Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 4660) making appropriations for the Departments of Commerce and Justice, Science, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2015, and for other purposes; and providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 4435) to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2015 for military activities of the Department of Defense and for military construction, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes.

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

First of all, I want to join the chairman in thanking him for the working relationship that he and I have enjoyed now through 4 years and four national defense authorization acts. It is one of the main principles of our committee in that it is bipartisan, that we work together, and we produce a product every year--52 straight years, the National Defense Authorization Act.

That doesn't happen as a starting point, unless the chair of the committee takes the responsibility very seriously to make sure that our committee remains bipartisan. We have had a whole series of chairmen during my tenure who have done that, and Mr. McKeon has followed that tradition just as well as his predecessors. He has worked very closely with us.

We do not always agree, but we work closely together, understanding that, at the end of the day, we have to produce a bill. So I thank him for that, and I recognize that this will be his last NDAA. In fact, this is the Buck McKeon National Defense Authorization Act. Mr. Thornberry and I were proud to cosponsor the amendment in committee to name this after Buck, for his great service to our committee.

As always, I also want to thank the staff. I can't thank them enough for the work that they do and for the hours that they put in. They spent yesterday going through 320 amendments.

Their expertise that they bring to this process is invaluable, and someday, I hope that the House Administration Committee recognizes that and actually gives us the amount of money we need to keep them. That is just a little sidenote on a different piece of legislation.

This is, by and large, a good bill with one significant problem, which I will get to in a minute.

First of all, as the chairman notes, we are still at war in Afghanistan. I would say that I think, at this point, our continuing commitment to Afghanistan is up to the Afghan people and, most importantly, is up to the next Afghan President. We need the bilateral security agreement to be signed. It has been agreed to.

President Karzai has refused to sign it, but hopefully, the next President will. We have troops in harm's way, and this bill prioritizes protecting them. Nothing is more important than what we do here today.

I am also pleased that this bill prioritizes Special Operations Command and cyber warfare, recognizing, as we heard in the previous piece of legislation about Boko Haram, that the main threat that we face going forward is from terrorism and asymmetric threats.

I think we reflect that in this bill by funding those portions in the Defense Department that deal with those issues, and I think that is incredibly important.

However, we do have a budget problem, and put simply, we have a lot less money now than we thought we were

going to have. So that means that 3 years ago, when the Pentagon was planning what they were going to spend over the course of a decade, they had a much larger number than they have now.

There are a whole bunch of reasons that number has gotten smaller, but it has. It will get even smaller if 8 more years of sequestration come to pass.

Now, the administration put out a plan 3 years ago when they looked out 10 years and said: What should our strategy be? Then they looked out 10 years and said: What are the likely resources?

When they put that plan out, they said: we know we are going to have to live with, roughly, $500 billion less than we thought we were. We can do it. Here is the strategy. Here is the plan that fits that.

Since then, the budget has been shredded. It has been cut by even more. The plan they put forward now recognizes the fact that it doesn't fund what they would like to fund because Congress passed a budget that cuts the Defense Department by more than they would like. In fact, the administration asked for an additional $28 billion this year and an additional $150 billion over 5 years, in order to fully fund that.

That, apparently, is not forthcoming, so what they did is they put forward a series of proposals to try as best as they could to save money in a way that protects our force, and they did it in a number of different areas.

They proposed a BRAC; they proposed about $2 billion in savings over 5 years to various personnel accounts; they got rid of the A-10; they got rid of the U-2; they proposed laying up 14 ships. Those were the main proposals out.

I am sorry. I forgot that they proposed shifting air assets in the Guard and Reserve to save $12 billion over 5 years. Those were the proposals they put on the table.

The problem with this bill is that it rejects every single one of those proposals. How do we make the money work on that? Primarily by creative accounting; with the Guard and Reserve, for instance, we say no changes can be made in 2015.

They weren't planning on making any changes in 2015 that were going to cost money, but if this stops them from doing it going forward, they are put into a deep hole.

On the 14 ships that they wanted to lay up, we raid the modernization account to pay for keeping those 14 ships operational. So we get creative about it, but next year, the reckoning will come, frankly, sequestration or no sequestration. If sequestration happens, it is going to be really bad; but even if it doesn't, we still will not have addressed the long-term needs of our budget.

I will have a couple of amendments, one on BRAC and one on those 14 ships, that will give us an opportunity to, I think, make a better choice because the other way that we are able to preserve those programs is that we cut from the President's budget about $1.8 billion in readiness.

$1.2 billion is clear. The other 633 was to save the A-10, and it comes out of OCO. A good chunk of OCO goes to rebuild readiness; so basically, we take $1.8 billion out of readiness, which puts us down the path to a hollow force that none of us wants. As we go forward to conference, we are going to need to make some of those tougher choices.

I do thank the chairman for his work and for what is contained in this bill. I look forward to debating the amendments, and I look forward to--knock on wood--passing for the 53rd straight year the National Defense Authorization Act, as is our primary responsibility.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin), the ranking member of the Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee.

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

I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from California (Ms. Loretta Sanchez), ranking member of the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee.

I yield the gentlelady an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. McIntyre), the ranking member on the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis), ranking member of the Military Personnel Subcommittee.

I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I now yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Ms. Tsongas), the ranking member of the Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi), a member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gallego), a member of the committee.

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

I just want to again thank the chairman for his leadership and thank all of the folks who have done so much hard work in pulling this bill together.

I will make two other quick points. One, to sort of reemphasize, we have heard a couple of times that this bill makes the tough choices. I can't see one at this point. You know, we have sort of dodged and bobbed and weaved. Some of that I actually support. Some of it made sense.

One of the issues that we have to wrestle with on the committee is how do we preserve the industrial base? When you are talking about making submarines or tanks or jet fighters, if you don't keep making them, you can't say, well, we are going to shut it down for 3 years and then we are going to start making them again, because that workforce is gone, the plants are gone. Those decisions do have to be made.

I just think at this point, on balance, in this instance, every single hard choice that the administration laid out on compensation--I know health care is difficult. I think that the men and women who serve in our military should have the best health care while they are serving and after of anyone in this country, and they will. But there is an important statistic.

In 1996, your average servicemember paid 27 percent of the cost of his or her health care. This year, that number is 10 percent. Why? Because health care costs went through the ceiling, but we didn't raise a single penny in costs for anyone serving in the military. Is that sustainable?

They also make cuts in some of the subsidies for the commissaries, subsidies for housing. They looked for places where they could save some money. Again, no BRAC. Again, the A-10 we keep. The ships we keep. I understand those decisions, but they are building up an awful bellwether.

And the final thing I will say is that I will again bring my amendment on closing Guantanamo Bay. The one thing we are slowly learning is that as we, fortunately, get fewer and fewer inmates in Guantanamo, it becomes more and more expensive to maintain what was supposed to be a temporary facility. Aside from all the arguments about how the international community feels about Guantanamo, arguments that President George W. Bush made when he said he supported closing Guantanamo, it is the sheer cost of maintaining that prison in such an obscure place. So I will again offer that amendment, and again we will have a robust debate on it.

But the one point I want to make on that amendment--we have heard people say, well, gosh, we can't release these people in the United States. We are not

going to release them in the United States. We are going to lock them up, as we currently lock up over 300 terrorists, countless mass murderers, and some of the worst, most violent people this country knows. They are locked up in secure facilities. We can do the same with the dangerous inmates who remain at Guantanamo. But keeping Guantanamo open is not intelligent, both in terms of cost and in terms of our standing in the international community.

With that, I look forward to seeing how many of those 320 amendments the Rules Committee is going to throw at us, and I look forward to a robust debate starting this evening into the next couple of days.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Reserving the right to object, I just want to talk for a moment or two. I hear all that, and I am happy to have the amendment withdrawn. I think this is a bad idea from our side of the aisle. I have talked to a lot of people in the military, and they are deeply concerned about the notion of allowing people to be armed on base at all times. The command structure issues that you mentioned and the rights that are given up, this is something that we would strongly oppose.

I just want to make sure for the Record a colloquy doesn't put something in conference, okay? I don't know what the Senate is going to do. There is nothing in our bill on this. If there is nothing in the Senate bill, it ain't in conference. So, if you want to withdraw it and keep working on the Senate, that is fine. I just want to make sure that we don't have some record here that thinks that, with this colloquy, it makes this a conference issue.

Mr. Chairman, point of parliamentary inquiry, a colloquy does not put an issue in a position to be in conference, does it? It has to be in either the House or the Senate bill?

All right. Well, if the purpose is to withdraw the amendment, I will withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, I am very sympathetic to the problem. This is certainly something that the Afghan Government should not be doing. As I understand the amendment, however, this would require the U.S. Government to reimburse those private companies and then seek reimbursement from the Afghan Government.

At the end of the day, that is the problem and concern that we have on our side is that if we want to take all the deliberate steps that we can to try and require the Afghans to repay this money, that is great-- I can see the little gathering of staff over there that disagrees with me, so maybe we will have to work on this. But as I understand it, if that reimbursement cannot be achieved from the Afghan Government, this would require the U.S. Government, the U.S. taxpayers to reimburse these companies. For that reason, I would be opposed unless someone can convince me otherwise.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

The problems are there in the drafting of this amendment. Yes, first it does ask for the Afghan Government to step up and find money and do this; but if they don't, it does put DOD in the position of reimbursing them. You can say that would just come from money that they would give to Afghanistan anyway, but that money they are giving to Afghanistan, I am not sure if that is true, first of all. Second of all, whatever money we are giving Afghanistan, we are giving it to them for a reason. So I think there is a problem here.

There is also the problem of do we have a list of these contractors who have been illegally taxed versus legally taxed? How do we sort through all of that?

I am not going to belabor the point. I am going to oppose the amendment. I know how this works. I am going to lose. We will work it out in conference. I do have serious concerns about this amendment and the way it is written and urge a ``no'' vote.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I strongly oppose this amendment. It really doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

What the bill does is it says you can't touch these things since until 2021. Now, we don't like that in the first place because this is micromanaging, again, DOD's ability to make decisions about how best to make sure that we maintain our nuclear deterrence. This is a fine example of why DOD is going to be in so much trouble down the road. Any effort they make to save money is going to be blocked by parochial interest. The people who are from there will rise up and say: No, you can't do that, basically because it negatively impacts my constituents.

The thing that is truly awful about this one is it doesn't negatively impact constituents. It says 2021 sunset. And it is not a hard stop date, regrettably. It is 2021 when it sunsets, and any Congress that wants to extend it between now and, I guess that is 7 years from now, can go ahead and extend it.

DOD should not be forced into a position of saying if a silo exists it has to be maintained forever, which is basically what this amendment says. It says it is completely impossible that under any set of circumstances might it be in the best interest of the Department of Defense and the national security of this Nation to get rid of even one silo. That doesn't make any sense.

The underlying bill more than protects the parochial interests of the sponsors here by making sure that DOD can't touch it until 2021. But that is not enough. They have got to offer an amendment to strip it out so that it goes on forever. That simply doesn't make any sense. This is, again, micromanaging for parochial interests. It is just like when DOD wants to move five C-130s from somewhere. The people from there rise up and say we have to stop them. No, we don't. We have to let DOD make intelligent decisions to spend money wisely to best protect national security. At a minimum, we ought to be able to have a sunset 7 years from now without having to remove even that tiny little possibility that a sensible decision might be allowed to be made by the Department of Defense.

I urge opposition of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, there are a lot of competing interests for public lands. Certainly, national security is one of them, but it is not the only one. There is domestic aviation, and there are all kinds of considerations.

This is not terribly binding, as it is a sense of Congress, and so it does not change the law. I do, however, think it sets a bad precedent that, somehow, the Department of Defense is going to hold sway over public lands over all of their interests, regardless of what they are.

We have had many, many interests in our public lands. Certainly, defense is one of them. I don't think it should be paramount. Therefore, I oppose the amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

It sort of depends on why the Forest Service wants to limit that use. If there are other legitimate interests in the area and if the Forest Service doesn't want them test-firing whatever it is they are test- firing, I think we need to have a balance between those interests.

It is conceivable that the Forest Service might have something they are trying to protect that the DOD has not thought about, and I think a balance of those interests is better than making one agency paramount over others.

The Forest Service does not know much about the Department of Defense, but I would submit that the Department of Defense doesn't know much about what the Forest Service is trying to protect. It is a matter of both sides doing their jobs and striking the proper balance, so I would simply urge a ``no'' vote.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

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

Madam Speaker, this is not a normal rule, but it is a fair one. It is unusual because it combines two bills into one rule and makes in order several amendments for one of the bills. What might be unusual for my Republican friends is that I will support it.

The rule makes in order the fiscal year 2015 Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill under an open rule. And although I wish the funding levels were higher, I believe it is a good thing to bring this bill to the floor under an open rule.

This rule also makes in order general debate on the annual defense authorization bill along with seven amendments. That is a little unusual. Normally, the Rules Committee reports two rules: one for general debate and one for consideration of amendments. Now, I don't have any problem with these amendments being made in order, but I will voice my strong concerns tomorrow if the Rules Committee fails to make in order many of the amendments submitted for consideration.

I would like to thank my distinguished colleagues, the chairman, Mr. McKeon, and the ranking member, Mr. Smith, of the Armed Services Committee for their leadership and their hard work in crafting this bill each year and for coming to a bipartisan agreement on so many of the serious matters contained in this bill.

This is a massive undertaking that touches on so many aspects of our defense and national security priorities and the health and the well- being of our military personnel and their families. But there are serious and substantive matters in this bill that we must debate over the next few days because they merit the attention of every single Member of this House.

First and foremost, H.R. 4435 fails to make many of the difficult choices required by our current budgetary constraints and fiscal reality. This is a half-trillion-dollar bill. That is trillion, with a t, Madam Speaker. It provides $513.4 billion in discretionary budget authority. $495.8 billion of that is for the Department of Defense base budget; another $17.6 billion for defense-related activities, mainly nuclear, within the Department of Energy; and another whopping $79.4 billion for the so-called

overseas contingency operations, or OCO.

But according to the Congressional Budget Office, H.R. 4435 decreases direct spending by just $1 million in FY 2015. In a $500 billion bill, we can only find savings of $1 million? There is probably $1 million in the couch cushions at the Pentagon.

Madam Speaker, this Congress just cut $8 billion in the farm bill for the SNAP program. That is an $8 billion cut to help hungry families put food on their table. But we couldn't find more than $1 million next year from the Pentagon budget? Give me a break.

And if sequestration remains the law of the land, these funding levels simply will not stand, and another round of arbitrary reductions will harm our troops, our military civilian workforce, their families, and our military readiness. That is also unacceptable.

So I oppose, and I have always opposed, sequestration for both defense and nondefense programs. But putting forward a bill that fails to make any hard decisions on reducing spending authority is not a solution. In fact, it compounds the problem.

This brings me to Afghanistan, Madam Speaker, where we continue to squander lives and waste money. Since 2001, over 2,300 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan. Nearly 20,000 have been wounded. We lost 127 brave soldiers just last year alone. Estimates are that around 30,000 Afghan civilians have been killed since 2001. And the VA estimates that approximately 22 veterans will die by suicide every day.

Since 2001, we have spent over $700 billion on this war. In this current year, fiscal year 2014, we are spending $7.1 billion every month in Afghanistan.

The President is committed to bringing most of our troops home by the end of the year, and I trust him to keep his word to America's families. But he has also said that he wants to keep some level of forces remaining there, 5,000, maybe 10,000. And he wants to keep them in Afghanistan for an extended period of time.

Whether you support keeping U.S. troops in Afghanistan after 2014 or whether you oppose it, as I do, I would hope that we can all agree that Congress should have a say in whether or not the longest war in American history continues. At a minimum, we owe the thousands of U.S. servicemen and -women who will be called upon to serve for years to come in Afghanistan a vote, and we owe it to their families, and we owe it to the American people.

Now, Congressmen Walter Jones and Adam Smith and I have an amendment pending before the Rules Committee that would call for such a vote, and I hope the Rules Committee makes it in order so that one of the most important matters facing the American people can be debated and voted on.

Last year, 305 Members of this House voted in support of an amendment that we three offered, calling for just such a vote on any post-2014 deployment of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. If that vote is to have any meaning whatsoever, then those same Members and this House must support the McGovern-Jones-Smith amendment once again this year.

And this brings me to the overseas contingency operations, the OCO account. Madam Speaker, this bill authorized $79.4 billion for the OCO account for fiscal year 2015. Now, the last time I looked, the war in Iraq was over; the war in Afghanistan is winding down, with nearly all our troops heading home by the end of the year; and only a much smaller residual force for training operations and some special operations might remain deployed in Afghanistan, depending on what the President asks for. But the OCO funds don't ever seem to go down. The OCO is just $5 billion less than the current fiscal year. It certainly doesn't reflect the changing circumstances on the ground in Afghanistan.

Where is all the money going? A February 28th Pentagon report concludes that the United States Government and its money ``created an environment that fostered corruption'' in Afghanistan. Maybe there are some lessons we need to learn here.

Many assert that the OCO account is nothing more than a slush fund for the Pentagon. If we want to save some money, one of the first places we should look is getting rid of the OCO, putting everything back into the Pentagon base budget, and then taking a long and clear- eyed look at where spending needs to be reduced.

Madam Speaker, there are many other problems with H.R. 4435: it continues to place restrictions on the transfer of inmates in Guantanamo; it undermines our nuclear security cooperation with Russia; it attempts to derail the multiparty negotiations with Iran; and it coddles the nuclear weapons budget. Foolish choices, wasteful spending, and wars without end.

I urge my colleagues to vote to change course, to end the war in Afghanistan, to cut the nuclear arsenal, face reality, and make the tough choices in overall defense spending.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

I yield the gentlelady an additional 1 minute.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the remaining time.

Madam Speaker, as I indicated at the beginning of this debate, we have no objection to this rule. We are glad that the 2015 Commerce- Justice-Science appropriations bill is coming to the floor under an open rule. We have no problem with moving ahead on general debate or the amendments made in order on the Department of Defense authorization bill, and so we support this rule.

It is my hope, as I said earlier, that when the next rule in the defense bill comes to the floor that it will allow for there to be debate on a number of the important issues that Members of this House feel deserve that debate.

I have nothing but the highest regard for all those who serve on the House Armed Services Committee, but I have to say that this bill is too big. It is too big. We have not done a very good job, I don't believe, in this Congress of getting rid of the bloat, the waste, and the duplication within the Pentagon budget. For some reason, we have Members who think that the way you show you are tough in terms of the defense of our country is by supporting bills that add more and more and more money to the Pentagon's budget.

The bottom line is that strong defense doesn't mean wasteful defense. It doesn't mean weapons systems that are obsolete or that are not practical or that are not needed anymore. It doesn't mean a bloated bureaucracy.

Again, as I said earlier, this bill fails to make any of the tough choices. I want to make sure our troops get all the equipment and all the support that they need. I want to make sure that we are prepared for anything that might come at us in the future.

But wasteful defense spending doesn't help us at all. And so there are some significant problems with the underlying bill. In addition to being too big, this bill also fails to cut our nuclear arsenal. We are spending billions and billions and billions of dollars maintaining an arsenal way bigger than anybody believes that we need to, but we don't deal with that issue.

This bill continues to place restrictions on the transfer of inmates from Guantanamo, which is problematic. Again, this bill fails to face reality and make any of the tough choices in terms of overall defense spending.

Again, I will appeal to my colleagues on the Rules Committee to please make sure that we have the opportunity to debate the issue of Afghanistan on this floor. We are at war, and we very rarely discuss it in this Chamber. To those who say, well, it is up to the President to decide whether we stay or go, I will remind my colleagues that we have a role in that, too. Our indifference and our silence over the last several years means we are complicit in this war's continuing, the longest war in the history of our country.

As I said, I will offer an amendment, along with Mr. Jones of North Carolina and Mr. Smith, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, to make it clear that if the President wants to continue the deployment of U.S. forces beyond 2014, which was his stated policy last year, then we ought to vote on it. We ought to vote on it. And if you believe we should stay longer, you can vote ``yes.'' If you believe that enough is enough, then you can vote ``no.'' But after that time, after all this time, we have an obligation in this Congress to speak up and speak out and make sure that our constituents know what we are doing. We cannot allow this war to go on forever on autopilot. We have a responsibility here.

I have heard the arguments of my friends who want to stay. They are compelling arguments. Make them on the House floor, and have the next Congress decide whether or not we should continue the war there.

I will just close with this. When people say to me that there is no place to cut in the Pentagon's budget, I would urge them to talk to some of the men and women who serve in our Armed Forces or some of the men and women who serve in the Pentagon who, over the years, I have met with who talk freely of places where we could cut without sacrificing any of our national security, places we could cut, quite frankly, that will enhance our security, because they believe that wasteful defense spending has no place in our budget, especially during these tough fiscal times.

But I also believe when we talk about national defense it also means the quality of life in our country and whether or not people have a job, whether or not people have adequate health care, whether or not people have access to good education, and whether or not we end hunger and poverty in our country. All those things matter, as well.

So, again, I urge my colleagues to support the rule because, quite frankly, there is no reason to oppose it. And I would urge my friends on the Rules Committee to please be generous in offering and allowing Members to offer many amendments on this bill. This is an important bill not just for people on the Armed Services Committee but for all Members.

With that, Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on H.R. 4435.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 4435, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015.

First, let me express my appreciation to Ranking Member Smith for his leadership and friendship. He has been an invaluable partner in upholding our committee's focus on providing for our men and women in uniform. I would also like to thank our colleagues on the Armed Services Committee for

their professionalism and their hard work.

I am incredibly proud of the bipartisan, transparent, and inclusive process our committee undertakes each year. The bill under consideration today is a strong reflection of the bipartisan priorities and concerns shared by members of the committee, and is the result of diligent oversight that has been conducted throughout the year. It contains 154 amendments that were adopted during markup, and it passed out of committee with unanimous support.

The bill would authorize $521 billion for national defense and an additional $79 billion for overseas contingency operations, consistent with the 2013 bipartisan budget agreement and the House-passed budget.

While we do not yet have the details of the OCO request, our committee, the House Budget Committee, and the administration, all agree that these funds will be required to support a residual U.S. presence in Afghanistan; other ongoing operations, including in Africa; and the reset and retrograde of equipment for the active, Guard, and Reserve forces.

The bill contains no earmarks. It provides vital national security resources for our troops while also maintaining our stewardship over the taxpayer dollar.

The bill provides our warfighters, veterans, and their families with the care and support that they need, deserve, and have earned. It continues to advance the substantial reforms introduced in last year's NDAA aimed at preventing sexual assault in the military, and it takes several steps aimed at improving the military's suicide prevention programs. The bill would increase troop pay while rejecting cuts to TRICARE, housing allowances, and commissary benefits that would increase out-of-pocket expenses for military families.

The legislation would provide our warfighters with the resources and authorities they need to support an enduring mission in Afghanistan and to continue pressuring al Qaeda and its affiliates. It also maintains strong accountability and monitoring mechanisms for U.S. funds, ensures the development of sound plans tied to resources, and continues the prohibitions on the transfer of detainees to the United States.

I recently visited Afghanistan and was encouraged by the progress of coalition forces and developments within the Afghan society. Nearly 8 million kids are in school, and a large percentage of those are girls, compared to the 700,000 that were attending school under Taliban rule. We need the President to signal his commitment and remove the uncertainty that persists among the Afghan people and our coalition partners, which al Qaeda and the Taliban continue to exploit. Afghanistan cannot return to being a safe haven for al Qaeda.

In this era of declining resources, the committee was faced with difficult choices as we sought to preserve key capabilities and to ensure our Armed Forces could meet current threats and prepare for future challenges. The bill identifies savings in less critical areas that do not permanently damage the force or harm recruiting and retention.

The legislation guards against achieving false short-term savings at the expense of vital long-term strategic capabilities.

For example, it supports the refueling of the USS George Washington-- an aircraft carrier with 25 years of service life remaining--and it prohibits the early retirement of Navy cruisers, dock landing ships, and the Air Force U-2 spy planes.

These capabilities are vital to our commanders in the Pacific, as well as elsewhere across the globe. It also addresses shortfalls in readiness by resourcing several unmet requirements in equipment, training, and depot maintenance and by fully funding flying hour programs across the services.

We must also get more defense for the dollar, which is why the committee has initiated a comprehensive defense reform effort. This bill begins that process with a series of provisions on institutional, acquisition, security, and strategy reforms.

However, we must recognize that cost savings and reforms alone do not compensate for the significant cuts to defense in recent years. The Department of Defense has seen over $1 trillion cut from its budget. This year's budget request is over $30 billion less than last year's.

The padding has been cut, and the Department is now cutting into the bone--cutting end strength, force structure, and readiness--which is increasing risk to our forces and their core missions. While this bill makes tough choices, Congress will be called upon to make impossible choices in the years ahead if sequestration is not addressed.

For 52 straight years, the National Defense Authorization Act has been passed and signed into law. Congress has no higher responsibility than to provide for the common defense, and with that in mind, I look forward to passing this bill for the 53rd consecutive year, my last year as chairman and as a Member of Congress.

Serving as chairman has been the great honor of my career. I am humbled by the many soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines whom I have met over the years and by the sacrifices that they and their families make to keep America safe. I am thankful for my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and I am very appreciative of our staff.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry), my friend and colleague, who is the vice chairman of the Armed Services Committee and who is the chairman of the Intelligence, Emerging Threats, and Capabilities Subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Forbes), my friend and colleague and a member of the Armed Services Committee and chairman of the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson), my friend and colleague and a member of the Armed Services Committee and chairman of the Military Personnel Subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Turner), my friend and colleague and a member of the Armed Services Committee and chairman of the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Rogers), my friend and colleague, a member of the Armed Services Committee and the chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wittman), my friend and colleague, a member of the Armed Services Committee and the chairman of the Readiness Subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Nevada, Dr. Heck, my friend and colleague, who is a member of the Armed Services Committee and is the chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from Indiana (Mrs. Walorski), my friend and colleague, who is a member of the Armed Services Committee.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, this has been a great opportunity for an American to serve his community, to be able to come to the Capitol of this great land and serve in the House of Representatives. It is something I had never, ever contemplated growing up. It is something I never had thought about. But it has been a tremendous education and a tremendous opportunity to serve. It has been a tremendous opportunity to meet some really good people.

You know, I have heard from the polls that the Congress has a rating of like 13 percent. That may be a little high. It may be lower than that. I heard somebody say that our rating was so low that it is just basically family and staff, and then after we cut the staff's health care, that it probably was just down to family. Fortunately, I have a large family.

But I have mentioned to members of this committee--and those who are probably watching tonight have seen members of the committee that have talked about this bill that we have been working on, and I hope that they have felt of their strength, of their commitment, of their desire to do the things that their constituents sent them here to do.

I told members of the committee recently that if people at home could sit in on the markup, if they could sit in on some of the discussions that members of the committee have had, I think our ratings would probably be much higher, because these things that we grapple with aren't easy. They are not simple ``yes'' and ``no'' answers to the things that we deal with.

For instance, I know many of us a couple of years ago voted for the Budget Control Act, which brought us sequestration. It also kept the government open, because that was one of the parts of the vote. If we had voted against it, the government would have been shut down. I think it was a bad choice that we had to make, but I was assured that sequestration would never happen. Well, we found out it happened, and it is causing us a lot of problems with our national defense.

You know, the beauty of being able to serve on this committee is we get to serve with men and women who really sacrifice much. The men and women and their families sacrifice much to look out for our interests both at home and abroad, and I want to thank them.

I want to thank all of the members of the committee. I want to thank all of our staff for the tremendous work that they do. They spent hours last night just going through these amendments, and they have been there constantly. They are all people of great expertise and great understanding of the issues that we face.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask all of my colleagues to follow this debate closely and support this bill as we come to final passage.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman. We just had a little discussion. The amendment he plans on presenting tonight is something that we have not in the committee been able to hold hearings on and to really discuss fully in the committee.

It didn't come up at the full committee or the subcommittee level, but he has an issue that is very important to him, it is very important to his State, it is very important to many people around this Nation.

What I told him is that this is the start of a process. It is a continuation of a process that we started in January with hearings, with subcommittee hearings, with subcommittee markups, and full committee markups, but we are not even halfway through the process yet.

After we pass our bill on the floor, the Senate is marking their bill up this week, and at some point, they will mark it on the floor, and then there will be a conference, so there is much to do between now and the end.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman for his concern and for bringing this issue to the floor.

We did address this in the underlying bill. DOD contractors are providing very important services. It supports the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, and they should not be illegally taxed.

We need to address this. I think the gentleman's amendment will move the process forward. I think we have time between now and the Senate passage and conference to resolve the issue. Also, hopefully there will be a new President in Afghanistan that will have a whole different way of addressing the situation. So what I would ask is that we do continue to work together on this as we move the process forward through conference.

Mr. Chair, I thank the subcommittee chairman for yielding, and I do want to applaud my friend and colleague from California for her desire to fund nonproliferation.

That is a worthy goal that we all agree with, but right now, NNSA is going to be spending in the bill that we are debating $1.6 billion for that worthy goal, and to allow the Department of Defense to go in that direction also would dilute the money that they need so badly for readiness and training, paying our men and women in uniform, providing them the food and weapons that they need.

So for that reason, I, too, oppose this amendment and ask for a ``no'' vote.

Nuclear nonproliferation efforts simply don't need more money, and if you don't believe me, believe General Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. At our March 16 hearing, he said, in response to a question of my colleague from California, Ms. Sanchez:

I speak in this regard on behalf of the Joint Chiefs

because, of course, we have discussed and debated this among

ourselves, and I think we have allocated an appropriate and

adequate amount of money into nonproliferation in our budget.

So simply put, our senior military officials agree that the nonproliferation budget is already sufficient, and therefore, this amendment is unnecessary.

This is the fourth year in a row we have debated it, and I would just ask that we stop the debate on this amendment and vote ``no.''

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, when our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and Defense civilians deploy overseas, the Department of Defense enters into agreements with the host nation to prohibit the taxation of the assistance provided by U.S. companies to support their missions.

We have entered into such agreements with Afghanistan, but in the last 6 years, the Afghan Government has chosen to ignore these agreements. It has levied more than $1 billion in illegal taxes against our U.S. businesses which are supporting our warfighters.

Last year we took action to withhold assistance funding in response to this illegal taxation, yet the Afghan Government continues to submit tax bills to our companies. If the firms refuse to pay, Afghan officials threaten to deny them permits and visas, to arrest company workers, and to prohibit them from moving mission essential equipment into and throughout the country. Though our committee has now increased the amount of funding to be withheld, I propose this amendment to hopefully end this wrong practice altogether.

This amendment would require two important steps forward: first the Secretary of Defense would take a full account of illegal taxes levied by the Afghan Government against American companies; second, the Secretary will establish a plan for the Afghan Government to reimburse the illegally levied taxes.

In short, no U.S. company should be threatened or financially punished for supporting our troops and Department of Defense civilians in Afghanistan. This amendment strikes at the root of the problem, and I urge its adoption.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, in response, and I appreciate the gentleman's comments, the bookkeeping trouble that this would involve is first put on the Afghan Government in an attempt to save the trouble to our own Department of Defense folks.

On your second point, I don't believe U.S. taxpayer dollars would be at risk because this would only be money withheld that would otherwise go to the Afghan Government and is committed for that purpose is my understanding.

So you raise good questions, but I think both of those objections are satisfied by this amendment.

At this point, Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from California, Representative McKeon, the chairman of the full committee.

Mr. Chairman, how much time is left on our side of the issue?

Mr. Chairman, to summarize, these are legitimate questions that the ranking member has raised. I appreciate his comments, and there are valid issues in that it is not a clean or perfect situation. But the trouble is a billion dollars is a lot of money to our defense contractors, and to not try to address it would do a really big disservice to them. So I think it is worth tackling the difficulty that might be entailed in getting the paperwork done properly because the goal is worth doing. A billion dollars is a lot of money. Some of these companies might be big contractors; some of them might be small contractors.

So I would urge the adoption of this amendment, and Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, most Americans do not realize that 28 percent of the land across our great country is owned by the Federal Government. In the 11 most western States, the Federal Government owns a staggering 47 percent of all land.

In my State of Colorado, the Federal Government owns 36 percent of the land. Over one-third of all land in Colorado is owned and operated here, out of Washington, D.C.

The management of these lands is often controversial, particularly when the Federal Government owns such a significant portion of the land of a State or of a locality. There are often situations where there are competing and conflicting uses of this publicly-owned land.

This Federal ownership of public land is administered through a variety of Federal agencies and bureaus, making things potentially even more difficult for States and localities.

This public land serves many functions, including, in some cases, as a prime training ground for the U.S. military. In Colorado, for example, the new Combat Aviation Brigade at Fort Carson flies their helicopters up into the mountains around Colorado Springs for training.

To practice high altitude landings in rugged terrain, which is a crucial skill for combat in countries like Afghanistan, the Army must get permission from the various parts of the Federal Government that own the land.

Over the last few years, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management and other agencies have reduced the number of landing sites that are permissible. In the latest permit, they told the Army that Congress has not made national security a priority for public lands.

Unfortunately, this is not just isolated to Colorado. Across the country, military bases are continually fighting with other government agencies to maintain their access to public lands.

Today, my amendment will help set the record straight. National security should be the top priority for our government, and that most certainly includes the ownership of public land--land owned and operated by the Federal Government. We should apply the rule of common sense.

Unless there is an obvious reason not to, public land should, of course, be

available so that men and women in uniform can receive realistic, effective training that will save lives in combat. As we stand here tonight, we must remember that the first job of the Federal Government is to protect our Nation.

I urge support for my amendment, resolving that national security should be a top priority for public lands.

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

Mr. Chairman, I just don't want it to happen again that the Forest Service or any other bureaucracy can tell the men and women who are training to protect our country that they can't train and that Congress has never even addressed this situation.

I at least want to have a resolution on record expressing the sense of Congress that national defense is a priority. That is the way our Constitution is written. I think this makes all kinds of sense, and I would urge its adoption.

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

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining?

Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, I would just say that there are balancing interests and that there are competing interests that should be, many times, debated and weighed. That is, actually, what the Army at Fort Carson does.

They have entered into the permitting agreements with the Forest Service and with the Bureau of Land Management, agreeing with the concerns raised by those two bureaucracies, so they have worked together in a cooperative fashion.

What I am addressing, though, is when the Forest Service comes out and says that Congress has never addressed this issue. I think that that is wrong. Now is the time to set the record straight, and this amendment does set the record straight.

We are expressing that national security is a priority. That is what the Constitution says, and that is what we are stating right here. I ask for an ``aye'' vote.

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

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 585 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my friend 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 purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Madam Speaker, the reason it is hard to get order down here on the floor of the House is it is kind of a celebratory atmosphere down here. We just saw the Water Resources Development Act pass by a big bipartisan vote.

It has been not a year, not 2 years--it has been years since we have been able to come together and pass this very important bill that deals with waterways and water supply all across this district. We do things together on a regular basis, but the big things are hard, and we have gotten to do the big things today.

I will brag on my friend from Massachusetts just for a moment, Madam Speaker. I was at Crews Middle School in my district last Friday, and Crews Middle School, their eighth grade class, Megan Mendez runs that class, but they were talking about how it is that they could be effective, how they could make a difference.

The students came upon Mr. McGovern's bill, I think it is H.R. 1692, dealing with Sudan and genocide, what we can do to come together to make a difference in other parts of the world.

Now, I represent Georgia, Madam Speaker. It is a rock-solid hardcore Republican constituency. Folks can surmise where Mr. McGovern, out of the great State of Massachusetts, what kind of constituency he represents there.

His ideas about how we could come together to make a difference for people resonated all the way down the eastern seaboard into that class at Crews Middle School, such that Nathan, Madeleine, Keegan, Georgia, Lauren all put pen to paper and invited me to come and talk about it to see how it was that we could come together.

Now, we didn't have the entire cosponsorship discussion there in the classroom on that day. We were trying to talk about making a difference.

That is what I get to come down and do today, Madam Speaker, with this rule that the Clerk just read. This is a differencemaking rule. It covers two bills today.

One is the Commerce-Justice-Science and related agencies bill. It is H.R. 4660, and the rule provides for an open rule, so that every single Member, no matter what their political stripe, no matter what their ideas, no matter where their constituency is located, any Member of this body can come to the House floor and offer their ideas to make that deal better.

It is a wonderful part of our process. It is a part of the process that gets used all too frequently, and I am very fortunate to be able to come and bring a rule today that does that.

Almost more fascinating, Madam Speaker, is that this rule makes in order the debate for the National Defense Authorization Act of 2015. It is H.R. 4435, and that bill--I am just going to consult my notes because it is almost unbelievable. That bill came out of committee 61- 0, 61-0.

Here we are, the bill that is going to authorize our entire national defense infrastructure, in what constituents back home believe is a hyperpartisan U.S. House of Representatives, made that way by incredibly divergent views held by American voters; and when it comes to national security, we came together at the committee level and passed out a bill 61-0.

This bill is made in order for debate by the rule that is before us today. I hope I will be able to get my colleagues' support for that.

It is, again, an open rule for the Commerce-Justice-Science bill and a rule for debate on a bill that came out of committee 61-0.

Now, what is fascinating about this institution, Madam Speaker, it never ceases to amaze me. You hear about the arrogance of power in D.C., that somehow you get elected to Congress and you get inside the Beltway, suddenly, you think you are the smartest guy in the room and only your ideas are the good ideas.

This bill that came out of committee 61-0 isn't done with the legislative process there. This rule that we are debating today makes in order seven more amendments to that bill, so that we can all have a voice on that here on the floor of the House.

My great expectation is the Rules Committee is going to continue to meet this afternoon, making even more amendments in order. Hundreds of amendments filed to this bill, and the Rules Committee is working through trying to get through each one of those amendments to determine what we can make in order.

It is just a--I call it a festival of democracy, Madam Speaker. It is a festival of democracy that we are having right here on the House floor, where you not only have open rules, where every Member's voice is able to be heard, where every constituent back home is able to give that advice and counsel to their Member, and they bring those ideas to the floor, but it is on issues as difficult as national security, issues that do bring us together, but that have components that pull us apart, and we are able to work through that.

Over 300 amendments have been filed for this National Defense Authorization Act, and the committee is working through them even as we speak.

I know that every Member of this body has a contribution that their constituency has asked them to make, a voice that their constituency has asked them to come and bring. Madam Speaker, there are times where all of those voices, whether it be because of a clock, whether it be because of timing, whatever the reason may be, where folks don't feel like those voices have been able to be heard. This day is not that day. This is a day where we have an opportunity to make sure that each and every idea is heard and heard fully. And I am proud that the Rules Committee has produced this product today.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, at this time, it is my great pleasure to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Nugent), a member of both the Rules Committee and the Armed Services Committee.

Madam Speaker, Sheriff Nugent is the expert on these issues on the Rules Committee. I am proud to yield him an additional 3 minutes.

Madam Speaker, I would advise you and my friend from Massachusetts that I do not have any further speakers remaining, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, it would be easy to close debate just by reminding my colleagues that the gentleman from Massachusetts plans to support this rule. That is reason enough when we can find agreement in the Rules Committee on moving forward. But I hate to stop it there just because it is worth celebrating. It is absolutely worth celebrating.

The gentleman from Massachusetts is absolutely certain we are spending too much on the Department of Defense. I am absolutely certain we are spending too little. The gentleman from Massachusetts is absolutely certain that waste has no place in the Department of Defense. I, too, am absolutely certain that waste has no place in the Department of Defense.

Madam Speaker, just because this bill came out of the Armed Services Committee 61-0 does not mean that we do not have differences in this Chamber. We do. But this rule provides us an opportunity to debate those differences and then provides an opportunity for the Members of this body to have their will done.

Whether you are talking about the National Defense Authorization Act, or whether you are talking about the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill, these bills did not come down from on high dictated by a Speaker or dictated by a minority leader. These bills were both crafted by the membership of this body, and this rule allows them to be perfected by the membership of this body should it pass this afternoon.

I urge all of my colleagues to support this rule.

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

The previous question was ordered.