Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2016

Floor Speech

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Ms. MICHELE LUJAN GRISHAM of New Mexico. Mr. Chair, at a time when the United States is facing constantly evolving global threats from a wide range of enemies, our military urgently needs the technology to monitor and respond to these threats.

Our military does not have the time to wait decades or even years for the development and launch of surveillance or communications satellites.

Operationally Responsive Space, or ORS, allows the U.S. to quickly respond to the emerging and often unanticipated needs of the warfighter. The program rapidly develops new capabilities, giving our military the ability to launch field-ready satellites extremely quickly.

These cost-effective satellites provide transformational advantages on the battlefield. They provide surveillance, tactical communications, countercommunications, space protection, space situational awareness, and weather data from around the world to assist our military in combating our enemies.

You don't have to take my word for it. Air Force leadership has consistently praised the program as an effective national security tool. General Schwartz, the former Chief of Staff of the Air Force, said: ``ORS is exactly what we need. Innovation and greater efficiency as we contend with ongoing fiscal constraints and changing space posture.''

General Welch, current Chief of Staff of the Air Force, recently said that we ``have to look at space now as a warfighting domain,'' and he went on to say that doing so requires us to ``look at different ways of building, maintaining, and improving the assets we currently have in space and the capabilities they provide in new and different ways than the very functionally developed, large program, large investment over long periods of time that have dominated the space architecture up until this point.''

ORS plays a critical role beyond immediate response to our needs on the battlefield.

The U.S. also needs to have the ability to relaunch crucial military communication and even weather satellites that are lost to countermeasures by other countries. In 2007, China used a ground-based missile to destroy a satellite orbiting more than 500 miles in space, demonstrating their capacity to target our national security satellites and space defense systems.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission's 2014 report to Congress notes that ``China, in 2014, continued to pursue a broad counterspace program to challenge U.S. information superiority in a conflict and disrupt or destroy U.S. satellites if necessary ..... China likely will be able to hold at risk U.S. national security satellites in every orbital regime in the next 5 to 10 years.''

Currently, Russia is developing a sea-based missile and space defense system capable of destroying satellites. As other countries modernize their military, the threat level to our communications, navigation, and guided munitions satellites intensifies.

I want to thank the chairman and ranking member for including some funding for ORS in this year's bills, but I do not believe that it is fully adequate to fund this vital program. Without sufficient funds, ORS cannot produce the space systems that give our military an advantage on the battlefield. It is not in our best interest to solely focus on building satellites that take decades to develop, build, and launch, and cost billions of dollars.

While I believe that ORS is integral to maintaining our advantage in space and bringing much-needed capabilities to our warfighters, I understand the committee is not at this time able to reallocate additional funds to this very important program. I hope to continue to work with the committee as the appropriations process moves forward.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment

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