to have groups like First Liberty go litigate it in court in order to defend their right to be able to display said Christian symbols and statements in their office cubicle.
This is what is going on at the Department of Defense, and people don't understand it.
I think this is a commonsense effort to refocus our military on the mission to which it should be focused. Acknowledging that we are a diverse community is great, but the Department of Defense can acknowledge that diversity and bring people together to carry out the mission without perpetuating essentially social engineering at the Department of Defense.
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Mr. ROY. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. ROY. Mr. Chair, the amendment that I am offering here would prohibit funds from being available under this act for the Marine Corps University Krulak Center's Reynolds Scholars program.
Now, I was unaware of this, relatively blissfully, I don't know, a couple months ago, but then the Marine Corps University's Reynolds Scholars Program at the Krulak Center is a year-long program for students who wish to explore ``gender and security issues.'' That may not have jumped up onto my radar screen, but I became aware because the official Krulak Center Twitter account publicly criticized the user for calling this program ``woke'' and calling this individual a stain on the legacy of marines.
Well, it seems inappropriate for a federally funded center, so it caught my attention. Then it became clear to me when I had a syllabus presented to me about what was being presented. Here are a few examples of the program themes listed in the official syllabus: ``Gendering War.'' ``What is gender and how is it different from biological sex?'' ``How are war narratives constructed through gender discourse?'' ``How can we imagine nonviolent masculinities and the role they might play in conflict?''
We are pretty darn violent.
``How might the United States Marine Corps strategic narrative be problematic for women, peace and security?''
Again, this is just something that my constituents, and I think a large block of the American electorate--dare I say a very sizable majority--would say, what are you doing?
I mean, again, let's assume we were swimming in money. Let's just assume that we had money coming out of our ears, that we had a $33 trillion surplus that we had banked up that we were just saving for a rainy day to spend $33 trillion. I don't know how you do that, by the way. Let's just assume that was the case. Let's assume we had a $2 trillion surplus this year instead of a $2 trillion deficit. Let's assume further that our recruiting numbers were excellent. Let's assume further that we had really strong morale. Let's assume further that our healthcare costs in the military were manageable or that our healthcare costs anywhere in this country at all were manageable in the post- Obamacare world in which prices have skyrocketed and insurance companies have made gazillions of dollars. Again, that is another speech for another day.
In that imaginary world where that were the state of things, would this still be a good idea to spend even $1 or $10 or $100,000 or $5 million or whatever the amount is that might be here, would it be a good idea to spend that money for this: ``How are war narratives constructed through gendered discourse?'' ``How can we imagine nonviolent masculinities and the role they might play in conflict?''
Again, the American people just want us to focus on making this government do its core constitutional duty, do it within its fiscal responsibilities; do it in terms of providing a mission to defend this country; secure our borders, provide for the general welfare in the sense that you are allowing the American people to do what they do best if the government gets out of the way. Stop bleeding money, stop racking up debt, defend the United States, stop social engineering, and just do your damn job as Congress. I think that ought to be a pretty simple goal and a bipartisan goal.
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Mr. ROY. Mr. Chair, I agree with the gentlewoman that words hurt. The question is, how those words are deployed and what they do for the mission of our United States military. When I see taxpayer dollars going to fund a syllabus which was not something in public view, which then became in public view after an online kind of disagreement with things like, What is gender and how is it different from biological sex? And all of the things that we are focusing on, and we have talked about it in other contexts with funding transgender surgeries and funding other manners of the social engineering currently going on that I believe is ripping apart the fabric of our country, the strength of our military, and the cohesion of the finest fighting force in the world. I believe it is important for us to try to maintain that.
I am enormously proud of the women whom I have nominated for academies. I met with women and men just 2 weeks ago with my staff in a retreat where we went to the United States Naval Academy. I am enormously proud of their service, proud of everybody who has worn the uniform and been honorably discharged for their service, but we need to stand up for a military that is focused on its mission.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. ROY. Mr. Chair, the amendment before us would prohibit any of the funds in the Defense appropriations bill from being used to carry out President Biden's executive orders on climate change.
Our military should be, as I have stated in these other amendments, focused on deterring and, if necessary, defeating our adversaries. President Biden wants to continue to sacrifice the strength of our defense in deference to the climate cult.
In 2021, Department of Defense spokesman John Kirby refused to say China was a bigger national security threat to the United States than climate change. He called them ``equally important'' and said it doesn't do anybody good to make a relative assessment of national security issues.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has said ``climate change is an existential threat to our Nation's security.''
Secretary of State John Kerry literally travels to China to discuss climate change, not China's increased aggression against Taiwan, not its expansion in the Pacific, not the oppression of its people.
Biden's executive orders have served as the catalyst for massive reforms in the Department of Defense that compromise and undermine national security to advance a climate fetish.
The Department of Defense's Climate Adaptation Plan includes radical proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the expense of our warfighting capabilities. According to the plan, the Department of Defense has identified climate change as a critical national security issue. It contains mandates on ``environmental justice'' because why miss an opportunity to push such an ideology.
The Department of Defense says it will transition to 100 percent carbon-free electricity, meaning America's war machine will literally depend on the wind and the Sun unless they are going to be moving, I guess, nuclear power, which my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have not been all too quick to help us move.
Meanwhile, China has 1100 coal-fired plants and is building close to 2 a week. We have been building zero. We have been constraining the development of natural gas-fired electricity, and we have only recently finally had one nuclear plant get launched I think for the first time since the mid-1970s.
The DOD has mandated that all nontactical vehicles be EVs by 2035. It is fair to say the tactical vehicles we need to win wars are not far behind. That means our defense will become wholly dependent on Chinese batteries and other critical minerals. I always wonder why my colleagues are not too bothered by the fact that 80 percent of these batteries are using cobalt, and they are being mined heavily by slave labor, often child labor.
There doesn't seem to be any concern about what that means by continuing to perpetuate a mandate to send us down that road when it won't dent CO
That is why I offered this amendment and believe that it is critically important, so that we can again have our military focused on a core mission of defending this country.
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Mr. ROY. Mr. Chair, I note that recently China's military sent 103 warplanes toward Taiwan in a 24-hour period in what the island's Defense Ministry called a recent new high. Forty of these planes crossed the symbolic median line between mainland China and Taiwan.
There is a lot going on in the world. We are going to have debates about Ukraine. I am hopeful we will have a debate about Ukraine rather than just tacking on a continuing resolution and jamming it through to the American people, but that is a debate for another day.
The question here is whether or not we are going to have, in the gentlewoman's words, a strong military, a resilient military, and a strong economy on the back of that or wrapped around that when, in fact, what we are doing through the Inflation Reduction Act is spending almost a trillion dollars, according to The Wall Street Journal, in massive subsidies, 90 percent to billion-dollar corporations, heavily to the most elite, rich, frankly, usually White liberals in this country, driving around their EV-powered cars. We are subsidizing the crud out of that while we are decimating the natural gas strength of this country, which puts us in a much stronger position from a national security perspective vis-a-vis Russia, vis-a-vis China, rather than empowering China by saying, sure, let us please buy all of your solar panels and all of your batteries so that we can transfer our military to something that isn't even remotely ready to be transferred to.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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