Cory Mills

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Likewise, the gentleman from Alabama is an amazing chairman. We appreciate everything he has done for the National Defense Authorization Act but also for our warfighters.

Mr. Chair, I rise today in strong support of my amendment in the National Defense Authorization Act.

Right now, our Nation's Defense Industrial Base is facing a massive supply chain crisis. We need to innovate, be agile and resilient, and we need to win.

The answer is right here in our small businesses, especially our employee-owned small businesses, also known as ESOPs.

In 2021, the Department of Defense created a pilot program to incentivize contracting with high-performing, worker-owned companies. It was a great idea, but under the current rules, a business must be 100 percent employee-owned to qualify.

Mr. Chairman, that rigid rule locks out nearly 6,500 ESOPs nationwide, covering 14 million to 15 million American workers. It makes the program completely unusable for the vast majority of ESOPs in place in every district represented in this Chamber.

My amendment fixes this by aligning the ESOP threshold with the Small Business Administration rules and giving the Department of War the discretion to rate these companies on merit and not formula.

Data shows that employee-owned companies consistently perform better, stay resilient, and deliver higher value. By lowering this arbitrary barrier, we support these businesses while we boost competition in the DOW procurement, support American workers, and drive Federal dollars back to the Main Street.

Let's empower our small businesses, strengthen our national security, and pass this amendment.

Mr. Speaker, 47 years--I am going to say it again: 47 years. That is how long this evil regime has waged war not only against the West and our allies but Americans.

Whether it be the Beirut bombing, whether it be the hostages, or whether it be the violation of our own sovereign territory of our embassies, make no mistake about it: It was Iran and their regime that actually waged war against America--far longer than the strategic strikes to eliminate the imminent threat that this regime posed.

My colleague from Florida has pointed out all the different occasions in which this regime has targeted Americans. Let me point out the fact that not only are they engaged in the illicit trade and drug trafficking of Captagon, not only are they going ahead and leveraging sanctioned oil to countries like China and others to fund these proxy militias--we are talking about the worst of the worst, including the Houthis over in Yemen and Hamas, which indiscriminately murdered, raped, and showed barbarism on October 7 in Israel.

Look at Hezbollah under Hassan Nasrallah, who was responsible not only for the slaughtering of Christians in Lebanon but also for the targeting of Americans with the expansion of their militias in Iraq.

Hashd al-Shaabi and Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq in Iraq are responsible for more attacks against American troops and contractors, as well as for rocket attacks on our embassies, than any other.

The list goes on and on, Mr. Chairman. We can talk about the fact that we want to go back to Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 responsibilities of declarations of war, but I would argue that my colleague on the left has also voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force as an abdication of those responsibilities.

I would also argue the fact, as the chairman had talked about, while you are right that a piece of paper isn't going to change things, it sends a clear message that this body stands unified in acknowledging that this state sponsor of terror will not have a reign any longer, thanks to President Donald J. Trump and the decisive action to guarantee that their nuclear enrichment program will not continue to thrive. Their mid-range ballistic missiles, their long-range ballistic missiles, and their ICBMs will not threaten American lives any longer.

Our servicemembers who are deployed in the region can sleep peacefully at night knowing that they are not going to have Shahed-136s or other attack drones killing them in their sleep.

I would also go ahead and iterate the fact that I can guarantee the six new Gold Star families and those six new heroes will be proud to know that we haven't forgotten and that we are going to continue to acknowledge that this evil regime is the greatest state sponsor of terror.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to support this resolution, and I thank the chairman for giving me this time.

Mr. Speaker, the chairman is right. We just pointed to the three key things that you need in order to have lethal force against the United States. One is intent.

I think that Iran and the regime have made it very clear when they are chanting ``death to America,'' the thousands of lives they have changed with either maiming or killing American troops or civilians abroad, but also likelihood.

We know that they are able to build 100-plus missiles a day. We know they had ICBMs. We have now found out they had the hypersonic ballistic capabilities as they targeted over six different countries.

The thing we talk about, the JCPOA, as was just mentioned, Resolution 2231 where the administration tried to come up with an idea of a negotiation that led to diplomatic and peaceful solutions, was continually violated by this regime as even Secretary-Generals Ban Ki- moon and Guterres had pointed out multiple times as the Iranian regime sent mid-range ballistic missiles to the Houthis and to other areas to continue attacking Americans and the West.

The hypocrisy is what I really want to point out here, not the fact that we already understand the Article II authorities that the President has, which is well within the bounds constitutionally, not to mention the fact that this body, before I came into Congress, was already abdicating the roles and responsibilities under Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 when they started doing things like AUMFs.

Let us point to things like what we saw in Libya. It was very clear in 2011, as we see here in military intervention, that it was without prior congressional authorization, relying instead on a U.N. Security Council resolution and legal justification from the Department of Justice that argued that the administration had limited nonground troop missions and doesn't constitute hostilities. Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what we have here: no ground troops.

It also goes on further to justify under the United Nations mandates, international mandates, and the legal justification to say that because they were focused on protecting civilians, not sustained fighting and didn't involve ground troops. I don't know about you, but I think 40- plus Iranian civilians, peacefully protesting for a change, being brutally murdered, being raped, being tortured, being slaughtered, being hung from cranes, being persecuted and imprisoned--I think President Trump stopping this after 47 years was protecting civilian lives.

I think it is established that we had no boots on the ground. I think that we have demonstrated the imminence, the likelihood, and intent of an evil regime to try and go ahead and attack Americans and threaten our way of life.