Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 266, submitted earlier today.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be discharged from further consideration of S. 528 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time.

I know of no further debate on the bill.

I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 866 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time.

Mr. President, I know of no further debate on the bill.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m., Thursday, June 27; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the Senate resume consideration of S. 1790.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. President, if we can amend that--after a period of 10 minutes, the two leaders and the ranking member be allowed to speak for such time as they shall consume. That would work.

Mr. President, yesterday we got down to work on amendments for the national defense authorization legislation. We filed a substitute amendment that included 93 bipartisan amendments. When I say 93, there are 44 Democratic, 44 Republican, and I think 5 more that we have from both sides. This is what we have been trying to do. Both Senator Reed and I have been encouraging people to bring amendments to the floor for a long period of time. In fact, the majority leader, Senator McConnell, has made several appeals that in the event this gets bogged down, go ahead and bring your amendments down so we can work with you. That is what we did. The substitute that we used yesterday incorporated 93 amendments, and they were actually brought to us for fear that what happened a year ago would happen again.

I am not sure that the system is wrong when it does this, but any one Member of the Democrats or Republicans can stop an amendment from coming forward.

It takes unanimous consent. People don't understand that. Right now, we are in a position where one individual--last year, one individual, and at one point, two individuals said they were stopping all amendments unless they got certain consideration for their own amendment. That seems to be happening again now. Nonetheless, that is why we have all of these amendments, and that is what we have done.

I heard a couple of my colleagues say that Republicans are blocking consideration of an amendment on Iran, the Senator Udall amendment. That is holding up the bill.

Members of both parties are raising objections to not just one single amendment but to all amendments. We are following a process that allows all Senators to have their say. That is a good thing, but it means that anyone can hold up this bill.

What do we do to preclude damage--irreparable damage--to the most important bill of the year, the NDAA? We have taken the initiative to bring up amendments and discuss amendments. I have a list with me of all of the amendments that are in the bill that we are talking about, the substitute bill--the Cotton amendment; the open source fusion centers; the Pacific Island states; the Perdue amendment--I can go through all 93 of them. The DOD Financial Improvement and Audit Remediation Plan, which Senator Perdue has been talking about for a long period of time--we have it now. It is in the bill. Cornyn's bill on overseas absentee balloting--voting for members of the Armed Forces--that is in the bill. All these amendments are there, and that is what we have been doing.

That is why I found the whole idea of Senator Schumer's objecting to finishing this bill, as we had planned to do it, this week because of the political debates, the Presidential debates that are going on--I was pretty shocked yesterday to hear that my colleague from New York, the minority leader, said that we should delay votes on the NDAA so that seven Democratic Senators can participate in primary debates. That is clearly saying that politics is more important than the national security.

Whether it is seven or just one Democratic Senator who wants to participate, my answer would be the same: We need to get this bill done to protect the Nation. I say without apology that the national security preempts politics. This is the tradition of the Armed Services Committee. It is our tradition for a reason.

I repeat: Senator Schumer said we should delay votes on the most important bill of the year--a bill which has a quickly approaching deadline and which has wide bipartisan support--for political purposes. He said: ``There is no rush to complete the NDAA.'' He said that there will be ``no harmful consequences to our military.''

I disagree. We have to enact the NDAA by September 30, the start of the new fiscal year. We don't have that much time to spare. Think about all the things we have to do between now and September 30.

If we don't pass the NDAA on time, we will delay needed reforms to the privatized housing scandal. I would call it a scandal. We have had two hearings on that. Up until February, no one had said anything about it. No one said there is a problem. They talked about back in the days when we did privatize housing. I thought it was a good idea. I was here at the time. I am partially responsible. It worked for a while, a couple of years. And then I think a lot of the contractors got greedy, and they found shortcuts. I think we in the uniforms were somewhat responsible, too, because they did some things that--they didn't have the oversight they had before, and therefore they didn't have the responsibility. So that is a big deal, and that is something that needs to be corrected, and that is in the bill. That is going to be a part of the bill. If we don't pass the NDAA, it is not going to be.

If we don't pass the NDAA on time, we will delay $11.2 billion in military construction projects in 44 States. Yes, some of those are in my State of Oklahoma. We would handicap mission-critical infrastructure for combatant commands protecting America and U.S. interests across the globe. These are MILCON projects that need to be done.

If we don't pass the NDAA on time, we will delay disaster relief for military installations still recovering from the devastating storms and disasters in Florida, North Carolina, and Nebraska.

If we don't pass the NDAA on time, we will lose authorities for ongoing security cooperation in Afghanistan and Iraq, reducing pressure on terrorist threats, encouraging our enemies, and undermining our partners.

If we don't pass this NDAA on time, we will be slowing enactment of the Fentanyl Sanctions Act, which Senator Schumer is very much concerned about and has been critical to getting this done. I think it is very important to inhibit the flow of these deadly drugs across our borders.

If we don't get the NDAA done on time, we will let the EPA continue kicking the can down the road on the PFAS crisis and providing Americans safe drinking water.

All of these things are going to happen if we start delaying it. You might say we are only delaying it for a week, maybe 2 weeks; still, that delays everything else, and that also puts it into the timeframe where we are going to be busy doing all these other things we are going to have to do. We have a lot to do before September 30 and only a number of legislative days to do it. We have to pass the NDAA. We have to get a budget deal. We have to bring the appropriations bills to the floor. These are all vital to getting our troops the resources they need on time and with predictability.

This is a simple request that our military leaders have made. In fact, they said it is the best thing we can do for our national security. This is what is going on right now.

I also listened to a lot of the discussion on the floor. They are talking about the concentration camps, all these--the treatment of our kids. Let me say, even though that is not in the purview of the committee that has the bill, the NDAA--that is Health and Human Services--I have done some looking into that. And Don Archer in my office has spent time with HHS, and they found out these kids are being kept well. Fourteen hundred of these kids are going to go to my State of Oklahoma, and I am going to be sure that they are healthy when they get there and that they are fed properly. Everyone is going to have their own bed, their own resources. The staff servicing these kids is at a 2-to-1 ratio.

I know it sounds great. It sounds popular. If you want to demean this President and make it look like he is abusing kids, that rings high, but it is just not true. We are going to have to do something to correct the misuse. It is doing a great disservice not just to the kids but to the bill.

Our responsibility to provide for the common defense is so important, it is in the opening lines of the Constitution. I know a lot of people don't read

the old document anymore, but I think it is pretty important. I would hope that my colleagues agree--especially those on the campaign trail-- that a candidate for a higher office in this country who truly understands the importance of defending this Nation and our ideas should understand the need to pass this bill on time. We have to pass the bill. We have to pass the bill as soon as possible.

I want to again commend the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Reed, for his unwavering commitment to our men and women in uniform. He understands, as I understand, that this isn't the only important thing we have to do.

I would like for everyone to be aware that there is an effort to delay this bill for what I have to say would be purely political reasons. It is so that people who are on the committee can participate in a Presidential debate. Well, they have a daytime job, and they need to be doing their daytime job, which is defending America and passing the NDAA. That is what we intend to do.

I plan to be on the floor all day today, and I want to make sure this idea that somehow we are not getting amendments through, anticipating we might not be able to get them through--yesterday, we actually passed 93 amendments--93 amendments. It has taken several weeks to get all these amendments in. I am going to be reading off some of these amendments and making sure that the authors come down to the floor and talk about their amendment.

Senator Boozman from Arkansas has an amendment that would modify authorized strength in the Armed Force Reserve. It is a very important amendment, and I am sure he is going to be coming down and talking about his amendment, as are the other Members. Some 44 Members actually have amendments they need to talk about. We will have that opportunity. I think we have all day long today to get that done and get this done and get back on track and pass the NDAA, the most important bill of the year.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I just want to make one comment. I know that somehow it is popular to say demeaning things about our President and John Bolton.

I can remember the years that John Bolton was with the United Nations, representing the United States, and he did just such an incredible job. He is one that really has all the talent you could have in the background. He certainly knows more about defense than anyone else I know in this administration.

One of the proudest moments I had of this President was when he did away with that thing that John Kerry had during the last administration. They are always referring to our coddling the Iranians in the media.

I happened to be with Netanyahu when the President got us out of the arrangement with Iran, where we gave them--what--$1.7 billion to do anything they want to with, and they had to admit they would be promoting terrorism with the money we gave back to them. It was an absolute disaster.

Anyway, there is something about this President--in spite of the fact that right now we have the best economy we have had in my lifetime, and right now we have a type of full employment nationwide, and minority employment, we have never had anything at all like we are having right now. It is the result of two things this President did, and he did them with the help of the Republicans. We all lined up and helped him with this. It was reducing the marginal rate.

Reducing the marginal rate to increase the revenue coming into the United States is something we have known for a long time. It is not a Republican idea. That was John Kennedy. John Kennedy came up with the idea that we want to go ahead and increase revenue. At that time, he said, and his words were: We need more revenue for the Great Society programs, and the best way to increase revenue is to reduce marginal rates, and it worked.

Unfortunately, John Kennedy died right after that and couldn't see the product of his efforts. Then, after that, of course, Ronald Reagan did the same thing, and it had the same effect on the economy.

Then, when this President did it, we knew it would have that effect, but he did one more thing that they didn't, and that was he recommended, yes, you could increase the economy by reducing marginal rates, but the other way to do it is to reduce the onerous regulations that we got during the Obama administration.

During that administration, that is the biggest problem we had. People were leaving the country to go to places they could find energy. There was a war on fossil fuels--fossil fuels: oil, gas, and coal--and he ended that war. As a result of that, just in my State of Oklahoma, for example, our exports on crude have gone up 251 percent since that time.

Anyway, he also is rebuilding the military. Look what happened to the military back during the Obama administration. If you look at just the last 5 years of the Obama administration, he knocked down the amount of money that went into our military by 25 percent just in 5 years. That has never happened before.

Of course, all of that is over with now. We have a President who is a strong supporter. I will be talking about that later. It is just that the American people know better when they hear all the name-calling of this President. They don't like his style. Sure, I shudder a little bit when I hear a tweet coming, but when you stop and think about what he has been able to accomplish with his tweets, at least now people know there is another side. There is a truth out there that you can have access to instead of depending on just the liberal media.

The main thing I want to encourage is--we have people scheduled starting right after lunchtime--that Members come down and talk about their amendments. It is true we knew we were going to have some problems. We suspected we were going to have some problems getting to amendments because our rules provide that one Senator can stop the amendment process. An amendment can't come to the floor except by unanimous consent, and so they objected to unanimous consent until certain things can happen. Well, I don't criticize anyone, but we knew, because of that, that we were not going to be able to really get a lot of amendments on the floor for debate, and so we did it--in fact, we did it yesterday: ninety-three amendments yesterday.

Now, those 93 were from--equally divided--Democrats and Republicans. I have a list here, and they are going to be coming down to the floor, but I want to encourage our Members to come down because people have to know this is a good bill--this Defense authorization bill. We know it is going to pass. It has passed for 53 years, and so we know it is going to pass, but we also know it is the most important bill of the year. It is the one that takes care of our military that is fighting for our country.

So we have all of these amendments, and I encourage any of the Members, Democrats or Republicans, who are not scheduled to come down and talk this afternoon, to call up. We have lots of time open. We want to encourage them to do it. We want to make sure that not just the Members of this body and the other body across the Capitol but also the American people know we are doing something really great in terms of the Defense authorization bill. So I encourage you to call and come down to the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I thought there would be people here speaking. We are right now in consideration of the most significant bill of the year, the National Defense Authorization Act. It is not just the biggest bill but the most significant one, and we know it is going to pass. It has passed for 59 years in a row, so obviously it is going to pass. But the problem is that we have many amendments to be discussed because yesterday alone, we adopted 93 amendments, and they are equally divided between Democrats and Republicans.

I have invited and encouraged all the Members who have amendments that were on the list to come down to the floor and talk about their amendments. I have a list of those individuals who have requested to be here in conjunction with that, and they are not down here.

Let me just appeal to the Members--Democrats and Republicans alike-- to come in and describe your amendments and talk about this because we are going to do everything we can to get this bill passed this week.

I have to say, there is an effort right now by the leader of the Democrats to try to put this off because they want to watch their friends run for President on TV on Wednesday night and Thursday night. To me, we have the most important bill of the entire year. This is something we have to pass because of all the problems that come up. We have housing, for example. The big problem with privatization of housing came up last February. All the solutions are in this bill. They are taken care of. Modernizing our nuclear modernization is in this bill. That is going to be done, but it can't be done until the bill is passed and signed by the President.

If we wait, as suggested, in order for them to watch their friends on TV, then this is going to put it off for a week, and that is certainly going to jeopardize the possibility of getting it passed. There isn't time.

If you look at the list of things which the leader of the Senate articulated just a short while ago, all these things have to be done before the end of the fiscal year. The end of the fiscal year is looming out there. We don't have that many legislative days.

We have to do a budget. All these things have to be done, so we cannot jeopardize all of that by postponing this for a week.

I encourage our Members to come down and be heard and describe their amendments.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, we have been discussing this, and I think it is not just redundant but it is important to reemphasize that this is the most significant vote of the year. This is a $750 billion bill. This is the one that our entire military is depending on having pass. It will pass. It has passed every year for 59 years, and it is going to pass this year. I am concerned, however, that there is an effort to try to delay it for a week or two, which is something that will not work, which I will explain in a minute.

It just occurred to me that there is so much stuff in this bill. We talk about all of the equipment. We talk about the change. We talk about trying to make up and trying to catch up with Russia and with China and our adversaries, who are actually ahead of us in many areas. That is all significant, but there is one issue that not many people are aware of that I think is really significant and is addressed. It kind of lets you know how far this bill goes.

There is a problem that exists with the spouses of the military. Right now, under the Trump administration, we are seeing the best economy we have had, arguably, in my lifetime. We are clearly seeing success in tax relief, a reduction in taxes, because of this. Then, of course, there is the deregulatory effort by this administration.

Right now, we have the lowest national unemployment rate we have had in a long period of time--3.6 percent. Full employment is supposed to be 4 percent. In my State of Oklahoma, we are even doing better than that; we have 3.2 percent.

Anyway, families across the country are feeling the benefit of getting the economic engine moving again, and that is good, but there is one group that still faces extreme unemployment, that being the military spouses.

People don't think about this, but in almost every case of the members of the military's husbands or wives, whoever the spouse happens to be, they want part-time employment. Of course, many of them are skilled and have prepared for careers, but they are not able to get careers or to get employment because of the spouses' moving sometimes every 2 years or every 3 years so that they have to go into whole new environments. There are some State laws that preclude spouses from getting employment without their complying with certifications from the different States.

In 2018, there was a RAND study that found that frequent military moves result in spousal unemployment or underemployment and delays in employment among spouses who need to obtain credentials at new duty locations. We need to facilitate easier paths to both licensure and employment for military spouses.

Now, we make a correction in this policy that--as President Trump signed an Executive order last year--would work to improve employment opportunities for military spouses. Well, he did that with an Executive order, and we have gone a little further with this bill.

We have been successful in getting these results, and they are clear. Military spouses' unemployment dropped from nearly 25 percent in 2017 to 13 percent in 2019, but it is still a significant thing. It is still a form of discrimination by people because they are the spouse of a servicemember.

That is significant progress, but it also doesn't address the more than one-third of military spouses who are underemployed, working part time or outside their education or technical field.

One area where we can make an immediate impact is for approximately 35 percent of the military spouses in careers that require occupational licenses that are administered by the States. They may be different from State to State, and these individuals are not in a position to satisfy one State and then go to another State. Most of those spouses are licensed in healthcare and education, but others include attorneys and real estate agents.

For the military family moving an average of every 2 years, relicensing and transferring the license each time becomes very costly. So the solution is simple. We just have to go after more of the redtape that makes it hard for our military spouses to move their professional license, move their career. This is something we have addressed in this bill. People don't think about this, but we have done it, and so this is going to give a lot of relief to these people.

It kind of reminds me, when you look at the overwhelming issues we have dealt with in this bill, it is something that is very significant, and it is something that is, by far, the most important thing we will be doing all year.

There is a report from the National Defense Strategy Commission. The Commission has Democrats and Republicans. A year ago, this group got together, and they are the very foremost authorities in the country on military. They decided what it is we need to do.

We went through 8 years of the Obama administration, and I have to admit that he was very honest about it. He never had defending America as a top priority, and so we find ourselves in the situation where we have countries like China and like Russia who are actually ahead of us in areas like hypersonics.

Hypersonics is the most state-of-the-art thing we are doing in both defense and offense. It is a system that moves at five times the speed of sound, and we were leading all of the rest of the world in this effort until that administration, and that put us behind so that both China and Russia are ahead of us in that area.

This is something that really disappoints a lot of American people when they find out.

I go out and give talks around the country, and when I tell them that there are countries that have better equipment than we do, better artillery than we do, they are surprised to find that out. Clearly, China and Russia are doing that.

Now, a lot of times people would say: Well, wait a minute. How could they be ahead of us when we are spending so much more money than they are on our defense? The reason for that is very simple. It is something people don't think about, and that is the single largest expense item is the cost of people. Of course, in China and Russia they just tell them what to do. They don't have to have good living conditions for their troops.

Consequently, they are actually doing better than we are doing in many areas. This is more than just our conventional capabilities.

The NDAA--National Defense Authorization Act--fully funds our nuclear modernization. It looks out for our troops, giving them the largest pay raise in over a decade. We make needed reforms to our privatized military housing.

We thought things were going pretty well. A number of years ago, we decided to privatize our military housing. I was here at that time, and I thought it was a good idea. No one was opposed to it, and we did it.

The problem is the contractors who came in and won these contracts to take care of military housing worked fine for the first 2 or 3 years, then they got a little bit greedy, and time went by, and all of a sudden it all exploded last February when several people got together from military housing and talked about the deplorable conditions that we wouldn't expect anyone to live under.

Subsequently, we had a series of hearings in the committee I chair. The first one was a hearing on the victims, the individuals who are living in those

housing conditions. They told the stories about all the problems with the housing situation.

The next thing we had was a hearing on the contractors. These are the guys who came along and bid so they would be able to do it. They admitted in the public hearing that was true and that they had not been doing the job they needed to do.

That is something in this bill that we have taken care of. We now have a system set up that has pretty much resolved that problem.

So we have a lot of capabilities that are in this bill. It makes it easier and more affordable for spouses to transfer their occupational licenses. That is what I was just talking about.

I said before that this bill is going to pass, and it will, but what would keep it from passing is if the minority leader, Chuck Schumer, is successful in insisting on delaying consideration until July.

This has to be done by the end of this fiscal year, and that is creeping up on us. In the event that we don't get it done this week, as we had planned to do, then very likely it is not going to be done next week or the week after that because the longer it takes something like this to do, we know the political reality of how that works.

We have to get this thing done, we have to get it passed by Thursday, and I think we will. This bill has the stuff in it that we really need. It is the most significant bill we have.

So we want to avoid any delays in the calendar. It would likely mean that we would not be able to enact the NDAA before October 1 and the start of the fiscal year. That has real impact. That would delay the fixes we are talking about in privatization of housing. The delays in MILCON money. MILCON, that is military construction. We have a lot of military construction that is proposed right now. If you put it off a week, we don't know what will happen to that military construction. There are delays in disaster recovery. We have right now--and you have heard on the floor today the problems that exist in various States: Florida, North Carolina, and some places out in the Nebraska area and around there. We have disaster recovery programs that we can't do if we delay this thing for another couple weeks. These people are going to have to be living in those conditions for that period of time. The authority for Afghanistan National Security Forces and Iraq security cooperation will expire by that time.

So there is every reason in the world that we should go ahead. I think it is pretty bad when a political decision is made to delay the consideration of this bill for another week or 2 weeks--all done for purely political reasons because the Democrats are having their big show on TV tomorrow night and the next night, and they want us to sit and watch that as opposed to finishing this bill.

It is our intention to go ahead, finish the bill, get it done, and that is what we are going to do. We are anxious to do it.

I am very proud of the committee I chair. The Senate Armed Services Committee met for a period of several months and talked about all the possible amendments that could be considered, and there is a lot of talk right now about the fact that we are not doing amendments on the floor.

Well, we wanted to do amendments on the floor. Jack Reed, the Democrat who is my counterpart here, he and I have been talking about doing floor amendments for a long period of time, but under the rules of the Senate, if one person objects to bringing an amendment up, then no amendments can come up.

For that reason, we took the initiative just yesterday and passed the supplemental bill that has 93 amendments. So all of those amendments came through this process of people talking about their amendments, they just can't do it on the floor. That is what is happening right now. We have the best of intentions to continue doing that until we get the bill.

So let me just reinvite the Members down. We have, right now, a long list of the 93 amendments and the sponsors of those amendments, and we are encouraging each Member to bring his amendment down to the floor. Even though it may not be considered individually, it already passed yesterday, and people need to know what is in this bill.

So I am going to encourage our Members, invite them to come down right now and to get involved and explain to not just this U.S. Senate but to everyone else what all is in this bill.

People have a right to have pride in their own amendments, and so we are encouraging them to come down at this time and present their amendments.

With that, I will invite them down.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, while we are waiting for other Senators, let me once again encourage Members of the Senate to come down and talk about their amendments.

It is kind of an awkward situation that we have here, and we are all aware of this, but the Senate rules say that amendments can't come to the floor except by unanimous consent. That means that if there is one person who objects to having an amendment come up and be considered, then all that person has to do is object.

Frankly, that happened last year. We had a couple Members who were holding out for a nongermane amendment they wanted to consider, and they stated they would hold up all the other amendments. That happened, and it looks like it is happening again this year, but we are prepared this year because, anticipating that would be the case, yesterday we passed the 93 amendments with the bill--that we went to as the underlying bill. We now have 93 amendments in addition to the amendments we already had. We are probably now in excess of 200 amendments that we have had on this bill since its inception. Most of these amendments are bipartisan. In fact, the 93 amendments we adopted yesterday were amendments we had considered in the committee I chair, the Senate Armed Services Committee. Of those amendments, 44 were Democrats', 44 were Republicans', and the rest were bipartisan.

So this is not really that partisan of a bill.

Anyway, this includes an amendment by my colleagues, Senator Graham and Senator Heinrich, in support of plutonium pit production, which is key to maintaining our nuclear stockpile.

A lot of people are not aware of the problems we have with plutonium pit production. Consequently, we have to be competitive in this area. We have not had a nuclear modernization program in quite a long period of time. Nuclear modernization has gotten a lot of attention this year.

Traditionally, we have seen bipartisan support for these programs, and there is a good reason for that. Our nuclear force is critical to our deterrence posture and, in turn, the overall security of the Nation and really the world. This is our top priority--defending America.

Stop and think about it. The threat that is out there today--I often say I look wistfully back at the days of the Cold War when there were two superpowers. We knew what they had, they knew what we had, and mutual destruction really meant something at that time. It doesn't mean anything anymore. There are people who are run by deranged leaders in countries, and these people have the power to knock out an American city. That is the kind of threat we are faced with today, and that is why nuclear deterrence is so significant. It is such a significant part of this bill. Our nuclear force is critical for our deterrence posture and, in turn, the overall security of the Nation.

Anyway, we can't pretend that just because we take a step back, countries like Russia and China will do the same. And we did. For a period of time, in the last administration, we did step back in our efforts, and a lot of those efforts were in nuclear modernization. Consequently, while we were ahead in this area--ahead of China and Russia--they caught up and actually passed us.

Right now, they have hypersonics, as an example. Hypersonics is kind of the state-of-the-art in warfare. It is something that travels five times the speed of sound. It is something we were ahead of prior to the last administration, and we fell behind because while

we were not doing anything, China and Russia were doing things. We tried this before during the Obama administration; it just didn't work.

We know Russia and China are modernizing their nuclear forces at an alarming speed while we have been neglecting ours. And North Korea and Iran continue to pursue nuclear programs, furthering their goals of creating instability and gaining influence in their regions, and we are at a disadvantage. It poses a formidable threat to America and our allies.

If we don't provide robust support of our nuclear programs now, do it now, we will be in danger of falling behind. The National Defense Strategy acknowledged this reality. That is the thing I talked about a few minutes ago, that we have the National Defense Strategy as a blueprint for what we have been doing in our defense authorization committee, and we have been adhering to that. The NDAA takes this into account and supports all of the aspects of the triad.

The triad--recently, people have said: Well, we don't need to spend an amount of money on a triad system. ``Triad'' obviously means three approaches to our nuclear defense. When you stop and think about the three different ways a weapon can come into the United States, it can come in on an ICBM, it can come in on a submarine, or it can come in on a bomber. So that is what they mean by ``triad.'' For somebody to say ``Well, we don't need the three approaches; we need only one,'' well, if we knew in advance what that weapon was coming in on, what was going to be used for its delivery, then I would agree with that. But that can't happen, so we can't block off a leg or two of the triad or the whole thing will collapse. Each component provides a different type of protection and, combined, makes it far more challenging for adversaries to find opportunities to strike, and there are adversaries out there who want to do that.

Make no mistake--our adversaries are paying attention to their capabilities and to our capabilities. We need a strong, resilient, responsive nuclear enterprise to deter threats.

Nuclear weapons aren't just a relic of the Cold War, but currently we are treating them that way. Half of our DOE nuclear facilities are more than 40 years old, and a quarter date back to World War II. After years of neglect, the ceilings are literally falling down around the workers in nuclear complexes across the country. Fortunately, in fact, we have several people coming down here and talking about that threat because in some States, their Senators want to be sure they are doing a good job in maintaining our nuclear capability. So we need to modernize and revitalize this infrastructure if we want to maintain pace with China and Russia and if we want to preserve a credible nuclear deterrent.

I think it is important to note that the cost of modernization is not excessive. It averages about 5 percent of the DOD budget. That seems like a small price to pay to prevent a nuclear war.

The NDAA--that is what we are considering now--the National Defense Authorization Act fully funds the nuclear modernization program at or above the request, including additional funding for Columbia-class submarines and low-yield ballistic missile warheads.

The NDAA also pushes the National Nuclear Security Administration toward its goal of plutonium pit production--a requirement to meet the needs of our nuclear strategy.

These investments will increase our capabilities and bring us into the 21st century. This is what we need to be doing to implement the National Defense Strategy and assess the full range of threats our Nation faces. You know, it is a dangerous world out there, and we have a lot of people out there who don't like America--let's face it.

I was disappointed in the last administration, talking about the Obama administration. It was the first time in my memory--certainly since World War II--that we had either a Democratic or Republican administration that used something other than defending America as a primary goal of our country. Instead, that has dropped back, and we suffer the consequences. So we are in the process right now of rebuilding our military. We did it in 2018. That was the first year of the Trump administration. He increased the military spending back to where it had been before--up to $700 billion and then $716 billion the next year and then $750 billion in the bill we are considering at this very moment. So we are going to end up with a stronger America. I think that by the end of this year, if everything we are doing with this bill is fully implemented and behind us, we are going to be in good shape to do the job we are supposed to be doing in defending America.

In the meantime, we have this bill. Again, I will quit talking and encourage our Members to come down and talk about their amendments. One who is going to be coming down in just a few minutes--in fact, is due down any minute now--is Senator Richard Burr. He is in charge of intelligence. He chairs the Intelligence Committee, and that is a part of this bill.

It is important that people understand how far-reaching this is. This is the most significant thing we are doing, and that is probably the real reason we don't want to give in to the minority leader of the Senate, who is trying to get us to delay this for another week or longer because of the big show people are going to see on TV tomorrow and the next day of all the Democrats who are going to run for President. If I remember, the last time, we had 17 Republicans running. This time, we have 20 Democrats running. Anyway, that might be a great show, but it is not as important as the work we are doing here. And we absolutely have to get this done this week in order to fulfill the obligation we have to the American people.

Let me again encourage our Members to come down and discuss their amendments because we are going to be coming to a vote this week on all of those, and we have to make sure we have a full house of Senators who know everything that is in this bill.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, first of all, I thank my colleagues for voting yes on the motion to proceed so we can start our work on what I consider to be the most significant bill of the year and we can do these things in earnest.

I think this will be the 59th NDAA for 59 consecutive years. We are pretty sure it is going to go ahead and pass. As we start the process of considering

amendments, I hope we can have an open amendment process.

I know I speak on behalf of myself and Senator Reed. We have been wanting to do this for a long period of time.

While we are debating this bill, I encourage my colleagues to come to the floor and share why the NDAA is important to their States and to national security.

Here is one reason why. We are at a really crucial junction in our military. Our world keeps growing more unstable and less safe. Our military is, frankly, in a crisis. I think we are all aware of that. The NDAA is going to set the tone for our defense strategy not just this year but well into the future.

It is a message to our servicemembers, their families, and the world. Are we going to show Russia and China that we mean business? Are we going to help our military continue to rebuild? Are we going to give our All-Volunteer Force the equipment, training, and housing they need to do their job? That is why this bill provides a total of $750 billion in defense spending. It is what we call the defense top line. It is the minimum we need to restore the longstanding military's strength that we have seemingly lost.

That is why this bill provides for it, and that is why the bottom line and the top line is the same thing. We have real growth in the defense budget each year. We have decided on this, technically, based on two sources, from the military before our committees and then, of course, the Commission report that says that in order to get our military back, we are going to have to have a net increase of 3 to 5 percent, and that is what this $750 billion will do.

This is also a direct recommendation from our military leadership; that $750 billion is the bare minimum we need to get to that goal. The committee has heard the same refrain from every service leader at posture hearings this year; that stable, ontime, adequate funding is their No. 1 priority.

So the best thing we can do for our troops, it seems pretty clear to me, is that this should be our priority too. An important part of the whole equation is that we are spending this money responsibly. This is an across-the-board increase. The NDAA makes tough decisions to put funding where it was most needed and makes cuts in other places.

We direct this funding to critical, bipartisan priorities: a pay increase for our troops, the largest in a decade; rebuilding a right- sized force with the newest, most capable aircraft, ships, and equipment in the world; and modernizing our nuclear arsenal so it is strong and safe.

During the last 5 years of the Obama administration, the amount of money we had to run our military was reduced by almost 25 percent. That was extremely harmful to our readiness and to our troop morale.

Thanks to the Trump administration, that trajectory is changing. In fiscal year 2018, we increased funding back up to $700 billion, the largest year-over-year increase since the beginning of the War on Terror.

In fiscal year 2019, we increased it again to $716 billion and got that funding out the door on time. This was really meaningful for our military, and I hope we can do it again this year.

I commend Majority Leader McConnell and my colleagues who are still fighting for a budget deal. We have to raise the defense cap or exempt defense from the caps to give the military what they need to fight and win. We are on a path to recovery in our readiness rates. We are helping the military keep up with China and Russia. It is a different situation than we have ever been in before. We have severe competitors out there.

Let me conclude that we are on our way right now. This is a major step. I want to also say, in working with Senator Reed, we have been together much more than we have been apart. We have been staying on top of this thing, and our combined tenacity has resulted in getting a bill done.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, over the next few days, Senator Reed and I will be leading the consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2020. I consider this--and I think he would probably join me on this--the most significant bill of the year, and it is the most important bill.

There is an old document no one reads anymore called the Constitution, which says what we are really supposed to be doing here. No. 1 on the list is defending America, and now this bipartisan bill is more important than ever.

The world is more unstable and dangerous than at any time in my lifetime. The National Defense Strategy gave it to us straight. This is the document; the National Defense Strategy Commission put this together. It was made up of experts, equally divided, Democrats and Republicans. We have had several hearings on this. We have had meetings and discussed it with our Members. In fact, Senator Jon Kyl, during the brief time that he was back as a Member of the Senate, dropped out of this and then went back in. He is very active in this, and so are the rest.

None of the individuals here have ever been accused of being in any way partisan. What they put together is a defense strategy that is the best thing for this country, and they have done a masterful job of this and actually put it straight to us.

The strategic competition with China and Russia is something that is relatively new. During the last administration, China and Russia started surfacing, and they became more prominent and were challenging us in several areas.

The continuing threats from rogue countries are still important too. We are talking about Iran and North Korea and the other terrorist organizations.

New technology and new warfighting domains in outer space and cyberspace are things that in recent years have become very prominent, and we have to compete. Our peer competitors are out there even stating that they are ahead of us, not to mention the years of underfunding by the previous administration.

When you think about the last administration, if you look at using fiscal year 2018 dollars and you want to take the last 5 years of the previous administration, 2010 had appropriations using constant dollars of $794 billion. In 2015, 5 years later, it was $586 billion. So stop and think about that. I can't think of any bureaucracy that has taken that much of a dive in that period of time. We are talking about 20 percent.

So that is the reality we are facing, and this is what we are doing right now in trying to get our Defense authorization bill. Again, it will pass. That is one of the few things you can do that you know is going to pass. It has passed for the last 58 years, and it is going to pass this year too.

Yet we are facing a real national security crisis. There are real threats to our military and our way of life, and we are ready to meet and defeat these threats. We have to continue rebuilding our military, catching up with our competitors, and making strategic and holistic improvements to our national defense. I said catch up, and that clearly states that we are not ahead right now.

Using the National Defense Strategy Commission report as our blueprint, this year's NDAA pursues ``urgent change at significant scale'' to meet the needs of our Nation.

Our military leaders have said time and again that stable, predictable, on-time funding is the single most important way Congress can help support a strong national defense. We did this last year, and we are going to do it again this year. It is incredibly important that we stare down the barrel of sequestration cuts that would, in the words of former of Air Force Secretary Wilson, ``be absolutely devastating in scope and scale.''

It is not just her. Others have come before us and said that if we were to be subjected to sequestration, it would undo all of the corrections that have been made in the last 2\1/2\ years. This would undo all of the work we have done to rebuild our readiness. I am talking about fiscal years 2018 and 2019.

We also know that continuing resolutions are no way to do business, especially for our military. We have had the military in hearings we have had. We have traditionally--this year--two very long hearings on defense authorization in our committee. Each witness who comes in talks about how devastating it would be if we were to move back to sequestration or if we have to undo the improvements that we have made.

I know this firsthand. When I go out and visit military installations in Oklahoma, across the country, and around the world, it is true that we sit down with the commanders and the base leaders. But also--and I know my good friend Senator Reed does--we go and sit down and eat in the mess halls with our kids out there on the frontlines and talk to them. I have to tell you, they know what is going on. They know when we are dragging our feet on efforts that we have to fund our military. They know who is doing it, who isn't doing it, and they are the best source of getting that information.

The NDAA is the first step in the process of getting them that military funding. This year, we provided a total of $750 billion to ensure our troops have the resources they need to defend our Nation. This represents a bare minimum. People talk about $750 billion, but stop and think about it. This report says that until we get back to the point at which we have the military where it should be, we are going to have to increase each year, during this timeframe, somewhere between a 3 and 5 percent increase--net increase--each year. That is in this book here, and that is considered to be a bare minimum. Ironically, that is the same figure that our military uses. The NDAA aligns our defense resources and policies with our National Defense Strategy, which is found in this book.

Fully funding our military at $750 billion means we will be more ready to address great power competition like China and Russia. We are seeing our military lose ground. Anything less would keep us from regaining our combat advantage and our duty to deter aggression. I am using the words carefully. When we say regain, that is what we need to do, because we are not there

now. We can't plan to fight the wars of tomorrow with the weapons and equipment of yesterday.

The NDAA fully funds the Nuclear Modernization Program at or above request, including the nuclear triad, and directs funding to procure critical equipment.

The Nuclear Modernization Program has been suffering for a long period of time. A lot of people look at the triad system and assume that somehow that is a redundancy. It is not. It talks about systems that can project a nuclear weapon, and there are three different classifications. That is what the triad is all about. It is not as if you can take one or two out of it and still do the job.

In this bill, we have 94 Joint Strike Fighters, 12 new battle force ships, 105 naval aircraft, new aircraft for the Air Force, including the 15 KC-46As, and new helicopters for the Army, including 9 new Chinooks.

We also have to be prepared to meet challenges in new domains. Space is one of those. General Raymond, who is nominated to lead the U.S. Base Command, told our committee when we were having a hearing on this that our superiority in space is questionable. It is not guaranteed. That is work that has to be done. That is what we are finding in this bill that we are going to ultimately be voting for in the next few days.

Our society relies on satellites and space technologies. We need to address this problem now before it is too late, and I am glad President Trump has made this a key initiative.

We took President Trump's directive to establish a space force and came up with a bipartisan plan to establish a force that meets our needs in space. Our bill would stand up the U.S. Space Force in the Air Force. This will create a cohesive strategy to protect our interests in space, improve how we acquire space assets, and improve our space warfighting culture.

People say: Of all the things we are doing right now, we are doing a lot of things in space. What does this do that we are not doing currently? My answer is nothing. We are doing it all now, but this would allow us to do it better. Our plan prevents additional costs and bureaucracy and gets us off on the right foot to better fulfill our mission in space.

The legislation also implements policies that would change the way the Pentagon is run, allowing it to respond more nimbly and effectively to the current defensive landscape.

Last, but arguably the most important, the NDAA makes our all- volunteer force--the backbone of our national defense--the biggest priority.

I happen to be one of the few people--in fact, I think I am the only one in this Senate Chamber who is a product of the draft. That was back in the days when we didn't have an all-volunteer force. I came here absolutely convinced that was the best way to go until I started seeing what we have out there. When you see these kids and what they are doing, it is amazing how effective they are. They are truly the backbone of our national defense. Even though our military advantage may have been diminished, what hasn't changed are our troops. They are still the best in the world. We have to continue to look out for them. It is one of the biggest ways we stand apart from our adversaries or actors like Russia or China. They don't care about their people. We do.

A lot of times people ask me: Why is it we have to spend so much money on defense? We are spending more money than Russia and China.

That is easy. Our largest single expense to putting together a military is its end strength. It is the people.

It is the people. We care about the people. We make sure we are doing things that are good for the people. I remember we had this big discussion on the privatization of commissaries not too long ago. That was something where that is a benefit. It doesn't cost us any more, I contend, but that is a great benefit for those people--the spouses and members of the military--in remote places. That is where they go. That is where everybody wants to go. So it is true that it costs more, but that is because Russians--it goes without saying, Russians and the Chinese, they don't really care about the people. They are going to tell them to go out and fight. They have to do it. That is the largest single item. They don't have that; we do, and we are better off for it. That is what this is all about. It will put us back to where we are on top. We are not second in any of these areas.

It provides the 3.1-percent pay raise for our troops, and that is the largest we have had in 10 years.

We improved the quality of life for our troops and their families, making sure our troops have quality healthcare and a solid roof over their heads.

Just a few months ago, our committee became aware of some really serious problems in housing. This is only just about last February. This is something--frankly, I was one of the guilty parties because we privatized housing some time ago. That was something that--yes, in a way, it sure makes it easier for us. It makes it easier for the military. All of a sudden, we found ourselves in a situation where we sent out bids. We had contractors who were bidding to do the housing work. Then we found out that--it worked fine for a couple years, but then, as time went by--this is human nature--people got careless. I think the contractors got a little bit greedy. So all of a sudden, we found out we had housing for our people that had mold and all kinds of serious problems. So we had a hearing on this. Actually, we had two hearings on this. One was to listen to the tenants all throughout America who were talking about how deplorable that condition was, and the other one was we brought in the contractors and talked to them. The thing that impressed me was, during the second hearing of the contractors, they admitted there was a problem. They said: There is. We have become a little too relaxed. They started to clean up their act, but just in case they did not do that, we actually put a lot of those provisions in this bill that we are going to be considering now. It includes a Tenant Bill of Rights. We weren't going to do this until the end of the summer. We were going to have another hearing and talk about what we needed to do to correct the problem, but we already know. They went out there, and they looked.

So in this bill, we have a Tenant Bill of Rights. We have private housing partners being held accountable, ensuring each installation has the right personnel to conduct oversight. Overall, we make sure our military has the infrastructure to support it. Within the funding for military construction, $3.6 billion is set aside to replenish funds that may be used to build a wall. There has been a lot of criticism. People are saying: Well, you used some military funds--maybe some of the funds that were going to be used for military construction. If that is the case, we have $3.6 billion set aside here to replenish any funds that might have been used to build a wall. So they don't have that argument anymore.

As I said before, this legislation is legislation that all of our colleagues from both sides of the aisle can support. Defense needs to be our No. 1 priority. We may not agree on everything, but we can definitely agree on that.

The Senate Armed Services Committee approved the bill on an overwhelming bipartisan basis--25 to 2--in only 6 hours. This is kind of interesting. Each year it falls this way--I guess, intentionally. On a Wednesday, we get together at 9 in the morning. The Defense Authorization Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee meet. We go over what we are going to have to do in terms of this bill, and we get it done. We got this done actually in 6 hours. I thought that was a record, and we did it in a little less than that time this time, but we had a product that was 25 to 2. Only two people voted against it. We completed this work quickly--less than 2 months after receiving the administration's budget request. It was my goal to get this done as soon as possible. I thank the committee and the staff for helping to get this done.

We all understand the importance of this bill. This is the most important bill of the year. I think most people understand that and agree to that. On this committee, we considered 433 amendments and approved nearly 300 of them. Our markup took 6 hours just because of our shared commitment to working together.

So I want to thank, particularly, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Reed, and every member of the committee

working to pass this critical legislation. I want to thank the majority leader, Senator McConnell, for his leadership and for continuing to fight for a budget deal that includes a strong top line for our defense.

I look forward to continuing this fair, corroborative process on the floor in the coming days. We are going to consider amendments. Both Senator Reed and I want an open amendment process. Then we are going to pass this bill for the 59th straight year in a row. For nearly 6 decades, Congress has understood the necessity of a strong, capable, lethal force. The main reason America is the leader of the free world is because of our military might. Our Armed Forces are the very best in the world. Our leadership values pave the way for liberty, prosperity, and security across the globe. We preserve peace through our strength. Who else said that? Ronald Reagan talked about the necessity to be strong so we can avoid the very type of threats that are out there. Freedom isn't free. We understand that. We want to preserve this vital role--a role that guarantees a future of freedom and democracy for our children and grandchildren. We have to prioritize our national security. That is what we have been doing with this NDAA, and that is why we are going to continue to do it with the passage of this bill.

Again, I want to express my appreciation. It is a tough bill, and we have spent a lot of hours together, Senator Reed and I, and I think we have something now that is going to be going through. We do have an amendment process. It is an open amendment process, and we plan to do that and get that done.

Mr. President, I have a unanimous consent request that the Senate resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 1790.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, let me say also that Senator Reed and I worked together on a lot of these over the years, and this is not going to be any different than before. We can get it done. We will get it done on time. We will get it done to put us back in the position we should be in, the United States of America with our military capability.

With that, I appreciate it and look forward to working together.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 253, submitted earlier today.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the resolution

by title.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I request unanimous consent to grant floor privileges for the duration of this consideration of the NDAA to Kyle Stewart, my defense fellow, and Jennifer Dougherty, the GAO detailee.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m., Thursday, June 20; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the Senate resume consideration of the pending joint resolutions en bloc; further, that 15 minutes be under the control of Senator Menendez and 5 minutes be under control of Senator Risch prior to 11:30 a.m. tomorrow; finally, that all time since cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 1790 was invoked, recess, adjournment, morning business, and leader remarks and during the consideration of the resolutions en bloc, count postcloture on the motion to proceed to S. 1790.

For the information of all Senators, the Senate will vote on the confirmation of the Baranwal nomination at 1:45 p.m. tomorrow.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order, following the remarks of our Democratic colleagues.