Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. NORCROSS. Mr. Chair, I thank the ranking member for what he does each and every day. It is something we can be proud of.

Mr. Chair, this bill continues the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee's proud bipartisan tradition and our commitment to share responsibility for tough choices to manage strategic risk.

In particular, I thank my subcommittee chairman, Mr. Wittman, and our staff, who work together day in and day out in an incredibly bipartisan way.

When we look at some of the challenges ahead of us, we look to the markup that we had just a few weeks ago to see how things can work correctly when we work together. Certainly, we hope we stay on that track as we go through this amendment process.

This bill addresses the risks and costs of military modernization without sacrificing oversight ensuring responsible execution of our defense program.

I want to mention two programs.

First, the F-35 fighter, the most expensive program in the history of DOD and one that consistently struggles to deliver capability as promised. This committee's bipartisan bill adds new requirements to fix these known problems and capabilities that we need now, as the contractor has promised. Our bill does not waste taxpayer investment on production aircraft that will only add to the large number of fighters that are not being used right now and are sitting on the ground waiting and waiting.

The second topic is our munitions, as we heard just a few minutes ago. The multiyear procurement authorities coupled with strong investments in our munitions accounts send a strong signal to our industrial partners, and I am proud to be part of the work that the subcommittee has done over the past several years to be there.

Finally, I thank the professional staff, Jay Vallario, Dave Sienicki, Heath Bope, Michael Kirlin, Max Huntley, and Brooke Alred, and I will take a moment because this will be the last NDAA for Bill Sutey, who has spent 27 years on the Hill, contributing in an incredibly important way.

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