Ellen O. Tauscher

Mr. Chairman and my colleagues, I rise to announce that I have been confirmed by the United States Senate as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. I have informed my friend, the Speaker of the House, and the Governor of California that I will be resigning my seat at the end of votes today.

Madam Speaker, Mr. Chairman, I am deeply grateful for the trust that both President Obama and Secretary Clinton have placed in me. I am equally grateful and humbled by the honor and privilege to have represented California's 10th Congressional District for the last 13 years in the House of Representatives. It has been the deepest and greatest professional experience of my life, and I am deeply, deeply grateful for the opportunity and the trust that my constituents have placed in me.

In my seven terms in the Congress, I have tried to keep my promise of being an independent and effective moderate. I have worked hard, and I have worked with you. I look around the room; many Members I have served with for the entire time I have been here, and some of you I have flown on planes with and some of you I have taken codels with.

What I know is that we sit here and we do the people's work, and whether we agree or not doesn't always matter. What is most important is that we represent our constituents, that we honor the Constitution, and we keep faith with our conscience. Those are the

three Cs that I have tried for these years to maintain in balance. It's not always easy, but I have tried.

I look at all of you and I understand how difficult this world is and how troubling the lives of many Americans are now and how heavy the burden is on you.

What I pledge to you, as I leave the legislative branch in this great House that I have grown to love and all of you that I love, and my constituents that I love, what I promise you in my new capacity is to work with you to achieve what we all know is important, to make sure that we have the safety and the security of the American people always on the forefront of our minds.

I have been blessed to have, I think, some of the best staff in the world. I have always told people I represent the smartest people in the world. I have the two national nuclear labs in Livermore, California, and I have Travis Air Force Base and 600-some-odd thousand constituents who apparently, now, 100 percent of them have voted for me every time. There's nothing like leaving to become popular.

But I just want to thank the staff who have worked with me, both on the subcommittee and my personal staff and my district staff, that have been just absolutely fabulous.

I want to thank my friends in the House, my friends that started as friends and became family and who have sustained me and with whom I have learned so much.

I want to thank the Speaker for her indefatigable energy. I want to thank Steny Hoyer. I want to thank my partner in my county, George Miller. I want to thank Ike Skelton and Jim Oberstar, my chairmen, for being so generous and for helping me learn.

I want to thank, again, my constituents for the honor. I especially want to thank my family, my parents and my sisters and brothers and my friends who have been patient and understanding when I couldn't be at birthday parties and volleyball games.

I want to thank my daughter, who was raised in the House. She came here as a 5\1/2\-year-old. She is now going to college, and I am so thrilled that she is emancipated and happy and healthy and a smart young woman. And you should be as proud of her as I am, because you helped raise her.

And I want to thank, especially, my fiance, Jim Cieslak, who I will marry tomorrow. Thank you. It's hard to be a blushing bride at my age, but I will do my best.

Let me just close and say that no matter where I am serving in government, I will always remember those that sent me here, and I will always be grateful for your trust and support.

I just want to take a second and say that I have been honored to represent the Speaker on the podium. There's nothing like having the view from up there, because the view from up there is of all of you, and that's the best view I have had, I think, in my life. I will take that in my heart as I go to the State Department.

I want to thank all the people behind the scenes who work so hard to make sure that we do the job that we do.

I am not saying goodbye, I am just saying farewell for the time being. I expect I will work with you all very well, but know that this has been the best experience of my life.

God bless you. God bless America.

Announcement by the Acting Chair

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

Mr. Chairman, I stand in significant opposition to this amendment. The committee's bill provides $9.3 billion for missile defense, fully funding the administration's request. The budget supports our efforts to build a robust defense against threats from rogue nations such as North Korea, and increases funding for proven missile defense systems like The Aegis BMD and the Terminal High Altitude Aerial Defense, called THAAD, by $900 million over the budget level of last year.

This amendment would result in wasteful, unnecessary spending. As Secretary Gates told our committee, The security of the American people and the efficacy of the missile defense system are not enhanced by continuing to put money into programs that in terms of their operational concept are fatally flawed or research programs that are essentially sinkholes for taxpayer dollars.

With all due respect, Mr. Chairman, I find myself here trying to rescue the missile defense program from its strongest advocates, because all they want to do is spend money. We have spent $120 billion over the last 10 years on missile defense. I am a strong supporter of missile defense, but unless you have oversight and unless you have an operationally effective system to protect against the existing threats and deploy those systems to protect our forward-deployed troops, the American people and our allies, it is just spending money after money after money.

The advocates of missile defense that just want to spend money don't seem to want to deal with the fact that in this bill we authorize $1 billion to test, sustain and improve the existing system, because what we found out recently is that the system that is deployed has got some problems. It has got problems with operation and maintenance because enough of that money during the previous administration wasn't spent to make sure that the system was maintained.

Democrats are strong on missile defense. We want to make sure we have a proven system, one that is going to not only work but one that is also going to deter, and the best way to do that is to have a system that is operationally effective and tested, one that is maintained properly, and one that is fielded to array against and deter and defeat the threats.

I think that on our side, we believe that we have done that, both during the time of the Bush administration and certainly now in full support of the President's budget request.

Mr. Chairman, I am happy to reserve my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews), a longstanding member of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin), a longstanding member of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee.

Before I yield, I would just like to engage the new Member from Illinois. I know you are a new Member, sir, but the truth of the matter is over the last 8 years of the Bush administration where all we did was spend money without very much oversight, we would have had, after spending all that money, $120 billion, we should have a system that is operationally effective and actually achieved credible deterrence.

You have to ask yourself why that hasn't happened after $120 billion. The question is not how much money you spend; it is whether you spend it smartly. That is what this budget does.

I yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Larsen) for 2 minutes.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the chairman of the committee, Mr. Skelton of Missouri.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve my time.

Mr. Chairman, I could not make a better argument for rejecting the Franks amendment.

Let's get it right. We are investing $9.3 billion for missile defense because we believe what the President has said is right, that we need to have defenses that are going to defeat long-range, short-range, and medium-range systems that are raid against the United States, our forward-deployed troops, and our allies. Don't take the money from cold war legacies. We are going to lose 10,000 jobs of people that are cleaning up sites around the country.

We need to defeat this amendment because we want to invest money smartly. We don't want to follow what we've done for the last 8 years, which is just spend money and not have any oversight.

Let's get this right. Let's have strong missile defense. Defeat the Franks amendment.