Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Madam Chair, I want to thank Congresswoman Stefanik and also Chairman Dent for their support for this amendment providing funding for the planning, design, and construction of an additional missile defense site capable of protecting the homeland from a long-range ballistic missile attack.

As Congresswoman Stefanik is very well aware, we currently possess only two sites, both located on the west coast, limiting our ability to target and intercept incoming ICBMs either that are targeting the east coast or that are originating from the east.

Dating back to 2007, the United States Northern Command in charge of defending the homeland recommended the construction of the east coast site. One thing that we know: under President Obama's plan for missile defense, he canceled President Bush's third site that was to be located in Poland and provide ICBM coverage for the east coast of the United States continental. He then canceled phase 4 of his own phase adaptive approach that would have similarly provided that coverage.

The only opportunity that we have left with those two options gone is to look to the east coast site. Two Presidents and three Secretaries of Defense have all recognized the advantages of an additional missile coast defense site in order to provide further protection against long-range ballistic missile threats from regions such as the Middle East.

As China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea push for more advanced launch vehicles, the construction of an east coast site will dramatically improve the ability of our military to intercept incoming threats by increasing the opportunity to engage and defeat those threats.

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