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

Floor Speech

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Ms. MACE. Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of my amendment to protect Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, and ensure we are making marines in Beaufort County long into the future.

My amendment would prohibit funds authorized or otherwise made available to the Department of Defense for any fiscal year to be used for the closure or realignment of Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island or to conduct any planning activity related to closing or realigning Parris Island.

The Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island in South Carolina's First Congressional District has been making marines since 1915. Since opening over a century ago, over 1 million marines have been trained at Parris Island, between 17,000 and 22,000 every single year.

The Recruit Depot at Parris Island is not just critical to the fabric of Beaufort County and the Lowcountry, but it is vital to our national security. The marines trained at Parris Island have served our country bravely in every conflict since World War I.

Parris Island is the perfect location to make marines. Beaufort County is an exceptionally supportive community with outstanding infrastructure to support the base and close access to multiple major airports, including Charleston International Airport and Savannah- Hilton Head International Airport.

Parris Island is an ideal environment to allow recruits to focus on training without external distractions, given that it is an island and is almost completely self-sufficient, with its own power generation via solar power.

The recruit depot is collocated with the marine recruiting command responsible for half of the entire United States and is located just 11 miles from the Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, creating additional training opportunities for the Corps.

Partnerships via intergovernmental service agreements are extensive, offering the ability to train other government entities. Unfortunately, over the last several years, there have been climate change extremists--and you can see it in article after article--including some Members of this body who have used junk science to raise the prospect of closing the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island. These individuals could not be more wrong.

Parris Island is exceptionally well positioned for resiliency due to environmental improvements that have been made there today. The waterside plain on which Parris Island is located makes damage from waves and extreme weather events much less likely. This topography is far different than the waterside cliffs of both Savannah and Charleston, where the tidal gauges and tidal data collection devices on water levels are actually placed.

Due to this, the data being pushed by those who seek to end Beaufort County's centuries long tradition of making marines is not based on actual data, but extrapolation from cities miles away subject to significantly harsher conditions based on their own individual topography.

Over a century of history shows us, Parris Island is here to stay. Data shows instead of sinking or eroding, Parris Island is actually seeing an increase in marshland. This is important. In fact, the Army Corps of Engineers is actually considering dredging the Port Royal Sound to allow larger draft vessels to enter, showing the coast and waterways around Parris Island are actually not in peril.

I urge all of my colleagues to follow the science and the facts that show Parris Island is the ideal location to train marine recruits. We have been making marines in Beaufort County for over a century, and this amendment seeks to ensure we continue to make marines long into the future.

Mr. Chair, I strongly urge the passage of this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. MACE. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I my consume. It is interesting because the left always likes to say that there has been no determination, there is no risk per se. However, in this article in Marine Corps Times, the title is ``Parris Island in Peril: Rising sea levels threaten historic Marine base.''

When we talk about data and science and climate change, they are not even using tidal gauges to measure sea level rise at Parris Island. At Parris Island, they are actually using data from Savannah and Charleston, miles and miles away, so that data is not even accurate because the environment and the topography is so different. In fact, we are seeing vast improvements in the environment on Parris Island today, as I mentioned earlier.

In this military.com article, it says: ``The Marine Corps is considering moving some of its bases to other locations, including the iconic Parris Island Training Depot in response to growing effects of climate change, Navy officials said.'' My colleagues want to say, well, we have to do a study and make a determination and follow the science, but they are not actually using real science at Parris Island.

If you look at the way that they have built out resiliency at Parris Island, whether it is the solar farms, whether it is the grading they have done with some of the roads to raise them up a foot or two, whether it is the Tesla batteries, whether it is their ability to produce their own energy and be self-sufficient, and produce energy for those surrounding areas, Parris Island is a beautiful example of resiliency when we are talking about environmental challenges that our bases face today.

Lastly, Mr. Chairman, I wanted to point this out in this article: ``Well, then, we better plan on moving'' Parris Island ``because it is not going to get better, it is only going to get worse. The seas are going to rise higher and higher.''

Nothing could be further from the truth, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance of my time.

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