Streamlining Procurement for Effective Execution and Delivery and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
First of all, I thank Chairman Rogers, his team, and his staff. The process that we went through in committee was just a model for how to legislate on the National Defense Authorization Act and in a bipartisan fashion. I think, in that process, we put together a really good bill.
The chairman has done a good job of describing it. I won't belabor some of those points except to say that the emphasis on acquisition and procurement reform is so crucial to everything we are doing. In order to meet the national security threats that we face, we are going to have to innovate vastly more quickly than we do right now.
The pace of warfare is simply changing on a day-in and day-out basis: drones, AI, missiles, missile defense, counter-drone technologies. This is evolving rapidly. We simply have to make sure that the best technologies from innovative companies out there in the world have access to the Department of Defense so that we can update and change the way we do business and move more quickly. One of the easiest ways to think about it is we need to focus on solving problems, not on process.
This bill does an excellent job of making those changes. The chairman led an effort over the course of the last year to do a deep dive on these questions so we could come up with a very meaningful bill.
The bill is also excellent in a number of other areas. It continues the really good work from last year on quality-of-life issues, making sure that we take care of the men and women and their families who serve our country. The pay raise and a number of other issues are dealt with in that regard.
I think the bill also reflects a strong statement of what our national security needs are. It fully supports Ukraine. It fully supports the Baltic Security Initiative to make sure that our allies in the Baltics and Eastern Europe are supported. It makes sure that we support Taiwan through the INDOPACOM initiative.
We have a good bill that came out of committee. Also, crucially, the bill was handled in a bipartisan fashion. We debated a lot of different amendments. Some amendments that were problematic we set aside because they were too partisan one way or the other, and we debated the issues that were most important to the warfighter and produced a good product. That is the good news.
The bad news is what came out of the Rules Committee. The Rules Committee was a completely and totally partisan exercise in a way that, frankly, I haven't witnessed on the defense bill since, well, before last year, in which we totally abandoned everything that Chairman Rogers and everybody else put into it in the committee process and said, no, Democrats are irrelevant, this is a Republican bill. That is all we are going to pay attention to.
Of the amendments ruled in order, 222 of them are Republican, 76 of them are Democrat. None of the Democratic amendments are ones that we are going to be debating. The Democratic amendments are ones that are bipartisan and will be going into an en bloc. I know there is a technicality there in that the Meeks amendment is going to be debated, but that is only going to be debated because Chip Roy insisted on it, and it overruled what the majority wanted and voted for in committee, and that is on repealing the AUMFs in 1991 and 2002.
There was no effort whatsoever to include Democratic ideas, while loading it up with some of the most partisan political amendments possible. There are, I think it is, five different attacks on the trans community. The Trump administration has already achieved all of that. This is simply piling it on, including the worst part of it, which is denying to the men and women who serve in the military and their families any sort of healthcare for gender dysphoria, which is an absolute 100 percent thing, even if you may disagree with how to handle it. There is no treatment for that. That is just a purely partisan, gratuitous shot that we decided not to take in committee for a very good reason.
Equally problematic are some of the crucial amendments that Democrats wanted to debate about oversight of this Pentagon, oversight of what President Trump and Secretary Hegseth are doing. He is posting on social media a threat to use the United States military to invade the city of Chicago and other cities. That is not what the United States military is supposed to be used for. It would be appropriate for Congress to exercise oversight and have that debate and say, no, we are not going to let you use the U.S. military for domestic law enforcement. At least let us have that debate and have a vote on it, go on record and say how we feel about it.
There was also the overpoliticization of the military. That is unprecedented, unseen. Every single inspector general; every single judge advocate general; multiple senior-level staff officers, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff C.Q. Brown and the general who was in charge of NSA and cyber, General Haugh; were all fired. They were highly qualified. They had bipartisan support, but they weren't loyal to President Trump.
That is not what this is supposed to be about. We should be able to debate those amendments to make sure that the United States military stands up for the American people and it is loyal to the Constitution, not to one person. All of those debates were disallowed.
We will see how the amendment process goes, but it is highly unlikely at the end of it that we are going to have that product that we produced out of committee. That is a shame to this institution.
Again, I emphasize Chairman Rogers has been a great partner. The House Armed Services Committee did a great job. Leadership decided to make this a partisan exercise instead of an exercise focused on the American servicemembers, their families, and making sure that our country has what it needs to meet our national security and defense needs.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi), the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Readiness.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from California.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney), the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Norcross), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Houlahan), the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Military Personnel.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Maryland (Ms. Elfreth), who is a member of the Armed Services Committee.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New Hampshire (Ms. Goodlander), who is a member of the Armed Services Committee.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from New Hampshire.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the ranking member of the House Committee on Financial Services (Ms. Waters).
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I have no further speakers, and I am prepared to close.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Again, I think, and we have heard from both sides, just an excellent description of what the bill does as it came out of committee and why it is so important.
It is what the Armed Services Committee does. We exercise oversight of the Department of Defense to make sure that we can properly meet our national security needs and crucially make sure that the men and women who serve in our military have all the tools they need. Nothing is more important to that effort this year than acquisition reform, getting them the tools they need quicker and more efficiently, and making sure they get innovative technologies as soon as they need them.
I look forward to that part of it, but the problem is, as I said, the amendment process is very partisan. It is going to lead to a partisan outcome at the end of it.
Also, I do hope that Members on both sides of the aisle will take seriously the concerns about the executive overreach that we are seeing from President Trump and from Secretary Hegseth. I mentioned some of them in my opening remarks, but there are a lot more.
The attack on the boat in the Caribbean just last week, there was no particular legal justification for that. I want to make sure we understand the implications of that. If the President is saying he has the right to use the U.S. military to strike out against any drug cartel anywhere in the world, that is a massive expansion of executive power in the use of his war powers ability, and it is dangerous.
Congress is supposed to exercise some oversight of that. We do not want to be dragged into war with Venezuela, with Mexico, with Colombia, with any number of different countries. If we take the position as the U.S. that we can do military strikes in any country around the world, it is dangerous. It is something we should exercise oversight on.
Also, another thing I didn't mention in as much detail as I would have liked are the efforts to ban books and ban speakers--I did mention the firing of people--all around the basic idea that nobody in the military should say anything critical of Donald Trump. That is a direct undermining of our constitutional republic and of the crucial neutrality of the United States military in doing their jobs.
We have speakers now who are being disinvited from speaking to our military academies if they said something critical of President Trump on social media. That is not a reason to ban a speaker.
Most recently, we have had the instance where even a group of people from the service academies were going to give an award to Tom Hanks, basically for his support for servicemembers, something they have done repeatedly in a number of different instances. He has been very supportive of servicemembers and veterans. The award was pulled because he did a fundraiser for Joe Biden a year ago. That is the politicization of the military and the undermining of our constitutional democracy.
I think we need to exercise oversight of that. We had a number of amendments that would have at least given this Chamber the opportunity to debate those. They were all silenced.
We need to continue to be a democracy. We need to continue to support free speech. I think part of our obligation as Congress is to exercise that oversight when that impacts certainly what is going on at the Department of Defense, as it clearly is.
We will see how the amendment process goes.
Again, I will close on a positive note. The bill was put together in a very bipartisan and effective way in committee. It really addresses crucial issues to make sure that we support the men and women in the armed services and their families and also meets our national security and defense needs.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Houlahan).
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I am now pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Stansbury).
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, I urge support for the amendments en bloc, and I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the Wilson amendment.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, this is actually a very, very dangerous amendment. I want people to understand what it does. Broadly speaking, it does two things. One, just for any sort of entry onto a defense property--I want to make sure I get the language exactly right here. It makes unlawful entry onto a defense installation a crime, regardless of intent.
Defense installation covers a wide range of areas. Even if a person doesn't have any sort of criminal intent, if that person is on the property and it is determined they weren't basically allowed on there, that makes it a crime.
The far worse part of this refers to it makes it a felony to enter a national defense area. National defense areas are enormous. One of the things that the Trump administration has done is they have designated wide swathes of our southern border a national defense area. We are talking thousands of miles here. If a person goes onto that area without permission, they are committing a felony. They are guilty of a felony.
The gentleman has focused on immigrants coming across the border without documentation. Across that border, there are a whole lot of people who go out and ride ATVs or they go hunting or whatever. There is no way on Earth we will be able to know all of this land that just suddenly in the last several months became a national defense area.
We are going to place people at risk of committing felonies for where they walk across land. This is a horrible idea. Please, Republicans and Democrats, we should not want to criminalize the behavior of people in the United States to this degree.
It is a very problematic idea that is going to place many people at jeopardy of being charged with a felony, and felonies are very serious.
We should not be doing this. There is a better way to deal with this area.
Mr. Chair, I urge opposition to the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bergman).
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Jacobs).
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, may I ask how much time is remaining on both sides.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, all of those things that have been said are already illegal and already have been taken care of. The Chinese who were doing espionage, as the gentleman said, were caught. Espionage, unsurprisingly, is a crime. There is no need to enhance the criminal procedures.
People coming across the border with an intent to commit terrorist acts is also a crime. That is taken care of.
What this is doing is criminalizing a wide range of behavior that has nothing to do with that. Please, let's be able to have two thoughts in our heads at one time. Terrorism, espionage, and crime are already dealt with, but now the gentleman is saying that if you enter onto any military installation or any defense area, Madam Chair, which is, again, thousands of miles across our southern border, nobody is going to know whether or not they are walking onto this territory. There is no way on God's green Earth that they are going to know.
If they do, under this bill, they will now be guilty of a felony. If their plan was to commit a terrorist act or engage in espionage, they are going to be criminals anyway. We are now going to do this to your average American citizen just walking across territory.
Madam Chair, it is a very bad idea, and I urge a ``no'' vote. I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from the U.S. Virgin Islands (Ms. Plaskett).
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time. I will just say I support the amendments en bloc, and I urge passage.
Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I urge adoption of the en bloc package, and I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Randall).
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I support the en bloc package. I urge passage, and I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source