Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk. Mr. Chairman, my amendment, No. 208, cuts $250 million from the Defense Rapid Innovation Program--or commonly called DRIP--and moves the money to alleviate training and readiness shortfalls.…
Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
Mr. Chairman, my amendment, No. 208, cuts $250 million from the Defense Rapid Innovation Program--or commonly called DRIP--and moves the money to alleviate training and readiness shortfalls.
The DRIP program is a relatively new program started by Congress in the wake of the earmark ban in 2010. The funding was not requested by the Department of Defense, and Congress uses the program through DOD to provide grants to small businesses. The funding can be better applied.
Yesterday, Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the sequester hits particularly hard in the operations and maintenance accounts. As a result, training is hurt and our Nation's military readiness plummets. This is unacceptable.
But we can't just bemoan this fact; we have to address it. It is our duty to our men and women in uniform and our Nation's security to ensure that we spend our defense dollars in the most efficient and critical way possible. A quarter billion dollars for the DRIP program is not the wisest use of our tax dollars.
As a former small business owner, I am naturally very protective of our Nation's small businesses. I understand the pressures they operate under.
But I am also aware of the effect sequestration is having on our military's operations and maintenance accounts. We are seeing across- the-board cuts to vital operational funding. The Air Force grounded 13 squadrons for the year. The Navy has canceled ship deployments and deferred maintenance. The Army has canceled major training exercises for the year.
While I am sure that there have been good results from some of the spending in the DRIP program, I am sure that this program is duplicative of many other efforts in the Department of Defense.
There is already $76 million for quick reaction special projects, $62 million for emerging capabilities technology development, $174 million for joint capability technology demonstrations, and $34 million for the Defense-Wide Manufacturing Science & Technology program.
There is over $1 billion for Department of Defense Small Business Innovation Research funding, and so on, DARPA, joint programs, and technical support programs. Transferring this money will not leave small businesses or technology development without funding. What it will do is signal to the American people that we are willing to make the hard choices necessary to prioritize our men and women in uniform by supporting the operations and maintenance accounts they rely on, which are a higher priority than the potential DRIP results.
I repeat, the DRIP program was set up in 2010 as a way to get around the ban on earmarks. In today's restrictive fiscal climate, we have higher defense spending priorities that we should fund instead. I ask for your support for this amendment.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, every dollar wasted in the defense budget is a dollar not spent on defending this country. This is not a program that was ever requested by the Department of Defense. This is a jobs program. I think, given the fact that the Defense Department is under incredible stress, that we've got to fund the priorities that our men and women on the front lines need. And that is putting this $250 million to operations and maintenance--$250 million to the spending program that is already duplicated in other parts of the Department of Defense budget.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, the question before us, in an environment of limited resources, is whether we fund an economic development program for small business. And as a former small business owner, I certainly would think under normal circumstances that would be important. But we're doing it out of the Department of Defense budget, and we're doing it at the expense of priorities within the Department of Defense.
The Department of Defense is not asking for this program. What the Department of Defense is saying is that there are shortages in funding operations and maintenance. So I believe that it's critically important to take this $250 million that the Department of Defense is now requesting and put it into an area where they are requesting.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?
Mr. Chairman, in this bill, there's already $76 million for Quick Reaction Special Projects, $62 million for emerging capabilities technology development, $174 million for joint capability technology demonstrations, and $34 million for the Defense-Wide Manufacturing Science and Technology program. The Department of Defense Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs spend about $1 billion per year in research and development funding for our Nation's small technology companies. The issues that they're talking about are already addressed in multiple ways; and this is,
unfortunately, wasteful Pentagon spending that should be cut.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
Mr. Chairman, over the past few years, the prevailing trend within the Department of Defense has been an overreliance on Federal employees to perform commercial services. Given our Nation's need for fiscal austerity, a problem made more acute by mandated sequester cuts, it is important that Congress provide the Pentagon with the necessary tools to drive efficiencies and cost savings. Public- private competitions are one such tool.
Public-private competitions are an effective way of injecting performance and accountability into government operations. The private sector constantly competes for new business opportunities. When the Federal Government performs commercial functions, they, too, should be required to compete. Unfortunately, Congress has placed a moratorium on public-private cost competitions, effectively granting monopoly power to the Federal Government when it comes to providing commercially available goods and services. We all know that without competition, both innovation and quality suffer.
The amendment does not mandate the use of public-private competitions. It simply unlocks an essential tool that the Defense Department can use to drive cost effectiveness and efficiencies, and save valuable taxpayer dollars.
Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from California for yielding and for bringing up this critical issue.
My father was a veteran of both World War II and Korea, and he taught me, growing up, that there's no greater demonstration of American citizenship than serving one's country in the military. And in my congressional district, there are a lot of young people who came to this country by their parents illegally, who grew up in the United States, who went to school here, and who want to serve this country in the military. It is the only country that they've known, and so they ought to be afforded the right to do that and to demonstrate what is the greatest, I think, form of citizenship, and that is service in the United States military.
So I think that this is something that we've got to accomplish as a part of comprehensive immigration reform and something, certainly, that will make our country a better place.
Madam Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
Madam Chairman, I am proud to be joined by Representatives Polis, Griffith, and Blumenauer in offering an amendment to move away from our Cold War posture to meet the challenges of the future. This bipartisan amendment will end the permanent basing of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment in Germany and return that brigade combat team to the United States, without permanent replacement. There is no longer a strategic reason to maintain our current troop numbers in Europe.
This action will still leave one brigade combat team and one combat aviation brigade in Europe. Nothing in this amendment demands the removal of our European medical facilities or rapid response forces.
Should a crisis occur, it is not the BCTs that will be called to respond. In fact, just last month, the U.S. moved marines from a crisis-response force to Italy in anticipation that it could be needed to respond to growing unrest in Libya. In an emergency, expeditionary forces, such as the Marine Corp Special MAG Task Force and FAST teams, or even the Army's 82nd Airborne, would be called to action, not the BCTs in Germany.
Only 4 out of 28 NATO allies spend even the required 2 percent of their GDP on defense. The U.S. spends 4.7 percent. Our allies keep defense spending low because they take for granted that we will guarantee their security. This is an unfair burden to U.S. taxpayers. We should reprioritize our commitments while meeting our security obligations to our NATO allies by utilizing rotational forces.
I ask my colleagues to join in supporting this amendment to better deal with the strategic challenges of the future.
I reserve the balance of my time.
I think we both have experience in NATO. You serve on this parliamentary committee, and I served in the United States Army in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, in the very type of unit that we are talking about today.
That unit was designed to defend the border between what was West Germany and Czechoslovakia against Warsaw Pact forces that were on the other side. That border no longer exists. The Warsaw Pact no longer exists. Yet we still maintain a regiment there, which is not an expeditionary unit, to do the very things that you're talking about. We also have the capability to move our forces when needed over there.
When I was in Europe during the height of the Cold War, protecting the very border in the same units that we are talking about today, we did the Reforger exercise on an annual basis in which U.S. forces would come over to Europe, in about the middle of western Germany, to reinforce our positions
and to push those Warsaw Pact forces back.
I yield to the gentleman.
I reclaim my time.
There is nothing in the NATO charter that says we have to maintain permanent bases in Europe. I certainly support rotational forces. I support our involvement and our obligations to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, but it doesn't say we need to have a unit that is not an expeditionary force in the middle of Europe protecting a border that no longer exists.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Will the gentleman yield?
In closing, I did apply and work for the DOD. In fact, I served in both the Army and the Marine Corps, and in the 1980s, I served in NATO as well as in the 1970s.
The mission has changed. Times have changed. We need to change. In doing so, we've got a unit there that really has no tactical purpose at this time. It is not an expeditionary force that can be readily moved. It would have to be moved to a railhead and then to a port facility and then be brought by ship in the most cost-effective manner.
We are at a time when we have excess capacity in the United States in terms of the United States Army. The last report was in 2004 of 20 percent excess capacity for the United States, and the administration wants to do another Base Realignment and Closure Commission. We ought to bring that unit home to the United States. It can deploy as needed, where needed, and not be in a country that's spending less than 2 percent of its GDP on defense when we're at 4.7 percent.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.