National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I rise today to thank colleagues on both sides of the aisle for the debate and votes we will be casting today on the National Defense Authorization Act. We have come together in a bipartisan fashion, and we have spent significant time in committee and now on the floor to deal with countless provisions. This act is nothing if not detailed with countless provisions that are critical to the defense of the Nation.

We have a long tradition of bipartisanship in this body on the NDAA. The Senate passes an NDAA in one form or another every year, and that can't be said about any other piece of legislation. I want to congratulate the new chairman, Senator McCain, and the new ranking member, Senator Reed, and I want to congratulate my colleagues who serve together on the committee, including our Presiding Officer, and also all of our staff, both our personal staff and committee staff--I see some committee staff here--because this is a significant amount of work.

There are many important provisions in the NDAA that affect our national security, and my Commonwealth of Virginia is deeply connected to the American military. In addition to grand items, the NDAA also examines in some excruciating detail some very, very fine points.

Just to give a few examples, the NDAA includes a provision dealing with storage facilities that are needed to help us combat rust on military vehicles, the transmission systems that are used in some army land vehicles, the reflective markings and lights that are used on military air fields, one particular military barracks that has sewage, mold, hot water, and rodent problems, and we even deal in the NDAA with some details of West Point's football program--some of the athletic programs at West Point.

But after all this minute analysis and debate and discussion over the past weeks, both in committee and on the floor, I do notice something a little bit strange. While Congress is very willing to debate and vote on all things great and small concerning our military, there is one thing we don't want to debate or vote on--whether the United States should be at war, whether we should be at war with ISIL. We will vote on shipbuilding, we will vote on military pensions, we will vote on vehicle rust, and we will vote on barracks mold. But we don't want to vote on whether the Nation should be at war.

I proposed an amendment to the NDAA with Senator Flake and Senator Manchin expressing the sense of the Senate that we should have an authorization debate about whether we should be at war with ISIL, and the amendment that I proposed was ruled nongermane--so barracks mold, yes; vehicle rust, yes; the athletic programs at West Point, yes; whether we should be at war, nongermane to the Defense authorization act.

Interestingly, we even took a vote on the floor of the Senate in the NDAA about whether we should arm the Kurds in a war that Congress has not authorized that we could debate and vote on; but whether we should be at war we have not debated and voted upon.

So I went back and looked at article I of the Constitution. I found that there is no requirement that Congress vote on barracks mold or rust prevention or military airfield lighting. Certainly we can and should take up those matters because each of those matters--even if they just affect one barracks or one airfield--is about the safety of our troops and military personnel. Of course we should take them up. But there is nothing in the Constitution that requires that we take them up and debate and vote on them. But we are required to debate and vote to authorize war. Article I, section 8, clearly declares that Congress shall have the power to declare war--not the President; Congress. Yet, on this item, on this large item, on this largest of items, we are unwilling to debate and vote.

The war against ISIL is now in its 11th month; more than 3,500 U.S. airstrikes, more than 3,000 U.S. forces now in Iraq. U.S. servicemembers and American hostages have lost their lives in the battle against ISIL. The cost of the war to the American taxpayer is now more than $2.5 billion--an average cost of $9 million a day. The ISIL threat is spreading, the mission expanding.

In response to ISIL advances in the Anbar Province, the administration recently announced that an additional 450 trainers would be deployed to train and support Iraqi security forces.

So my question as a strong supporter of the NDAA is a simple one: How much longer will we allow war to be waged without Congress even being willing to have a debate about the strategy and scope of the mission? How much longer will we keep asking servicemembers to risk their lives without Congress doing the basic job of authorizing this war?

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