National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2011.

I want to first thank the chairman of the committee, Mr. Skelton, for his outstanding leadership of this committee. He has once again put together a bill that reflects the priorities that should be in place for national defense: first and foremost, support our troops. I know nobody on that committee cares more about that issue than Mr. Skelton. He has once again made sure that this bill reflects that. It gives them a higher pay raise than was recommended by the Department of Defense and, across the board, makes sure that our troops and our families get the support they need to continue to do the amazing job that they are doing of defending this country. It is a great privilege to serve on this committee with Mr. Skelton and with Mr. McKeon and to have the responsibility for supporting our troops who have served us so well. I thank him for his great leadership and for this bill.

On the Air and Land Subcommittee, I want to thank Mr. Bartlett, the ranking member on the committee. We have truly worked together in a very bipartisan fashion on this bill. That's one of the great things about being on the Armed Services Committee. We have a lot that we disagree on on a partisan basis in this body, but on the Armed Services Committee we work in a bipartisan way to make sure that we have a defense bill that protects our national security and supports our troops. And Mr. Bartlett certainly upholds that standard, and it's been a great pleasure working with him.

On our subcommittee, our top priority is to support our soldiers and airmen in the fight they are now fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. We want to make sure that they have the equipment they need to fulfill the mission that we have asked them to do. Towards that end, we have $3.9 billion in the bill to upgrade and improve our helicopters, which are so critical to the mission that they are fighting; $3.4 billion to fully fund the MRAP, the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles that have done such an amazing job at improving the survivability of our troops when hit by IEDs; $3.4 billion for the JIEDDO account, which continues to find more and better ways to protect our troops from improvised explosive devices; $3.7 billion to fund intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, which is critical to make sure that our troops get the information they need when they need it to be in the best position to protect themselves on the battlefield; a billion dollars for new Strykers, a vehicle that has been critical for our combat infantry brigades and their ability to be maneuverable enough to survive in the fight.

We are making sure in this bill that our troops in the field get the equipment they need to fulfill the mission we have asked them to do. We also set aside an additional $700 million in this bill for the Army and Air Force Guard and Reserve equipment accounts. As we all know, Guard and Reserve members have been asked to do far more than they ever have in the history of this country. They are stressed and strained, and their equipment is being used at a far greater pace than anyone anticipated. We want to make sure that they have the funds available to replenish that equipment and make sure that they get the training they need so that they are able to do the job here in the U.S. we ask them to do, and also the job that we ask them to do in Afghanistan and Iraq.

We are also concerned in this bill and continue to be concerned about our procurement and acquisition process. We passed acquisition reform again under Chairman Skelton's great leadership, but we have a fair number of programs, certainly the Joint Strike Fighter, future combat systems that have not delivered on time and on budget. We have to make sure that we get every penny that we spend, and it is spent efficiently and effectively. We need to continue to work to make sure the programs that we procure meet that standard.

That is why I, too, along with Mr. McKeon, am strongly supportive of the second engine program. And it has been our committee's position for a long time to support that program. We believe that it is an efficient use of taxpayer dollars.

So I thank you, Mr. Chairman, again for your great leadership. I believe this bill gives us a very strong national security.

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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer an amendment regarding military family leave. This committee and this body has, in the past, taken great steps to make sure that our military families, when they're deployed, they have and do qualify for the Military Family Leave Act. Unfortunately, there are some specifics of the military family--sorry, of the Family Leave Act--that leave out some of our military personnel when they are deployed because of the jobs that they have. They do not qualify for the existing Family Leave Act.

What this amendment does is it makes sure that all military personnel, even if they don't qualify for the Family and Medical Leave Act, will have the ability to take at least--I'm sorry, the spouses, children and parents of our military personnel, will have the ability to take at least 2 weeks of unpaid leave when a servicemember receives a notification or order to active duty in support of a contingency operation or is deployed in connection with such an operation.

One of the things that we've really struggled to deal with is the amount that we have asked of the members of the Guard and Reserve. They have been deployed far more since 9/11 than they ever were before, and that has a tremendous impact on their families.

Now, the Guard and Reserve has performed an unbelievable service to this country. Every time I travel abroad, go to Iraq and Afghanistan and meet members of the Guard and Reserve who are serving over there, I come away enormously impressed with their immense dedication and the job they're doing on our behalf. They continue to do it. They continue to sign up. Recruitment and retention are at all-time highs. They are absolutely committed to serving this country.

But they also need our help and support because members of the Guard and Reserve typically have families and jobs here at home, and that is disrupted every time they're called up and sent overseas. This is one small way that we can help them deal with that disruption, by making sure that their loved ones qualify for the Family Medical Leave Act.

This would be unpaid leave, but it would make sure that they have the time to help support their loved one who is being deployed.

I ask the body to support this amendment.

Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I will assume that there is support for my amendment. I just want to quickly address what Mr. McKeon has said on two levels. First of all, the amendment that we will be voting on later today on Don't Ask, Don't Tell specifically leaves it in the hands of the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to be the one who will chair the policy. The policy will not be changed as a result of the amendment that we are passing. It will meet, absolutely, the requirement that the Secretary of Defense and others have put out to get input from the Armed Forces. And it will not, let me repeat, will not be changed until the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff certify that change. They will have to certify it before we go forward.

Second of all, this policy, Don't Ask, Don't Tell, this ridiculous policy that has driven people out of the military who are only too anxious to serve, has been in existence for 16 years.

And I cannot speak for the gentleman from California, but I have spoken to many members of the Armed Forces during the course of that 16-year period about this policy, as I'm sure others have. So the main thing I object to is the characterization that the men and women of our Armed Forces have been left out of this debate. Nothing could be further from the truth. We've had 16 years, and a year and a half since President Obama said that he felt the policy should be changed, to have those conversations, and we're having them. And again, we will continue to have them, even after Congress pulls itself out of this policy. We're the ones who inserted ourselves into the debate by passing it in the first place 16 years ago. This will now go back to the Secretary of Defense to have precisely those conversations that Mr. McKeon wants them to have. And I'm sure that they will.

I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, the second engine is all about fiscal responsibility and saving the taxpayers money. The Pentagon themselves funded this program for 10 years, and they funded it because they knew that competition mattered.

One thing has already been said in this debate that simply isn't true: The first engine was not competitively bid. It was the engine that Lockheed had when they won the bid. There was no competition. They didn't win that. That is why the Pentagon originally created the second engine program, to make sure that over the 30- to 40-year lifecycle of a $100 billion program, they had options.

A GAO study on the competitive engine program for the F-16 from the early 1980s showed savings of almost 20 percent over the lifetime of that program. Those of us who for years have supported this second engine program, have support it precisely because we want to save the taxpayers money.

The simple argument is competition works, and being penny-wise and pound-foolish doesn't. We have already spent $3 billion. To save $2 billion on the front end, we risk a $100 billion program. Please oppose this amendment.

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