To amend title 10, United States Code, to require congressional notification concerning sensitive military cyber operations and cyber weapons, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, first and most importantly, I want to concur with the remarks of Mr. Thornberry. We have had a great many people work together to produce a very important product. The staff, the Members, House and Senate, have all done an outstanding job.

On the Armed Services Committee, we are very proud of the fact that we produce a legislative product every year. We actually do legislation the way it is supposed to be done. We work it through committee. Chairman Thornberry often outlines the number of different provisions that were asked for at the committee level, at the full House level and the Senate level, and we worked through those, reached compromise where we could, and produced a product that is truly a legislative product.

That is testimony to the great work, first and foremost, of our staff. Both the House and Senate do an outstanding job with hundreds of complex issues and working with all the Members, and I thank them very much.

It is also a testimony to the Members, both House and Senate, to their commitment to make sure that we pass the National Defense Authorization Act, understanding how important it is to support our troops and meeting our national security needs.

I also want to thank our colleagues in the Senate. Mr. Thornberry and I oftentimes say those are some of our most contentious debates--not between us, but between us and the Senate. But they are handled, I think, with great dignity and intelligence, and I enjoy working with Senator McCain and Senator Reed. They are great partners in this final product.

I am proud of this final product. There is a lot of very good policy in here. Mr. Thornberry mentioned several of the keys: acquisition reform, basically getting more out of the money we spend, making sure the system works better.

I particularly want to thank Chairman Thornberry. He has taken a lead on this issue for a number of years. I think we have made significant improvements, even while acknowledging that we still have a long way to go to get the efficiency that we need out of the Pentagon budget, but that is an important change.

I also think that this bill does a great job of supporting our troops and their families. As the chairman mentioned yesterday, it is basically the case that you recruit a servicemember but you retain the family, and that means that you have to provide for them. We fully fund the 2.4 percent pay raise in this bill and support our troops and their families in many other ways. This is a very good product.

I will also say, I want to particularly thank Representative Langevin for working on this issue. This bill states that climate change is a national security threat. We make that the policy of the United States Congress, to acknowledge climate change and the impact that it is going to have on our national security, and Representative Langevin was tireless in making sure that that was part of this bill.

So this is a good product. I am proud of it. I am proud of the work that we have done together to produce a legislative product that, as Mr. Thornberry says, none of us like everything that is in it, but we reached a compromise to produce a product on an important issue.

The challenge that we have going forward is what the chairman mentioned at the end there: This bill funds, I think it is right around $696 billion in defense spending. It goes $80 billion, roughly, over the budget caps, and the bill can't do that on its own. Unless the budget caps are lifted and appropriators pass the appropriations bill, that doesn't happen; and we haven't made a lot of progress on that.

I was thinking, today, back to 2011, in August, when we first passed the Budget Control Act. We were about 2 days short of not being able to meet our debt ceiling obligations when we passed that; and at that time, the hope was that we would come together on a compromise to deal with our deficit and our debt to get us on a fiscally responsible path.

Well, over 6 years later, I can't say that we have made an enormous amount of progress on that, and that is a huge threat to our troops and our national security. I would also say that it is a threat to the nondefense discretionary budget and the rest of the budget as well.

But without question, one of the greatest challenges the Pentagon faces--they don't know from one month to the next how much money they are going to have. Is this going to be the number? Is this bill going to work?

I hope so, but we don't know. We have got to resolve that issue. We have got to figure out how to have a fiscally responsible budget so we can pass appropriations bills every year so all aspects of the discretionary budget can have some predictability.

It is absolutely true, as the chairman and others have said, we have a readiness shortfall. What that means is we are not providing the equipment and the training to our troops necessary to fully prepare them to do the missions we are asking them to do. I have no doubt that part of that is underfunding.

But another part of it is we have a National Security Strategy that is unclear and, as it is presented, is far greater than we would ever have the resources to match. I had a meeting with a Pentagon official who told me that they were very concerned because they were way short of having the funds necessary to meet their 2012 National Security Strategy.

And make no mistake about it. As big and confusing as the Pentagon may look, they have a reason for everything that they spend. They have a plan in place. Right now, we don't have the funds to match those plans.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself an additional 1 minute.

That is a huge problem. So going forward, while we do need to provide more resources and more stability, I also think we need to take a look at that National Security Strategy and say: Where are we spending money that we shouldn't be? What part of our strategy do we not need?

If we can't do that, if we can't cut back, we are never going to be in a position to provide adequate funds to our troops, and, to me, that is the absolute worst result.

Whatever the strategy is, the one thing that it absolutely ought to do is fund our troops sufficiently to meet it. To have a big idea of what we ought to be able to do and then to underfund the men and women whom we are asking to do it, I believe, has led to some of the accidents and deaths that we have had recently with our ships and with our planes.

We need to adequately fund readiness to meet a mission that is achievable. That, we still need to get to; but, overall, this is a good policy bill.

Again, I thank the chairman. I appreciate the partnership and really enjoyed working with him to produce this product.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Guam (Ms. Bordallo), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Readiness.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper), who is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Ms. Tsongas), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moulton), the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Carbajal), a member of the Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time each side has remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Veasey), who is a member of the Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Guam (Ms. Bordallo), who is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Readiness, for purposes of a colloquy with the chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time.

As has been mentioned, this is an excellent bill that a lot of people did very good work on. I thank them for that.

The only issue I want to raise in closing is the money. That is the sticking point and the difficulty that we have.

This bill, as it is currently constructed, is $80 billion above the budget caps. In the 6 years since the budget caps passed, we have been unwilling to raise those.

But we have a larger problem. We have a $20 trillion debt. Our deficit is close to $700 billion. It has no prospect of going down anytime soon. At the same time, we have other needs.

During this debate, we focused like a laser on armed services and the needs of national security and our troops, as well we should. Those needs are incredibly important. I don't doubt that for a second. But you have to look at the whole or we are not going to be able to meet the needs of our national security and our troops. The amount of revenue that we take in as a country, unsurprisingly, impacts--or should impact--the amount of money that we can spend.

We are having this debate now. We are talking about how underfunded the military is and how badly we need to shore up our readiness. I agree with all that. The rest of this week we are going to figure out how to make sure that our government takes in trillions of dollars in less money. That is wildly inconsistent. If we believe we have these needs, we ought to be able to pay for them.

Then there are the other aspects of the budget. I know we are not supposed to talk about that during the Armed Services Committee debate on the National Defense Authorization Act, but the needs for infracture and education are things that also make our country strong, not to mention the Department of Homeland Security, the intelligence agencies, and other aspects of our national security, which are all part of the same whole.

If we are going to get to a fiscally responsible place, we can't just say defense gets whatever it wants and then let the chips fall where they may elsewhere.

On the Armed Services Committee, if we truly care about making sure that our troops have enough money, we need to do two more things in addition to this bill.

Number one, we need to argue that we shouldn't do a massive tax cut to undermine our ability to fund defense and national security.

Number two, we need to take a hard look at our national security strategy and figure out where we can save money.

If we keep looking at every single section--it is too short here; it is too short here--we do not have enough money. Even if we had a fit of fiscal responsibility and decided to make cuts elsewhere--which hasn't happened, by the way--and we decided to raise revenue instead of cutting it, even if we did that, we are still looking at needs within the national security budget. When you look at the programs that people want to fund over the next 10 years, they are wildly beyond the amount of money that we have.

We need a national security strategy that has an honest look at how much money we are going to have. Otherwise, we are not serving our troops.

I know the comeback is: How can you put a price on national security? They should get whatever they need.

The only problem with that is that they don't. If we have a national security strategy that exceeds the amount of money we have, the ones left holding the bag are our troops. They are the ones who are asked to do missions that they are not adequately trained to perform. They are the ones who are asked to train without the adequate resources to train properly.

That is what we must fund. To do that, we need to do more than just pass this bill. We need to have a fiscally responsible approach to the overall budget.

Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 616, I call up the conference report on the bill (H.R. 2810) to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2018 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on the conference report to accompany H.R. 2810.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, for 55 straight years under both parties, Congress has come together to pass a defense authorization bill to support our troops and our country's security. Along with my partner on the Armed Services Committee, Mr. Smith, I am pleased to bring a conference report that will do so again.

Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge and thank all the Members on both sides of the aisle who contributed to this product, and especially the members and staff of the House Armed Services Committee.

I also want to thank the conferees from the 14 other committees of the House who were appointed to the conference, and I appreciate their contributions.

Finally, I want to express my appreciation for the opportunity to work with Mr. Smith and with our colleagues in the Senate, Senator McCain and Senator Reed.

We do not always agree among the four of us; in fact, we disagree sometimes energetically, but I have no doubt that each of them is committed to doing the right thing for our troops and the right thing for our country. Each of them is a patriot whom I admire.

Mr. Speaker, I know that I speak for all Members when we wish Senator McCain the best in dealing with his current health challenges.

Members and the public were given a summary of this conference report last week, so I will simply say that I believe the priorities in this bill are, number one, our people; number two, the readiness; number three, missile defense; and number four, reform to see that we are more capable of meeting the security challenges our country faces in the future and today.

In that regard, I especially want to commend the work of Mr. Rogers and Mr. Cooper and the Strategic Forces Subcommittee on space. They initiated deep, far-reaching reforms based on a real sense of urgency, and they are in this bill. Their work exemplifies the work of our committee: bipartisan, really nonpartisan, on the national security challenges the U.S. faces today.

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, as the world grew more dangerous, we cut our defense budget and we added to the burden borne by the men and women who serve us.

We will not rebuild and fix our problems in 1 year or one bill, even when it is matched by an appropriations bill, which this will need to be, but we can head in the right direction. That is what this conference report does, and I hope Members will support it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson), chairman of the Subcommittee on Readiness.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Turner), the chair of the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Rogers), the chair of the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wittman), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Coffman), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Personnel.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Hartzler), the distinguished chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Stefanik), the distinguished chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from New York.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Wenstrup), who is a very valued member of our committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Kelly), who is another valuable member of our committee.

Will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the ranking member of the Readiness Subcommittee for her work on this issue.

From my visit to Guam last year, I have seen the tremendous military buildup and military value of Guam, and I understand that more is needed as Guam remains a strategic fixture in ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Guam if she would continue to yield to me.

I agree with the gentlewoman's understanding of the provision.

Further, I support efforts to ensure that Guam has the workforce needed to maintain its strategic posture and military presence necessary to the national security of the United States. I look forward to continuing to work with the gentlewoman from Guam toward that end.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Banks), who is a valuable member of our committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bacon), who is a valuable member of our committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Gallagher), who is another valuable member of our committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from

Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus), who is a strong proponent of a strong national defense.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn), who is a valuable member of our committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I, again, want to thank all the Members who have participated in this debate, and even more importantly, all the Members who have contributed to this product, especially the members of the Armed Services Committee. Truthfully, Members from both sides of the aisle throughout the House have contributed to it.

We have spent several moments here talking about a lot of the details that are in this bill. Mr. Speaker, it is a rather large bill. It covers everything from how much we pay our troops to how many ships and tanks and planes and bullets we buy, as well as what we research and various policies of the Department of Defense. So there is a lot in here.

Let me take a moment just to step back and remind everybody what this is all about. Our Constitution says one of the reasons we have a Federal Government is to provide for the common defense. As a matter of fact, I think that is the first job of the Federal Government: to defend the country, to defend our lives, and to defend our freedoms.

As a matter of fact, Article I, section 8 of the Constitution says specifically it is this Congress' responsibility to build and support, provide and maintain the military forces of the United States of America. That is our job.

By passing this bill, that is how we fulfill that job. But as we have talked about, what has happened in recent years is the world has grown more dangerous. Yet we have cut the defense budget.

As a matter of fact, we are spending 18 percent less now on defense than was spent in 2010, if you measure it in real terms, apples to apples. I cannot think of another significant Federal program that has been cut nearly 20 percent over the last 7 years, yet that is what has happened in defense.

What has happened as a result of that?

Our troops have borne the burden. We are 2,000 pilots short in the Air Force today. Sixty percent of the F-18s in the Navy and Marine Corps cannot fly today.

As Mr. Wilson said, we have just seen tragic accidents in the Pacific, where 17 soldiers have lost their lives. We have had other accidents where others have lost their lives and other accidents where they have not.

The point I am trying to make is that part of the responsibility for all of that happening rests here with the Congress of the United States not fulfilling adequately, in my view, its job under the Constitution.

I would say one more thing, Mr. Speaker. I agree with virtually all of what the ranking member said about the importance of having a strategy and then resourcing that strategy. It is true.

We have not had--and there is some responsibility with administrations of both parties--a coherent strategy that holds together and resources that flow from that. We should.

The fundamental issue is that it is morally wrong to send men and women out on missions with our military for which they are not fully supported, fully trained, and equipped with the best equipment our country can provide. It is wrong for us to do it, and that is exactly what has been happening.

As I mentioned at the beginning, we are not going to turn this around in a single bill or a single year, but we can make a start. This bill makes a start.

I will absolutely agree with the gentleman from Washington and others that we can't really start to turn this around without an appropriations bill that follows it, that matches it, and that really does repair our ships and planes, increases our end-strength, and provides the training that I believe we deserve to give to the men and women who serve.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I would just remind everyone that there are really two reasons we do this bill. One is that we owe it to the people who risk their lives to defend us. Secondly, for the national security of the United States.

The challenges to our Nation's security have grown more ominous in recent years, certainly more complex than at any time in our lifetimes. This is, I believe, a real opportunity on a bipartisan basis to show the troops that we support them and to show adversaries and allies alike that the United States is going to stand up and defend ourselves by passing this piece of legislation and by following it up with a budget agreement and an appropriations bill that follows.

That is what I think the Constitution requires of us. I hope my colleagues will agree and support this conference report.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the conference report to accompany the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018.

I commend Chairman Thornberry, Ranking Member Smith, and I would also like to thank the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson), the Readiness Subcommittee chairman, and the committee staff who worked many, many long nights on this bill. I am especially thankful for the spirit of cooperation that enables us to pass an act that directly impacts the young men and women who defend our country.

The conference report authorizes $3.6 billion in additional operations and maintenance funds to increase training, spare parts, facility and equipment maintenance, and other readiness enablers. This is a very important step to support the recovery of readiness in areas that have been adversely impacted by high operational tempos and made worse by numerous continuing resolutions and the effects of sequestration. However, Congress must go further and provide the Department with budget stability by repealing sequestration so that we can continue to support the training, the maintenance, and the modernization needs of our forces.

The conference agreement also includes a number of provisions to support military readiness, such as providing authorities and flexibility for investments in infrastructure, extending direct hiring authorities, protecting training ranges from encroachment, and continuing to support the Asia-Pacific Rebalance.

The Rebalance is critical to security and stability in the Indo-Asia- Pacific region and a matter of most importance to me because of the recent threats against the United States and, specifically, my home district of Guam.

Critically, for my constituents, this agreement provides authority for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to approve H-2B visas for Guam that support construction projects directly connected to, as well as those associated with, the realignment of military forces to Guam. Additionally, the agreement authorizes $354.6 million for military construction projects in Guam.

As Guam's representative, I will continue to work with the DOD and the USCIS to provide relief for healthcare and other industries that support our military on Guam. While I support the progress that we made in this bill, without further relief, our inadequate workforce will negatively impact our national security.

So again, Mr. Speaker, I reiterate my appreciation for the work by our committees and our exceptional staff. The FY18 NDAA provides the resources that our military requires for its missions in this very, very dangerous world, so I urge support for the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and wish to engage the gentleman from Texas, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, in a colloquy.

Let me first start by thanking Chairman Thornberry, Ranking Member Smith, and the committee staff for working diligently with us to address the workforce issues impacting the military realignment on Guam.

The conference agreement includes a provision to remedy the H-2B visa denial issue, particularly affecting construction projects on Guam, by granting USCIS the authority to approve temporary workers for construction work directly connected to or associated with the military realignment occurring on Guam through 2023.

Providing for this small, temporary workforce is very important, given the strategic importance of Guam as the sole U.S. territory in the western Pacific capable of basing significant joint force capabilities and the reality that exceedingly few U.S. mainland workers are willing to travel to Guam to perform this temporary work.

My understanding is that the intent behind the inclusion of the phrase ``associated with'' is to allow for approval of visas for individuals performing work not only on military-funded facilities and infrastructure, but also for civilian infrastructure projects outside the gate, for example, infrastructure projects funded by the Federal Government, the government of Guam, or nongovernmental sources that are being done, in part, because of the increased number of military personnel and military families moving to Guam.

Is that the chairman's understanding of the intent behind the provision?

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman very much and appreciate his great support and look forward to continuing to work with him on the implementation of this provision and to address future workforce needs on Guam in support of the military realignment.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ranking Member Smith, Chairman Thornberry, Chairman McCain on the Senate side, and Ranking Member Reid.

It is very important that Congress continue this great tradition of passing a Defense Authorization Act. This will be the 57th year. My constituents back home want nothing more than for us to cooperate in a bipartisan fashion for the good of the country. This bill, H.R. 2810, does that.

In particular, I would like to thank the Chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, Mike Rogers, who has been a great partner, as we do several very important things:

Number one, modernize our nuclear forces and keep the effort going on nuclear nonproliferation; we fund critical missile defense needs in the face of rising threats from North Korea and other countries; we support U.S.-Israeli missile defense; and we also strengthen, dramatically, our capabilities in space.

This Defense Authorization bill takes a decisive first step to address the fragmentation and lack of focus on national security space issues that the Air Force has shown by reorganizing space within the Air Force and within the Department of Defense.

While it does not create the Space Corps that we preferred, it achieves many of the goals that we set out to achieve. Notably, it consolidates acquisition, operations, and training of space forces under the Air Force Space Command and eliminates ineffective or redundant authorities across the Department. Our assets in space, unfortunately, are increasingly vulnerable to attack. This reorganization will begin to provide the focus and coordination necessary to effectively address these growing threats.

I thank the chairman of the subcommittee for his strong leadership in this effort and for making this a bipartisan process.

I would also like to thank the Deputy Secretary of Defense for his engagement on this important issue. We will continue to hold the Department accountable during this transition period.

I am also pleased that the bill begins to counter the vulnerability of our GPS systems in space which underpin many defense and civilian systems. We increase the resiliency and alternatives to GPS, including thinking outside the box, by relying on our allies and perhaps even exploiting Russian or Chinese signals as a means to deter attack on our systems.

The conference also dropped restrictions on extending the new START Treaty, which verifiably limits the number of nuclear weapons that Russia or the United States can deploy.

The bill, more effectively, holds Russia accountable for violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty by imposing increasing sanctions related to those violations rather than prematurely nullifying the treaty.

The conference report also encourages a dialogue with Russia and China to reduce risks of miscalculations that could lead to an unintended nuclear war in a crisis. Pressuring Russia, while avoiding an unnecessary nuclear arms race or a precipitous nuclear war, should be top priorities for our defense in the current, more volatile environment.

In this context, I support the increased focus on modernizing our nuclear command and control system, which has been too long over-cost and delayed.

Finally, the bill ends years of wasteful spending on the unaffordable and failed MOX project in South Carolina by allowing the Department of Energy to terminate it and move to a solution at a fraction of the cost.

Mr. Speaker, I support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2810, and I want to begin by congratulating Chairman Thornberry and Ranking Member Smith for their really skillful bipartisan guidance of this measure.

The vote that took place last summer when the House passed it the first time through was the largest bipartisan vote, since 2008, for an NDAA, and that didn't happen by accident. It was because of their great work.

I also want to thank my colleague, Mr. Wittman, on the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee. It is a very bipartisan effort, and the result, I think, really demonstrates that, when you do it that way, you get good results.

I also want to congratulate the staff, Dave Sienicki, Phil MacNaughton, and also Lieutenant Commander Dominic Kramer, a Navy fellow who is here today. Their support and work were invaluable in terms of getting the seapower portion of the bill to the really solid place that it is today.

Again, last year, 2016, the Navy came forward with a force structure assessment that said: Based on national security needs around the world, our fleet size needs to grow. When the President's budget came over last May, unfortunately, there were only eight new ships in that budget; but our committee, again, showing its independence as a coequal branch of government, produced a seapower mark that boosted that build rate to 15 and, again, has us now on a pathway to achieve the goal that the Navy identified last year.

In particular, in terms of the undersea fleet, our combatant commanders, whether it is an Asia-Pacific or a European command, have been loudly warning Congress that we should not allow the decline in the fleet size to occur.

This bill, again, authorizes $5.9 billion for the Virginia-class submarine program and provides multiyear procurement authority to enter into a contract for 13 Virginia-class, allowing for a build rate to move from two a year to three fast-attack submarines in 2020, 2022, and 2023.

The National Sea Based Deterrence Fund, which, again, our committee created in 2014, extends continuous production authorities which the Navy has told us will save $383 million in the Columbia-class program, which, again, is about smart procurement, which Mr. Smith referred to at the beginning.

Again, there are other provisions in the bill that I would just note. There was no BRAC that is authorized in this bill. We also gave authority to the United States as part of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative to provide medical treatment to wounded Ukrainian soldiers, as well as training to Ukrainian healthcare specialists, which our allies desperately need. Again, it is a very, I think, smart move by the committee.

Mr. Speaker, as has been noted, this is the 57th year in a row that we have produced an NDAA. It is because we follow regular order. It is because we respect both sides of the aisle in terms of the contribution that they make.

We still have meat left on the bone to get the 2018 spending bill done, and hopefully the example that Mr. Thornberry and Mr. Smith set in terms of allowing the process to breathe is the way we are going to get to a successful result, just as we did with 2017.

Again, I want to congratulate the leadership of our committee, and I strongly urge all the Members on both sides of the aisle to support passage of this measure.