National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014
Floor Speech
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Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the NDAA which is currently on the floor. I wish to address a couple of issues. One I am passionate about is the veterans unemployment rate and how it is dealt with in the NDAA, another is shipbuilding, another is the critical issue of sexual assault and misconduct and, finally, sequester.
Before I begin, let me talk about how important this bill is. This is a bill the Senate has passed every year for over 50 years. We pass it every year, even if we can't pass a budget, even if we can't do other things, because it is so critical to show those who serve in the military that we are behind them. I have heard some indications, even within the last 24 hours, that because of so many amendments that might be possible on this bill, would that call into question whether we would be able to keep our streak going. If we have to be here Christmas Day, we need to be on the floor Christmas Day to make sure we pass this bill before the end of the year. It is that important. It is the most important bill that comes before this body, and we need to do everything we can to guarantee the certainty to those who serve.
In Virginia, we are so connected to Active-Duty service and to our veterans. My wife and I are a Blue Star Family. This is very important and we have to make sure we pass this bill.
Let me start with a personnel issue that matters a lot to me, which is the veterans unemployment rate. Right now it is unacceptable that veterans, especially enlisted, who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan have an unemployment rate that is higher than the national average.
A report that was issued last week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics states that the unemployment rate for veterans who have served since 9/11 remains around 10 percent, which is higher than nonveterans of the same age. Ten percent represents 246,000 individual veterans of that era who want to work but don't have it.
That is why I introduced as my first legislation in April the Troop Talent Act of 2013. A companion bill in the House was introduced by Representative Tammy Duckworth. The bills have been incorporated into the NDAAs in both Armed Services Committees. They are now on the floor and virtually identical.
The bill represents a strategy to deal with our veterans unemployment rate by making sure Active-Duty military receive civilian credentials for the skills they obtain in the military at the moment they obtain them.
The bill has a number of provisions. My colleagues on the Armed Services Committee were good enough to include them in the underlying bill. This bill will help us deal with the veterans unemployment rate, and that is one of the reasons I so much wanted to get to it and am so strongly supportive.
Second is shipbuilding. The Presiding Officer and I both have a real interest in this topic, as all Americans do. It is an area of great importance to the State. In Virginia we manufacture the largest items on the planet Earth, which is the nuclear aircraft carrier, at the Huntington Ingalls Shipyard in Newport News.
As the Defense Department reorients, resources its strategy toward Asia, we have to find the Navy bearing more and more of the operational burden of our military in that policy shift, and we have to continue to provide the Navy with adequate resources and funding through this provision to support that shift and to support shipbuilding.
Unfortunately, sequestration--and I will finish with sequestration in a minute--poses grave dangers. So we need to do what we can to maintain this priority for shipbuilding. Right now the sequester has reduced our normal level of three carrier strikers and three amphibious ready groups, which weakens our readiness to deal with challenges in a very challenging world. We have to maintain the priorities mandated and the NDAA does that and that is one of the reasons I support it.
Regarding the issue of sexual misconduct, 2014 is going to be remembered as a potentially historic year for a good reason in the military. I wish to make sure history is good and is not clouded by our continued inability to grab onto and reduce the issue of sexual misconduct.
Earlier this year, I know Members of this body were very happy when Secretary Hagel and the military leadership embraced the proposition that women should be able to serve in the military without being barred by gender from any military specialty,
that military specialties could have rigorous physical or training criteria, but that both men and women should be able to compete to serve in any military specialty, even combat-related specialties.
We will be remembered--2014 will be remembered--for that. But that memory will fade by comparison if what we are really remembered for is we missed an opportunity, an important opportunity, to tackle the important issue of sexual assault.
I congratulate Senators Gillibrand and McCaskill for all the great work they have done to bring this to the attention of the body and to look the military in the eye and say: This has to stop.
They have said it would stop over and over for 20 years, and it has not. This has to be the moment when it stops, and these Senators, working together with us on the Armed Services Committee, have put together a sizeable package of reforms that I am confident will help this time be different.
I also thank the brave victims who testified. I went to every hearing in the Senate on the sexual assault issue. Senator Gillibrand had a Personnel Subcommittee hearing. I was there for that entire hearing. Senator Levin had a hearing in Armed Services. I was there for nearly that entire full-day hearing. Committee markups in the Subcommittee on Personnel and the full committee--I have been to all the meetings.
I have heard these victims testify. How brave they are as survivors to come forward and testify. I also thank survivors in Virginia who have come and shared their stories with me personally so I could grapple with what is the right mix. These survivors have done a wonderful job in making sure we address this issue.
I tackled the issue of sexual assault in a way when I was Governor. We were treating victims of sexual assault in the civil justice system poorly in Virginia. We were not unique in that, but there was no excuse for it.
So I impaneled a group of advocates and survivors to look at Virginia law and tell us what we needed to change if we were going to try to deal with this scourge. One of the problems with sexual assault is--together with domestic violence--it is often a very underreported crime.
If somebody breaks into my apartment, I do not hesitate to call the police and say: There has been a break-in. If somebody bashes my car windshield in, I do not hesitate to call in and say: Look, a crime has been committed.
But crimes of sexual assault and crimes of domestic violence--and there tends to be on overlap, not completely but there is an overlap--are crimes where there is underreporting, in both civilian and military, and on college campuses. So one of the most important aspects in any reform is to create an environment where people feel they can come forward with a complaint, when they have one.
The statistics are well known. They have just been cited on the floor. By a statistical sampling, it has been estimated there have been 26,000 instances of unwanted sexual conduct, of sexual assaults in the military, and only 3,000 have been reported. We have to make sure these reforms we are about to embrace help us deal with this reporting issue so people feel a sense of comfort.
What we realized in tackling these issues in Virginia is that for people to feel comfortable with reporting sexual assaults, they have to have time. You cannot make them make the decision about reporting in an instant. There is often a psychological component about deciding what to do. There needs to be privacy and discretion and confidence, and there also needs to be advice and resources. People need to know: what are the avenues they have. What are the legal procedures, how do they look, and what are their rights if they decide to pursue a complaint.
I support the ongoing bill that is on the floor, and I will support some other proposals that are out. The McCaskill-Ayotte proposal I will support. I support the reform for a number of reasons. It affects the training and evaluation of military personnel. It affects the way sexual assault allegations are investigated, the way they are prosecuted, and the way they are punished. It protects witnesses.
An amendment Senator Warner and I got into the bill--and we will be adding to it on the floor--protects whistleblowers who blow the whistle on an unfortunate or sexually harassing climate.
But the most important part of this bill is what the bill does for anyone who has been victimized by a crime of sexual assault--to create a climate where they can come forward and lodge a complaint.
In the military right now there are a number of avenues whereby somebody who has been victimized by a crime of sexual assault can lodge a complaint. Unique in this form of crime, there is a restricted report, where someone can come forward and report confidentially. That is very, very important.
But this bill adds to it what I think is the core of driving up reporting, which is salutary. It adds to it, also, something that would be unique in the military. It would exist for no other crime category, no other offense category. If someone complains of a sexual assault, they will be assigned a special victims' counsel, whose job it is to have their back, to hear the painful story, to share the various reporting mechanisms, counseling resources that are available, how the crime might be prosecuted. At every step along the way, as that victim is becoming a survivor and dealing with the challenge, that special victims' counsel will be there to help them make decisions and give them the backup and support they need.
This is based on a pilot project in the Air Force, a pilot project in the Air Force that is working. What we are finding, based on this pilot project in the Air Force, is even when people file complaints in a restricted, confidential way--they come in and say: I want to file a complaint, but I don't want to go against the perpetrator because I don't want people to know; I just want help--after they get a special victims' advocate and learn about the proceedings and learn about the protections, and they build up a bond with somebody who has their back, they are very likely to say: You know what, now I have the confidence to actually file my complaint publicly and take on the perpetrator--who needs to be taken on, who needs to be drummed out of the military if they committed a sexual assault.
So I believe the core of getting this right is about giving victims an avenue where they can have the time, they can have the advice, they can have the privacy and discretion to understand what their options are and then make a decision and go forward.
I think if we pass this bill with that special victims' counsel this will be the single best thing we will be able to do to tackle the crime of sexual assault.
Let me conclude by saying a word about sequestration.
A word that none of us knew before the beginning of 2013 has been spoken so many times on the floor of this body. No one intended for sequestration to happen when the votes were cast in the summer of 2011. Everyone was told across the board: Nonstrategic cuts to health care, domestic accounts, and to defense would be harmful to us. We have seen the harm that sequestration is doing to our Nation's military at a time when our military is getting more and more dangerous.
Indiscriminate across-the-board cuts are not only hurting all kinds of military priorities, they are also sending the signal to young men and women who are thinking about military careers or who are in the military and deciding how long they want their careers to be--they are sending them a signal that Congress does not value what they do.
We need to show the men and women of the military we value what they do. We need to show them by getting an NDAA bill done this year. We need to show them by ending sequestration. Will there be savings we can find in our defense spending? Of course. We ought to be looking at every item of government to determine whether we can do better and save money. But this across-the-board sequester that is grounding air combat wings, that is grounding carrier units, that is making us less able to confront a more challenging world, is not behavior befitting of the greatness of this Nation.
I am a budget conferee right now, working on a budget deal. We are under a Senate- and House-imposed deadline to try to find that deal by December 13 so the appropriators can work on a budget. We will work diligently on that. I have an optimistic sense about finding a budget deal that enables us to replace this foolish sequester with a more strategic approach that will not hurt our military.
Mr. President, I thank you for the time and I now yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
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