Pat Fallon

Mr. Chairman, I thank Chairman Rogers for his dedication. He is a great American truly, and it has been an honor to serve under him. I also thank Ranking Member Smith for his good-faith efforts to do everything he can to protect our country. He is truly a credit, and I thank him from the bottom of my heart for his work on this bill.

The fiscal year 2027 NDAA contains substantial wins for servicemembers and their families and continues the committee's tradition of improving the quality of life of servicemembers and their families by authorizing a substantial pay raise, expanding childcare,

reauthorizing special pays and bonuses, a significant overhaul of the military health system, and multiple military justice reforms. The bill also expands access to healthcare, increases dental coverage for our children and members of the Guard and Reserve, prevents the elimination of uniformed doctors, and increases access to specialty care.

Additionally, this bill invests in our defense industrial base by completely restructuring the pay and personnel policies for our wage- grade employees in order to increase wages and reward our hardest workers with quicker promotions and more substantial bonuses.

The fiscal year 2027 NDAA includes essential reforms that we all know are critical to refocus our military on warfighting and lethality by requiring all personnel actions to be based on individual merit and demonstrated performance, rather than race, ethnicity, or sex, and preventing the weaponization of administrative investigations.

Mr. Chairman, I strongly urge the passage of the fiscal year 2027 NDAA so we can deliver on our promises to our servicemembers and their families.

I personally wish to thank from my personal office: Andrew Bond and Jay Knoxville, and also our professional staff here: Dave Giachetti, Hannah Kaufman, Ali Evers, Ellie Bender, Anna Reed and from the minority staff: Ilka Regino and Michaela Reardon for their work on this bill. They have all been really great to work with, and I think we had a wonderful year. I also thank again the leadership from the chairman and the ranking member.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of my bill, H.R. 7283, the Ensuring Federal Purchasing Efficiency Act.

This commonsense, bipartisan legislation is a government procurement reform bill that allows for far more efficient government spending and reduces the burden on small businesses by ensuring they don't have to navigate different procurement policies from year to year.

The Federal Acquisition Council is responsible for making inflation- related adjustments for title 41 purchasing thresholds. Title 41 of the U.S. Code establishes how the Federal Government acquires goods and services.

These dollar thresholds define the applicability of different policies, procedures, and restrictions to the procurement of property or services by Federal agencies.

Currently, the Federal Acquisition Council makes inflation-related adjustments to purchasing thresholds every 5 years. This bill simply amends title 41, U.S. Code, to require the Federal Acquisition Council to make these adjustments every 3 years, instead of 5, as my good friend from Missouri mentioned.

Importantly, this bill does not change the procurement threshold criteria for government agencies.

By allowing these inflation-related adjustments to occur more often, it allows Federal acquisitions to better align with purchasing power. In other words, it allows them to be more--say it with me--efficient, something everyone needs more of at this Federal level.

Adjusting for inflation on a more frequent basis will save tax dollars spent on administrative costs and will help small businesses by freeing them from navigating different procurement policies every single year.

This bill will allow for increased competition to do business with the government and allowing contracting officers to spend more time focusing on larger, more complex procurements.

This bill represents part of a suite of procurement-related legislative requests from the administration, specifically the GSA and

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, a legend was called home. Lou Holtz passed away surrounded by his loving family, and I know coach, if he had to choose, wouldn't have it any other way.

Coach Lou Holtz will forever be a national treasure. He is a Hall of Fame coach, and he earned it.

He was born in modest means on January 6, 1937. His parents, Andrew and Anne Marie, raised him near a small mill town in West Virginia, right on the border in East Liverpool, Ohio.

Coach went on to play linebacker--I think he probably was 135 pounds soaking wet, but he was a linebacker--at Kent State. He used to joke when he would give some of his great speeches that he graduated third in his class. He was third from the bottom, not the top.

When he was 34 years old, he was having a tough time in life, so he wrote down 107, and then it became 108 life goals. There were some very lofty ones. One goal I believe was to appear on ``The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.'' He wanted to be a head coach. He wanted to win a national championship and many other goals.

If he didn't achieve all of them, he achieved nearly all of them.

He became a head coach at William & Mary, then at North Carolina State University, and then 1 year with the New York Jets when Joe Namath was there. That didn't go too well.

His calling was back in college, and he went to the University of Arkansas. He had wild success there. Then, he went to the University of Minnesota. In his contract, he could leave for one school, and that school was the University of Notre Dame. We won a national championship there in 1988, and it was a very special time.

Coach Holtz coached many great Americans, such as Byron Spruell, Pat Eielers, Rod West, Tony Rice, Derrick Brown, Reggie Brooks, Ricky Watters, Jerome Bettis, Steve Buerlein, Andy Heck, Ron Meyer, James Dillard, and Antwon Lark. As one of 1,500 players, I got the privilege to--I used to joke. I didn't necessarily play for Coach Holtz; I practiced for him.

Coach used to say you should have four things in life: something to do, someone to love, someone to believe in, and something to hope for.

I want to share this with you all. Coach was in hospice. He passed away yesterday. You know when you are in hospice, you know the end is coming. This is what I shared with Coach Holtz. I sent him a text last month. I am going to read it to you. ``Coach, I am sitting in my office in the U.S. Capitol, and I know one thing for certain. I wouldn't be here right now had I not crossed your path. In short, you are a legend, and I love you.''

I had the honor of introducing him about a half dozen times over the last decade or so, and if you read Coach Holtz's bio, it is going to tell you that he has two sons, but that is wildly inaccurate. He has 1,502 sons. That is how players see him: as a coach, a mentor, a friend, and very much a second father.

Coach, you demanded the best from all of us and taught us to dig deep and reach our full potential. You taught us not to exist but to live, not to wallow but to thrive, and not to just dream but to act. You taught us to take hold of our own futures and fates.

So many of us did just that.

I oftentimes share with people that the coach came out and did a fundraiser for me in 2018 when I was running for the Texas Senate. I share that not to name drop or to impress people, but to share the person that he was. He refused payment. He flew from Florida to Texas to help a reserve player that he had coached 30 years prior. That is who he was. He was generous beyond measure and a great American patriot of our Republic. He is to be admired and emulated.

Coach, you inspired us to be the men the good Lord made us to be.

I was reading the other day that, at some point, for most of us, there will come a day when our name will be spoken for the last time for most of us. But not for you. Your name will live on for eternity because you are a legend. Do you know what, Coach? Damn it, you earned it.

Coach Lou Holtz, God bless you. Coach, thank you.