Joseph J. Heck

Mr. Speaker, it has been nearly 3 years since Las Vegas taxi driver Keith Goldberg was abducted, killed, and his body dumped in the Lake Mead Recreation Area.

When law enforcement searches for Keith's body were ended due to limited resources, the Goldberg family turned to Red Rock Search and Rescue, a nonprofit group of trained professionals, to continue the search.

They immediately hit a Federal regulatory roadblock. The team from Red Rock was told they needed to obtain a $1 million insurance policy for a special use permit to gain access to Federal lands.

It took 9 months for the group to raise the funds necessary to obtain the insurance. When they finally entered the park almost 1 year after Keith first went missing, it took the team all of 2 hours to locate Keith's remains.

Mr. Speaker, last Congress, I introduced legislation to allow Good Samaritan search groups to waive Federal liability and access public lands to conduct missing persons searches. It passed this House by an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 394-0. Unfortunately, time expired on the session before the Senate could take action.

I come to the floor today to announce that tomorrow I will, once again, introduce the Good Samaritan Search and Recovery Act. I urge the House to take swift action on this legislation because unnecessary red tape must not continue to get in the way of providing closure for families like the Goldbergs.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to thank the chairman, the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon), for his years of service to the Nation and this body. He is a great leader, a great friend, and a great mentor. I wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors, and he should know he will truly be missed.

I also rise to urge my colleagues to support the Carl Levin and Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015. Passing this bill is critical to our national security and for ensuring that our men and women in uniform have the necessary resources to maintain a high state of readiness.

There are many important personnel-related provisions in this bill, including combating and preventing sexual assault in the military, decreasing the suicide rate within our ranks, and finally recognizing the victims of the 2009 Fort Hood shooting with the Purple Heart.

While I appreciate the continued efforts to prioritize the health and welfare of our servicemembers, I do want to express my frustration with the Senate's insistence on including administration proposals to increase pharmaceutical copays, decrease the housing allowance, and shortchange our troops on their pay increase. Although fiscal realities and constrained resources force us to make difficult decisions, now is not the time to make changes to personnel compensation and benefits.

In last year's NDAA, Congress established the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission to evaluate and analyze potential reforms to pay and benefits and then report back to Congress. The House bill did not include the administration's proposals because we reject piecemeal reforms that undermine the work of the Commission. Any attempts to change pay and benefits before we receive its report, expected in February of next year, are premature and ill-advised.

I applaud the chairman's successful efforts to prevent even larger benefit cuts. We can't continue to balance the budget on the backs of our servicemembers and their families.

My concerns notwithstanding, on the whole, passing the bill is critical to our national security and providing the authorizations needed for the Department of Defense to carry out its critical functions; therefore, I intend to support the bill, urge my colleagues to do the same, and look forward to addressing the personnel compensation issues in the next NDAA.

I thank the chairman for the time.

Mr. Speaker, over the course of the debate for the past 2 days, I think one thing that most will agree on is that ISIL poses a clear and grave danger to our Nation, our interests abroad, and our allies. And I agree with the President when he stated that we must degrade and destroy ISIL no matter where they exist. And I support many of the provisions that he outlined in the speech he gave just last week: arming the Peshmerga, bolstering the Iraqi security forces, expanding airstrikes, and disrupting the flow of finances and foreign fighters to