Conference Report H.R. 4310, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013
Floor Speech
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I, too, rise in support of the conference report. I want to particularly thank Chairman McKeon, Senator Levin, and Senator McCain, who worked with us to get this product, as well as all the members of the committee and staff. We truly did work on this in a bipartisan fashion. I don't think there's a single one of us that's completely happy with everything that's in this piece of legislation, but that's the nature of compromise and working together to get something done.
We need to pass a defense bill to support our troops and to get our troops the pay raise and the support that they need. So to get there, we have to work past our differences in order to come up with a product that we can vote for. We did that. It's proof that the legislative process can work.
This is a critical piece of legislation. First and foremost, it prioritizes support for our troops and their families. We have to remember that we still have over 60,000 troops deployed in combat in Afghanistan. Making sure that they have the equipment, supplies, and support that they need to do the job that they're being asked to do is our number one priority.
I'm pleased that we have a 1.7 percent pay raise included in this bill and pleased that we continue to support the effort in Afghanistan. I'm also pleased that we have language in this bill that makes it clear that it is time to end that mission in Afghanistan and bring our troops home as soon as we responsibly can. I believe that is also a critical priority going forward.
There are other critical provisions of this bill. Once again, the Senate added language to ramp-up
sanctions against Iran to keep the pressure on them to, hopefully, discourage them from developing a nuclear weapon. That is a critical piece of legislation.
We also have in here reform to our satellite export regime. The cumbersome nature of that regime has significantly harmed the U.S. satellite industry. We've gone from having 65 percent of that market worldwide to less than 25 in the last 15 years. Getting back to a competitive place with that industry is critical to our national security. Those are companies that we're going to depend on to provide us the best equipment to best protect this Nation. That change is very welcome.
I am still disappointed in where we are at on Guantanamo Bay and detainee policy. This bill, again, though only for 1 year, not permanently, as they proposed in the Senate--I'm pleased that we were able to do that--tie the President's hands in how to deal with the people at Guantanamo Bay. We need to close Guantanamo and have the President have the freedom to deal with the inmates there in a way that is consistent with our values, our laws, and our Constitution.
We also do not fix the detainee problem. The chairman is correct. We once again state, basically, that if you have rights, you have rights, but we still hold open the possibility of indefinite detention of people on U.S. soil. I think that is wrong. I think that is something that we should change.
I will also disagree that habeas corpus is the highest form of protection for our rights. It is more like the last resort. It's the one thing that under no circumstances we can take away from you. The highest protection of individual rights is our Constitution and our article III courts that provide full due process and full rights to everybody facing criminal charges. So I hope we will fix that at some point.
Overall, this is a good bill that does one of our very important tasks here in Congress--to provide for the common defense--and I urge support of the measure.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close. And I really want to close just to emphasize how important the work is that our staffs do, both in the House and the Senate. The work that they've done ever since May, when we first put together the bill on the House side, and then the accelerated time schedule that they had to operate under because the Senate waited until December 4 to pass their bill, and we had to throw together a quick conference report.
There are an endless array of critically important legislative issues that are handled in this bill, and the staffs that we have do an amazing job under a tight timeline of working together to resolve differences and come up with the best legislation. We have an outstanding staff. We could not do this without them.
Again I will emphasize that I hope this bill shows that it's possible that people who disagree--and you can hear from our debate there are many things we disagree strongly about, certainly Republicans and Democrats, but also House and Senate. Yet somehow we come together and put together this 1,600-page bill to spend $633 billion and provide for the common defense of the United States of America.
So I urge support, and I thank all those involved in this work product.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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