Issue Position: National Security
Issue Position
As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Senator Kelly Ayotte has emerged as a leading voice on national security, as well as an effective advocate for service members, veterans, American military strength, and U.S. international leadership and engagement. She believes that the most important responsibility of the federal government is to protect the American people and that continued American freedom, security, and prosperity require that the U.S. maintain military strength beyond challenge.
Since arriving in the Senate in 2011, Senator Ayotte has served as the Ranking Member of the Readiness and Management Support Subcommittee. As the senior Republican on this important subcommittee, Senator Ayotte has focused on the preparedness of U.S. military forces for current and future conflicts. She has pressed the Department of Defense and Congress to provide our service members the resources they need to protect the United States, deter potential adversaries, assure our allies, and decisively defeat our enemies when American interests require military action.
Understanding that our national security interests and the threats to those interests should guide defense spending-rather than arbitrary across-the-board budget caps-Senator Ayotte voted against the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011 that brought about defense sequestration and that inflicted serious damage on U.S. military readiness, as well as on the small and medium-sized U.S. defense suppliers that help provide our troops an essential technological edge in combat. Since the BCA's passage, Senator Ayotte has been a consistent and leading critic of defense sequestration and has introduced and supported several pieces of legislation to replace defense sequestration with alternative spending reductions that would not damage our national security.
Senator Ayotte believes that the Department of Defense and the defense suppliers that help arm and equip our service members need predictable and timely funding, and believes that Congress has a serious responsibility to consider and pass annual defense authorization and appropriation bills before the start of each fiscal year.
Senator Ayotte has also used her position on the Readiness Subcommittee-which oversees military construction and the nation's shipyards and depots-to ensure that the workers at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard have the modern facilities they need to ensure the United States Navy continues to possess the most capable, reliable, and safe attack submarine fleet in the world.
Believing that every dollar wasted by the Pentagon is a dollar that we don't have to train and equip our troops, Senator Ayotte has helped lead efforts in Congress to promote better financial stewardship at the Pentagon. She worked successfully to include spending prohibitions in the annual defense bill for a wasteful Pentagon program that was never fielded to our troops, led efforts to push the Pentagon to achieve auditability milestones, and helped introduce and pass legislation to reform wasteful Pentagon acquisition practices.
Senator Ayotte has also led efforts to keep taxpayer dollars out of enemy hands. In 2011, Senator Ayotte helped introduce legislation to enable federal agencies to quickly cut off funds flowing to the enemy through contracts. She then worked successfully to include key provisions of this legislation in the fiscal year 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, which was signed into law. As a result of these authorities, the Department of Defense was able to keep more than $30 million out of the hands of America's enemies. Subsequently, Senator Ayotte led a successful bipartisan effort to expand these authorities within the Department of Defense. She is now leading an effort to ensure that every federal agency has these same authorities to more quickly terminate contracts that benefit our nation's enemies.
As a member of the Seapower Subcommittee, Senator Ayotte has served as one of the leading advocates in Congress for the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and the American naval supremacy that is so crucial for U.S. security and prosperity. In addition to playing a major role in authorizing funding for necessary projects at the shipyard, Senator Ayotte utilized her position on the Armed Services Committee to push for the acquisition of two Virginia Class Submarines in fiscal year 2014, instead of only one. Her successful efforts will help mitigate a growing shortfall in attack submarines that threatens our national security and will ensure the workers at Portsmouth are fully utilized for years to come-making the shipyard less susceptible to a future Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) round, which she has consistently opposed.
As a member of the Personnel Subcommittee and spouse of an Iraq War combat veteran, Senator Ayotte understands that America's military preeminence derives primarily from the quality, bravery, and training of Americans who choose to serve and sacrifice. Yet, due to budget pressure, some have tried to unfairly target the pay and benefits of service members and retirees. Based on her belief that service members and their families voluntarily endure sacrifices that cannot be compared to any other profession, she has opposed efforts to ask service members and their families-those who have sacrificed the most for our country-to sacrifice again when Washington has not shown the courage to undertake the real drivers of our nation's debt.
That is why she led efforts in Congress to restore unfair cuts to the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for military retirees-including disabled veterans who retire because of their injuries. Senator Ayotte introduced multiple pieces of legislation that would repeal those cuts and pushed Congress to do the right thing and restore the military retirement benefits. For her successful efforts to repeal the COLA cuts, the Military Coalition (TMC)-consisting of 5.5 million members and 33 military and veteran organizations-gave Senator Ayotte the 2014 Award of Merit.
As part of her efforts to make sure our service men and women receive the care and attention they deserve once they return home from war, Senator Ayotte has worked to ensure that injured service members have access to the best available prosthetics. Senator Ayotte also has worked to improve the Department of Defense's research, treatment, education, and outreach initiatives focused on mental health, substance abuse, and traumatic brain injury. She has also helped lead the bipartisan effort to streamline and reform the Department of Defense organizations that are responsible for recovering American personnel who are prisoners of war or missing in action.
Senator Ayotte has also helped lead bipartisan efforts to combat sexual assault in the military. Senator Ayotte helped introduce bipartisan legislation that was ultimately included in the annual defense bill, providing sexual assault victims in all military branches with a trained military lawyer to guide the victim throughout the difficult legal process and improving support for victims of sexual assault in the National Guard and Reserve.
Based on her belief that those who serve our country deserve a dignified final resting place, Senator Ayotte led the successful bipartisan effort to require the American Battle Monuments Commission to restore Clark Veterans Cemetery-the final resting place for more than 8,300 U.S. service members and their dependents that was abandoned in 1991 following a volcanic eruption that left the cemetery covered in ash and overgrown by weeds.
Raising the issue in hearings, meetings, and letters, Senator Ayotte also led efforts in Congress to ensure that Pease Air National Guard Base in New Hampshire will be the first Air National Guard base in the nation to receive the next generation KC-46A air refueling tanker. Having competed successfully against 82 other bases, Pease is slated to begin receiving KC-46A tankers in fiscal year 2018. Senator Ayotte has also used her position on the Armed Services Committee to ensure Pease receives the facilities construction funding necessary to host the KC-46A tanker.
Based on her belief that we have a solemn obligation to ensure our ground troops have the best possible close air support (CAS) when they are engaged in combat with the enemy, Senator Ayotte has led efforts in Congress to prevent the Air Force from prematurely retiring the cost-effective and combat-proven A-10 "Warthog." General Raymond Odierno, the Army Chief of Staff, has said the A-10 is the "...the best close air support platform that we have today." In a November 2014 letter, the President of the Tactical Control Party Association, representing 1,300 Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTACs)-our nation's CAS experts-wrote a letter to Secretary Hagel saying, "If the Air Force is not prevented from prematurely divesting the A-10, Americans will die in future conflicts due to inadequate close air support. This is a completely predictable disaster in the making, and we ask you to prevent an Air Force decision we will come to deeply regret." In recognition of her efforts to prevent the premature retirement of the A-10, the National Guard Association of the United States (NGAUS) issued a statement in November 2014 saying, "We applaud Senator Ayotte for her leadership and her focus on protecting our troops."
Senator Ayotte believes that when the U.S. captures a high-level foreign terrorist overseas, our number one priority is gathering intelligence that can help prevent future attacks against the United States and our allies. For that reason, Senator Ayotte has opposed the Obama administration's efforts to close Guantanamo, bring dangerous foreign terrorists to the U.S., and treat them like common criminals and tell them they have the "right to remain silent'. Since arriving in the Senate, she has helped lead bipartisan efforts to include provisions in the annual defense bill that would prevent the transfer of high-threat detainees to the United States, prevent the transfer of dangerous detainees to foreign countries where they may reengage in terrorism, and to prevent the construction or modification of any facilities within the United States for the purpose of housing foreign terrorist detainees from Guantanamo.
Consistent with her view that the primary responsibility of the federal government is to protect the American people, Senator Ayotte has served as a leading voice in the Senate to strengthen U.S. missile defense systems. Senator Ayotte has highlighted the growing ballistic missile threat from North Korea, as well as the emerging intercontinental ballistic missile threat from Iran. She has pushed for increased funding for America's ground-based midcourse defense (GMD) system to improve its reliability and capability. She has also used her position on the Armed Services Committee to serve as a leading advocate for an east coast missile defense site that would better protect the United States from intercontinental ballistic missiles from the Middle East-including Iran.
In foreign affairs, Senator Ayotte has been a strong advocate for U.S. international leadership and engagement-which she believes best protects U.S. interests and promotes universal democratic and human rights. Senator Ayotte believes the United States has a responsibility to speak out on behalf of those who seek greater freedom, as well as democratic and human rights, and stand with persecuted religious and racial minorities.
As a longtime critic of the Obama administration's reset policy with Russia, Senator Ayotte has been a leading voice in Congress standing with the Ukrainian people and their legitimately elected government against Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Senator Ayotte has urged the administration and our NATO allies to impose the toughest possible U.S. and European sanctions against Russia, provide much-needed and long-requested weapons to Ukraine, and strengthen NATO's military posture in eastern Europe. Senator Ayotte has repeatedly warned that weakness and delay in the face of Putin's aggression will only invite additional-and potentially even more dangerous-aggression against U.S. allies and interests.
She has also been an outspoken advocate for strengthening bilateral relationships with key allies such as Israel-whom she believes is our closest and most reliable ally in the Middle East. In addition to strongly supporting Israel's missile defense programs, standing for Israel's right to defend itself, and working to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, Senator Ayotte has worked to further strengthen political ties between America and Israel. On August 1, 2013, Senator Ayotte introduced bipartisan legislation (S. 1456) to award then-President of Israel, Shimon Peres, the Congressional Gold Medal-the highest honor conferred by the Congress. Senator Ayotte tirelessly encouraged her colleagues to support her legislation, gathering 81 cosponsors. After her legislation became law, Senator Ayotte helped present the Congressional Gold Medal to Shimon Peres in the Capitol Rotunda on June 26, 2014, in the last weeks of his presidency.
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