Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025
Floor Speech
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Mr. ROY. Madam Chair, I do rise on behalf of Mr. Reschenthaler for an important amendment that prohibits funds to require travel or transportation under the Joint Travel Regulations for Uniformed Services to be in a zero-emission vehicle.
Now, the issue here is that the Joint Travel Regulations implement policies and laws to establish travel and transportation allowances for uniformed servicemembers, Department of Defense civilian employees, and others traveling at the DOD's expense.
Joint Travel Regulations have been trying to promote EVs and other more sustainable choices for servicemembers to be more green.
Now, this amendment, like others that I am going to offer in my own name, is about restoring the Department of Defense's focus on its actual mission, which is to carry out war, engage in battle, to kill people, and to blow stuff up. It is why they exist.
The Biden administration has inserted climate politics as well as all manner of woke social engineering politics into all aspects of the Department of Defense, weakening its mission, weakening its focus, and weakening morale.
However, importantly, in this context, it is piling up more pressure for EVs that are piling up on lots. Hell, Madam Chair, you have got one-half of the rental car companies trying to sell off their fleets of EVs because the entire world recognizes the truth, which is that they are ineffective for most Americans to be able to carry out their daily lives.
So we are trying to say: Hell, get an EV in Austin, Texas, and drive to Midland, except I can't do that. I have to stop.
More importantly, they are expensive. In fact, a lot of the rental car companies are getting rid of these vehicles because their costs to repair in a collision are greater. The extent to which they are more difficult to maintain is greater. All of these things are making it difficult for people to engage in commerce and for people to be able to afford their daily lives.
Now we are using the Department of Defense to promote more of this kind of agenda. People say: Chip, it is an $800 billion whatever authorization, you have got this massive Department of Defense, why focus on such an issue where you have got these requirements in travel policies that they go use certain vehicles?
It is because our men and women in uniform are tired of being used to advance social engineering experiments. Hell, they can barely afford to live on this planet as it is, and then they want to try to carry out their lives and go travel, and they have to look at some checklist of crazy and radical social engineering policies that are undermining our economy, making their lives more difficult, and making our Department of Defense less able to carry out their jobs.
By the way, Madam Chair, you are actually making it so China gets empowered all while making sure that we continue to have child labor being exploited in the cobalt mines in Africa so that rich, White liberals can pat themselves on the back saying: Look at me, I drive around in a Tesla. Aren't I important? Aren't I really just a good- natured liberal that I am happily running around in Unicornville destroying the average American's ability to afford their way of life and undermining our military in the process?
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Mr. ROY. Madam Chair, who benefits from this rush to so-called green policy? China, one of our greatest geopolitical adversaries.
China accounts for 63 percent of the world's rare earth mining, 85 percent of rare earth processing, 92 percent of rare earth magnet production, 67 percent of global lithium supply, 73 percent of cobalt-- by the way, again, they get their cobalt, and they are relying on child labor to do it--70 percent of graphite, 95 percent of manganese.
By the way, what is China doing while the United States military is busy reducing ``greenhouse gas emissions'' through crazy policies like this? They are building more coal plants. China is building two coal- fired plants a week. We are building none.
China has nuclear power. We have built one nuclear reactor in my lifetime, and I am 51 years old, because we are stupid. Literally, we are so stupid that it can't even be put into words. We are allowing our adversaries to have abundant reliable power, and we are trying to have our guys running around having to go check: Oh, my gosh, let me look at my checklist. I have to have an EV. I have to make sure I have an EV.
That will do a lot for climate change, while China is pumping out massive amounts through all of their CO
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Mr. ROY. Madam Chair, the bottom line is servicemembers are going to be left stranded, thanks to this policy hidden in the DOD's joint travel regulations having to deal with advancing an agenda. That is what we are trying to avoid.
We want the Department of Defense, our military, to be focused on its core mission, nothing more, nothing less. We want our servicemembers to be able to go out and carry out their lives without being encumbered by bureaucracy.
Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. ROY. Mr. Chair, I first will open up by congratulating myself because 20 years ago about an hour from now, my lovely bride said ``yes,'' and she has stuck with me for 20 years. So a hearty congratulations that my wife would put up with me for these 20 years, but I am deeply honored to count her as my lovely bride still to this day, so happy anniversary back in Texas.
Mr. Chair, I am offering an amendment here that would prohibit any of the funding in this National Defense Authorization Act from being used to carry out President Biden's executive orders on climate change.
Our military should be focused, very simply, on its mission as a military, not social engineering.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle like to just dismiss this as some sort of political agenda. This is a foolish thing for us to come down and say. Our military ought to be focused very specifically on ensuring they have got the tools necessary to carry out their job, not advancing a radical agenda that is actually undermining our national security and undermining the readiness of our men and women in uniform because that is what is happening. That is the truth.
In 2021, the Department of Defense spokesman John Kirby refused to say that China was a bigger national security threat to the United States than climate change.
He called them ``equally important.'' Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has said that climate change is an existential threat to our Nation's security.
Five senior officials at the Department of Defense proudly explained in an op-ed that they attended the United Nations Climate Conference, COP28, citing the Biden administration's 2022 national security strategy as justification.
Just this point: Biden's executive orders have served as a catalyst for reforms at the Department of Defense that compromise national security in order to advance the climate fetish of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, while China, again, as I said in a previous amendment, is literally building two coal-fired plants a week and we are doing nothing.
I mentioned that point, and one of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said, well, you are so committed to fossil fuels.
Well, how about we produce more nuclear power?
We have done one, one in my lifetime. I am 51 years old.
The United States of America, the greatest country in the history of the Earth, has only produced one nuclear power plant in 51 years. If you are so committed to producing energy without producing CO
The fact is, it is not about that. It is not about that.
It is about chasing the unicorn theory of energy whereby you litter the landscape with windmills and solar panels. Never mind how those solar panels are created, never mind all the child labor being exploited, never mind the empowerment of China, and never mind the massive pits that you have to take and stick the windmill parts in that are all created by mountains of fossil fuels. Ignore all of that common sense. Ignore all of that.
Just sit around and pat yourself on the back because you drive an EV and you put a little sticker with your little equal sign and you put a little sticker on there saying, ``save the planet,'' and suddenly everything is all hunky-dory. Meanwhile, our defense isn't doing its job. Meanwhile, the entire world is looking at the United States and laughing. Meanwhile, the entire world that is producing more CO
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Mr. ROY. Mr. Chair, the Department of Defense's climate adaptation plan includes proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. According to the plan, DOD has identified climate change as a critical national security issue. The plan contains mandates on environmental justice. The DOD says it will transition to 100 percent carbon-free electricity, meaning our entire war machine is going to be dependent on advancing this agenda.
Meanwhile, as I said, China has 1,100 coal-fired plants, building one and a half to two a week. The DOD has mandated all nontactical vehicles to be EVs by 2035. It is only a matter of time before it is going to be tactical vehicles.
The fact of the matter is, there is a reason the Department of Defense comes forward and says these things that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say. It is, frankly, because they are being told to from the top for political reasons.
Everybody you talk to in the line, everybody you talk to at Defense is so sick and tired of having their life's dream of being able to serve this country, wear the uniform to defend it, be turned into a social engineering experiment. That is what is happening.
There is no evidence backing up that we are even denting CO
Do you know what has? Clean-burning natural gas and nuclear power have. These fanciful, unicorn policies are doing garbage. They are doing nothing but destroying the military and destroying our economic competition.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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