Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. LATTA. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment, and I will later withdraw that amendment.

The amendment I am offering today is a simple, commonsense amendment that fulfills a critical need for our Air National Guard, who stand watch while performing the 24/7 Aerospace Control Alert mission as diligently today as they have after the attacks on 9/11. This mission is carried out by several Guard units across the country, including the 180th Fighter Wing in Toledo, Ohio, whom I have the great honor to represent, and by the D.C. Air National Guard, who are less than 15 miles away from this Capitol. These servicemen and -women also serve in combat theater operations overseas when they are called upon and play a vital role in fighting foreign threats.

This amendment would provide funding for an additional ARC-210 or equivalent radio in the Air National Guard's F-16s. These radios have a capability for secure line-of-sight and beyond line-of-sight communication, providing the ability to securely communicate with ground forces and command and control. However, one radio in the aircraft does not allow for the simultaneous contact with them.

Currently, Air National Guard F-16s only have one ARC-210 radio that works on an ultrahigh frequency band, and it is this band that most command and control and air traffic control agencies use. An additional second radio will simultaneously allow Air National Guard F-16s to communicate with command and control agencies and coalition troops on the ground in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and dense threat environments.

Members of the Air National Guard, along with fulfilling their duties of protecting our borders against those who wish to do us harm, also deploy with our Active Duty military, side by side, on the front lines in overseas conflicts. In fact, the request to have these additional radios comes from the combat commanders in such theaters around the world. So not only is this needed at home, but also abroad. The Air National Guard designates the need to have this capability as ``critical.''

My offset for this amendment is the Defense Rapid Innovation program, a program intended to take off-the-shelf technology and put it in the hands of the warfighter as soon as possible. My amendment would do just that. It takes low-cost existing technology and puts it to work for our warfighters today.

As I said, I am prepared to withdraw the amendment, but I want to say I want to commend the gentleman from New Jersey and his committee staff and all the members of the committee for their hard work on this legislation.

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

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source