Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 4200) to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2005 for military activities of the Department of Defense, to prescribe military personnel strengths for fiscal year 2005, and for other purposes.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, this is a bill that was put together with the bipartisan work of all members of the House Committee on Armed Services, the defense bill for the United States. It was engaged in with a great deal of detail by Republicans and Democrats to try to do the very best we could for the people that wear the uniform of the United States.

Beyond that, Mr. Chairman, we have had enormous publicity the last number of days about the mess at Abu Ghraib. I estimated we have probably devoted as much media attention to that mess involving now, as identified, some seven personnel, as we did to the Normandy invasion, and that is an imbalance. It is time to refocus.

The subjects of the refocus should be the 135,000 great personnel doing their job in Iraq and the tens of thousands doing their job in Afghanistan and around the world in this war against terrorism. So I just thought I might start out, Mr. Chairman, by reminding my colleagues that while that much-publicized mess was taking place with just a few people at Abu Ghraib Prison, Master Sergeant Tony Prior was taking on an enemy position in Afghanistan and was single-handedly taking out four insurgents, the last one in hand-to-hand combat to win the Silver Star.

Jeffrey Bohr, Gunnery Sergeant Jeffrey Bohr was over in Iraq laying down a field of fire to protect his wounded Marines who otherwise would have been killed, and he laid down that field of fire until he himself was killed.

I have dozens of such citations, Mr. Chairman, on the leadership desk, and I would hope that Members walk down. And if their heads are filled with all of the publicity about a few bad apples at Abu Ghraib Prison, I want them to pick up those citations and read about the good apples, the great Americans who fill out this 2.5-million-person force that wear the uniform of the United States, active, Guard and Reserve.

This bill is a big bill, and my great partner, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the ranking member, have worked on it along with all of the members of the committee. Almost all of our members have gone to Iraq now. A lot of them have also gone to Afghanistan, some of them multiple times. We have visited troops, held extensive hearings, and we put together a bill that we think supplies the wherewithal, the equipment for our troops to get the job done.

Let me go over a couple of those things, and then I want to listen to my colleagues on the Democrat side of the aisle who have been such great partners in this endeavor.

First, we have tried to focus on this theater in Iraq because our people need equipment, they need to have the very best equipment. They are over there in the heat and in enemy fire with oppressive living conditions. We have devoted and focused our dollars on that theater, so we pulled some money out of some areas that are not right now relevant, closely relevant, to that warfighting theater, more long-range things, things that are peripheral.

We focused that money on things like force protection, up-armored Humvees, steel for the trucks, the 5-ton trucks for the Army, 7-ton trucks for the Marine Corps, replenishment of ammunition, surveillance capability so we can see the bad guys and engage them before they can get in tight to our troops. All of the leverage we can give them with high technology, we give them in this bill.

We also look to their families. We have this 3.5 percent pay raise across the board, we have an expansion of the amount of money that our troops now get for hazardous duty and for separation from their family. We have also put in a survivor benefit for the widows of our military people and for the widowers of our military people so they will not have this offset against Social Security.

We have tried to do a lot of things on the people's side. We have a great bill with our military housing, our MILCON projects. We have privatization, the cap removed from 2006 on, and we are going to work to make sure there is no seam between 2005 and 2006.

Beyond that, the ranking member and I and a number of other folks have been working and looking at force levels. We now have 10 Army divisions; we used to have 18 in 1991. We have a relatively small Marine Corps, roughly 177,000. We realize we are going to need more people.

And for families who say, How come Joe is not here again for Christmas, whether he is Guard, Reserve, or active, one answer is, we have such a small force that the people have to go more often. And so we have increased in strength by some 10,000 this year, 10,000 next year and 10,000 the next year, and that coincides with Chief of Staff of the Army Schumacher's plan to increase the fighting strength of the U.S. Army by three brigades this year, three brigades next year, and four brigades the year after to add 10 new fighting brigades to the Army for a total of 43. We have also increased the U.S. Marines Corps by 3,000 personnel per year for the next 3 years.

To do that and to do a lot of the other things that we are flowing to the troops, we have also bolted onto this package a supplemental for $25 billion. That supplemental will handle the closing months of this year to make sure that our troops do not run thin on supplies or replenishment or new capabilities in the last few months of this year. It also helps General Schumacher to stand up this new modular force that he is putting into effect and reshaping the Army.

So we have that $25 billion bolted on, and that has lots of good stuff for the troops. It helps to sustain us through any tough things that we may see in the last several months of this year.

Now, we are going to need a new supplemental. We all know that. The chairman of the Committee on the Budget, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) talked about that and put a $50 billion wedge in the budget, acknowledging that fact; and we are going to have to come around at some point and have a new supplemental to get through 2005. It all depends on how far we can reasonably project. We think this $25 billion bolt-on that we are doing will do the right things for the troops.

We have gone right down through the unfunded requirements list, things that our Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and our Air Force sent to us, things that they said we need, Congress, we do not have the money for them. And we went in and paid for those things so we can pull them out and deliver them to the troops in this supplemental we have bolted on.

So this is a great bill. I want to commend the ranking member and all of the great members of the Armed Services Committee. We have great subcommittee chairmen who have worked some very tough issues; their ranking members have worked them hard, and we have brought this bill, in what is a

contentious political season, we brought this bill out on a 60-0 vote. It was a 60-0 vote because we have common ground, and that common ground is the Armed Forces of the United States and their well-being.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the very distinguished gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Hefley), chairman of the Subcommittee on Readiness, the subcommittee which oversees the biggest increment of the defense budget, all operations, maintenance and military construction.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman from Colorado and the gentleman from Texas for their great work.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton), who chairs the Subcommittee on Terrorism which oversees all of our special operators and who has spent a ton of his time this last year going to some very inconvenient places to make sure that our troops get what they need.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the very distinguished gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Granger), who has great expertise in the area of defense.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I want to thank the gentleman for his hard work and the fact that he has been in Iraq and Afghanistan more than any other member, which is very important to this committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett), the very thoughtful chairman of the Projection Forces Subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Everett), the chairman of our Subcommittee on Strategic Forces which oversees our nuclear component, space assets, and many critical aspects of national security.

(Mr. EVERETT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon), a very distinguished member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman who just spoke for his hard work on this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola).

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Snyder) for his hard work on the bill.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes), a gentleman with a real heart for our soldiers.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller), the gentleman who is the author, the father of this great benefit package for military survivors that was embedded in this bill and is good news for hundreds of thousands of families.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Let me just say in response to my colleague who has just spoken that we did something that was unprecedented in this bill, which was look into the future, into the last several months of this year, and decide that, even though we all agreed and the budget chairman announced on the floor and to the world that we were going to need supplementals of $50 billion this next year, we decided that we did not want to have any strain on the troops in the closing months of this year before Congress, after the election, could put together another supplemental.

So we provided this bridge, which even the gentleman will admit carries us well into the next year, into the next calendar year; and we did fully provide for the additional forces that we have in the field, the 1st Armored Division, which is going to be an additional $750,000. For all of the armor upgrades, we have got roughly $1 billion for armor upgrades in Humvees and trucks, for all of the modernization that the chief of staff of the Army needs for modularity, that is, building this new brigade centric force for the U.S. Army.

The reason we do not go off into the new year and say, okay, should it be $50 billion, should it be $75 billion is very simple. We cannot see the future. We do not know how much weight this new Iraqi military is going to be able to take on their shoulders, how fast we are going to be able to make this handoff; and all of those things drive the costs of operation. But this takes good care of the troops for a long period of time during this bridge period; and that is the reason we did it, to give the troops confidence.

It is above and beyond the $422 billion bill that we have. I think, Mr. Chairman, it does a good job in looking out for the troops.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces, whose subcommittee oversees the most massive part of modernization and our biggest programs for aircraft and land systems, who has done a great job working this issue.

(Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh), who chairs the Subcommittee on Total Force, which oversees the 2.5 million Americans in uniform.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer).

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman for his hard work and his urging that we try to retrieve an additional 10 B-1 bombers. We now have 67.

The Air Force was going to cut that down to 60. We moved it back up where we retrieved seven of the bombers that were going basically into the bone yard, and the gentleman worked hard with myself and other members of the committee to make sure we retrieved an additional 10 bombers. So we are taking the B-1 up to 77 bombers.

That B-1 has been a great asset for the projection of power for the United States. It has got great speed, it can hold a tremendous payload, and it can literally put a precision munition right through a goalpost. In fact, we went after Saddam Hussein early on in the war in Iraq with the B-1 bomber.

So the gentleman has been a champion of the B-1. I want to thank him for that, and I hope he is here with me when we roll out those additional 10 that we are bringing back from retirement.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute to thank the gentlewoman who just spoke, my seatmate in California, to say something about contractors.

God bless our contractors. The last figure I saw was that the contractors for Halliburton, who have to run Ambush Alley, bringing our convoys, bringing food to the troops up through the heart of the insurgency country in Iraq, have now lost 34 of their personnel, killed in action supplying American troops.

We have always had lots of contractors for the very simple reason that for every troop you have out there with a rifle, you need roughly 10 people to support him down the supply line; and a lot of those people have always been contractors. We have had them in all theaters of the war in this last century and, obviously, in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The four individuals who were killed in Fallujah were American heroes, and they were trying to advance the American cause with every bit as pure a heart and sense of honor, in fact, as mostly former military personnel, as any of our people in the United States Marine Corps or Army in that area of operation.

So I think that we should appreciate our contractors perhaps more than has been noted on the House floor.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson), a very good member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence), who has worked so hard on the chem-bio protection issues.

(Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I would just say to the gentleman, no, I am not familiar with that situation.

Mr. Chairman, I would just say to the gentleman that I will be happy to work with the gentleman from Missouri on this issue.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), chairman of that very important committee, the Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

The gentleman is correct. The size and location of the demonstration project have been left to the discretion of the Secretary of Defense. I will add, however, the whole point of doing a demonstration project is to test whether a legislative idea will produce the results that its proponents intend. The Secretary should conduct a thorough and complete demonstration program.

I would just say to my good friend that he and his colleagues from New Jersey and others can certainly count on my support.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Ferguson).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey), who has done so much great work on this committee.

Mr. Chairman, first, let me just say that this is a program that shares support on our committee among Democrats and Republicans. This aircraft capability is something that is very important to our country. We just did a briefing on the emerging aerospace industrial base in China, their new high-performance aircraft, which at some point may threaten American interests. This aircraft is vital, it is needed, and it is an important follow-on. We will keep working on it. I thank the gentleman for his hard work on it.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham), a very distinguished American from San Diego, the Navy Top Gun who was nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honor for actions over the skies of North Vietnam and who has a real heart for the servicemen.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Having heard the eloquence of my great colleague, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) and preceded by the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham), my old compadre, I do not think I can add anything to what they said.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 4200, ``The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005''.

I would like to start off by commending Chairman Duncan Hunter and the entire Committee on Armed Services for all of the hard work on this legislation. A bill of this magnitude requires an enormous bi-partisan effort. The result here is legislation that will provide the resources necessary for U.S. military forces to protect and defend this country both at home and abroad.

I am concerned, however, with several provisions in this bill affecting the acquisition system. The first provisions interfere with the Department of Defense's competitive sourcing program. The second group of provisions represent an ill-considered attempt to protect domestic jobs. We can all agree that the Federal government should do as much as it can to support jobs in America. However, tacking on onerous provisions to the acquisition system to protect a handful of jobs is not the right approach. It costs money--taxpayers' money. The acquisition system's purpose is to procure the best value goods and services with taxpayers' dollars, not to protect jobs. Most important, we have learned time and time again that provisions restricting our ability to tap the resources of the global market in the name of saving jobs result in retaliation from our trading partners, costing us more jobs in the long run.

First, we have the provisions of the Langevin amendment included in the Committee mark. These provisions, if enacted, would require sweeping changes to the Administration's critical competitive sourcing program and hamstring the Defense Department's ability to manage its programs and workforce.

Our economy is based on a free market system where competition is essential to maintaining vibrancy and productivity. Who can argue with the idea that a little competition is needed to spur efficiency in Government? The problem is that, despite having considerable input into the revised OMB Circular A-76 that provides the procedural framework for the competitive sourcing program, its opponents have mounted an attack on competitive sourcing. They equate ``competitive sourcing'' with ``outsourcing'' or ``privatization,'' or at least they say they do. But words matter, and competitive sourcing is simply not the same as outsourcing or privatization. Outsourcing assumes up front that the private sector can perform activities better, cheaper, and/or faster

than a government organization. Competitive sourcing does not assume the private sector is the preferred provider. Its purpose is not to downsize the government workforce. It uses competition to decide. Opponents argue that competitive sourcing takes jobs away from Federal employees. This is simply untrue. In most cases, the Federal employees involved in the competition either retain their jobs if the agency team wins or are rehired if the private sector wins. In fact, according to agency data from a recent GAO report, in-house teams win most of the competitions, retaining almost 76 percent of the positions competed. The key point is, public-private competitions result in substantial savings in the activity competed, regardless of who wins the competition.

The Langevin language would cripple the competitive sourcing program at the Department of Defense. It would, for example, prevent the Department from making reasoned management decisions for the benefit of our Armed Forces and the American taxpayer by prohibiting the Defense Department from making any reorganization of a function so that it would be performed by 10 or fewer employees unless it conducts a public/private competition. Think about this: under this provision, the Secretary of Defense is prohibited from paring his office staff from 12 people to 9.

Further, the Langevin amendment unfairly tilts public-private competitions toward the Federal employees and introduces into private businesses' right to offer their employees a total compensation package by prohibiting the A-76 cost comparison from including any savings that could be attributable to a businesses' use of a worker health plan that is different than that provided to Federal government employees. This would establish a Federal mandate to private industry and cripple the ability of small businesses to participate in this program. That, Mr. Chairman, is not good government.

The Langevin provision also would require the Department of Defense to establish a pilot program to conduct an arbitrary number of public/ private competitions for new work and work currently performed by contractors. This would mandate that the Department expend resources so that Federal workers can compete with the private sector to perform new commercial work. Don't our Federal workers have enough to do in fulfilling their current responsibilities? Interestingly, the requirements would not extend to any work to be performed by a contractor whose workers are represented by a private-sector labor union.

Finally, the Langevin amendment imposes a mass of reporting and tracking requirements, which in a number of cases duplicate requirements that are currently in chapter 146 of title 10. The only point of these is to gum up the competitive sourcing program. A number of these mandates would apply whenever a service contract is awarded by the agency, whether or not as the result of a competitive sourcing study. So not only are the Langevin supporters interested in hamstringing the competitive sourcing program but also in reversing the recently passed reforms in service contracting.

Secondly, section 811 of the bill, titled Defense Trade Reciprocity, would prohibit DoD from purchasing any defense article or service from any company in a country (including our NATO allies, our coalition partners, and Israel) that within one year does not have an offset policy toward U.S. companies that is comparable to U.S. offset policy. This provision is ill advised, would severly limit the ability of the Department of Defense to cooperate with our allies and operate overseas, and would undercut the ability of our defense industry to compete in selling to our allies.

Last fall, the Congress passed two provisions dealing with offsets. In the extension of the Defense Production Act, we asked the Commerce Department to complete a study by this August on the impact of offsets on the supplier base and required the Administration to discuss with our trading partners ways to reduce the ``adverse'' impacts of offsets. Congress is to receive periodic reports on how such discussions are progressing.

In last year's Defense Appropriations Act, we required the Department of Defense to prepare a report by March 1 on the impact of offsets on the defense industrial base and make any appropriate recommendations. We ought to at least wait for the results of the actions we demanded of the Executive Branch only a few months ago before taking premature actions on offsets.

In fact, while offsets distort international defense trade, concern about the impact of offsets is overblown. The annual Commerce Department review of offsets that is required by a provision of the Defense Production Act consistently concludes that defense sales that have associated offset provisions produce approximately 30,000 U.S. jobs, and the offsets reduce that figure by about 9,000 jobs, for a net gain to the U.S. of 21,000 jobs. Any actions that jeopardized those sales could result in a net loss of jobs and an erosion of the U.S. defense industrial base.

The U.S. currently enjoys a trade balance in defense exports of 6-1 in its favor with respect to Europe and around 12-1 with respect to the world. In a time when we worry about ballooning trade deficits, the U.S. aerospace industry delivers the largest export surplus of any sector in the economy with over a $25 billion trade surplus in 2003. Policies that restrict the ability of U.S. companies to continue making such sales will hinder interoperability with our allies, reduce U.S. jobs, and undercut the supplier base.

The simple fact is that restrictive provisions such as this are self- defeating, Cold War anachronisms that cripple our participation in the Global Market and jeopardize defense exports--one of the major sectors of our economy.

Finally, the Manzullo amendment, to be considered on the floor, would add the creation of jobs in the U.S. as one of the instances that the Secretary of Defense could use in a determination under 10 U.S.C. 2304(b)(1) to exclude a source to establish or maintain alternative sources of supply. The 10 U.S.C. 2304(b)(1) is seldom used and it is discretionary, but it could be used to justify a sole-source contract award under the guise that it created jobs.

Moreover, the amendment would add ``the creation of jobs'' to the list of required evaluation factors for all negotiated acquisitions under 10 U.S.C. 2305(a)(3)(A). This would mandate that the creation of jobs be a factor in the selection of the winning offeror in a competitive acquisition. The problem here is that we would be requiring the consideration of a factor that has nothing whatever to do with the merits or cost of the proposal. Again we are burdening our acquisition system with a requirement that is not related to the acquisition of best value goods and services for the government.

Additionally, I am concerned with Chairman Hunter's amendment that adds money for the Patriot missile and uses a $48 million cut to the KEI program as one of the offsets. The KEI program will play a crucial role in our Nation's security by providing enemy ballistic missile defense. Any cut in funding will hinder this program's advances in the area of anti-ballistic missiles.

I also want to offer my support to the Wamp amendment, which makes improvements to the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Act. The amendment addresses statutory problems that have created significant bottlenecks for thousands of claims being made under this important DOE program.

Mr. Chairman, in closing, I want to again commend Chairman Hunter for this bill in its entirety, despite my opposition to some of its specifics.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 648 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purposes of debate only.

Yesterday, the Committee on Rules met and granted a structured rule for H.R. 4200, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005. The rule provides for 2 hours of general debate equally divided between the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Armed Services. The rule waives all points of order against consideration of the bill. Finally, the rule allows that the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole may recognize for consideration any amendment printed in the report of the Committee on Rules out of the order printed, but not sooner than 1 hour after the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services or a designee announces from the floor a request to that effect.

H.R. 4200 comes at a particularly crucial time for our Nation's Armed Forces. The Iraqi conflict and our continuing war on terrorism have brought a renewed and proper focus to national defense. This legislation addresses the needs of a Nation at war on multiple fronts. It contains $422.2 billion for the Department of Defense, DOD, and the national security programs of the Department of Energy, DOE. It also provides an additional $25 billion in emergency budget authority to partially cover the projected costs of continuing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The primary focus of this legislation is protecting our troops on the battlefield. Our men and women in uniform depend on having the necessary systems and equipment to be successful in accomplishing their mission. Many of us have been concerned about the lack of armor available for our Humvees and other trucks. This bill addresses that concern by providing $829.6 million for production of up-armored Humvees. This improved ballistic Humvee will protect our soldiers from antipersonnel, armor-piercing munitions and improvised explosive devices. These are most commonly referred to as IEDs when we hear news reports.

It also provides $358.2 million for vehicle add-on armor kits for the Army's truck fleet. Most importantly, it gives the military new authorities to speed critical weapons and equipment to the troops in the battlefield.

In the near future, the outcome of our war against terror depends on the courage of our personnel who are on the front lines. We owe so much to our men and women in uniform, and their success in Iraq and Afghanistan is a testimony to their bravery, training, and equipment and their commitment to defend our freedoms. It is the means by which we meet our commitment to provide them a decent quality of life with an across-the-board 3.5 percent pay increase for military personnel.

We need pay to sustain the commitment and professionalism of America's all-volunteer armed services and the families that support them. It increases the limit on hardship duty pay from $300 to $750 per month. It makes permanent the increased rate for imminent danger pay from $150 to $225 a month and more than doubles the rate for the family separation allowance from $100 to $250 per month.

Our soldiers also need to know that while they are deployed, we are praying for them and their safe return. I was told by a soldier in my district that the most important thing to a soldier who is serving overseas was knowing that their family is being taken care of and supported and they are safe at home. If these men and women are willing to lay down their lives for us, then the least we can do for them is to pray for them and to take care of their families while they are gone.

For this purpose, I have created a Web site. It is Honoring Heroes.com. It is a one-stop-shopping resource where folks can go to learn about supporting our troops and their families at home. On the site visitors will find links and resources to help support the families of our men and women who are overseas. And as we approach Memorial Day, one can also find on the Web site a list of those who have given the ultimate sacrifice during the war in Iraq. We must always remember them.

I commend the gentleman from California (Chairman Hunter) and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the ranking member, for crafting this legislation that will really, truly strengthen America's military. It proposes the largest increase in military end strength in decades by increasing the active duty Army by 30,000 personnel and the Marine Corps by 9,000.

Even before Operation Iraqi Freedom, the global war on terrorism, and the commitment to homeland security, the Armed Forces had insufficient manpower for existing wartime and peacetime requirements.

Now more than anytime in our Nation's history, we are relying on these men and women who so faithfully serve our country in the National Guard. H.R. 4200 contains language that will help us to continue to provide strong support for our National Guard.

In my State of North Carolina, universities and community organizations will be coming together to help develop a comprehensive program to effectively support these soldiers. The bill recognizes the importance of this program and provides language to help integrate the National Program for Citizen Soldier support with the Defense Department's ongoing effort to support our men and women in uniform.

The bill also recognizes the importance of our Nation's continued development of advanced weaponry and technology. Included in this bill is the support of further exploration of the use of lithium batteries on the battlefield.

Finding a safe, cost-effective, and portable energy source for our men and women in the Armed Forces should be a top priority of the Department of Defense. I am pleased to see this year's bill addresses the need for our military to develop new and powerful alternative energy sources.

However, there is one amendment the Committee on Rules made in order that I strongly oppose, the Davis of California amendment. It would allow abortions on our military bases overseas. Military treatment centers, which are dedicated to healing and nurturing life, should not be forced to facilitate the taking of the most innocent human life, the child in the womb. For the past 7 years, the House has voted to keep abortion on demand out of military medical facilities, and I urge my colleagues to stay on this course and vote against this amendment.

That said, this is a fair rule. So let us pass the rule and pass the underlying defense authorization bill. At the end of the day, we will be making our homeland safer and we will be supporting our sons and daughters who are serving us in the military. We will be preparing for war, thereby ensuring victory. And at this crucial time in our history, this bill is most important.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder), a member of the Committee on Rules.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton).

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to note for clarification, there have been press people coming and going ever since we have been doing this rule.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), the distinguished chairman of this committee, who has done a phenomenal job in putting this bill together.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would just like to respond to the gentleman that I am not sure when he testified, but other than having a lunch appointment and voting on the floor, I was in that hearing the whole time; and I would also like to say, there is a total of 9\1/2\ hours of debate on this bill. It is not just 2 hours.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton).

Mr. Speaker, I reserve my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), the chairman of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), the chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

(Mr. GOSS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), the chairman of the committee.

Yes, I do object.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to urge my colleagues to support this national defense authorization bill. I will leave aside my disappointment on the rule. We are past that, and we are now discussing the bill in general debate.

This bill is a good bill. It is a solid bill, and I wish first to thank the chairman, the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) for his work, for his collegial markup, and for his leadership on the bill, as it was in the committee and reported to the House. We thank the gentleman for that.

This bill is an important one because it funds the military for a year, which is good news for the United States military. For those in uniform at the individual level, it makes a number of improvements on how our soldiers live. Most significantly, it raises the cap on family housing construction. Military service can weigh heavy on a family, and I believe it is much easier for a deployed soldier to know that the family back home is living in decent conditions.

The 3.5 percent larger paycheck, of course, helps. The bill also increases the end strength, that is, the troop strength of the Army and Marine Corps. Since 1995, I have been urging this and as a result in the supplemental part, the $25 billion part of this bill, which is something which should have been done and is done, we are increasing the Army in strength by 10,000, 30,000 over 3 years; and the Marine Corps by 3,000, 9,000 over 3 years.

More broadly, the bill provides funding for the next few months of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was disappointed to receive a budget request that pretended we could not foresee at least some of the level of military activity. I recently wrote that, based on historical precedent, U.S. forces may be in Iraq for the next 50 years.

Whether that is true or not, we can be sure they will be there for more than 3 months.

We are in a war. Neither the country nor this Congress was united in initiating the conflict, but we stand now as one with the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines fighting it. I expect that much of the debate over the next 2 days will concern Iraq, and rightly so. Let me mention two points, if I may.

First, events of recent weeks, from open questions relating to the transition of sovereignty, to real questions about the role of private military contractors providing security services, to the disturbing events at Abu Ghraib prison highlight the Congress's need to get better information and to take our oversight role more seriously. These are issues critical to our country's security and to our role in the world. This bill makes some steps in those directions.

Second, though, it is important that we not let a focus on the current conflict blind us to the needs of the future. This bill says fiscal year 2005; but the force structures, platforms and policies addressed in it will shape the military for 40 years or more. We have to be prepared for the full range of threats to our Nation and its interests.

We have learned lessons from the past. We have learned some real-life lessons from attempting to rapidly acquire equipment to protect our forces in Iraq. Those lessons have been incorporated into this bill where there is streamlining acquisition language to help protect those who are in harm's way.

I am disappointed in the bill's approach to nuclear weapons development and not going further to fund the foreseeable costs of our current operations. I was disappointed, too, that the amendment of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Linda Sanchez) to conform the Uniform Code of Military Justice was not allowed to be on this floor.

But, Mr. Chairman, we are at war. A few moments ago, we paid tribute to those who have served and do serve in uniform on a resolution involving the poppy, which we all wear. But the best thing we can do for those currently serving is to pass this bill to make sure they have the wherewithal to continue fighting and keeping the peace and stability in those far corners of the world. It is one way to say thank you, we support you, not just in words but by our votes today.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Ortiz), the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Readiness.

(Mr. ORTIZ asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New

York (Mr. Israel), a member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Reyes), ranking member on the Strategic Forces Subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner), the ranking member of the Select Committee on Homeland Security and a member of the Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), the ranking member on the Committee on the Budget and also a distinguished member of the Committee on Armed Services.

(Mr. SPRATT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Projection Forces.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Snyder), the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Total Force.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Loretta Sanchez), a member of the Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper), a member of our Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire of the time remaining, please.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis), a member of the Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan), the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Terrorism and Unconventional Threats and Capabilities.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

If the gentleman will yield, I am familiar with the article and I have asked my staff to make official inquiry with the Reserve component of the United States Army to answer this.

I think coercion is certainly absolutely wrong. I would say to the gentleman that we would do everything we could to correct the mistake. I am certainly positive that the military would stand behind a mistake that they made.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

May I respond to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham), my friend. I am most appreciative of his kind words.

This is a very important bill, Mr. Chairman. We are at war. Needless to say, a lot of legislative work went into this bill, and of course there are some disappointments that go along with it. But the bottom line is, it is going to be very helpful in both the anti-guerrilla effort in Iraq and the antiterrorism effort in Afghanistan as well as supporting the troops all over the globe.

Cicero once said that gratitude is the greatest of all virtues, and through this legislation, in our own way, Mr. Chairman, we are expressing our gratitude to the young men and young women who wear the uniform of our country. We thank them for doing their duty, for understanding what their duty is, for being professionals at what they are, and bottom line, being patriotic.

So we thank them in so many ways, in the amendments and in the paragraphs and the figures, as well as in the speeches in this Chamber, the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), my friend, our chairman, and Members on both sides of the aisle.

So, Mr. Chairman, I fully support the bill. And at the end of this debate, I say thank you to the troops and I thank the majority, especially our chairman, for the cooperation that we have had.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

(Mr. FROST asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, the annual defense authorization bill is always one of the most important bills this Congress considers. Having spent my last 25 years in Congress working hard to ensure a strong national defense, it is a bill that I have always supported, and this year the defense authorization bill is more important than ever.

This past December, I spent several days in Iraq where I had the opportunity to meet with rank-and-file soldiers on the front lines and thank them personally for their distinguished service and personal sacrifice. And I was reminded of this enormous sacrifice upon my return. The cargo plane that took us out of Baghdad carried the coffins of two American soldiers who had been killed just 3 days before Christmas.

It seems like almost every night, Americans turn on the news at home and see nothing but reports of the violence in Iraq and hear comments from politicians and pundits debating decisions made here in Washington. But when I turn on NBC News or CNN or any of the other networks, I cannot help but recall the selflessness and courage that I saw in our soldiers, and the mix of pride and sorrow I felt on that flight home.

America's sons and daughters in Iraq represent our country well, but their job continues to be very difficult and very dangerous, and it will not be over anytime soon. It is clear that American troops will be based in Iraq for at least the next year and possibly longer.

And that is why the bill before us today is so important. Before anything else, the defense authorization bill is a bill to support our troops. The funding in the bill today will keep our service men and women in Iraq and around the world safe, provide them with the tools they need to fight the war on terror, and give them and their families a better quality of life.

First and foremost, we provide $25 billion in supplemental funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to ensure that our troops have everything they need to conduct the war on terror and return home to their families safely. We provide over $1 billion for armored Humvees and body armor. We help ensure the strength of our military by adding 39,000 more Army and Marine Corps troops.

We make sure that our troops experience a good quality of life by giving them a 3.5 percent pay raise, and we help ensure that all of our fighting men and women receive health care by expanding TRICARE coverage to Reservists and their dependents.

The bill also helps those who have served our country so honorably over the years by making sure that those who are left behind when a soldier falls receive the full benefits that they deserve through the Survivor Benefit Plan.

And while there are a great many provisions here we can take pride in, Mr. Speaker, the bill before us today is by no means perfect. There remain a number of serious issues that we must resolve.

This morning, in the Committee on Rules, my colleagues and I tried to offer an amendment to the rule which would have more than doubled the amount authorized for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the supplemental. Similarly, we tried to provide $414 million to provide fair pay and benefits for our troops.

There are a great many Members who support these provisions, Mr. Speaker. They have broad support throughout the House, but they were, like dozens of other important amendments offered in the Committee on Rules, denied a vote on the floor by the Republican leadership. That is a shame, Mr. Speaker, because we all want what is best for our troops.

Because this House was denied the opportunity to consider a great many important amendments, I will be voting ``no'' on today's rule. I will also be urging a ``no'' vote on the previous question so that we may consider one of the amendments that was denied, the amendment of the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) to provide fair pay and benefits for the troops.

That said, despite what happened at the Committee on Rules this morning, I stand in strong support of the underlying bill and our troops. There has never been any doubt that this House, this Nation, and its people stand 100 percent behind our men and women in uniform, fighting to secure peace the world over.

I hope we can soon continue the discussion on how best to provide for our service men and women and keep our Nation safe. And although I will be voting against the rule today, I will be voting for the underlying bill. It is the right thing to do, and I urge my colleagues to join me in voting ``yes'' on the authorization bill today.

I only wish that the majority leadership, in the spirit of bipartisanship that normally surrounds defense measures, had permitted some very important amendments to be offered. And we will be hearing from some of my colleagues in the rest of the debate on this rule about how strongly they feel about their rights being denied here on the floor today.

When we are trying to promote our military and trying to do the right thing around the world, we should promote democracy here on the floor of the House and not stifle it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the ranking member of the Committee on Armed Services, who was denied the opportunity to offer key amendments.

(Mr. SKELTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt).

(Mr. SPRATT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper).

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the time remaining on each side.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. John).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman), the ranking member on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Matheson).

Mr. Speaker, how much time remains on our side?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to vote ``no'' on the previous question and on the rule. If the previous question is defeated, I will offer an amendment to the rule that will make in order the amendment offered by the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), which the Committee on Rules defeated on a straight party-line vote early this morning and for which unanimous consent was just denied.

Mr. Speaker, this is the second year in a row the Republican leadership has chosen to throw away the long-standing tradition of bipartisan cooperation in shaping our national defense policies. Nearly 100 amendments, most of them by Democratic Members, were shut out of the rule, including the Spratt amendment. It is a very sad day for the American people and particularly for those serving in the military.

Partisan politics have absolutely no place when it comes to protecting the brave American men and women who are serving in our military in harm's way. The Spratt amendment would provide $300 million additional dollars to give well-deserved pay raises to the sergeants and warrant officers who train and lead enlisted personnel. His amendment also guarantees military personnel serving in combat zones will have life insurance.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the amendment and extraneous materials be inserted in the Record immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question and a ``no'' vote on the rule.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.