“As we move forward with consideration of the NDAA, I stand ready to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to pass this important legislation and give our military the resources they need and deserve. We ask a lot of our men and women in uniform, and they never let us down. We must not let them down. Their service represents the best of our country, and this Congress should always honor their sacrifice.”– SASC Chairman John McCain Speaking on the Senate Floor Today

**Watch Chairman McCain**

Washington, D.C. ­– U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, delivered the following remarks on the floor of the U.S. Senate today on the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 (NDAA):

“Mr. President:

“It is my pleasure to join my friend and colleague from Rhode Island, the Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, to speak about the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018. I want to thank the Senator from Rhode Island for his hard work on the NDAA. I remain appreciative of the thoughtfulness and bipartisan spirit with which he approaches national security issues. He is a great partner, and this legislation is better because of his contributions.

“In June, the Senate Armed Services Committee passed the NDAA unanimously, by a vote of 27-0. During the markup, the Committee considered and adopted 277 amendments that were offered by both Republicans and Democrats.

“I would like to thank each of my fellow members of the Armed Services Committee. I am tremendously proud of the Committee’s work on this legislation. The NDAA passed unanimously this year for the first time in five years. I was especially proud of the way my colleagues worked to overcome differences, the respect each member showed for each other, and the common commitment to supporting our service members and helping our military achieve its missions.

“And now, we are prepared to consider the legislation on the floor under an open amendment process that will allow all senators to have their voices heard. I want to thank the Majority Leader, the Senator from Kentucky, for bringing the NDAA to the Senate floor this week—and doing so, once again, under the regular order.

“For 55 consecutive years, Congress has passed this vital piece of legislation, which authorizes the funding and provides the authorities for our military to defend this great nation. That unparalleled record speaks primarily to the importance of this legislation to our national security.

“I know all of my colleagues will agree that our men and women in uniform deserve our constant support and unending thanks for their service and sacrifice. But the 55-year track record also speaks to the NDAA’s importance to the Senate itself. No other piece of legislation has such a long history of broad, bipartisan support. And in today’s political climate, the passage of this legislation may be exactly what we need to remind ourselves of the important work the American people sent us here to do.

“The NDAA is a piece of legislation in which this body—and members on both sides of the aisle—can and should take immense pride. Not only does this legislation provide our men and women in uniform with the resources they need and deserve; it is the product of an open and bipartisan process that represents the best of the U.S. Senate. And it could not come at a more important time.

“Mister President: The threats to our national security have not been more complex, severe, or daunting at any time in the past seven decades—and our job is to ensure we have a military capable of meeting those threats. For too long, we have locked ourselves into making strategic decisions based on budget realities. It is time to start making budget decisions based on strategic realities.

“Just consider the current threats to our national security:

• “Day after day, test after test, North Korea continues to get ever closer to developing the capability to strike the U.S. homeland with a nuclear-armed missile and continues to threaten our allies in the region.
• “While we have made some important gains in the fight against ISIS, the campaign to achieve a lasting defeat of terrorist threats and to secure our enduring national security interests in Iraq and Syria is far from over.
• “Iran continues to destabilize the Middle East and seeks to drive the United States out of the region.
• “We have entered a new era of great power competition, as Russia and China contest the rules-based liberal world order that is the foundation of our security and prosperity.
  • “Every day we learn more about Russia’s asymmetric capabilities—from cyberattacks to disinformation campaigns—even as they modernize their military, occupy Crimea, destabilize Ukraine, and threaten our NATO allies.
  • “Meanwhile, China continues to militarize the South China Sea and modernize its own military at an alarming rate.
  • “And we must not forget that we are a nation at war, with thousands of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines deployed in harm’s way in Afghanistan and Iraq and around the globe.

“And yet, as dangerous as these and other foreign threats are, perhaps the greatest harm to our national security and our military is self-inflicted. It is the accumulation of years of uncertain, untimely, and inadequate defense funding, which has shrunk our operational forces, harmed their readiness, stunted their modernization, and as every single member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has repeatedly testified before the Committee on Armed Services, put the lives of our service members at greater risk. And now we are paying the awful price. This summer alone, 42 service members tragically perished in accidents during routine training operations.

• “On June 17th, seven sailors were killed when the USS Fitzgerald collided with a container ship off the coast of Japan.
• “On July 10th, a Marine KC-130 crash in Mississippi killed all 16 troops on board.
• “On August 21st, 10 sailors perished when the USS McCain collided with a tanker near Singapore.
• “On August 25th, an Army Black Hawk helicopter went missing during a training mission off the coast of Yemen, and one soldier died.
• “Just last week in Nevada, two Air Force A-10 aircraft crashed into each other. Thank God the pilots safely ejected, but the planes were lost—at a cost of over $100 million.
• “For the two Pacific Fleet naval collisions, ship repairs are estimated to cost more than half a billion dollars.
• “The lives lost in each of these incidents were priceless.

“Over the past three years, a total of 185 men and women in uniform have been killed in non-combat accidents. During the same period, 44 service members were killed in combat. The bottom line is this, and I want all of my colleagues to concentrate on what I am about to say:  We are killing more of our own people in training than our enemies are in combat.

“And we were warned about this. We were warned. We were warned by our senior defense and military leaders and by many of us in the Congress. Earlier this year, Secretary Mattis testified that, ‘no enemy in the field has done more to harm the combat readiness of our military than sequestration.’ Secretary Mattis went on to say, ‘We are no longer managing risk; we are now gambling.’ Now it is clear that we are not only gambling with our ability to fight and win wars; we are also gambling with the very ability of our troops to operate safely during peacetime.

“In that same hearing, General Dunford described what is at stake if we continue down the path of budget cuts, saying, ‘In just a few years if we don’t change the trajectory, we will lose our qualitative and our quantitative competitive advantage, [and] the consequences will be profound.’ Those are not my words. They are the words of the senior general officer in the United States military.

“Each of our military service chiefs has testified time and again before congressional committees about the dangers of sequestration, Budget Control Act-level spending, and repeated continuing resolutions.

“The Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Richardson, testified, ‘Eight years of continuing resolutions including a year of sequestration have driven additional costs and time into just about everything that we do… The disruption this uncertainty imposes translates directly into risk for our Navy and our nation.’

“General Neller, Commandant of the Marine Corps, said, ‘Sequestration impacts on key modernization programs will have catastrophic effects on achieving desired capabilities to defeat emerging threats and will place an unacceptable burden on legacy programs.’

“Air Force Chief of Staff General Goldfein testified, ‘Repealing sequestration, returning to stable budgets without extended continuing resolutions and allowing us the flexibility to reduce excess infrastructure and make strategic trades are essential to success.’

“And Army Chief of Staff General Milley has said, ‘Candidly, failure to pass a budget, in my view both as an American citizen and chief of staff of the United States Army, constitutes professional malpractice.’ He added, ‘A year-long CR or a return to the [Budget Control Act-level] funding will…increase risk to the nation, and it will ultimately result in dead Americans on a future battlefield.’

“We need look no further than all of the recent training accidents, collisions, and crashes for evidence that these warnings and concerns were well-placed. And the troubling signs were there. Failure to meet training requirements and fulfill safety certifications has become all too common in the force—especially the Navy. Recent reporting details a troubling state of affairs:

• “The GAO found that 37 percent—well over one-third— of the training certifications for U.S. Navy cruisers and destroyers based in Japan are expired.
• “The USS McCain had expired training certifications for six out of the 10 key warfare mission areas prior to its collision.
• “The USS Fitzgerald had expired certifications for all 10 mission areas.
• “And lest anyone think the Navy is the only service facing troubling readiness statistics, I’ll remind my colleagues that only five of out 58 Army brigades and four of 64 Air Force squadrons are combat-ready.

“There is plenty of responsibility to go around for the deteriorated state of our military. The Senate Armed Services Committee will continue to hold hearings and conduct rigorous oversight of these military readiness challenges, looking at everything from command responsibility, to readiness standards, to training culture within our military. We will continue seeking explanations for the causes of these incidents, corrective actions to remedy those causes, and accountability from leadership.

“And yet, we cannot ignore Congress’s role. And our responsibility. Years of budget cuts have forced our military to try to do too much with too little. As we have asked our military to maintain a high operational tempo with limited resources, we know what has suffered: training, maintenance, readiness, effectiveness, and the lives of too many brave young service members.

“But despite the abundant evidence that our military faces a readiness crisis that is putting lives at risk, this body voted just last week to put the Department of Defense on yet another continuing resolution for the start of fiscal year 2018. We know that continuing resolutions cause a great deal of harm to our military.

“Just last week, Secretary Mattis sent a letter to the Armed Services Committee detailing the detrimental effects of a continuing resolution. He said that the impacts of a CR are felt immediately by our military and will grow exponentially over time if we repeat this mistake in December. In the next three months, the Navy will delay ship inductions and reduce flying hours, the Army will postpone maintenance, the Air Force will limit execution of infrastructure funding, and all services will delay training and curtail recruitment—leaving, according to Secretary Mattis, ‘critical gaps in the workforce skill set.’

“The vote we took to begin the year on a continuing resolution locks the Department of Defense into last year’s funding levels. It prevents them from reprogramming funding to meet emerging needs. It prohibits the start of new programs to modernize for future threats. And perhaps worst of all, a continuing resolution mandates a level of spending that is $89 billion less than the fiscal year 2018 funding level authorized in this legislation.

“When the Senate voted to put the Department of Defense on a continuing resolution, it voted in favor of the status quo for our military—where more service members are dying in accidents than in all of the wars we are fighting combined. Last week’s vote signaled that the current, undeniably degraded state of our Armed Forces is just fine with us. It was irresponsible and unacceptable.

“We must all do better. Pentagon leaders must make clear-eyed assessments and ask for what they fully need, and this body must provide the resources required. That is the only way to stop gambling and restore readiness. And this is the bare minimum we owe to the brave men and women who fight to defend this nation.   

“That’s why this legislation is more vital than ever. The NDAA delivers the resources, equipment, and training our men and women in uniform need to meet the increasingly complex challenges of today’s world. It begins the process of truly restoring readiness and rebuilding our military.

“The NDAA authorizes a base defense budget that, together with the administration’s request of $8 billion for other defense activities, supports a total defense budget of $640 billion in funding for the Department of Defense and the national security programs of the Department of Energy. The legislation also authorizes $60 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations. In total, the NDAA supports a national defense topline of $700 billion.

“This funding is critical to begin addressing the readiness shortfall and modernization crisis currently facing our military. With our adversaries investing heavily in their own militaries and developing future warfighting capabilities intended to erode our military advantage, we cannot wait any longer to recapitalize our forces and restore our capabilities.

“The national defense topline in this legislation is significantly higher than the administration’s budget request. It is worth considering why, in committee, more than one-quarter of the members of this body—Senators of both parties and of all political stripes—voted for a higher defense topline.

“The answer is simple. Today’s national security threats demand more resources. While not every crisis has a military solution, our military remains an indispensable aspect of America’s ability to project power and provide the framework for global stability and security.

“The problem is that funding to meet these national security threats and challenges has been constrained by the arbitrary spending caps of the Budget Control Act. Members from both sides of the aisle have acknowledged that the BCA simply does not allow for adequate spending on national defense.

“While altering the Budget Control Act or the spending caps is outside of the jurisdiction of the Armed Services Committee, the committee has expressed its support in this legislation for the unconditional repeal of the BCA. Congress must summon the political courage to admit that this legislation has failed, rise above politics, and fix it. The BCA has not achieved its intended purpose of reducing the deficit. And for years, it has prevented Congress from providing our military service members with the resources they need. This cannot continue. We can and must do better.

“Under the Budget Control Act, defense spending for fiscal year 2018 would be capped at $549 billion. That’s $54 billion less than what the president requested for defense, and $91 billion less than what the Armed Services Committee supported.

“The members of the Armed Services Committee agreed unanimously that any defense budget at that level would be inadequate and unacceptable. That has been reinforced time and again over the last several years in testimony from senior military and civilian defense leaders who have come before our committee with warnings of the danger of the BCA spending caps and sequestration.

“And, at the conclusion of this debate on this legislation, the Senate’s passage of the NDAA will serve as evidence that an overwhelming, bi-partisan majority of this body agrees that the status quo is not sufficient—and that we need to spend more money on defense to keep our nation safe.

“Even so, the unfortunate truth is, with BCA as the law of the land, $549 billion is the only defense budget that is currently legal—unless Congress acts. It is up to this Congress to decide if that is the defense budget we want. In doing so, we must remember that a BCA-level defense budget cannot give us the military we need.

“The President also acknowledges that a BCA-level defense budget of $549 billion is inadequate, and he campaigned on the promise of rebuilding the military. That’s why it was disappointing that the president’s budget request did not deliver on the promise of the military buildup we need.

“The defense budget request came in at $603 billion. It is important to recognize three important facts about that number. First, it is rooted in the same arbitrary policy as $549 billion, since $603 billion is simply the original BCA cap before sequestration takes effect. Second, it represents only a 3 percent increase over the Obama administration’s defense budget plan. And third, it is plainly inadequate to meet our nation’s defense needs. One indication of this is that the military services sent this Congress lists of unfunded requirements totaling over $30 billion—funding our military needs to do its job. It’s time for Congress to do our job and provide the resources they need.

“What our military needs is a real buildup. This NDAA is the start of what will be a years-long process of rebuilding our military after years of devastating cuts to the defense budget. We must begin that process now. Our men and women in uniform cannot afford to wait any longer.

“The NDAA also builds on the reforms this Congress has passed in recent years. By continuing important efforts to reorganize the Department of Defense, spur innovation in defense technology, and improve defense acquisition and business operations, the NDAA seeks to strengthen accountability and streamline the process of getting our warfighters what they need to succeed. At the same time, it prioritizes accountability from the Department and demands the best use of every taxpayer dollar.

“The NDAA authorizes a pay raise for our troops. It improves military family readiness and supports the civilians and contractors who support our Armed Forces. And it provides support for our allies and partners around the world who are dedicated to advancing the cause of freedom, deterring the aggression of our adversaries, and defeating the scourge of terrorism.

“This legislation recognizes the reality of the dangerous world our men and women in uniform face every day. As threats turn into crises around the world, we have asked these brave service members to do more with less. That must end now.

“The NDAA takes important steps to deter Russian aggression, whether across its borders or in cyberspace. Russia continues to occupy Crimea, destabilize Ukraine, threaten our NATO allies, violate the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and bolster the Assad regime in Syria. In an unparalleled attack on our core interests and values, Russia engaged in an active, purposeful campaign to undermine the integrity of American democracy and affect the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

“The NDAA authorizes nearly $5 billion for the European Deterrence Initiative to bolster U.S. capabilities in Europe and support our regional allies who feel the constant threat of revanchist Russian aggression. It also authorizes $500 million to provide security assistance to Ukraine, including the defensive lethal assistance the Ukrainians need to defend themselves. And the legislation authorizes $65 million for a research and development program on a ground-launched intermediate-range missile in order to begin to close the capability gap opened by the Russian violation of the INF Treaty, without placing the United States in violation of the treaty.

“In supporting the fight against resurgent terrorism in the Middle East, the NDAA authorizes $1.8 billion in funding for counter-ISIS efforts via the ‘train and equip’ programs in Iraq and Syria. To support the continued mission in Afghanistan, the legislation authorizes $4.9 billion for the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund. Importantly, the NDAA also authorizes 4,000 additional visas through the special immigrant status under the Afghan Allies Protection Act. The legislation also authorizes $705 million for Israeli cooperative missile defense programs.

“The NDAA authorizes the Secretary of Defense to establish the Asia-Pacific Stability Initiative, a funding mechanism that has the potential to reshape the U.S. approach to this important region, reassure our allies and partners, and send a resounding message to our potential adversaries about the strength of our commitment. The legislation also authorizes $8.5 billion for the Missile Defense Agency to strengthen homeland, regional, and space-based missile defense systems. In particular, the legislation authorizes funding for up to 28 additional ground based interceptors in Alaska, which could be a crucial part of our nation’s defense against a potential North Korean missile threat.

“The NDAA would allow our military to embark on an ambitious program of modernization—one that is desperately needed and long overdue. Across the services, the NDAA provides funding above the administration’s request to meet the list of unfunded priorities from the Department of Defense. Above and beyond the administration’s request, the legislation funds 24 more Joint Strike Fighters, 10 more F/A-18 Super Hornets, and 5 additional ships for the Navy. The legislation also authorizes funding for an increase in end strength for the Army and the Marine Corps, adding 6,000 additional soldiers and 1,000 additional Marines.

“At the same time, as part of rigorous congressional oversight of defense spending, the NDAA demands accountability for results, promotes transparency, and protects taxpayer dollars. The legislation identifies targeted reductions to wasteful or underperforming programs, especially those that heavily rely upon software and information technology systems, and reinvests the savings in high-priority needs for the warfighters. The goal, as always, is to ensure our men and women in uniform receive the capabilities they need on time, on schedule, and at a reasonable cost.

“The NDAA makes important efforts to correct the glaring and dangerous lack of an effective strategy and policy for the information domain, including cyber, space, and electronic warfare. Without a sufficient response to previous congressional calls for a comprehensive strategy from the executive branch, the NDAA establishes a U.S. policy for cyber deterrence, cyber response, and cyber warfare.

“With respect to space, decision-making is currently fragmented across more than 60 offices in the Department of Defense. Funding for space programs is also near 30-year lows, while the threats and our reliance on space are at their highest and growing. This legislation fully funds our space requirements and authorizes additional funding for the military’s unfunded priorities for space. The NDAA also establishes a new DOD Chief Information Warfare Officer—a position that would streamline a current bureaucracy that is too often duplicative, inefficient, and ineffective, and instead assign responsibility and accountability to one leader for all matters relating to the information environment, including space, cybersecurity, electronic warfare, and the electromagnetic spectrum.

“Finally, the legislation takes several steps to bolster border security and homeland defense. It authorizes $791 million for Department of Defense counterdrug programs. It would authorize and encourage the National Guard to enhance border security capabilities while gaining effective unit and individual training. And it continues support for the U.S.-Israel anti-tunneling cooperation program, which helps to improve our efforts to restrict the flow of drugs across the U.S. Southern Border.

“Mister President, this is an ambitious piece of legislation. And it is one that reflects the growing threats to our nation. Everything about the NDAA is threat-driven—including the $640 billion topline, which is based on an assessment of the strategic environment rather than an arbitrary adherence to budget agreements that have been overtaken by events.

“As we move forward with consideration of the NDAA, I stand ready to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to pass this important legislation and give our military the resources they need and deserve. We ask a lot of our men and women in uniform, and they never let us down. We must not let them down. Their service represents the best of our country, and this Congress should always honor their sacrifice.”

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