Improving Law Enforcement Officer Safety and Wellness Through Data Act

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

Mr. Chair, the House Armed Services Committee adopted an amendment to repeal the statutory requirement that the Department of Defense have a chief diversity officer, a senior adviser for diversity and inclusion. I applaud that. It is a good thing. That is getting rid of the requirement. I also believe that we should prohibit the ability of the Department of Defense to have said position.

My amendment No. 30 seeks to amend section 904 to prohibit Federal funds from being used to establish anything similar or any position that is comparable to the chief diversity officer or senior adviser of diversity and inclusion.

People say, well, why is that? The fact of the matter is we have a situation right now where we are not even able to pay the kinds of bonuses that are necessary.

We are not able to pay to retain our men and women in uniform. The Air Force has been having budgetary problems, and we have got positions that are being put out there, for example, that will pay $183,500, multiple positions scattered all over the country in the name of diversity.

The fact is the United States military is one of the few institutions where the skills of the men or women on either side of you could mean the difference between life and death.

The Department of Defense should be focused on one thing only: securing the defense of the Nation. It is not in our national security interests to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for diversity training that continues to try and divvy us up by race.

That is the opposite of the direction we should be going, and in fact, it sows constant division into the Department of Defense.

Does a person's race or skin color help them overcome hostile forces? Does it allow us to win the next battle? Do rainbow bullets and flags scare away folks?

Yet, that is what we are spending our time on, and we can't even pay our men and women in uniform. Literally, the Air Force is saying sorry, we can't give you bonuses right now because they have mismanaged their budget, and they are having to spend money on positions like this.

China and our other enemies do not care about feelings. Why are we funding divisive programs and divisive positions rather than positions focused on advancing and training the strongest and best military in the world?

That is the purpose of the amendment. It is great that this bill eliminates the statutory requirement that we have such a position, but we ought to end this divvying us up by race.

It is, in the words of the Chief Justice, a sordid business to divvy us up by race rather than to ensure that we have the best trained and finest fighting force in the world.

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

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

The fact is these positions are consuming precious dollars that our Air Force can't even use currently to pay their own personnel. Many in the military are struggling to even find a way to pay the bonuses for our current personnel and can't even meet their own recruiting needs right now, falling woefully short in all of their recruiting needs.

The fact is we are struggling in recruiting, in significant part, because we are turning the Department of Defense into a social engineering experiment wrapped in a uniform. That is the truth.

Instead of focusing on killing people and blowing stuff up and having the finest fighting force in the world, we are focused on dividing people up by race. That is what we are doing.

If you look at all of the training materials at the Air Force Academy, the training materials at West Point, the training materials at the Naval Academy, they are chock-full of this, spending time on that, and it is driving people away from wanting to serve.

It is driving people of all races away from wanting to serve because we are focusing on race and division rather than unifying our United States military behind the flag of the United States.

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

Mr. Chair, in closing, a recent story indicated: Servicemembers forced to pay back signing bonuses after being removed after COVID vaccine. They see it as a kick in the face.

The Air Force delays bonuses. Higher-than-projected personnel costs are driving a shortfall in FY 2023 military personnel appropriation. Meanwhile, we have jobs and notices under the chief diversity officer and myriad other positions at $183,500. Why?

Why can't we get it right? Why can't we do the right thing and use the dollars that we have appropriated to fund the men and women in uniform to do their job? That is the question.

The fact is what we are doing is we are funding things like a professor at the Air Force Academy posting about her desire to make students learn how to ``identify the structural racism and inequality that has been endemic in American history.''

A West Point slide obtained by FOIA stated that: ``White people and people of color live radically different structured lives, and that in order to understand racial inequality, it is first necessary to address Whiteness.'' That is what we are paying for rather than paying for men and women to defend this country.

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

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, the Department of Defense Education Activity, an agency under the Department of Defense, runs 160 schools on military bases across the globe, serving more than 69,000 children of military personnel.

The amendment that I am offering would prohibit the Department of Defense schools, DODEA, from using funds to promote or compel teachers to adhere to critical race theory.

Specifically, this is what I on the floor was accused of offering as being racist by the ranking member of the Rules Committee a little bit earlier, but I was not on the floor to have the words stricken.

Here is what the language is in the amendment--compel teachers to adhere to critical race theory, specifically the idea that:

``(1) Any race is inherently superior or inferior to any other race, color, or national origin.

``(2) The United States is a fundamentally racist country.

``(3) The Declaration of Independence or Constitution of the United States are fundamentally racist documents.

``(4) An individual's moral character or worth is determined by the individual's race, color, or national origin.

``(5) An individual, by virtue of the individual's race, is inherently racist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.

``(6) An individual, because of the individual's race, bears responsibility for the actions committed by other members of the individual's race, color, or national origin.''

Instead of working to empower parents, our education system is using critical race theory outside of the Department of Defense, but in this case inside the Department of Defense, to turn schools into a propaganda machine dedicated to raising students up that judge one another by race and hate our country's founding principles.

Teaching kids to hate the country they live in, to view their fellow citizens as enemies because of the color of their skin is wrong. It is anti-American, and it is societal suicide.

Critical race theory is an anti-American ideology that seeks to pick winners and losers based on skin color. We are seeing a large-scale effort to impose this tyranny over the minds of men and our children through taxpayer-funded indoctrination of this ideology.

I believe we must preserve the foundational American truth that people are valuable regardless of their skin color and prevent critical race theory from being used to divvy us up by race further.

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

Mr. Chair, an article written by the spouse of a member of our military in The Federalist and the mother of a former Department of Defense education student talked about the training that she discovered when she dove into what their students were being taught.

She saw that there would be an equity and access summit for teachers and administrators. She said: Knowing that equity means different things to different people, I wanted to get a sense of what it meant, and I was floored.

They released a video of summit clips in which a principal talks about a student who felt like he had done something wrong because he is a young, White male. The teacher said she didn't know what to tell him, but she seemed pleased with the breakthrough. Perhaps she was just following the lead of DODEA's diversity, equity, and inclusion chief, Kelisa Wing, who is currently under investigation or at that time was under investigation by DOD for a history of disparaging comments toward White people.

The fact here is, the sordid business of divvying us up by race is what we are trying to move past, and having our Department of Defense schools teaching the children of our men and women in uniform to focus on race and the divvying us up by race is inherently wrong and undermines the future cohesion of not just the military but the country. The purpose here is to say that we don't need our Department of Defense schools to be engaged in this indoctrination.

I heard earlier the questions here about all these stats about how this improves all of our recruiting. If that is so, why is our recruiting in the toilet? It is in the toilet because if you talk to recruits, they are sick of it. They don't like the indoctrination. Their friends listen to it, and they say: ``I don't want any part of it.''

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

Mr. Chair, in closing, we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Life. I can't help but notice the focus of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle of terminating life.

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

Mr. Chairman, it is one of the great myths of this situation that we don't have a mission.

The Biden administration has laid out a very, very clear plan, as I said at the outset, and that plan is to do everything we can to help preserve a sovereign democratic Ukraine without going to war with Russia. That is the administration's plan, and they have made it clear over and over and over again.

There are a lot of different people that have different opinions. This amendment does not ask for Joe Wilson's plan. This amendment asks for the White House--the administration's plan, which we already have. If you want to get Joe's plan, he is sitting right there, and I suggest you ask him.

The administration has a very clear mission. That mission doesn't have anything to do with regime change or trying Vladimir Putin. These are all things to discuss. The mission in this conflict and the reason we are supporting Ukraine is to preserve a sovereign democratic Ukraine, which means helping them take back as much of their territory that they can. How much they can take back is hard to say.

We are supporting them and because we supported them, there is a sovereign democratic Ukraine. We are also at the same time having conversations with Ukraine and trying to have conversations with Russia about getting to the peace table. Right now Vladimir Putin isn't willing to do that. He wants to destroy Ukraine. We are helping Ukraine protect themselves. The mission is clear.

Using this excuse of a report to cut off the funds for the mission is not the right approach. You can disagree with the mission if you want. I understand that. It is a democracy, and we can have that conversation, but let's please stop saying that there isn't clarity.

There is absolute clarity. President Biden, Jake Sullivan, Chairman Milley, and Secretary Austin have said over and over and over again that we are helping Ukraine defend itself so we can preserve a sovereign democratic Ukraine and stop Russia from wiping them off the map. That is the mission.

Thus far, it has been successful. We want to help them retake more territory.

Mr. Chairman, I urge opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, first of all, we haven't actually used the lend-lease provision yet, so there is nothing to exercise oversight on. It is not clear whether or not it will be used.

Mr. Chairman, I want to address the larger issue which has been raised, and that is the idea that there is a lack of accountability for the funds going to Ukraine. Number one, that is a big Russian-Putin propaganda talking point; and, two, completely wrong. It has been investigated by the IG and a bunch of other folks and determined that that is not happening.

These weapons are going precisely where they are supposed to be going. We know this because if they weren't, Ukraine would have lost a long time ago. They are under attack from a military roughly five times the size of theirs that is much more well-armed and much more well- equipped.

In order to defend themselves, they have to effectively use the support that the United States, and again, 53 other nations are providing to them. They have been effectively using that, which is how they have been able to retake some of the territory that Russia took from them a year and a half ago and protect the rest of the country that Putin was trying to take.

Let's not buy into this myth that somehow this money is being wasted and is not proper oversight. There is a legitimate argument to be had about what you feel about the importance of Ukraine, but it is not based on this money being wasted.

The money has been incredibly effectively used. That is why Ukraine has been able to defend itself. Again, I believe we should help Ukraine defend itself, which is what we are doing. As with all the other amendments along these lines, I urge opposition to this one.

Mr. Chair, I want to answer the most important question: What does this have to do with national security? It has to do with unit cohesion and with recruitment.

Interestingly, the survey data shows that almost three times as many people say they are worried about joining the military because of their concerns about discrimination as say that they are worried about the military being too woke.

That is the point of this. The training is to make sure there is unit cohesion, number one, and number two, that we can recruit from the entire country.

It really comes down to whether or not you believe that we have a history of discrimination against people of color, the LGBTQ community, and women.

If you think that that just didn't happen and we don't have to worry about it, then I guess this approach makes sense, but the history of our country tells a very different story.

We need to address this in order to make sure that if you are a woman, if you are a Black person, if you are trans or gay, the military is going to give you a fair shake.

Let me remind everybody here. Just 13 years ago, we finally allowed gay people to serve in the military. Every single Republican voted against that. Every single one.

Do we really think that our national security would be stronger if we drove all the gay people out of the military? We need all the resources, all the talents from this country, and regrettably, we haven't always done that. In what is shown, we need to address these issues.

Now, the Republicans exaggerate this. They act like this is all we do in recruitment. I have spent a lot of time with a lot of military people. This is not all we do in training the military. It is something that needs to be done to meet our recruitment goals.

Mr. Chair, what this amendment before us says, it says you cannot teach that the Constitution is a racist document.

As Mrs. McClellan pointed out, the Constitution says that Black people are three-fifths of a person. The problem here is that we are not allowing with this amendment to have an honest discussion. Within the military, within society as a whole, you can't have a functioning unit, a functioning institution if you don't understand this history properly.

This amendment requires us to literally whitewash history. If you are a Black person thinking about serving in the military, and you know that is the military you are walking into, you are going to be worried about it.

What DEI does is it gives an opportunity to assure people that they will be treated equally, assurance that they are needed precisely because of amendments like this.

Our country has a rich and complicated history. A lot of it is very good, but we need to be honest about what it is if we are going to recruit from the diverse population that we need to recruit from.

Mr. Chair, I urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment.

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

Mr. Chair, my amendment simply requires a mission statement from the National Command Authority.

We used to insist on a mission and an exit strategy before we committed to wars. Make no mistake, this is a proxy war in Ukraine. Russians have unjustly invaded their neighbor, and Ukrainians are rightly defending their country.

The first thing the administration did was offer President Zelenskyy a ride. He said, in a very inspiring response: I don't need a ride. I need ammunition.

Who couldn't be inspired by that?

Before we spent $113 billion, we should have expected a mission. We still don't have a defined mission. Whether it is in public or in a classified setting is fine with this amendment, but it should be required. We should have done it up front, we should have done it subsequently, but we should at least do it now.

Before we spend this other $300 million that is in this National Defense Authorization Act, we should require what every E-5 and above is able to draft. It is the least we can expect out of our National Command Authority.

When we commit to something, the Nation should commit to it, not just our military and not just our checkbook, an open checkbook. Without a mission, we can't hold anyone accountable for failure, and we can't properly claim mission accomplished. We must have a mission.

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

Mr. Chair, this amendment requires a mission. We have asked nicely, we have asked persistently, and they have given us no response, so there has to be consequences.

We figure $300 million out of $113 billion is a small price. It is enough to get their attention, hopefully. Who knows?

They can't account for billions of dollars at the Pentagon. Instead of holding them accountable for it, even firing anybody, we are giving them even more money.

Now, I couldn't be more pro-military. I enlisted in the Army. I got the chance to go to our Nation's military academy. I came back as an Army infantry officer, served in the Ranger regiment. I love this country with a soldier's passion.

We have got to put our country first. If we are going to spend money, we should at least demand a mission, and $300 million is small change.

In fact, before this bill could even make it through the Senate, before appropriations could even come up, they could draft a mission. They could draft a mission today, and they probably have it. The trouble is, they have three or four versions of the mission.

The mission to make sure this war doesn't spread to a NATO ally would be a just cause, but it is not clear that is what they are trying to do. They are not pursuing any kind of peace negotiation.

The mission to require no Russians in Ukraine could be a just cause, but that is very different than a mission that says no Russians in Ukraine including Crimea. Each of those are radically different resource allocations.

I want to know, if we are going to give resources, what mission are you asking me to fund?

Here is the really radical one. Victoria Nuland from the State Department says that our mission is regime change in Russia, including war crimes tribunals for Vladimir Putin. Now, if that is our mission, we don't have resources for that fight. That would require us to be in the fight. That is fundamentally a declaration of war. That is an unlimited war of regime change, a war of aggression by the United States because we have not been attacked.

Now, make no mistake, we are using a proxy. But isn't a proxy meant to facilitate a broader war with Russia? Unless we demand that mission, how do we hold them accountable for not growing it and expanding it? We must demand a mission.

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

Mr. Chair, the gentleman from South Carolina talks about war criminal Putin. That makes me think he supports regime change in Russia, because that is what it would take to prosecute Vladimir Putin for war crimes.

Now, I am not saying that he is not a war criminal. I am not saying anything he has done is just. It is not. The question is: Is that really the mission that we are trying to fund?

The sequence is ready, aim, fire for a reason. It is not ready, fire, aim. It is not too late to pull back and do the rational thing here and commit to a mission so that we can be accountable, and we can hold this administration accountable, our military commanders accountable, and, frankly, our weak State Department accountable for actually accomplishing a mission.

Hopefully, they succeed, and we can say: Well done. Mission accomplished. But they don't want to be accountable for the mission. That is why they worked so hard to oppose this rational standard that was always the cause. Post-Vietnam, we learned we commit to a mission, and we commit to an exit strategy. We abandon it at our peril. We are less free, less safe, and more burdened by debt because of it. We have to demand a mission.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. Chair, I would like to begin by thanking Ranking Member Smith, Mr. McGovern, and their staffs for working with us on this critically important amendment and for their leadership throughout this NDAA process.

As we know, Mr. Chair, with war criminals threatening to use nuclear weapons and serious tensions along NATO's eastern border and in the South China Sea, today's world is being redefined by escalating tensions between major nuclear powers.

We don't have to look far back in history to see the danger here. The Cold War was full of near misses and numerous crises that could have gotten out of control and ended in nuclear war.

We are now entering a period of dangerous nuclear competition. As such, we must remember one of the key lessons that the Cold War taught us about nukes: We must preserve the ability to quickly step back from the brink and clearly signal de-escalation when necessary.

Unfortunately, the current draft of the NDAA includes a provision that prohibits our country from doing just that. Specifically, this dangerous provision makes it impossible for our country to reduce our stockpiles of intercontinental ballistic missiles, ICBMs, for any reason, with no exceptions.

This inflexible policy was created and implemented by lawmakers in promotion of economic considerations and not national security priorities, Mr. Chair. Making national security decisions with the potential to end humanity based on so-called economic considerations is simply ridiculous. It is dangerous.

While we preserve this insanely expensive weapon that is obsolete, many children in my district go to schools without clean drinking water.

Maintaining this incredibly large stockpile of these weapons isn't even necessary in maintaining a credible deterrent. The U.K., France, India, and China all have very credible nuclear deterrents with much smaller stockpiles, Mr. Chair.

The shortsighted policy places serious and concerning restraints on the President of the United States, the United States Congress, and the Department of Defense's ability to consider and modify the role ICBMs play in our nuclear arsenal and our national defense, and it unnecessarily wastes taxpayer dollars in the process.

Preserving our ability to reduce our nuclear stockpiles proved key to reducing tensions, Mr. Chair, and achieving commonsense, planet-saving arms control agreements during the Cold War.

Just as we have the ability to increase our nuclear defense in times of crisis, we must have the ability to reduce our nuclear forces when it is in our interest.

To be clear, Mr. Chair, this amendment does not change the size of our nuclear forces. It merely allows for reasonable consideration and debate in the future.

Mr. Chair, as the mother of two who dreams of a world where our children and families are freed from threat and fear of nuclear war, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, just to be clear, this amendment does not change the size of our nuclear forces. It merely allows for reasonable consideration and debate in the future, especially around de- escalation. Again, our history shows during the Cold War, it was critical.

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), my good colleague.

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

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

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

I just want to be clear with my colleagues. This amendment gives our government more options that could avoid our world ending in nuclear war. It is that simple. It doesn't reduce. It doesn't increase. It literally allows for real consideration and debate and allows the President of the United States and the Department of Defense to make those decisions.

It is a commonsense amendment. Really, I think it is incredibly important, especially, again, at a time of watching what is going on in our world right now and what happened during the Cold War. It is important for us to be able to de-escalate when needed, for us to be able to again make more thoughtful decisions, not based on this kind of scare tactic of let's do more, let's get this out there and everything without actually considering some of the really important factors that are around these very dangerous, again, world-ending weapons that we have that could end in nuclear war in our world.

It is very, very important, again, for all my colleagues to understand: This is not about reducing. This is about actually having more options.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. Chair, this amendment would remove a section in the bill relating to the B83 nuclear gravity bomb and prohibit any funding for B83 sustainment.

The B83 is the last megaton-class nuclear weapon in our arsenal. It exists to destroy deeply buried targets. China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran are putting some of the things they value most underground, covered in steel and concrete. The B83 is currently our only way of getting to those targets.

When the Biden administration proposed to begin retiring the B83 last year, we asked: How are you going to replace them?

They didn't have an answer. So, Democrats and Republicans agreed on a provision in the FY 2023 NDAA that allowed the Department to retire up to 25 percent of those bombs but prohibited any further retirements until the Department completed the study on how to replace that capability.

As of this date, the Biden Pentagon is still studying the problem, and we are not any closer to the B83 replacement.

The language included in our bill repeats the bipartisan compromise struck in last year's NDAA--nothing more and nothing less.

I also note this amendment would prohibit all sustaining funding to the B83. Not even the Biden administration thinks this is a good idea. Stockpile sustainment includes the safety and surveillance activities necessary to keep nuclear weapons safe and secure.

There is no exception in this amendment to allow for those activities to continue. Completely cutting off funds is irresponsible.

Mr. Chair, I urge Members to oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn), my friend and colleague from the Armed Services Committee and the chair of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee.

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Strong), who is an outstanding freshman member of the Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Chair, I believe this amendment is bad policy. Not even the Biden administration is proposing to zero out this funding. It would also be dangerous from a safety point of view.

Mr. Chair, I urge all Members to oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

This amendment would strike a provision in the bill that prohibits the Nation's ICBM fleet from falling below its current size of 400.

In 2014, the Obama administration decided to reduce the ICBM fleet to 400 missiles to comply with the New START Treaty. Ever since 2016, the Congress has included provisions in the defense authorization bill to effectively prohibit any further reduction.

The reason is simple. Nuclear threats are growing. In fact, just this year, the commander of U.S. Strategic Command notified Congress that China now possesses more ICBM launchers than the United States.

Now is not the time to be considering cuts to our ICBM fleet, which remains central to our deterrent.

I want to quote former Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Hyten, whom many of us know and respect. When asked specifically about reducing the ICBM force, he replied: ``I don't understand how, with the threats that we face today, which are growing, not shrinking, we would make a decision today as a nation to lessen our overall strategic deterrent. That makes no sense to me, and my best military advice is that we do not do that.''

Mr. Chair, I urge all Members to oppose the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bacon), an outstanding member of the Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Chair, this amendment will strike commonsense provisions that have been consistent policies since 2016.

Mr. Chair, I urge Members to oppose the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.