National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I am pleased the Senate is debating the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2016. Senators MCCAIN and REED, with help from my colleagues and me on the Senate Armed Services Committee, have worked tirelessly throughout the spring on these important military issues. Our committee prides itself on taking a bipartisan and measured approach to reforming and providing oversight to the Department of Defense. I believe we largely succeeded in this endeavor, but I remain gravely concerned about the chairman's proposals to streamline Department of Defense Headquarters by cutting funding to specific operations and maintenance, O&M, accounts.

The Department of Defense already implemented a 20 percent reduction of headquarters, which began this year and continues through 2019. Planning for the reduction began several years ago, affording the Department adequate time to ensure compliance with various directives, including requirements of the Goldwater-Nichols Act that established the division in roles among the service chiefs and combatant commanders. I am concerned the chairman's proposed legislation this year, requiring additional headquarters reductions, will force the Department of Defense to find efficiencies that will blur the lines between service and warfighting functions, undermining the bedrock reforms established by Goldwater-Nichols.

I support reducing the magnitude of these cuts, while allowing the Department to conduct a thorough analysis of the best methods to streamline organizations for the most efficient staffing solutions while remaining viable and effective.

The chairman's specific proposed reductions are not supported by any report or study. Instead, they are based on a perception of unnecessary growth based on anecdotal evidence and nebulous data-sets fueled a $1.7 billion cut to several operations and maintenance accounts.

To the chairman's point, there has undoubtedly been a growth in headquarters over the past decade. Areas that saw significant increases include cyber warfare and special operations. USCYBERCOM did not exist a decade ago, but now has almost 6,000 employees. Special Operations Command is forecasted to swell to over 70,000 by 2017, but both headquarters are excluded from consideration for reduction, against the requests of the DOD to leave everything on the table if forced to act on this provision.

The timing and magnitude of these cuts are so severe that I fear the Department will be forced to reduce funding to critical programs associated with the targeted accounts. Some key programs associated with these accounts include military burial honors, suicide prevention, radioactive waste disposal, nuclear command and control networks, acquisition support, veteran hiring programs, and installation fire departments. Many of these programs are tied to our Nation's commitment to our servicemembers and veterans and should not be subjected to such drastic cuts without due consideration of the downstream effects.

Finally, the men and women who will likely bear the brunt of these cuts are performing the very work that Congress charged the Department of Defense to conduct. Even this authorization includes additional reports, studies, and demands for improvement in areas like program management, acquisition, and sexual assault. These programs require a professional cadre to conduct the required analysis and propose recommendations for improvement. Asking our workforce to bear additional oversight and program management functions while cutting their funding is illogical and wrong.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source