Providing for further consideration of the bill (H.R. 1540) to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2012 for military activities of the Department of Defense and for military construction, to prescribe military personnel strengths for fiscal year 2012, and for other purposes.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule.

All Members of this House are strongly committed to protecting our national security regardless of party, region or political point of view. It has been the tradition of the House Armed Services Committee, at the staff and member level, to work in a bipartisan way to carefully craft the annual Defense authorization bill.

I recognize Chairman Buck McKeon and Ranking Member Adam Smith for continuing that collegiality.

Given such a tradition, it comes as a surprise to see so many provisions in H.R. 1540 that attempt to repudiate and attack several of the President's national security policies: from warehousing low-level detainees for an indeterminate amount of time, to delaying the implementation of the repeal of Don't Ask-Don't Tell, to hamstringing the implementation of the bipartisan-supported New START Treaty, to seeking a so-called ``updated'' authorization for the use of military force that no longer references the devastating 9/11 attacks against America but, instead, gives broad authority to the executive branch to pursue military operations anywhere and for any length of time.

Such changes have all the appearance of a partisan agenda.

Yesterday, I expressed my hope that the Rules Committee would make in order amendments so that a broad range of issues and recommendations might be considered and voted upon by this body. Over 200 amendments were submitted to the Rules Committee for consideration, and 152 amendments were made in order; but each amendment only receives 10 minutes of debate time, evenly divided between supporters and opponents.

When the House is debating whether to significantly change and expand the authority under which the President--any President--may send our servicemen and -women into harm's way without consulting Congress and under the vague terminology of fighting global terrorism, is 10 minutes really enough time to give this grave matter the attention it deserves?

When military operations are underway in Libya, is 10 minutes really enough time to debate whether ground troops should not be deployed under any circumstances?

A number of amendments submitted to the Rules Committee focused on the future of our policy and military operations in Afghanistan. As most of my colleagues know, I believe we need to rethink our strategy in Afghanistan. It has demanded the lives of 1,573 of our servicemen and -women, and has gravely wounded tens of thousands of our troops. Suicide rates among our veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq have soared; and right now, there is no genuine path aimed at ending our military footprint in Afghanistan--no exit strategy.

The death of Osama bin Laden creates an opportunity for us to reexamine our policy in Afghanistan and to ask the President exactly how and when he will bring the last troops home to their families and to their communities.

This is a moment to bring fresh eyes to the question of what kind of defense priorities and budget best fit the needs of our Nation and our national security, especially in these difficult economic times. This is a matter that touches every single American and especially our uniformed men and women, their families and their communities.

How can we make any decision on budget priorities unless we know how much longer this war is going to last?

Already, it is the longest war in our Nation's history. It is bankrupting our Nation. Every day, every week, every month, we see billions and billions of

dollars charged to the national credit card, increasing the deficit, increasing the debt--with no end in sight.

We see corruption everywhere within the Karzai government in Afghanistan, and we see the basic needs of our own communities--roads, bridges, clean water systems, education, health care, and hunger programs--cut or eliminated for lack of funds.

Where does it all end? When does it all end? On a matter this important, shouldn't we be engaged in debate for more than 10 minutes?

I am pleased that the amendment I submitted with cosponsors Walter Jones, Loretta Sanchez, Justin Amash, John Lewis, Ron Paul, David Cicilline, and Peter Welch was made in order. We have 5 minutes to describe why the President needs to clearly lay out to Congress, to the American people, to our military men and women, and to our military families exactly how and when we will complete the accelerated transition of our military operations to the Afghan authorities--5 minutes, Mr. Speaker--not to mention why the President needs to accelerate talks to achieve a political solution and reconciliation in Afghanistan and why we need to have a new National Intelligence Estimate, not just a report from the National Counterterrorism Center on the leadership, locations and capacity of al Qaeda.

Five minutes.

This Defense bill would give the executive branch carte blanche to fight global terrorism anywhere and by any means, but we don't even have an up-to-date NIE on al Qaeda.

That's not debate, Mr. Speaker. Quite frankly, it's an insult, not to mention that, if we add up the time of all the amendments, at best, the debate on the future of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan might begin as early as 10 or 11 o'clock tonight--but, most likely, even later. Mr. Speaker, there is no reason to rush this bill through just because Members were told they could fly out of town at 3 o'clock tomorrow. We could stay on Friday or we could continue the debate on the amendments next week.

War. The very lives of our uniformed men and women. Libya. Unchecked power granted to the executive versus the constitutional responsibility of Congress to declare war or to authorize the specific use of our military might around the world. These are matters that deserve much greater attention than what is granted under this rule.

I urge my colleagues to support the McGovern-Jones-Sanchez-Amash- Lewis-Paul-Cicilline-Welch amendment on Afghanistan when it comes up for debate late this evening; and I ask my colleagues to reject this rule, which denies this House the ability to debate these grave matters in the manner they deserve and require.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments, although I do continue to believe that on these great issues that we need more than 5 minutes to be able to present our case. Our entire policy in Afghanistan, we are given 5 minutes to debate the issue. I don't think that that's right.

I would now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

I am happy to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Guam (Ms. Bordallo).

I yield the gentlewoman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, let me again express my disappointment with the lack of time that we are being allowed to debate some very, very important issues that impact everybody, every single person in our country: issues of war; issues of granting the executive branch this new broad authority to be able to go to war any time they want without even consulting the United States Congress, giving them these unilateral powers which I believe

is not what our Founding Fathers ever anticipated; issues involving Libya; and I could go on and on and on, not to mention some of the issues that were not allowed to be brought up at all, and Ms. Bordallo just mentioned one of them. I don't understand why that was not made in order.

But in this House of Representatives, since the new majority took over, we debate trivial issues passionately and important ones not at all. You know, we spent hours debating whether we should defund National Public Radio. But on the issue of Afghanistan, what our policy should be in Afghanistan, we have over 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, we are borrowing over $8.2 billion a month--a month, a month--to pay for Afghanistan, that is all going on our credit card. That is going, adding to our deficit, to our debt. Our kids and grandkids are going to pay for the fact that we are not paying for it now. Those issues deserve more than a few minutes of debate.

Again, I have an amendment on Afghanistan to encourage the President to rethink our policy and to develop an exit strategy, and I and all the other Members who are cosponsoring my bill, my amendment, are given 5 minutes--5 minutes--to talk about this issue. Surely we could spend at least another 5 minutes on top of that--I mean, hopefully even longer--being able to discuss this important issue.

I regret that, because I think we need to be debating and discussing what we are doing in Afghanistan. I think it is important. I think the American people want us to figure a way out, and yet we give them 5 minutes to be able to debate this issue. I think that is regrettable.

[From http://www.thenation.com, May 10, 2011]

End the War in Afghanistan, and Begin Nation-Building Here At Home

(By Rep. Jim McGovern and Rep. Walter Jones)

This week we joined with over a dozen of our colleagues--

Republican and Democrat--to introduce new legislation to

require the Obama Administration to present an exit strategy

for U.S. forces from Afghanistan.

Specifically, our bill (the ``Afghanistan Exit and

Accountability Act'') would: require the President to

transmit to Congress a plan with timeframe and completion

date on the transition of U.S. military and security

operations in Afghanistan to the Government of Afghanistan;

require the President to report quarterly (i.e. every 90

days) on the status of that transition, and the human and

financial costs of remaining in Afghanistan, including

increased deficit and public debt; and; included in those

quarterly reports, the President must disclose to Congress

the savings in 5-year, 10-year and 20-year time periods were

the U.S. to accelerate redeployment and conclude the

transition of all U.S. military and security operations to

Afghanistan within 180 days (i.e. 6 months).

The operation that resulted in the killing of Obama bin

Laden demonstrated that the men and women of our armed forces

and intelligence community are incredible people. The world

is now a better, safer place.

The question then becomes: now what? Now that bin Laden is

dead and Al Qaeda is scattered around the globe, does it

really make sense to keep using over 100,000 U.S. troops to

occupy Afghanistan and prop up a corrupt government? We don't

think so.

Remember--we didn't find bin Laden on the front lines of

Afghanistan. He was comfortably holed up in a mansion in

Pakistan. We must continue to target Al Qaeda wherever in the

world they are. But continuing to be bogged down in

Afghanistan makes that mission harder, not easier.

In December, Afghan President Hamid Kharzai made it clear

that he would rather align himself with the Taliban than with

the United States. So why on earth are we sacrificing so much

in terms of dead and wounded soldiers and billions of dollars

to support him?

We believe that bin Laden's death creates an opportunity to

re-examine our policy and to require the Administration to

tell us exactly how and when we will end our massive troop

presence in Afghanistan.

Our bill requires the President to give Congress a concrete

strategy and timeframe for bringing our servicemen and women

home to their families and communities, and it requires

quarterly reports on the human and financial costs of

continuing the war--and how much we would save if we withdrew

our forces within a reasonable time frame.

That's not too much to ask.

To make it worse, we're not even paying for the war. It's

on the national credit card. The war in Afghanistan adds $100

billion a year--$2 billion each week, $8 billion each month--

to our debt.

We're told that we can't afford vital domestic funding, but

we should continue to borrow billions and billions of dollars

for nation-building in Afghanistan. Instead, we should be

doing some more nation-building right here at home. Why don't

we take some of those billions to build roads and bridges and

schools right here in the United States?

In the end, of course, only President Obama can bring an

end to the war. But Congress must play a role, as well. For

too long, Congress has ducked its proper oversight

responsibilities when it comes to the war in Afghanistan.

We've avoided meaningful debate and discussion and have

chosen to simply ``go along to get along.''

The President told us that we will see a substantial

drawdown of troops in July. He needs to keep that promise.

And he needs to tell us when all of our troops will be coming

home, and how much staying in Afghanistan will continue to

cost the American people--in sacrificed lives, wounded bodies

and minds, and U.S. tax dollars--until this war is finally

over.

That's what our bill would require. We are hopeful that

with enough public pressure, we can provide some wind at the

back of the President to help him do the right thing.

This war is the longest in our history. There's no end in

sight. It's time to stop digging.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would again remind my colleagues that on the issue of what our future should be in Afghanistan, those of us who want us to rethink our policy and develop an exit strategy are given 5 minutes--5 minutes. We could debate whether we should fund National Public Radio or not for hours, and all the other items on the Republican social agenda for hours and hours and hours, but when it comes to the issue of war, we are told you get 5 minutes. I don't think that's adequate.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

I yield the gentlelady an additional 1 minute.

I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

I yield the gentlewoman 1 additional minute.

I yield myself the balance of the time.

Mr. Speaker, let me close by making a couple of points here. First, I would urge everybody, Democrats and Republicans, to support the McGovern-Jones amendment on Afghanistan. I think there is bipartisan concern and bipartisan anxiety about our policy. I think there are Republicans, as well as Democrats, who believe that it's time to rethink this strategy and to come up with an exit strategy to bring our troops home, to bring them back to their families and to bring them back to their communities.

We need to make our voices heard. The President has said in July he is going to make an announcement about the drawdown of American troops. We're hearing from some sources that it may be only a token drawdown. We need a real drawdown, a significant drawdown, because if not, we are going to be engaged in a war that has no end.

We are borrowing money like there's no tomorrow to pay for this war; $8.2 billion a month we're borrowing. We're not even paying for it. For those who support this war, I would say that if you support it, then pay for it. And I will tell you that most of the people across this country believe it's time to leave. We're supporting a corrupt government. The Karzai government is corrupt. There's no question about it. By every measure, they are wasting our money. And this is not a man, quite frankly, who our American servicemen and -women should have to die for.

We are nation-building in Afghanistan when we should be doing nation- building here in the United States. My district is not unique in its need for more investments in roads and bridges. We need more investments in job creation to put people back to work. People want to invest here in the United States because national security also means whether or not people have a job, whether or not people can earn a living.

I would urge, again, my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to help me and help Mr. Jones and the others who cosponsored this amendment, put a little wind behind the President's back in July so that he makes a meaningful announcement so that we can see the light at the end of the tunnel so that there is an exit strategy.

Mr. Speaker, let me also urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question. If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to make in order H.R. 1979 by Mr. Andrews of New Jersey, to expand eligibility for concurrent receipt of military retired pay and veterans disability compensation to include chapter 61 disability retirees, to increase the monthly amount of special survivor indemnity allowance for widows and widowers of deceased members of the Armed Forces and to enhance the ability of members of the Reserve components who serve on active duty or perform active service in support of a contingency operation or in other emergency situations to receive credit for such service in determining eligibility for early receipt of nonregular service retired pay.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the Record along with extraneous materials immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question so we can help our veterans, and I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Amendment Offered by Mr. Bishop of Utah

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

Madam Chair, I support the amendment being offered.

With that, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko).

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra).

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Baca).

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Cuellar).

I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).

I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I claim the time in opposition.

I do rise to oppose this amendment. I am very sympathetic to the direction that the sponsor is headed--the notion that we need to make sure that if people see something that is a threat to them, or the service, or to our national interests at all, they should feel free reporting it.

The problem I have with this amendment is current law protects that. We have current statute with whistleblower protection that very clearly says that if you have any reason to believe that something is going on that is counterproductive or detrimental to the United States' interests or security, you are free to report that to the appropriate superiors. That law is there and is protected.

Now I will agree with the sponsor that people nonetheless are reluctant to come forward and provide that information. But what we need to do is we need to educate people about that protection being there in the current law.

What this amendment does is broadens that to the point where it's going to sweep a lot of stuff up that we don't want to hear about. It isn't necessarily going to make it any more likely that what we want to hear about is going to be reported by saying ``ideologically based threats or actions.'' That is beyond broad, it almost is beyond definition. It is the freedom to say anything about anyone any time with this protection, which I don't think we want, which I think would undermine the broader mission.

So the current law makes it clear. If you are a servicemember who sees a threat or perceives a threat for any reason, ideologically based or otherwise, frankly I don't see why it makes any difference whether or not it's ideologically based; we want it reported.

So that is current law, it's protected. We need to make sure that everyone, not just servicemembers, but everyone in society feels free to report such threats to the appropriate authorities.

This amendment is overly broad and would cause more trouble than it would solve. So, therefore, I oppose the amendment and urge the body to do so.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

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

Madam Chair, just to close, I agree with the gentleman's remarks.

Let me just say if I thought that there was the tiniest little bit possibility that this amendment would prevent the type of tragedy that happened at Fort Hood, I would support it unquestionably, but I don't believe it will. The concerns, the back and forth about whether or not to report something that is concerning, they exist, they need to be dealt with. They will exist whether or not this amendment is passed.

We need to work to educate people to report threats, but making it ideologically based, I think, opens up more problems and shifts the focus away from what we need. And what we need is whether the threat is ideological or whatever the cause, we need to encourage people to go to their superiors, report it, and make sure that they are better safe than sorry. I would encourage that, but I don't think this amendment does that. Again, I would urge a ``no'' vote.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise in opposition to this amendment for a couple of reasons. First of all, I'm curious about the ``we're not actually going to fund it out of DOD, we will fund the money somewhere else in conference'' argument because it's funded out of DOD right now. Unless this is now being offered as a sense of Congress with no money attached to it, in a minute I would be curious to hear exactly how that works.

But beyond that, this is not what is in the best interests of the children of our servicemembers. To give them a $7,500 voucher to go get special needs education is a license for them not to get the education they need. As everyone in this body knows, the costs of

special needs children can sometimes be as much as $100,000 a year to our public schools. There are some children out there who have some very, very strong needs.

Fortunately, because of the IDEA, the public schools in this country are 100 percent obligated to meet that need. Talk to any school superintendent who has to deal with this, it's an enormous cost, but it's also an enormous benefit to these children. They have to meet those needs, and if they don't, it is precisely the parent who has the law on his or her side to say the public school must meet that requirement.

If you give them a $7,500 voucher and send them off to whatever private school is out there, they are not subject to those same requirements. They do not have to meet that same dollar value. What you are doing is you are undermining the education for these special needs children in a way that could be very detrimental to our families.

Now, we had a very long debate on this in the Armed Services Committee. This amendment was defeated on a bipartisan basis in committee for a variety of different reasons. I want to make it clear, it was stated throughout, how can you not care about the children of our servicemembers, and more than one Member on our side said, we do. This is not what this is about. We absolutly care about the children of our servicemembers. We want them to get the best education possible. But taking special needs families, giving them a $7,500 voucher and sending them out into the public and private school world and saying, good luck, is not what is in the best interests of parents with special needs children. It simply isn't. They are not getting the type of protections that they have under the law if they go out in that situation.

I would strongly urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield myself the remainder of my time.

I find that last argument interesting to say that they move around a lot. I think that is very true. I think they do, and that is a challenge. And they don't have time to make all of these decisions. But they do have time to take a $7,500 voucher and search across all the different schools to see which private schools are going to take it. Because keep in mind, that's another critical aspect of this. Private schools do not have to accept a single solitary student. They don't. You show up with a $7,500 voucher and they say, we're sorry, your child is going to cost more than that. They just say no and move on.

Public schools do have to accept these children and do have to fund it. I really do believe that this will be a step in the wrong direction. The cost is also going to be an issue. We are going to have to find the money for this somewhere. It's not going to improve the education or the lives of our servicemembers and their families, and it is going to wind up costing money.

Again, I would urge a ``no'' vote;

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I support the amendment.

I have no speakers at this time; so I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

I'm happy to yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, this may not be the best way to get at this problem, but this is a problem. There is nothing wrong with competition, but what's happening right now with a lot of DOD contracts is not competition. The DOD has gone in, in a very arbitrary way, picked large contractors from a long ways away, and not even allowed, in many instances, local contractors to compete for that work.

This is a very real problem. It's a bipartisan problem. We had a Republican Member testify before the Armed Services Committee about his concerns about this. They are driving work away from local contractors and away from local workers, not allowing them to compete for that work by showing a bias in favor of a large, one-size-fits-all contractor. Not good for the Department of Defense.

Also, with all of our bases, the local community is a critical support structure for that base. Once you take that out, once you take local workers, local contractors out of the equation, it makes it that much more difficult to get the local community to give the base the support that it deserves. This is not competition as it's currently constructed. I applaud the gentleman for offering his amendment. I urge support, and I urge that this committee look more closely at this issue.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

I do oppose the gentleman from Connecticut's amendment on the grounds that it's really bad policy.

Having spent several years working with the acquisition system, that is relatively complicated throughout the Department of Defense, to add one more layer of considerations to that system is, in my view, wrongheaded.

While the amendment allows this information to be provided, it provides for some punitive teeth in the amendment that should a contractor, either in good faith or bad faith, overstate the number of jobs created or retained, then that contractor would be debarred from being able to participate in the acquisitions process.

At the end of the day, at the beginning of the day, whatever part of the day you want to talk about, acquisition by the Department of Defense should be about something this straightforward. It should be about buying the gear, the equipment, and the goods and services our warfighters need at the time they need it at a price that is appropriate for the taxpayer to pay. And while jobs get created under that circumstance, that should not be a consideration as to what the warfighter needs, how we get it, how it's acquired, and that process.

My colleague has said this is simply a suggestion. That's how you get to mandatory. He already said, if it were up to him, it would be mandatory. We put this in as a ``suggestion,'' and the next step will be for him to ask that it be made mandatory and that we drive higher costs into the systems, because then the criterion for deciding on a contract is not is this the goods and service that we need at a price we can afford, and, oh, by the way, which one of these guys uses the most number of people to do that. That's counter to getting the best deal for the American taxpayer.

I want the contractors to use whatever the appropriate number of people is to build a piece of equipment that we need, provide a good or service that we need at a cost that the American taxpayer can afford.

At a time when we're going to squeeze on the Department of Defense to force higher costs through this policy, in my view, is wrongheaded.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I would just simply respond that, again, the value for the taxpayer at the end of the day is what we need to do.

We're going to have to cut costs across this government, and that's going to mean that people are going to have to do something differently than they have done in the past. And to simply say that the American manufacturing jobs should have absolute preference over getting the best deal for the taxpayer, in my view, doesn't make sense.

We've got a very complicated acquisition process in place right now. And it reminds me of the headlines that were shown in the last couple of days of the number of folks who got money from the vaunted stimulus plan that was--in fact, whose sole purpose was to really create jobs, unlike acquisition for the military and Department of Defense whose sole purpose is to provide the goods and services and equipment needed for our warfighters at the point and time they need it at a cost that makes sense for the taxpayer. The job creation of the stimulus plan, that emphasis was flawed in the extreme. And I don't believe that adding that emphasis to defense acquisition will make for a better acquisition process or will make for a better piece of equipment that we get.

And the analogy that the country that goes out of business costs all of these other kinds of things, that's basically hyperbole. I don't think my good colleague has any of the facts to associate that with.

At the end of the day, it's the private sector that drives this economy. You cannot flourish an economy with growing government jobs. It must be in the private sector. The private sector does it best, and this would impede that.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have to oppose the gentleman from California's amendment. While it is straightforward, it is bad policy, quite frankly.

At first blush, where is the 60 miles? It just says ``military installations.'' If you go to Fort Hood, there are a lot of places around that are way further than 60 miles away from the west edge on the east side of the State. The amendment doesn't even say from the flagpole or the central location. Where do you measure the 60 miles? It's kind of a straightforward problem there.

It also doesn't provide for historically underutilized businesses. So you've got an historically underutilized business, a HUB, that is 61 miles outside whatever the measurement might be. They would be excluded under this provision from competing for that 40 percent because they would be an arbitrary 61 miles, 60.5 miles, 60 miles and 1 foot--or whatever the criterion is--which is not stated in this amendment.

You can't fence out competition. I understand that folks don't like to compete. This morning at baseball practice for the Republicans, we had a bunch of new guys out of the 87, and the coach said, Folks, all nine positions are up for competition. Well, I'm No. 2 on the depth chart. I'm not real happy about that, but it spurred me to compete better for that position.

Competition works. It works for the big guys, and it works for the little guys. To arbitrarily and capriciously set a 60-mile perimeter around a military base and say 40 percent of everything has to be provided to the folks inside that is wrong-headed, so I oppose this amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

May I inquire as to how much time is remaining on both sides.

I yield 2 minutes to my colleague from Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster).

Mr. Chair, if I thought there was a mileage issue that made sense, then the proponent's amendment might make sense. But I quite frankly don't believe that is the case. As my colleague from Pennsylvania said, if we need to streamline the processes within the Department of Defense acquisition to allow small businesses to compete regardless of where they are for some of this work, let's do that.

But quite frankly, there is no--and my colleague made the point by saying, well, is it 60? It could be 60, 70, I mean, went up to 60,000-- that would be a bit of a stretch--miles. You can't use a miles fence. And so I am going to oppose the amendment because that's not the way. All of us are for small businesses. There is not anybody in here who is remotely going to stand up and say they are not for small business.

We want small businesses to be able to compete. If there are systemic issues and barriers to them to be able to compete, then let's fix that as opposed to some sort of an artificial cone of protection around a particular set.

The other point I would like to make is what if the subcontracting work that needs to be done is greater than--that would eat into the 40 percent is not available within the 60 miles? And so we just have that work not be done because we couldn't find a contractor. The other thing this would promote is the artificial circumstances where they will set up a shop just inside the 60 miles with a post office box or whatever in order to comply with this artificial restraint of trade, restraint of competition. If we need to fix the way the Department of Defense goes at it, fine. This one is not the way to get at it.

I would urge opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 276 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to claim time in opposition to the point of order.

The following discussion we have just had on the floor is certainly enlightening and interesting. There is much that I think is significant to what has been said by the gentleman from California.

However, Mr. Speaker, if you would forgive me, I need to talk directly to the point of order itself.

The question before the House is, should the House now consider House Resolution 276. While this resolution waives all points of order against consideration of the bill, the Rules Committee is not aware of any point of order. The waiver is prophylactic in its nature. Specifically, the Committee on Rules is not aware of any violation of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act, nor has the Congressional Budget Office identified any violation of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act.

In order to allow the House to continue its scheduled business for the day, I urge Members to vote ``yes'' on the question of consideration of the resolution.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

For the purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) 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.

General Leave

I ask unanimous consent, Mr. Speaker, that all Members may have 5 legislative days during which they may revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, this resolution provides a structured rule for the consideration of 152 individual amendments to H.R. 1540, the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2012.

I would like my colleagues to realize that the Rules Committee received 220 amendments for consideration of this bill; and of the 220 filed, 75 percent of them, or a total of 152, are made in order.

Even more remarkable, the vast majority of those that were not made in order were either withdrawn by the sponsor, were duplicative of other amendments filed, were redundant restatements of provisions already included in the base bill, or violated House rules. So this is an overwhelmingly fair and generous rule, and it continues the record of the Rules Committee in this Congress of making multiple amendments in order as long as they conform to the rules of the House.

One must commend Chairman Dreier for continuing this record of openness. Likewise, I wish to commend the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon), as well as the ranking member, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Smith), for bringing a bill to the floor under a continuing tradition of bipartisanship and mutual cooperation.

Mr. Speaker, sometimes the Congress has a reputation of being contentious and partisan, and that reputation is, unfortunately, occasionally deserved. However, as one who has been a member of the Armed Services Committee and is currently on leave from that committee, I have been pleased to note that, when it comes to providing for the common defense of our country--a core constitutional responsibility-- partisanship has usually been checked at the door with regard to the conduct and the product of the Armed Services Committee in their annual Defense authorization bill, as was this bill, having passed by a vote of 60-1 from committee. This rule builds on that bipartisan tradition when it comes to the Defense bill, and it makes more Democrat amendments in order than Republican amendments.

Yes, you're welcome.

Our Nation faces some daunting challenges: to provide adequate resources for our national defense going forward, to pay personnel and to provide promised benefits for our all-volunteer force. The modernization of our aircraft fleet is slipping further and further behind, and the average age of our fighter jets is 150 percent of their designed capacity. The age of our bombers is at a record high even as demands for their utilization is great in Afghanistan, in Iraq and increasingly in other places in the world. The infrastructure needs of our military continue to slip further and further behind--the cliche is that they're moved to the right--and a backlog of needed improvements to fill vital military missions grows even greater.

A strong national defense is directly related to a strong national economy and to a strong jobs outlook. National defense makes everything else that we enjoy in this country--our cherished way of life, our freedoms--possible.

The underlying legislation, H.R. 1540, does a remarkable job, given all of the fiscal restraints that have been involved, in continuing to provide for our common defense. For that purpose, I wish to inform my colleagues that this is a good bill, and we are adding to that a good and fair rule for the amendments.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Young).

I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton).

I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Missouri (Mrs. Hartzler).

I have a great deal of sympathy for the gentlelady from Guam, and on the Resources Committee where that bill still is, I will work with you on that, but I do object to unanimous consent.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take just one moment to clarify the record with respect to amendment No. 61 by Mr. Conyers in the Rules Committee report. Printed in report 112-88, Mr. Duncan of South Carolina was inadvertently added as a cosponsor to the Conyers amendment No. 61. I want to clarify for the record that Mr. Duncan of South Carolina is not a cosponsor of that particular amendment.

I appreciate the discussion we have had so far. I would like to remind my colleagues here that if every amendment made in order in this rule were to have its maximum amount of time, we would have already approved a maximum of over--well, we have a minimum of 26 hours of debate on this particular issue.

I am appreciative of the concerns of Mr. McGovern of Massachusetts. I also want him to realize there are multiple amendments that were made in order dealing with this and similar subjects. And I am very appreciative that Mr. McGovern, as a veteran of the House, understanding the rules of the House, has been wise enough to use this debate time also for speaking about that particular amendment, which will vastly extend the amount of time he has to cover that issue. That is wise of him; that is good of him.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I offer an amendment to the resolution.

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

I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would require public disclosure of information submitted under section 847 of this act.

This amendment is about bringing more accountability and sunshine to the $379 billion average annual defense contracting business by making a revolving door database, which already exists, publicly available. It would allow the public access to important ethics information about some DOD employees who leave to go through the resolving door to jobs in the defense contracting industry, often with companies with whom they have been negotiating billions of dollars in contracts.

Current and former public servants should not be able to use their positions for private gain, and powerful defense contractors should not be able to rig the system.

But, unfortunately, this relationship is not uncommon. One way contractors gain influence in the government is to hire away civil servants and political appointees with access to inside people and information from their government positions. In some cases, highly skilled and well-connected former senior government officials enter the private sector as executives or officers or lobbyists or on the boards of directors of government contractors, a practice known as the revolving door.

It is also widely acknowledged that there are inherent conflicts of interest in the revolving door, potential ethical problems that can lead to the wasteful spending of taxpayers' dollars and worse.

For this reason, DOD currently collects ethics opinions on certain acquisition employees who go to work for contractors within 2 years of leaving DOD. This amendment would simply require this database to be publicly available online.

This amendment would not add any requirements or change the current post-employment restrictions. The law already requires DOD employees who hold a key acquisition position to obtain a written ethics opinion from a DOD ethics counselor before taking a job with a contractor in the 2 years after leaving DOD.

The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2008 mandated that covered DOD acquisition officials, that would be certain executive schedule, Senior Executive Service, and general or flag officer positions, must obtain a post-employment ethics opinion before accepting a paid position from a DOD contractor within 2 years after they leave DOD service. It also requires that DOD contractors ensure that new hires have an ethics opinion.

The law also requires that each request for a written opinion made pursuant to this section, and each written opinion provided pursuant to such a request, shall be retained by the Department of Defense in a central database for not less than 5 years beginning on the date in which the written opinion was provided.

But these ethics opinions are not currently shared with the public. Why should this information be secret and hidden from public view?

At times the overly cozy relationships between DOD and contractors lead to cost overruns, loose ethical standards, and lack of accountability. This problem is compounded by the dramatic increase in DOD contract spending in recent years. The inability of DOD's acquisition workforce to effectively manage that dramatic growth and increasing industry consolidation have caused DOD to become too dependent on a handful of companies to provide essential goods and services.

It has become impractical or even outright impossible for DOD to bar any of these companies from contracting or impose punishment more severe than a mere slap on the wrist.

Mr. Chair, the examples of lack of accountability are endless:

BAE Systems: Last year, BAE settled an international bribery case in the U.S. and UK for $450 million and pleaded guilty to criminal charges. But it was allowed to keep doing business with the federal government and has won billions of dollars in contracts since then. Even last week's run-in with the State Department, when BAE paid $79 million after State discovered they had withheld vital info while negotiating last year's settlement, hasn't hurt it.

BP: Last year, the EPA was considering debarring BP for its many environmental and workplace safety violations, but DoD pressured them to back off because BP supplies 80 percent of the fuel to U.S. forces.

KBR: Still a key DoD supplier despite a long history of misconduct, including incidents that put the lives of soldiers and employees at risk.

Charles Tiefer of the Commission on Wartime Contracting nicknamed five large companies that do business with DoD (KBR, Agility, Louis Berger Group, Tamimi, First Kuwaiti) the ``Flagrant Five'' for continuing to receive contracts despite claims of fraud, misconduct and poor performance.

At a time when the public is questioning the ethics and integrity of the federal government and its spending of taxpayer dollars, the very least we can do is to shine a little light on the revolving door between the government and large private contractors.

This amendment would do just that.

It would direct DoD to make the information they already collect publicly available online to increase accountability and improve the ethics in relationships between DoD acquisitions and defense contractors. Groups like the nonpartisan Project On Government Oversight have urged DoD to make the database public, to no avail. DoD is not prohibited from putting the information online, but clearly has resisted doing so.

There is no public interest in keeping this information secret or hidden from view. The only interest served by keeping this ethics information in the shadows are those of current and former public servants use their positions for private gain means powerful private corporations can rig the system in their favor. This costs taxpayers, limits or eliminates competition from businesses that may be the best for the job, and results in flawed policies and bad procurement decisions. It also harms the public trust.

Public access to the revolving door database represents the kind of open government that the public wants and deserves, especially at this time of ever-escalating spending of taxpayer dollars by the Pentagon. It will improve the integrity of the federal contracting system, shine light on the revolving door between the Pentagon and the defense industry, and act as a deterrent to overly-cozy relationship that could lead to wasted taxpayer dollars.