Floor Statements
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FLOOR STATEMENT BY SENATOR JOHN McCAIN URGING SENATE CONSIDERATION OF THE FISCAL YEAR 2013 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
July 23, 2012
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) today delivered the following remarks on the floor of the U.S. Senate urging the Majority Leader to bring up the Fiscal Year 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Senate consideration:
“Mr. President, I rise today to once again urge the Majority Leader to bring to the floor for debate one of the most important pieces of legislation that comes before this body each year – the National Defense Authorization bill.
“Just last week, the Majority Leader stated that Senate consideration of a controversial and flawed bill on cybersecurity – a bill that has not been considered in the regular order – is more important and of a higher national security priority than the defense authorization bill. I respectfully but vehemently disagree with that statement.
“According to the Majority Leader, ‘We’re going to have to get to cybersecurity before we get to the defense authorization bill because on the relative merits, cybersecurity is more important.’ Let me repeat this again, the Majority Leader is arguing that legislation dealing with cybersecurity – certainly important, but only a subset of our national defense – is more important than the bill responsible for ensuring that the men and women of our Armed Forces have the resources and authorities necessary to ensure our national security. He is arguing that a controversial and flawed bill on cybersecurity – a bill of such ‘significance’ that it has languished for over five months at the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, with no committee markup or normal committee process – should take precedence over a bill which was vetted over a period of four months by the Senate Armed Services Committee and reported to the floor with the unanimous support of all 26 members.
“This astonishing statement could not be more wrong. I remind my colleagues that consideration of the defense authorization bill is more than a simple right of this body. It is an obligation to our national defense and a fulfillment of our responsibility to the men and women in uniform that the Senate has honored for the past 50 consecutive years. Let’s take a closer look at why:
“The Senate Armed Services Committee version of the Fiscal Year 2013 National Defense Authorization Act provides $525 billion for the base budget of the Defense Department, $88 billion for operations in Afghanistan and around the world; and $17.8 billion to maintain our nuclear deterrent.
“In the area of pay and compensation, the bill authorizes $135 billion for military personnel, including costs of pay, allowances, bonuses, and a 1.7 percent across-the-board pay raise for all members of the uniformed services, consistent with the President’s request. The bill improves the quality of life of the men and women in the Active and Reserve Components of the all-volunteer force and helps to address the needs of the wounded service members and their families. It also authorizes important military construction and family housing projects that cannot proceed without specific authorization.
“All major weapons systems are authorized in this bill, including those that will benefit by the Committee’s continued rigorous oversight of poorly performing programs. Every piece of equipment – large or small – that the Department of Defense needs to develop or procure is authorized in this bill.
“With the planned reductions in Afghanistan, the importance of providing for our deployed troops while training and transitioning responsibilities to the Afghan forces has never been more important. The bill provides our service men and women with the resources, training, equipment, and authorities they need to succeed in combat and stability operations. It also enhances the capability of U.S. forces to support the Afghanistan National Security Forces and Afghan Local Police as they assume responsibility for security throughout Afghanistan by 2014.
“The bill also contains important initiatives intended to ensure proper stewardship by the Department of taxpayer dollars by, among other things, codifying the 2014 goal for it to achieve an auditable statement of budgetary resources; strictly limiting the use of cost-type contracts for the production of major weapon systems; requiring DOD to review its existing profit guidelines and revise them as necessary to ensure an appropriate link between contractor profits and contractor performance; enhancing protections for contractor employee whistleblowers; and restricting the use of abusive ‘pass-through’ contracts.
“Another vitally important provision in the bill repeals provisions of last year’s National Defense Authorization Act that threatened to upset the delicate balance between the public sector and the private sector in the maintenance and repair of military systems. And the bill addresses many other important national security policy issues.
“Mr. President, with respect to cybersecurity, I am in full agreement that the threat we face in the cyber domain is among the most significant and challenging threats of 21st century warfare. This threat was made even more evident by the recent leaks about Stuxnet coming from this Administration. That is why the defense authorization bill takes great steps to improve our capabilities by consolidating defense networks to improve security and management and allow critical personnel to be reassigned in support of offensive cyber missions, which are presently understaffed. It also provides important policy guidance to the Department of Defense to address the clear need for retaliatory capabilities to serve both as deterrents to, and to respond in the event of, a cyber-attack.
“Based on the procedures the Senate has been following over the past few years – with little or no opportunity for debate and amendments – the Majority Leader apparently intends to rush through the Senate a flawed piece of legislation. The cybersecurity bill that he intends to call up later this week is greatly in need of improvement, both in the area of information-sharing among all Federal agencies and the appropriate approach to ensuring critical infrastructure protection.
“Without significant amendment, the current bill the Majority Leader intends to push through the Senate has zero chance of passing in the House or ever being signed into law. When there are less than 27 days of possible legislative session before the election recess, I find it difficult to understand why the Majority Leader would be willing to tie up the Senate’s time on this flawed bill.
“Mr. President, as I have said before, the Senate Armed Services Committee began consideration of the defense authorization bill immediately after the President submitted his FY13 budget request. Over the course of four months, the committee conducted 32 hearings, held countless briefings, and then met for three solid days in markup to produce this legislation. The bill was unanimously approved by the Committee on May 24th and is ready to be debated, amended, and passed so that we may conference with the House on their version of the bill. That is the regular order – the way the Rules and Precedents of this body are designed to work. A failure to move to the defense authorization bill as soon as possible is a failure to recognize the critical national security importance signified through the strong bipartisan support this bill has enjoyed in this chamber over the past five decades.”
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