Extending the Authority to Collect Shasta-Trinity Marina Fees Through Fiscal Year 2029

Floor Speech

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Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, we are on the floor here in the U.S. Senate debating and discussing the National Defense Authorization Act-- the NDAA, as we call it--one of the most important bills of the year because it sets our defense policy, defense spending numbers; it lays out the things that Congress wants to do, hopefully, to focus on modality for our troops; and it is about taking care of our military men and women and their families. So it is a very important bill.

We are here at the end of the year, unfortunately, and I am going to complain a little bit. We got this bill done in June in the Senate and never brought it to the Senate floor. I am just going to be a little blunt. It is the majority leader. Senator Schumer doesn't prioritize national defense. He doesn't. Every year, the NDAA, under his leadership, has come to the floor at the very end of the year--no chance to amend it; no Senate floor vote. It is wrong that we don't prioritize it. He doesn't prioritize national defense.

We are looking at one of the most dangerous periods that we have seen since World War II. Dictators are on the march around the world-- Russia, China, Iran, North Korea. They are all working together. And look at what we are doing with regard to defense spending. We are hitting, with President Biden--look at that--3 percent of GDP. We have been at 3 percent of GDP or lower only three or four times since the end of World War II. That is not a number you should aspire to if you want a strong American defense, especially during a dangerous time, but we are going down--3 percent. The Biden budget would bring us to below 3 percent next year.

Again, this is being jammed through at the end of the year. We never debated it on the Senate floor.

We did a lot of good work in the U.S. Senate. I want to particularly do a shout-out to Senator Wicker, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee. He will be the chairman of the Armed Services Committee starting in January. That will be really great for our military, for our country.

In our bill, we got an additional $25 billion added to the Biden budget to make our military stronger. One of the disappointments of the NDAA that we are debating now--that was a bipartisan addition to the budget. Remember, it is a Democratic-controlled Senate, a Democratic- controlled Armed Services Committee.

I do want to do a shout-out to Senator Jack Reed, the chairman, as well.

Senator Wicker's leadership got us an additional $25 billion, which we need--our military needs, our troops need, their families need--and this final bill just leaves that on the cutting room floor. Hey, it is one of the reasons I was thinking about voting against the bill, but there are a lot of good things in the bill.

So we don't want to be at this level, but we all have to come together here, Democrats and Republicans, recognizing the dangerous world in which we are now living.

Now to some of the good things in the NDAA. I do want to do a shout- out to the work that was done, particularly as it relates to pay raises for our most junior enlisted servicemembers. These are the pay grades E-1 to E-4. They are going to get a 14.5-percent pay increase. That is very significant. As a matter of fact, I have been doing this for almost 10 years now. That is the biggest pay raise I have seen ever. And they needed it. Our troops need that money. Their families need that money. Inflation has been really, really undermining their ability to live on bases in Alaska or Georgia or other places.

There has been a recruiting crisis in our military. I think it has a lot to do with the leadership of the Biden administration. In 2024, Army, Air Force, and Navy all once again failed to meet the recruiting goals.

So this pay raise is needed. This pay raise will help. So that is a big positive about this bill.

Some other things.

It improves the support for Israel and its capabilities against Iran during this very existential-threat time Israel is facing.

We are starting finally in this bill to reverse the shrinking U.S. Air Force, and we are starting to finally attack the issue of Navy shipbuilding. We are in the worst crisis in almost 50 years in terms of building ships for our country. That is a bipartisan assessment by the Congressional Research Service saying that manning, maintaining, and building ships hasn't been this bad in almost half a century. We have to get on this.

The Chinese are building ships at a rapid rate, and we can't build anything. So we are starting to turn that around. This bill should start turning that around. President Trump and his team, I am really hopeful, are going to turn that around. I have talked to President Trump about this very topic, our very weak industrial base, and how we are getting outbuilt by the Chinese. We need to turn that around.

Of course, Mr. President, I was honored to work hard on some really important things for the great State of Alaska. The father of the Air Force, Billy Mitchell, Gen. Billy Mitchell, called Alaska the most strategic place in the world. It is. Our enemies know that, and Americans should know that. So we are building up our military in Alaska.

I consider Alaska contributing--our great State contributes many things to our Nation's defense. I like to say there are three pillars of the strength of Alaska for America.

We are the cornerstone of missile defense. All the missiles that would intercept anything shot at New York or Miami or Chicago, they are all based in Alaska, with the exception of four at Vandenberg Space Force Base.

All the radar systems that track these missiles, again, are all based in Alaska.

We are the hub of air combat power for the Arctic and Asia-Pacific. We have over 100 fifth-generation fighters--F-22s, F-35s--in Alaska. No other place on the planet Earth has that kind of fifth-gen combat capability.

We are the place where expeditionary forces--now the 11th Airborne Division for the U.S. Army--can deploy in a moment's notice anywhere in the world because we are so strategic.

Those are the three pillars. We are going to build on those pillars in this bill.

I was able to get close to $750 million in military construction for the great State of Alaska. That is good for Alaska, it is good for our economy, and it is good for our workers. But most importantly, when we are talking about national defense and the NDAA, it is really good for the national security of America.

Mr. President, overall, I am going to be supporting this bill. It is important. It should have gotten here way earlier. We should have been able to have amendments for it. Again, I don't know why Senator Schumer, whenever he was in leadership, always brought this at the end of the year. He never prioritized the NDAA--never.

But I will say, I am disappointed about a couple of things in this bill. This is just an area where the Congress of the United States has to start getting a lot more serious.

I have this chart here. It says ``Xi's Appeasers in Congress.'' That is tough language. That is Xi Jinping, the dictator of China.

I and others had some provisions. I am going to mention three of mine that were focused on going after the Chinese Communist Party--very bipartisan provisions in the NDAA. Yet somebody, in the middle of the night--I don't know who; an appeaser for Xi--strips these measures out of the bill, and the final bill doesn't have them. The final bill doesn't have them. These are the most bipartisan things. Yet we have Members of Congress that don't realize this guy is a dictator that we need to be ready to defeat. When we have anti-China stuff--anti-Chinese Communist Party stuff, Members of Congress, somewhere, somehow, stripped this. Who the heck is appeasing Xi?

Let me just give you a couple of examples. It is a mystery, and it is frustrating. Come on--what are we doing?

No. 1. See down here? This is the New York Times from last week: ``China Bans Rare Mineral Exports to the U.S.'' Well, we knew that was coming. China dominates critical minerals, rare earth elements. So we are very vulnerable to the Chinese.

(Mr. KELLY assumed the Chair.)

Here is the good news: We have critical minerals in America. We have great critical minerals in Alaska. We have them in Arizona. I see Captain Kelly on the floor. We have minerals that can make our country less dependent on China when they blackmail us like this.

So I had a provision, Mr. President. We have a road in Alaska to go to what is called the Ambler Mining District. It has critical minerals. It is one of the biggest sources of critical minerals in America. We have a road. The previous administrations--starting with President Obama, President Trump--certified this road, right-of-way. Of course, President Biden, who will listen to the radical environmental groups no matter what--even when it makes us weaker to China--he killed the road.

In the markup of the Senate NDAA bill, I said to my colleagues: Colleagues, we need this road because it is going to make us less dependent on China.

Guess what. That provision in the Senate NDAA passed 20 to 5. I believe the Presiding Officer voted for it. Bipartisan. Everybody agreed.

We need to do more to have our own critical minerals so we are not dependent on China. That was good. It was good for our country, good for our military, good for Alaska. Yet somebody stripped it out. I heard it was Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader. I don't know. Maybe he is pro-Xi Jinping. But he stripped out the provision that was going to make us stronger in terms of critical minerals, the week that the Chinese said they were going they ban exports of critical minerals to America.

Good job over there, Minority Leader Jeffries. Way to go. I am sure Xi Jinping was applauding your actions.

Second, Mr. President--now, this one might seem a little bit small- ball, but it was important to me, and I think it was important to America. Somehow, someway, the Chinese have dominated global fishing. OK. They are the largest seafood producer and consumer and exporter of fish, rising to almost $93 billion in 2023.

But here is the deal: They use ghost fleets. They have a horrible environmental record. They use slave labor on their ships. They are about as bad as it gets in global fishing.

Well, a constituent of mine back home said: Hey, Senator, why are we selling Chinese communist fish to our military members, to our commissaries, to our chow halls? Soldiers, sailors, marines eating this fish. It is horrible fish, by the way.

Why are we selling this to them? Why is our military buying communist fish from the Chinese when they can buy great Alaskan seafood, freedom fish? Why?

I don't know. It is a great question.

So I had a provision saying: Hey, you think the Chinese are letting their military eat great Alaskan freedom fish? Do you think the Chinese buy Alaskan fish? They don't. So why the heck are we buying Chinese fish?

So I had a provision in the NDAA in the Senate that says our military, our commissaries, our chow halls, our soldiers, our sailors-- we are not going to buy Chinese communist fish. Why should we help those guys? They don't buy our fish. Let's eat American fish, Alaskan fish, Mississippi fish, Maine lobsters.

That vote in the Armed Services Committee, on which the Presiding Officer sits with me, passed unanimously--unanimously. Everybody agreed. Heck, why are we buying Chinese communist fish? Let's buy Alaskan fish for our troops.

Guess what? Somebody--I think it was Hakeem Jeffries again, in the middle of the night, said: Nope, we are going to strip that out. We are going to strip that out. Let's undermine Alaska and American fishermen, and let's promote Chinese slave labor, fishermen, and continue to export and have our military members eat that fish.

What a dumb idea. Who is doing this? Who is the Xi Jinping appeaser in the Congress? I don't know. Hakeem Jeffries, I heard it was you. Maybe you want to come and talk to us. But why would you get rid of that provision? It helps Alaskans. It helps fishermen. It helps American fishermen. It helps our troops. It helps the military.

Nope, we are going to rip that out, and we are going to make sure Chinese fish exports, which use slave labor, can still go onto our military bases.

I can't believe it, but that is what happened.

Then, finally, this outbound investment provision. We have been working on this issue. Senator Cornyn, in particular, has done a great job--and so has Senator Casey--on this. This is an amendment of ours that we got in the NDAA. All it says is--unfortunately, we have some finance firms in America--I have sat down with a couple of these guys. I still can't believe it. I am like: Hey, where is your patriotism? We have American hedge funds, private equity groups, and even some investment banks, who invest big-time in Chinese military capabilities--in quantum computing, AI, advanced chip manufacturing--in China.

And all this provision says is: Hey, we want to know who is doing that. We want to know who is doing that.

That passed in the U.S. Senate with over 90 Senate votes--over 90 Senate votes. We finally got it in the NDAA, and it got stripped out. That got stripped out. Again, I think it was Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries did that one that time, too.

So, again, these are all things--every one of these--Ambler Access for critical minerals in Alaska to compete against China, banning Chinese communist fish on U.S. bases for our military and commissaries so we get fish from Alaskans and other great American fishermen, outbound investment. Hey, who is investing in quantum computing? We want to know. We want to know. American investors using, you know, Iowa teacher pension funds to help the Chinese get stronger? Are you kidding me?

All these were in the Senate bill, and all these got stripped out by the House. Come on, guys. Whose side are you on? Really?

So here is what I want to say. I want to end with this: We all know it is a dangerous world, and this is what we have to get back to: Peace through strength. Peace through strength.

You can do that in many ways--getting stronger from a military perspective, stronger from a natural resources perspective, stronger from an energy perspective. This is what President Trump ran on. This is what Republican Senators ran on. This is what Republican House Members ran on. This is what was in our platform in Milwaukee, the Republican Party platform--very similar to the Reagan 1984 platform. It is what the American people want.

So, Mr. President, I am going to vote yes for the NDAA tomorrow when we vote on it. I want to commend Senator Reed and Senator Wicker for their hard work on this bill. It should have been brought up way earlier--way earlier. But we need to do better. We need to do better. And I sure hope, when we work on this bill again next year, that whoever is doing the appeasing in China is no longer going to do that-- no longer going to do that.

We need to return to peace through strength. It is a dangerous world.

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