| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
House Republicans Block Agreement
00:07:21
|
||
| Democrats were working in good faith with Republicans on nomination package to move through this chamber. | ||
| Senator Thun was very involved. | ||
| He seemed very willing to come up with an agreement. | ||
| And then at the last minute, of course, Donald Trump said literally to me, go to hell. | ||
| And the talks fell apart. | ||
| Was there any integrity? | ||
| Was there any backbone? | ||
| Was there any strength to say to Trump, we have an agreement? | ||
| Take a walk, no way. | ||
| And so now, rather than giving those talks another chance, Republicans would rather change how the Senate operates. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The House has been in recess, but is now gaveling back into session. | |
| We take you there live here on C-SPAN. | ||
| House Resolution 682 and adoption of House Resolution 682 if ordered. | ||
| The first electronic vote will be conducted as a 15-minute vote. | ||
| Pursuant to clause 9 of Rule 20, remaining electronic votes will be conducted as five-minute votes. | ||
| Pursuant to clause 8 of Rule 20, the unfinished business is the vote on ordering the previous question on House Resolution 682, on which the yays and nays are ordered. | ||
| The clerk will report the title of the resolution. | ||
| House calendar number 43, House Resolution 682, resolution providing for consideration of the bill, H.R. 3838, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2026 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year and for the purposes. | ||
| And providing for consideration of the bill, H.R. 3486, to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to increase penalties for individuals who illegally enter and re-enter the United States after being removed and for the purposes. | ||
| The question is on ordering of the previous question. | ||
| Members will record their votes by electronic device. | ||
| This is a 15-minute vote. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The House voting now on whether to start work on two bills, the 2026 defense programs and policy legislation called the National Defense Authorization Act, and a measure to increase criminal penalties on those who enter the U.S. illegally. | |
| Off the floor, according to the House Clerk's Office, California Congressman Eric Swalwell last night became the final House Democrat to sign the massey discharge petition. | ||
| With four Republicans and all 212 Democrats now on that list, the petition is now just too shy of 218 needed to force a floor vote on the release of the Epstein files. | ||
| While members vote here, we'll watch the House Republicans news conference from earlier on issues of the day, including defense programs and programs and policy bill and crime in cities. | ||
| Well, good morning, everybody. | ||
| Thank you for being here. | ||
| Last week, a Venezuelan drug boat tried to poison our streets. | ||
| And now, today, it's at the bottom of the ocean. | ||
| That's exactly how you save American lives. | ||
| President Trump wasted no time. | ||
| Drug dealers, gang members, and terrorist organizations are now on notice. | ||
| President Trump's Department of War will unleash America's full firepower to protect the American people. | ||
| And the House Republicans, well, we have his back. | ||
| This week, House Republicans will deliver a defense bill that will end wokeism in the military, secure military equipment that's made in America by Americans, great American warriors, and get American warriors what they need when they need it. | ||
| And fundamentally, deliver peace through strength. | ||
| Let me tell you how. | ||
| First, there will be no more taxpayer-funded drag queen shows or gender surgeries. | ||
| House Republicans are putting an end to that. | ||
| We're also repealing the Biden administration's woke DEI and critical race theory efforts. | ||
| Second, House Republicans are building on the accomplishments of the working families tax cuts for American manufacturing workers. | ||
| The NDAA rebuilds our defense supply chains so our weapons are built by American workers, not foreign adversaries. | ||
| Jobs here at home. | ||
| Security here at home. | ||
| Strength here at home. | ||
| And third, House Republicans will be cutting red tape, building transparency and shifting the focus from paperwork to firepower. | ||
| Finally, House Republicans are building peace through strength. | ||
| I'd be remiss to not reflect on the horrors of September 11th, 2001. | ||
| Nearly every single one of us remembers where we were that day, and nearly every single one of us remembers the resolve we felt in the words, never again. | ||
| This year's defense bill tells the world never again by making historic investments in our military. | ||
| House Republicans are authorizing the Golden Dome, fully funding border security, delivering a 3.8% pay raise for our service members, and deterring China. | ||
| Defending Israel and delivering peace through strength. | ||
| So the world knows that should America go to war, we will win. | ||
| America will be respected again. | ||
| We will be strong again. | ||
| We will win again. | ||
| And House Republicans will make sure of that. | ||
| And with that, I want to turn it over to a fellow Michigander, a friend, a war fighter who defended America in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, Kuwait, and the Korean DMZ. | ||
| My friend, Congressman Tom Barrett. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Oh, sorry, yeah. | ||
| Oh, you don't need the box. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you, Lisa, and thank you to all of you here and to our leadership team for allowing me to join you for a few moments. | ||
| I wanted to highlight being back home in my district over the month of August, like so many other members. | ||
| All of us were back home working hard. | ||
| And I can tell you that the American people and the folks in my district that I was connecting with day after day were telling me how excited they are about no taxes on their tips, no taxes on their overtime pay. | ||
| I went to a road building site where they were laying fresh asphalt down on the road and the crew there was extremely excited about the overtime work that they're putting in with seasonal labor and everything else is not going to result in more taxes on their overtime pay. | ||
|
Passing the NDAA
00:15:02
|
||
| The waitresses and waiters and wait staff and service industry folks were really excited. | ||
| We had the small business administrator in the district talking about the no taxes on tips for them as well. | ||
| People are very excited about that. | ||
| This week we're passing the NDAA. | ||
| I'm proud and excited that one of my amendments that will really bring together A gap that we have right now with military aircraft and civilian aircraft not being interoperable with their collision avoidance system that I think contributed to the fatal crash here in Washington, D.C. We're going to begin the process of upgrading our military fleet to account for that, and it's something that I've been working hard on and proud to see. | ||
| And of course, as the chair pointed out, the anniversary of 9-11, I was a young private in South Korea when 9-11 happened. | ||
| And to be here today as a member of Congress this week, passing the NDAA is something that I'm very proud to be working on. | ||
| We want to make sure that we always continue to keep Americans safe. | ||
| So I'm very thankful to be here. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you to the chair for having me and really appreciate it. | |
| Sorry, got it. | ||
| I got it. | ||
| You're good. | ||
| You're good. | ||
| When Democrats like Tim Walz rail against common sense law and order policies, they make it abundantly clear that they stand with criminals. | ||
| Since day one, President Trump has been restoring safety and security to America with his anti-crime, pro-law enforcement actions. | ||
| Thanks to him, crime in Washington, D.C. is down to historic lows. | ||
| As of yesterday, there have been over 2,000 arrests made and over 200 illegal guns seized in D.C. since he began this effort. | ||
| President Trump is showing that it is possible to make America safe again if leaders have the will to do it. | ||
| But Democrats across America refuse to acknowledge safer streets as a win for the American people. | ||
| Instead, failed leaders like my state's governor rail against President Trump and the Republican Party in an attempt to defend their own dangerous soft-on-crime policies. | ||
| These soft-on-crime policies don't just defy common sense, they put real lives at risk. | ||
| The whole world witnessed this when over the weekend a video was released of a 23-year-old woman boarding a train in Charlotte, North Carolina. | ||
| Moments later, she was dead, stabbed in the throat by a random man sitting behind her who had been arrested and released more than a dozen times prior. | ||
| Woke judges, DAs, and politicians run and govern on a platform that protects criminals while leaving innocent civilians to bear the consequences. | ||
| It doesn't have to be this way. | ||
| President Trump has made it clear that law and order works. | ||
| Now is the time for the shameless so-called leaders of blue cities and states to take a page out of President Trump's playbook. | ||
| With that, I turn it over to our great leader, Steve Scalise. | ||
| Well, thank you, WEP. | ||
| And this is another busy week in the Republican Majority House where we're going to continue to do the people's work. | ||
| It's so important that we get the National Defense Authorization Act passed, where we come together and debate the priorities of our nation's defense. | ||
| And if you look at this bill, and I think Tom did a great job of talking about some of those important reforms that are in the bill, some of the important priorities, we're giving a pay raise to our troops, our men and women in uniform, to continue to address something that Chairman Rogers has been focused on for a long time, and that is to increase morale and to focus on making sure we're taking care of our men and women who take care and defend our freedoms here and abroad. | ||
| We're going to continue to allow President Trump to have the tools that he needs to show peace through strength around the globe as he's doing. | ||
| The only reason he's been able to get so many peace accords with other countries is because he has the military might to back it up. | ||
| You don't ever want to have to use it, but if you don't have it, the bad guys around the world see that weakness and they've exploited it in the past. | ||
| When we've had weak leaders, like we did the previous administration, the bad guys around the world took advantage of that. | ||
| It doesn't just hurt America. | ||
| It hurts our friends and our allies all around the world. | ||
| So it's critical that we refocus our military on its main mission. | ||
| And part of that refocusing means getting rid of a lot of the wokeness in the military that used to be there. | ||
| And this bill continues to advance those efforts. | ||
| Something else you're going to see here in the House tomorrow: the Oversight Committee is going to be taking up all the D.C. crime bills. | ||
| We've talked about this in the past. | ||
| You've seen it. | ||
| You can walk around the city, and it's actually safer today because of President Trump's action, bringing in National Guard troops. | ||
| But we've seen and identified many flaws with D.C. ordinances. | ||
| You know, when people complain about the revolving door of crime, why is it that some young kid can come and commit a carjacking at gunpoint and walk free the next day? | ||
| It's because that's what the ordinances in D.C. allow. | ||
| They actually allow soft-on-crime measures, so we're reversing that. | ||
| We're going to be bringing bills through committee tomorrow and ultimately to the House floor in the weeks ahead where we will make D.C. safe again. | ||
| We will get rid of all of these ridiculous laws and limitations on law enforcement. | ||
| No cash bail. | ||
| Right now, if you're under 25, you can be treated as a 14-year-old if you commit a violent crime. | ||
| Crimes at gunpoint, you can walk free the next day if you're under 25 years old, which, by the way, are the ages of most of the violent criminals here in D.C. | ||
| And so you wonder why there's a revolving door. | ||
| We, as House Republicans, are going to address it. | ||
| I call on every Democrat to join with us and give up their defund the police soft on crime mantra. | ||
| We'll see if they finally listen to what the voters of this country want. | ||
| I'm not holding my breath. | ||
| Luckily, we're going to do it on our own if they're not going to join with us, but we're going to show the American people that we're not going to sit idly by. | ||
| And you see President Trump talking about making other cities safe. | ||
| And, you know, the whip talked about Governor Waltz. | ||
| You see Governor Pritzker. | ||
| You see so many other governors trying to defend criminals, trying to criticize President Trump for stopping murders in their own cities. | ||
| Those governors should be working with President Trump to figure out ways to stop murders. | ||
| You know, if Governor Pritzker, instead of trying to come up with tweets to criticize President Trump, he could deploy the National Guard himself in Chicago and stop the seven or eight murders every weekend if he cared about it. | ||
| But he doesn't. | ||
| They want crime to continue. | ||
| They want to continue defunding the police and try to have it both ways. | ||
| And President Trump is tired of that game because he's tired of watching people be hurt. | ||
| There's no reason for this violent crime wave that we see in so many cities. | ||
| So we're going to continue to have the president's back and have, frankly, have the American people's back, regardless of their party, regardless of what city they live in. | ||
| Everybody deserves to be safe. | ||
| And Republicans are going to continue to push policies to help put that in place. | ||
| And the person who is leading that charge is our speaker, Mike Johnson. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Leader. | ||
| Can I ask a point of personal privilege? | ||
| Are we in charge of the lights here? | ||
| Is this an NRCC thing? | ||
| Can we turn those down seriously? | ||
| Whoever, whichever staff member condemned the lights, you get a gold star today. | ||
| I love you so much. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm sure we're going to have a lot of light because they're quite good here for the podium. | |
| All right. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| All right. | ||
| No mercy. | ||
| No mercy. | ||
| They're wearing me down. | ||
| I feel like I'm under interrogation here. | ||
| Okay, yes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| I respect that. | ||
| But we're going to change it next time. | ||
| I'm giving you a heads up. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Look, we would be in a good mood because everybody's back for our first political conference after the August recess here at the NRCC. | ||
| And our members are spread out, fanned out around the country, selling the merits of what we've done, sharing with people, educating the public about all the extraordinary things that we've got in our legislation. | ||
| The One Big Beautiful Bill, the Working Families Tax Cut. | ||
| We could call it a lot of things. | ||
| We could call it the American Energy Dominance Bill, the Secure Our Borders Permanently Bill, you know, on and on. | ||
| But it's so well received. | ||
| And you all have seen the polling. | ||
| Every individual provision is wildly popular. | ||
| The people know and they're beginning to experience and feel what we've done for them. | ||
| And we're excited about that. | ||
| But our spirits are dampened a little bit this morning because of all the discussion about the crime, and it's not something that we can overlook. | ||
| It's not something we should overlook. | ||
| Whip Emmers specifically was talking about this just unspeakable tragedy. | ||
| This 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee was brutally murdered in cold blood on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina. | ||
| Her name is Irina Zarutska. | ||
| And she was on the way home from her job at a pizzeria where she worked. | ||
| She was stabbed repeatedly by a career criminal with a rap sheet a mile long. | ||
| It's infuriating, it's heartbreaking. | ||
| It makes us gives you a feeling in the pit of your stomach. | ||
| This young lady, Irinya, survived Ukraine. | ||
| She fled amid the deadliest land war in Europe since World War II. | ||
| She fled to the safety, or so she thought, of the United States, just to have her life senselessly ended by someone who should have never been allowed to walk freely. | ||
| This individual, to Carlos Brown is his name, was arrested and released 14 times. | ||
| Yeah, more than a dozen. | ||
| 14 times. | ||
| We don't have to live like this. | ||
| President Trump is proving that every single day in our nation's capital. | ||
| And the leader, Leader Scalise, was talking about that. | ||
| Since cracking down on violent crime in the district, roughly 1,700 arrests have been made. | ||
| Now, you may say that's a small portion of the population. | ||
| It's just a small fraction, in fact, but somehow the city feels and is much safer. | ||
| Everybody needs to think about why that is. | ||
| The Trump administration and local law enforcement know that it's always in every city, relatively a select few individuals who are committing most of the crimes. | ||
| And that's been true in D.C. as well. | ||
| They're enabled by these soft-owned crime policies that were discussed here, and even softer prosecutors and prosecutions. | ||
| Criminals have relentlessly abused the public and the public spaces. | ||
| We just want to say this loud and clear, and we're demonstrating it. | ||
| This is not just talk, this is action. | ||
| Republicans are in charge, and when Republicans are in charge, those days are over. | ||
| The days of allowing soft-owned crime, we're not going to do it. | ||
| Now, here's what is stunning to me. | ||
| If you only read the New York Times, the Washington Post, or most of the other mainstream outlets, you don't know anything about Irina's heartbreaking story. | ||
| For some reason, many national news outlets have refused to cover it. | ||
| It's social media that has amplified the story and made everyone pay attention to it. | ||
| And Axios shamelessly reported that this was, quote, fuel for the MAGA messaging battle, as if it's some sort of contrived problem. | ||
| Watch the video for yourself. | ||
| It's a tragedy. | ||
| It's a completely avoidable tragedy that deserves the nation's attention. | ||
| For now, all we can do is pray for the family, the Zarutska family, and continue our calls for the swift application of justice. | ||
| Let's talk about some issues of the week. | ||
| The NDAA, the House, is going to take up and pass the FY26 National Defense Authorization Act. | ||
| I want to thank Chairman Mike Rogers and all the House Armed Services Committee for their diligent work on the legislation. | ||
| We are providing for the common defense, and as we know, that's one of our most basic governing duties here in Congress. | ||
| And on this side of the aisle, we take it very seriously. | ||
| The sad fact is that four years under President Biden left our military's readiness in a very troubled state. | ||
| Thankfully, President Trump has reinstituted the doctrine of peace through strength, and that will maintain America's dominance in a very dangerous world. | ||
| This year's NDAA lays out policies to defend our nation. | ||
| It supports our brave service members and it safeguards the country from threats abroad. | ||
| It also codifies a number of President Trump's executive orders related to national defense. | ||
| There's 17 of them in the bill. | ||
| Here's a couple of examples. | ||
| It codifies executive orders to end radical and wasteful government DEI programs, reinvigorate the nuclear industrial base, unleash American drone dominance, secure American borders, NCRT, and our military schools, and reform the federal hiring process and restore merit to government service, among many others. | ||
| The safety and security of the American people, our homeland, and our troops abroad is our utmost priority, and this must-pass legislation delivers on every front. | ||
| Speaking of foreign affairs, bless you, it's more important than ever that America maintains a posture of strength because others in the West are flirting with surrender. | ||
| This week, international leaders will convene at the UN General Assembly in New York, and we'll be watching if close allies like France and Canada and the U.K. move ahead with plans to recognize a Palestinian state. | ||
| It's equally baffling as it is deeply troubling to have this idea that you would reward Hamas with statehood before they've returned every hostage. | ||
| What message does that send to would-be terrorists and tyrants around the world? | ||
| If you rape and murder and abduct innocent civilians and then cause enough suffering among your own people, then the free world will somehow reward you with international legitimacy. | ||
| You can't do that. | ||
| And I can tell you that President Trump and Republicans in Congress have been very clear that rewarding the carnage that took place on October 7th is a non-starter. | ||
| It's unacceptable. | ||
| With regard to government funding, very quickly, and then we'll take questions. | ||
| House Republicans continue to work through regular order to fund the government for FY26 for the next fiscal year. | ||
| We're working closely with the White House and the Senate to ensure we meet our deadlines. | ||
| And Chairman Cole, Tom Cole, of the appropriators, continues to diligently work towards getting all 12 bills out of committee. | ||
| And they're almost done with that. | ||
| And as we get closer to the funding deadline, though, we recognize the shutdown chatter from the left is growing louder. | ||
| Some of these people seem to enjoy this. | ||
| It seems Democrats may take the path of maximum resistance and try to shut the government down. | ||
| It's not surprising because they're struggling because they don't really have a message or a leader or their party registration is falling. | ||
| Their approval ratings are in the low 20s and they're about to elect a Marxist to be the mayor of New York City. | ||
| They are desperately searching for a solution and some in the party apparently think a government shutdown would be some sort of political advantage to them. | ||
| It'd be what we all know is dangerous and harmful to millions of Americans and that is not the answer. | ||
| So I'm going to say this again and I'm going to say it in good faith. | ||
|
How It Plays Out
00:05:43
|
||
| I've shared this with the Democrat leader in the House and other colleagues that Democrats are willing to work with us. | ||
| We have our sleeves rolled up and we want to do this in good faith. | ||
| We just have to think responsibly how to spend less money than we did last year. | ||
| And if they're willing to do that, and it's incumbent upon all of us to do it with the high national debt, we're open to that. | ||
| But the ultimate question of whether there's going to be a government shutdown at the end of the month is going to be up to congressional Democrats and that's just the way it is. | ||
| So take a few questions. | ||
|
unidentified
|
On government funding, Mr. Mr. Cole's saying maybe it's a three-bill mini-bus attached to a CR. | |
| Is that got your endorsement? | ||
| Is that the plan right now? | ||
| You're talking what Leader Thune said? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Cole, we're just saying you could maybe try to do a three-bill mini-bus attached to a CR. | |
| Well, so the idea is that what we're really advocating for is an actual old-school conference, the way this is supposed to work, between the House and Senate. | ||
| And the way that would, we have the MILCON VA bill, the Military Construction Veterans Affairs bill that we're most interested in getting to a conference. | ||
| In the Senate, they paired it with two other bills. | ||
| So what is being referred to, I think, is that if we are able to get that conference going, then you would have three bills there, which means you would have a broad cross-section of the conference represented there because the cardinals or the subcommittee chairs of each of those subcommittees that deal with those three individual bills would be represented, as would be all the members of each of those subcommittees in appropriations. | ||
| So you'd have a cross-section of everybody there, a good representation of the country, a good and I think vigorous debate between the House and Senate, and that is how the process is supposed to work. | ||
| I mean, that is small D democracy at its best. | ||
| So we're big advocates of that. | ||
| We have not done, as you all know, and you hear me lament all the time, we've not done the appropriations process the way it is legally supposed to work in a long, long time around here. | ||
| And we're trying to force the body back to that. | ||
| And if we can get to a conference committee, that's the first next important step in returning to that. | ||
| So that's what we're advocating for. | ||
| We'll keep going. | ||
| Third row, yes, ma'am. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The D.C. national emergency expires tomorrow. | |
| I know that you said yesterday that it's not necessary to extend it at this time, but there are some members of your conference who would like to see the president's emergency powers in D.C. expanded for a longer time than 30 days. | ||
| Do you expect that to get a vote on the floor this year? | ||
| No, I'm among them. | ||
| But my understanding is that the current status of it is that the Democrat mayor of D.C., Mariel Bowser, wisely welcomed the assistance. | ||
| And she said effectively is that the way I read that or understood it was an indefinite welcome mat to keep the crime low. | ||
| We all benefit from that. | ||
| Every single person in this room benefits from that. | ||
| You can walk home safely tonight. | ||
| We couldn't have told you that several weeks ago. | ||
| So no one's calling on Congress yet to act on that. | ||
| And I think if you have an agreement, my understanding is an agreement between the White House and the local leadership, then I'm not sure Congress has any necessity to do anything. | ||
| So we'll see how that plays out. | ||
| Senator Johnson, one question for you specifically, and then one for anyone who'd like to take it. | ||
| You were just talking about Muriel Bowser, who went from opposing Trump on crime to now welcoming the National Guard indefinitely. | ||
| And you were talking about Charlotte. | ||
| The mayor there said you can't incarcerate your way out of this problem, even though this person was incarcerated 14 times. | ||
| I'm curious if you have a number or a thought on how many Americans and refugees will need to be murdered before Democrats want to perhaps work with President Trump. | ||
| And then my second question for anyone, as we were all driving in, walking in here, Israel struck Qatar to take out Hamas leadership. | ||
| I'm curious if any of you think that whoever survives there should be evicted from Qatar. | ||
| I don't know anything about that development. | ||
| That's news to me. | ||
| I've been a little busy the last couple hours. | ||
| But we'll have to see how that plays out. | ||
| I mean, look, I was in Israel myself a few weeks ago in early August. | ||
| It's a very dangerous time there, and they have enemies encamped around them, and they're trying to bring that to a peace as well. | ||
| But Hamas, you know, by anybody who looks at this reasonably, and in my view, this is my personal view, that Hamas has to be eradicated. | ||
| You've got to remove that threat on the immediate border, frankly, within the bounds of Israel. | ||
| And I'm not sure about that development. | ||
| We'll have to see. | ||
| I'll reserve judgment to talk about that. | ||
| I will say with regard to the crime stats, it's a very good question. | ||
| And not a rhetorical one. | ||
| I mean, these mayors in these big blue cities have to ask this question. | ||
| And I think their voters and the residents and the law-abiding citizens in all these cities should be asking local leadership: how long are you going to put up with this? | ||
| When are you going to put your foot down and do the right thing, the common sense thing, the thing that is wildly popular with anybody if you ask them, do you want to reduce carjackings by 85% in your city? | ||
| Because that's what's happened in D.C. since President Trump got involved. | ||
| Everybody will look at you and say, of course, right? | ||
| Do you want to reduce robberies by 25 to 30%, which is what's happening in D.C.? | ||
| Of course. | ||
| I mean, murders are down dramatically. | ||
| It makes a big difference. | ||
| It's quality of life. | ||
| We live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. | ||
| We have the greatest capital in all of the world. | ||
| And we need to show that. | ||
| We need to put that on display. | ||
| And we need to confirm for the American people that they do not need to fear for their lives when they drive to the grocery store or they pick up their son or daughter from school. | ||
| This is common sense. | ||
| And I cannot for the life of me understand how the Democrats think this is some sort of winning political message. | ||
| Yield, man. | ||
|
Recorded Vote Ordered
00:05:37
|
||
| Let the troops come into your city and show how crime can be reduced. | ||
| It's a morale boost for the country, and it's safe and right for everybody involved. | ||
| So if they want to go down that road, they're going to go down that road. | ||
| We're going to keep talking about common sense, and we're going to keep delivering. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| As this vote, as tallies continue to come in on this vote, up next, we're expecting members to vote on approval of the debate rules for two bills, the 2026 defense programs and policy legislation, the National Defense Authorization Act, also a measure to increase criminal penalties on those who illegally enter the United States. | ||
| We have a few moments before the next vote, Thursday morning. | ||
| Watch C-SPAN's live all-day coverage of the commemoration ceremonies marking the 24th anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attacks. | ||
| Our coverage starts at 7 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's Washington Journal. | ||
| At 8:30 a.m. Eastern, we'll take you to the remembrance ceremony at the 9-11 Memorial in New York City with Vice President JD Vance in attendance. | ||
| At 9 a.m. Eastern, the observance ceremony from the Pentagon with President Trump. | ||
| At 9:45 Eastern, the Flight 93 National Memorial Ceremony, which is in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. | ||
| Watch live all-day coverage of the commemoration ceremonies marking the 24th anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attacks. | ||
| It's Thursday morning starting at 7 a.m. Eastern on the C-SPAN networks. | ||
| On this vote, the yeas are 213, the nays are 207. | ||
| The previous question is ordered. | ||
| The question is on the adoption of the resolution. | ||
| Those in favor say aye. | ||
| Those opposed say no. | ||
| In the opinion chairs, the ayes have it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would request a recorded vote. | |
| A recorded vote is requested. | ||
| Those favoring a recorded vote will rise. | ||
| A sufficient number having arisen, a recorded vote is ordered. | ||
| Members will record their votes by electronic device. | ||
| This is a five-minute vote. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And so House votes now on approval of the debate rules for two bills: the 2026 Defense Programs and Policy Legislation, the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, and also a measure to increase criminal penalties on those who illegally enter the United States. | |
| Quick update on the schedule for the rest of the day. | ||
| If the debate rules the House is voting on now are approved, the Chamber will debate the defense programs and policy bill for up to an hour, and then they'll move on to debate amendments. | ||
|
No Patient Should Worry
00:13:47
|
||
|
unidentified
|
More than 1,100 amendments to the NDAA were filed with the House Rules Committee. | |
| The panel selected nearly 300 of them to be considered on the floor. | ||
| One of those amendments will likely be debated this afternoon. | ||
| It would prohibit U.S. aid to Ukraine. | ||
| It's brought by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. | ||
| During this vote, House Democrats talk about health care under the Trump administration. | ||
| This is from earlier today. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| I'm grateful to be joined by Congressman Ami Barra and Congresswoman Maxine Dexter, both distinguished doctors, joining me and Vice Chair Liu up here today. | ||
| We're here today because Donald Trump and House Republicans have created a full-blown health care crisis in this country. | ||
| Since Republicans passed their big ugly law, we've been hearing from our constituents non-stop. | ||
| They are scared that they'll lose their health care and that their local hospitals will close and that they'll see their insurance premiums continue to rise. | ||
| All of this comes at a time when Americans are already struggling to afford the basic needs: gas, groceries, health care, housing. | ||
| On Friday, we saw just how harmful Donald Trump and his policies are for the American people. | ||
| The latest jobs report showed a significant slowdown with just 22,000 jobs added and unemployment reaching 4.3%, the highest rate since the pandemic in 2021. | ||
| The amount of damage that this administration has done to our nation in nine months is staggering. | ||
| There is no doubt that because of his cruel and chaotic administration, the costs of the American people are rising and American families are worse off. | ||
| Meanwhile, House Democrats are doing everything we can to protect Americans' access to affordable quality health care. | ||
| We implore Republicans to abandon their partisan, go-it-alone approach and work with us on legislation that improves health care for our constituents in red, blue, and purple districts. | ||
| It's time for Republicans to get serious about supporting the hardworking individuals they represent rather than the ultra-wealthy and well-connected elites that they continue to defend. | ||
| Next, Vice Chair Ted Liu. | ||
| Thank you, Chairman Aguilar. | ||
| Trump's economy sucks. | ||
| Last month, the jobs report was so bad that Donald Trump felt compelled to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics to distract from how bad that report was. | ||
| This month, the report was equally horrible because it turns out when you fire the head of BLS, that doesn't actually change the rules of math. | ||
| And as Chairman Aguilar said, unemployment increased and jobs wildly miss expectations in terms of job growth. | ||
| You then have inflation continuing to rise, and you had core CPI last month being quite high, and then certain categories within the economy even exceeding inflation, such as electricity prices. | ||
| And then you added that, what we learned this week, that the New York Fed survey of worker confidence in getting a new job was the lowest ever in the history of its survey. | ||
| Now is exactly the wrong time to increase health care costs, and that's what Trump and Republicans are doing. | ||
| Their big, ugly bill not only slashes Medicaid, it's going to throw off 15 million people of health care, and also, the way it's written, is going to cause half a trillion dollars in Medicare cuts. | ||
| And in addition, ACA premiums are going to rise. | ||
| And then everyone's employer-based premiums are also going to rise because of the massive cuts to health care across the board. | ||
| So we're urging Trump Republicans to reverse course, to focus on reducing prices, and to reverse the devastating health care cuts that they put in. | ||
| I now want to talk about the Epstein files. | ||
| We've got a discharge petition on the House floor. | ||
| We urge Republicans to sign it. | ||
| If we can get a handful of Republicans to sign it, we can get this into a bill and compel it off the House floor to get the Epstein files. | ||
| And if Republicans don't want to engage in a cover-up of pedophilia and this pedophilia ring, they should go sign this discharge petition. | ||
| A handful of Republicans is all we need. | ||
| Democrats are all on board. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And now it's my honor to introduce Congressman Ami Berra. | |
| I'm not a doctor, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. | ||
| But I'm very honored to introduce a real doctor. | ||
| Ami is a tremendous representative as well from the Sacramento region, and look forward to hearing from Ami Berra. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks, Vice Chair. | |
| So a lot of people ask me, why did you run for Congress? | ||
| And when I think back to when I was practicing, there was a day where folks would come in and you might diagnose them with diabetes. | ||
| You might identify a lump and say, hey, this might be cancer. | ||
| We've got to send you over there. | ||
| They may have chest pain. | ||
| But far too often in America, in that America over a decade ago, they'd say, you know, Doc, I can't afford the medications or I don't have health insurance. | ||
| That's why I ran for Congress, because in a country like ours, no patient should ever worry about being able to go see a doctor and no American should ever worry about going bankrupt. | ||
| In the 13 years I've been in Congress, we as Democrats, our core value, have worked to expand health care, first through the ACA, then expanding Medicaid access, then addressing prescription drug prices under the last administration, addressing the cost of insulin. | ||
| That is who we are. | ||
| That's the values that we reflect as American medicine, but also as Americans, we should look after one another. | ||
| Now think about the first six months of the Trump administration. | ||
| Think about the complicity of House Republicans, what they've done. | ||
| They've unwound all of those gains in six months. | ||
| These are folks that know better. | ||
| When I think about my California colleague like David Valladéo, over half of his constituents are on Medicaid. | ||
| He's going to take health care away from them. | ||
| Are you kidding? | ||
| That is not who we are as the United States of America. | ||
| That is not who we are as House Democrats, nor should that be the values that the American people stand for. | ||
| So we are going to get out there. | ||
| We're going to fight every day. | ||
| We're going to fight against the Republicans. | ||
| We're going to fight against the Trump administration because our core values are to care for one another as the United States of America. | ||
| That's the oath I took when I entered the profession of medicine, to do good, to do no harm, and to work with patients so they have the choice in the type of health care decisions that they want. | ||
| That is exactly what Donald Trump and House Republicans want to take away from the American people, and we're not going to stand for it. | ||
| And that's why I am so happy that we now have a Democratic Doctors Caucus. | ||
| We've got six Democratic doctors in Congress, and one of our outstanding freshman members from Portland, Oregon, Dr. Maxine Dexter, is going to take it from here. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| I am Congresswoman Maxine Dexter, very proud and honored to serve Oregon's third. | ||
| I'm also a mother and a pulmonary and critical care physician. | ||
| Before coming to Congress, I spent nearly two decades caring for the sickest in our community as a critical care doctor. | ||
| And you know what I saw over that time? | ||
| More and more patients ending up in my intensive care unit due to delaying care or deferring care because they couldn't afford it. | ||
| Working families everywhere know this. | ||
| Health care just keeps getting more expensive, while their paychecks don't change. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Families are less able to afford it. | |
| The resolution is adopted. | ||
| Without objection, the motion is reconsidered, laid on. | ||
| Now, | ||
| will be in order. | ||
| House will be in order. | ||
| For what purposes, gentlemen from Alabama seek recognition? | ||
| I ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material in H.R. 3838. | ||
| Without objection, pursuant to House Resolution 682 and Rule 18, the Chair declares the House in a committee of the whole House and the State of the Union for the consideration of H.R. 3838. | ||
|
SPEED Act: Enhancing Defense Procurement
00:15:30
|
||
| The chair appoints the gentlewoman from Minnesota, Ms. Fishbach, to preside over the Committee of the Whole. | ||
| The House is in the Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union for the consideration of H.R. 3838, which the clerk will report by title. | ||
| A bill to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2026 for military activities of the Department of Defense for military construction and for defense activities of the Department of Energy to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year and for other purposes. | ||
| Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered read for the first time. | ||
| General debate shall be confined to the bill and amendments specified in the first section of House Resolution 682 and shall not exceed one hour, equally divided, controlled by the chair and the ranking minority member of the Committee on Armed Services or their respective designees. | ||
| The gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Rogers, and the gentleman from Washington, Mr. Smith, will each control 30 minutes. | ||
| The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Rogers. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Chairman. | ||
| I yield myself such time as I may consume. | ||
| The bill before us today carries a different short title than the typical NDAA. | ||
| It is the Streamlining Procurement for Effective Execution and Delivery Act, or SPEED Act. | ||
| And we did that to underscore the very significant reforms this bill makes to the Department's acquisition process. | ||
| The Pentagon's current acquisition process is failing our warfighters. | ||
| It can take 10 years between identifying a need and delivering the capability to the warfighter. | ||
| By that time, the threat has changed, the costs have ballooned, and the solution is outdated. | ||
| The SPEED Act will cut through layers of red tape and deliver for the warfighter at speed and scale. | ||
| It accelerates the requirements process from nearly three years down to 90 days. | ||
| It streamlines bureaucracy. | ||
| It prioritizes commercial solutions and fosters an environment where innovation can flourish by removing barriers to entry and bridging the valley of death. | ||
| It modernizes outdated and overly burdensome regulations that slow delivery and inflate costs. | ||
| And most importantly, it drives much-needed cultural change. | ||
| No more rewarding paper pushers over problem solving. | ||
| The SPEED Act fosters a culture of agility and responsible risk-taking. | ||
| We work closely with the administration on this effort, and I'm pleased to say they support it. | ||
| Fixing acquisitions will go a long way toward ensuring our warfighters are the most capable fighting force on the planet. | ||
| Properly equipping our warfighters is critical, but so is ensuring we recruit and retain the best and brightest. | ||
| Towards that end, the FY26 NDA continues to make improvements in the quality of life for our service members. | ||
| This bill supports the Trump administration's 3.8% pay raise for all service members, authorizes nearly $3 billion for construction of barracks, family housing, dining facilities, medical facilities, child care centers, and schools. | ||
| Prevents the Department from reducing health care billets to avoid shortages at medical facilities, and it improves service member access to mental health services. | ||
| Our committee will continue to make improving the quality of life for service members a priority. | ||
| We need a ready, capable, and lethal fighting force because the threats our nation faces, especially those from China, are more complex and challenging than any point in the last 40 years. | ||
| The FY26 NDA counters the threat from China and ensures mission success in the Indo-Pacific. | ||
| The bill extends the Pacific Deterrence Initiative to enhance U.S. posture in the region. | ||
| It funds the Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative by $1 billion, fully funds the military exercises with allies and partners in the region, and it authorizes more than $1.5 billion in critical military construction projects we need to carry out operations in the Pacific. | ||
| Furthermore, the bill increases the lethality of our forces to prepare for and deter global threats. | ||
| The bill authorizes over $22 billion in shipbuilding for additional submarines and surface vessels, $38 billion to ensure air dominance with a new generation of fighters, $15 billion to restore America's arsenal of munitions, and $142 billion to research and develop innovative new technologies our warfighters need to win on the future battlefields. | ||
| This is a strong bipartisan bill that delivers for our warfighters and deters our adversaries. | ||
| It will fundamentally reform the defense acquisition enterprise. | ||
| It will continue historic improvements in the quality of life for our service members and their families. | ||
| It will build the ready, capable, and lethal fighting force we need to deter China and other adversaries. | ||
| And it will deliver on President Trump's peace through strength agenda. | ||
| I urge all members to support it. | ||
| I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| Gentleman Reserves, the gentleman from Washington is recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Madam Speaker. | |
| I yield myself such time as I may consume. | ||
| Gentleman is recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| First of all, I really want to thank Chairman Rogers, his team, and his staff. | ||
| The process that we went through in committee was just a model for how to legislate on the National Defense Authorizing Act and in a bipartisan fashion. | ||
| And I think in that process, we put together a really good bill. | ||
| The Chairman's done a good job of describing it. | ||
| I won't belabor some of those points, except to say that the emphasis on acquisition and procurement reform is so crucial to everything we're doing. | ||
| In order to meet the national security threats that we face, we are going to have to innovate vastly more quickly than we do right now. | ||
| The pace of warfare is simply changing on a day-in and day-out basis. | ||
| Drones, AI, missile defense, counter-drone technologies. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is evolving rapidly. | |
| We simply have to make sure that the best technologies, the innovative companies out there in the world, have access to the Department of Defense so that we can update and change the way we do business and move more quickly. | ||
| I think that one of the easiest ways to think about it is we need to focus on solving problems, not on process. | ||
| This bill does an excellent job of making those changes. | ||
| The chairman led an effort over the course of the last year to do a deep dive on these questions and come up with a very meaningful bill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The bill is also excellent in a number of other areas. | |
| It continues on the really good work from last year on quality of life issues, making sure that we take care of the men and women and their families who serve our country, the pay raise, a number of other issues are dealt with in that regard. | ||
| I think the bill also reflects a strong statement of what our national security needs are. | ||
| It fully supports Ukraine. | ||
| It fully supports the Baltic Security Initiative to make sure that our allies in the Baltics and Eastern Europe are supported and make sure that we support Taiwan through the Indo-Indo-PACOM initiative. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We have a good bill that came out of committee. | |
| And also, crucially, the bill was handled in a bipartisan fashion. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We debated a lot of different amendments. | |
| Some amendments that were problematic, we set aside because they were too partisan one way or the other. | ||
| And we debated the issues that were most important to the warfighter and produced a good product. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So that's the good news. | |
| The bad news is what came out of the Rules Committee. | ||
| The Rules Committee was a completely and totally partisan exercise in a way that, frankly, I haven't witnessed on the defense bill since, well, before last year, in which we totally abandoned everything that Chairman Rogers and everybody else put into in the committee process and said, no, Democrats are irrelevant. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is a Republican bill. | |
| That's all we're going to pay attention to. | ||
| Of the amendments that are ruled in order, 222 of them are Republican. | ||
| 76 of them are Democrat. | ||
| None of the Democratic amendments are ones that we're going to be debating. | ||
| The Democratic amendments are ones that are bipartisan, are going to be unblocked. | ||
| I know there is a technicality there in that the Meeks amendment is going to be debated, but that's only going to be debated because Chip Roy insisted on it and it overruled what the majority wanted and voted for it in committee. | ||
| And that's on repealing the AUMFs 91 in 2002. | ||
| So no effort whatsoever to include Democratic ideas while loading it up with some of the most partisan political amendments possible. | ||
| There are, I think it's five different attacks on the trans community. | ||
| The Trump administration has already achieved all of that. | ||
| This is simply piling on, including the worst part of it, denying health care to the men and women who serve in the military and their families any sort of health care for gender dysphoria, which is an absolute 100% thing, even if you may disagree with how to handle it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No treatment for that. | |
| And that's just a purely partisan, gratuitous shot that we decided not to take in committee for a very good reason. | ||
| But then equally problematic is some of the crucial amendments that Democrats wanted to debate about oversight of this Pentagon, oversight of what President Trump and Secretary Hagseth are doing. | ||
| He is posting on social media a threat to use the United States military to invade the city of Chicago and other cities. | ||
| That is not what the United States military is supposed to be used for. | ||
| It would be appropriate for Congress to exercise oversight and have that debate and say, no, we're not going to let you use the U.S. military for domestic law enforcement to at least let us have that debate and have a vote on it. | ||
| Go on record and say how we feel about it. | ||
| There was also the over-politicization of the military. | ||
| Unprecedented, unseen. | ||
| Every single Inspector General fired. | ||
| Every single Judge Advocate General fired. | ||
| Multiple senior level staff officers, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, C.Q. Brown, and the general who was in charge of NSA and Cyber, General Hawk, fired highly qualified bipartisan support, but they weren't loyal to President Trump. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's not what this is supposed to be about. | |
| We should be able to debate those amendments to make sure that the United States military stands up for the American people. | ||
| It is loyal to the Constitution, not to one person. | ||
| All of those debates disallowed. | ||
| So we'll see how the amendment process goes, but it is highly unlikely at the end of it that we're going to have that product that we produced out of committee. | ||
| That is a shame to this institution. | ||
| And again, I want to emphasize Chairman Rogers, great partner, House Armed Services Committee did a great job. | ||
| Leadership decided to make this a partisan exercise instead of an exercise focused on the American service members, their families, and making sure that our country has what it needs to meet our national security and defense needs. | ||
| With that, I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| Gentleman from Washington Reserves, gentleman from Alabama. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Chair. | ||
| And I want to echo the ranking member's comments. | ||
| This is a very bipartisan product that came out of a committee. | ||
| It's a good product, and it deserves this chamber's support. | ||
| He's been a great partner in fashioning what we bring to the floor today. | ||
| At this time, Madam Chairman, I'd like to yield two minutes to the subcommittee chairman, subcommittee on intel and special ops, Mr. Jackson of Texas. | ||
| Two minutes. | ||
| Gentleman from Texas is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Madam Speaker. | ||
| I rise in support of H.R. 3838, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026, also known as the SPEAT Act. | ||
| I would like to begin by thanking Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Smith for their leadership in bringing this bipartisan legislation to the floor for the 65th consecutive year. | ||
| The Intelligence and Special Operations Subcommittee portions of this bill, in conjunction with approximately $2.2 billion in reconciliation funding, continues to focus on providing our special operations forces, the defense enterprise, and the security cooperation enterprise with the tools required to ensure their capabilities can support the department's efforts in strategic competition and in countering malign PRC actions. | ||
| This bill supports critical platforms like the V-22 and the MV-75, which are assembled in Texas' 13th congressional district. | ||
| This legislation also provides the U.S. Special Operations Command with the ability to accelerate research, development, testing, and procurement at speed and scale to affect outcomes against adversaries through the Urgent Innovation Technologies and Capabilities Pilot Program. | ||
| The authority for SOCOM, combined with the Defense Intelligence Enterprise and the Defense Security Cooperation Agency's efforts, will continue to be our strategic hedge against an increasingly contested and denied battle space by peer adversary capabilities and malign influence. | ||
| We will enable leaders to make informed decisions in an increasingly complex world, enhancing the U.S. military's lethality across the board. | ||
| Finally, this bill, coupled with reconciliation, is just the beginning of the increased resource and resourcing needed to ensure our special operations forces, the Defense Intelligence Enterprise, and the Security Cooperation Enterprise can support the Department's efforts in strategic competition and countering malign influence. | ||
| We owe it to the men and women who volunteer to serve in these roles. | ||
| Our special operators, uniform and civilian intelligence personnel, and security cooperation personnel to equip with the capabilities. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| I continue to reserve. | ||
| Gentleman from Alabama Reserves, gentleman from Washington. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Madam Chair. | |
| I'm now pleased to yield two minutes to the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Readiness, Mr. Garamindi from California. | ||
| Where is he from? | ||
| The gentleman from California is recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Madam Speaker. | |
| I want to follow along in the path that our ranking member has laid out, but before I go there, I do want to thank my Republican colleagues, particularly the Chair, Mr. Rogers, for your efforts in committee to put together a decent bill, which I did vote for. | ||
| However, I'm seriously alarmed by some of the things that are in the bill and even more that are likely to occur today. | ||
| It's the erosion of our defense policy's lack of fiscal discipline, strategic clarity, and constitutional boundaries. | ||
| Since we passed this out of legislation, the Trump administration has unleashed the military against Americans in American cities. | ||
| They've pushed unnecessarily expensive changes, such as renaming the Department of Defense into Department of War, and continuously disregard the Constitution of the United States of America. | ||
|
National Defense Debate
00:15:44
|
||
|
unidentified
|
As of this morning, my Republican colleagues have chosen to inject decisive partisan amendments into this bill. | |
| We'll have more about that as the day goes on. | ||
| And at the end of the day, most of those amendments will be adopted, and we'll have a truly bad bill before us. | ||
| Sorry about that, folks, but that's where you're headed. | ||
| So please, if you have a chance, take it in a different direction. | ||
| Think about how we're spending the money. | ||
| We're going to spend probably a billion dollars retrofitting a luxury jet gift by the Qatar royal family to President Trump. | ||
| It'll be ready, assuming we do it, about the time the President leaves here and he'll have his own personal royal jet. | ||
| What in the world is that all about? | ||
| Oh, by the way, the money comes out of the Sentinel program, with which I have a lot of problems. | ||
| Perhaps that's good, but nonetheless, the fiscal discipline here is simply not available. | ||
| So we're going to spend $400. | ||
| We now have a $400 billion, $747-8. | ||
| I assume the President will be happy with his new jet when he retires, which cannot happen soon enough, in my view. | ||
| By the way, we're putting in, let's see, we have three divisions that are always ready to go. | ||
| 101st. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| We have three divisions that are always ready to go. | ||
| One of them, the 101st Airborne, now has several thousand of its troops deployed to the southern border. | ||
| For what purpose? | ||
| I suppose with their binoculars looking around for something, most of which isn't there. | ||
| A total waste of their ability. | ||
| And are they going to be ready? | ||
| The answer is no. | ||
| So from the readiness committee, makes no sense, folks. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Gentleman yields. | ||
| Gentleman from Washington, reserves. | ||
| Gentleman from Alabama. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Chair. | ||
| I'd like to at this time yield two minutes to the chairman of the subcommittee on tactical air and land, Mr. Whitman of Virginia. | ||
| Gentleman from Virginia is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Speaker. | ||
| I'd also like to thank the Chairman and ranking member of the committee for their leadership throughout this year's NDAA process. | ||
| I rise in strong support of H.R. 3838, the Streamlining Procurement for Effective Execution and Delivery, and National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2026. | ||
| As the United States faces pacing threats from China, this NDAA ensures the United States remains peerless by reforming and modernizing the Pentagon's acquisition policies. | ||
| This bill includes my provision instituting a minimum assignment period of six years for acquisition program executive officers, strengthening institutional memory in the acquisition process. | ||
| It also cuts through red tape by exempting smaller programs from cumbersome regulatory burdens. | ||
| It revitalizes the national defense industrial base by establishing the Defense Industrial Resiliency Consortium and bridges the valley of death by creating the bridging operation objectives and support for a transition program to effectively align high potential technology with unmet operational needs. | ||
| As chairman of the subcommittee on tactical air and land forces, we have ensured this bill delivers on maintaining a capable and lethal fighting force by authorizing over $38 billion for the development, procurement, and modification of aircraft, including fully funding for the sixth-generation F-47 and FAXX programs. | ||
| It authorizes $15 billion to restore America's ammunition arsenal. | ||
| Crucially, this bill addresses the emerging threat of unmanned aircraft systems, or UAS. | ||
| These systems are posed to be the IED of our future conflicts if we do not successfully counter them at home and on the battlefield. | ||
| The FY26 NDA fully funds the President's request for counter-UAS systems and implements a pilot program to utilize commercial data feeds to more accurately detect, identify, and track UAS incursions near military installations. | ||
| I'd also like to thank the subcommittee's ranking member Don Norcross for his leadership in these efforts and for his shared bipartisan vision for our nation's security. | ||
| Madam Speaker, this year's NDAA is a strong bipartisan bill that works to keep the United States the most dynamic and lethal military power on the planet. | ||
| I encourage my colleagues to support this bill and I yield back the balance of my time. | ||
| Gentleman from Alabama Reserves. | ||
| Continues to reserve. | ||
| Gentleman from Washington. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Madam Chair. | |
| I'm now pleased to yield two minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut, the ranking member on the subcommittee on sea power and projection forces. | ||
| Gentleman from Connecticut is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Speaker. | ||
| I rise in support of H.R. 3888 as it came out of committee. | ||
| The bipartisan tradition of the Sea Power and Projection Forces Subcommittee continued this year under the leadership of my good friend Chairman Trent Kelly to ensure maximum support for our sailors, airmen, and Marines. | ||
| I would note our job was made much more difficult by the ridiculously late submission of a budget by the Budget Office, which they then split and mangled by disregarding input from the sea services. | ||
| Nonetheless, we overcame that challenge with this year's mark. | ||
| The bill includes my bipartisan table amendment, which authorizes an increase in Virginia-class submarine program by $1 billion. | ||
| This plus-up was needed to address a serious Virginia-class program budget office shortfall and will ensure full authorization of two Virginia subs in fiscal year 2026. | ||
| Madam Chair, today a total of four Virginia subs are slated to be delivered in 2025 and 2026. | ||
| This bill's plus-up will grow industry's backlog of work to 21 boats so we can overmatch our adversaries' nuclear fleets and fulfill our AUKUS commitments to sell three subs to Australia in 2032, 35, and 2038. | ||
| Mr. Kelly and I visited there in August and saw firsthand that nation's massive investment in their Navy in anticipation, and we must act to keep up our end. | ||
| Further, the bill includes incremental funding authorization for the Columbia-class submarine program to avoid disruption of the Navy's most critical shipbuilding priority. | ||
| Our market directs investment and support for uncrewed and autonomous maritime platforms that are here to stay as part of our Navy's fleet of warships. | ||
| Procurement stability for shipbuilding in our maritime industrial base has never been more important, and passage of this NDA will achieve that. | ||
| Madam Chairman, fiscal year 2026 will mark the 65th consecutive NDA if signed into law. | ||
| This legacy is one of bipartisanship and compromise. | ||
| I urge my colleagues to support a bill that can be passed in a closely divided Congress and stay focused on the core mission of Congress to provide a strong national defense. | ||
| That's what we did in committee under Mr. Smith and Mr. Rogers' leadership. | ||
| The bill passed 55 to 2. | ||
| Gentlemen, supported by the Commission. | ||
| The men and women in uniform deserve no less than that example with final passage of this matter. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Gentleman from Washington Reserves. | ||
| Gentleman from Alabama. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Chair. | ||
| I yield two minutes to the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, a gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Desjarlais. | ||
| Gentleman from Tennessee is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Chairman Rogers. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I rise today in favor of the fiscal year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act. | |
| This bill fundamentally reforms defense acquisition to support a fighting force that will stand against those who threaten the United States of America. | ||
| As the chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, I was proud to work in a bipartisan fashion to support some of the most critical elements of our national defense. | ||
| First, and perhaps most importantly, we continue to support the modernization of our nuclear triad, as well as the scientific capabilities and the NC3 architecture that underpin it. | ||
| We also establish a new rapid capabilities program within the NNSA to enhance our ability to respond to growing nuclear threats from China and Russia. | ||
| As China's recent military parade demonstrated, our adversaries continue to rapidly develop and deploy new nuclear weapons. | ||
| On the other hand, U.S. nuclear capabilities can take over a decade to design and develop. | ||
| This bill would apply innovative and rapid acquisition approaches to address this and ultimately ensure our deterrent continues to keep pace with the dynamic threat environment. | ||
| For defense of the homeland, this bill supports development of the Golden Dome system to achieve President Trump's bold vision. | ||
| In space, we established the Tactical Surveillance Reconnaissance and Tracking Program as a formal program of record to provide badly needed space products from commercial providers to combatant commands. | ||
| We also provide tools to sustain the growth and development of Space Force Guardians to ensure we have the highly skilled and technically proficient acquisition cadre capable of bringing online the next generation of systems to fight and win in space. | ||
| This bill revitalizes the defense industrial base and American manufacturing, supports a well-deserved pay raise for our service members, creates a more lethal and agile force to counter our adversaries, and secures our nation's borders, all while saving taxpayers over $20 billion through cutting inefficient programs and government bureaucracy. | ||
| This is a bill that meets the moment and needs the support of warfighters to protect our nation. | ||
| I applaud the work of the committee to bring forth this strong and bipartisan bill. | ||
| I encourage all my colleagues to vote yes. | ||
| I yield back the remainder of my time to the chairman. | ||
| I reserve. | ||
| Gentleman from Alabama Reserves, gentleman from Washington. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Madam Chair. | |
| I'm now pleased to yield two minutes to the Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces, Mr. Norcross of New Jersey. | ||
| Gentleman is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Ranking Member Smith and Chairman Rogers, for setting by example what it's like to work in a bipartisan fashion. | ||
| And to my chairman, Whitman, for what he does each and every day to make sure that we work together to make sure we support our warfighters. | ||
| This continues this bill, Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, Brad, proud bipartisan tradition and reaffirms our shared responsibility for managing this risk. | ||
| I am, however, disappointed that some, in a majority, would kill this bipartisan work. | ||
| We've seen the amendments. | ||
| and they will ruin what we have done collectively on our committee. | ||
| Our service members, their families deserve better. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, this bill authorizes funding levels for a key defense program, including $7 billion for the most expensive defense program in the history of our country, the F-35, and over $800 million to make sure that we continue the E-7A aircraft, which is needed so badly, particularly in the Pacific. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, this bill also addresses the risk and cost of military modernization, extending the review, the assessment, the reporting, the F-35 program by Government Accountability Office, which is incredibly important, and we have taken many of the recommendations over the year and find it very valuable. | ||
| The bill also continues subcommittee's work to revitalize our munitions industrial base by providing multi-year procurement and authorizes coupled with strong investment in these accounts. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, this bill also includes and fortifies the Office of Director Operational Testing of Evaluation. | ||
| I am concerned with the administration's plan for DOT ⁇ E. | ||
| We must ensure that this office remains independent and relevant. | ||
| And certainly I want to thank our professional staff, Jay Michael Heath, Caroline Brooke, and certainly my own personal staff, Robin Vickey, my LA, Sam DeVitro, and Brian Yee. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I yield back. | ||
| Gentleman from Washington yields. | ||
| Excuse me, reserves. | ||
| Gentleman from Alabama is recognized. | ||
| Madam Chairman, this time I'd like to yield two minutes to my friend and colleague from Tennessee, the chairman of the Sea Power Subcommittee, Mr. Killey. | ||
| Two minutes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Chairman, you said Tennessee. | |
| Sorry, I meant Mississippi. | ||
| I was thinking Mississippi, even though I said Tennessee. | ||
| The gentleman from Mississippi is recognized, and I was going to correct you, Mr. Chair. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Madam Chair. | |
| I want to start by thanking Chairman Rogers, whose critical work on acquisition reform with Ranking Member Smith set the foundation for the advances we are making in this year's bill. | ||
| Thank you as well to my friend and Sea Power Ranking Member Joe Courtney for your commitment to bipartisanship and your continued collaboration towards stronger naval and projection forces. | ||
| Finally, thank you to the subcommittee staff, Cal Noyes, Kelly Goggin, Phil McNaughton, and Abby Snyder, as well as my personal staff, Samaj Redd and my fellow Bobby Sue. | ||
| I'm excited to highlight just a few of the many wins for our national defense in this year's bill. | ||
| We are adding to our fleet of Virginia and Columbia-class submarines. | ||
| We ensure that new C-LEF vessels will be made right here in America, and we are making investments in the transformative power of unmanned vehicles. | ||
| We also are advancing support for our airborne force projection needs, investing in aerial drones and anti-submarine sonar buoys, raising the floor on the minimum number of aerial refueling missions, and maintaining the inventory requirement for C-130 aircraft needed for intra-theater airlift. | ||
| This year's NDA also makes key investments in future procurement of ships, submarines, and airborne projection forces. | ||
| This gives our defense industry base the support they need to continue the important work they do in so many of our community and paves the road for a smoother procurement process going forward. | ||
| With global tensions as high as they are, it is important, more important than ever, for America to preserve the ability to project power across even the farthest reaches of the globe, from the Pacific to the Middle East and even the Arctic. | ||
| Our ability to meet any challenge near the critical homeland defense and advancing our national interests. | ||
| This year's NDA is an opportunity to make essential investments in our ability to project power across the oceans and in the air, and to ensure that America's defense remains second to none now and in the generations to come. | ||
| I urge all members to support a vote in favor. | ||
| I thank the gentlelady and I yield back. | ||
| Gentleman, reserves. | ||
| Gentleman from Washington. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Madam Chair. | |
| I'm now pleased to yield two minutes to the Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on Military Personnel, Ms. Wilhan of Pennsylvania. | ||
| Gentlelady from Pennsylvania is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Ranking Member Smith. | ||
| And very much thank you to Ranking Member Smith and to the Chairman for leading by example. | ||
| A very important lesson to be learned here. | ||
| And thank you as well to my chairman, Mr. Fallon, for working together with me on Mil PERS this term. | ||
| This is my seventh time through this, my seventh time that a bipartisan bill, actually sixth time that a bipartisan bill has passed out of committee. | ||
| And this one includes many quality of life priorities for our service members and for their families. | ||
| These issues will have an immeasurable impact on our recruitment and on our retention efforts, as well as, of course, on our readiness. | ||
| The bill does include a 3.8% pay raise for service members. | ||
| It increases the family separation allowance for service members to $400 a month. | ||
| It also excludes the base housing allowance from a service member's household income, so a greater number of them should be able to be eligible for the basic needs allowance. | ||
| These and several other provisions in the bill will certainly positively impact service members' pocketbooks and their ability to put food on the table. | ||
| H.R. 3838 expands ongoing efforts to improve the access to safe, quality child care by extending the child care in your home pilot program through 2029. | ||
|
National Defense Priorities
00:15:44
|
||
| Additionally, the bill will require the department to conduct annual reviews of child care fee assistance rates. | ||
| These regular reviews will certainly ensure that the fee assistance program remains aligned with the ever-evolving needs of our military families. | ||
| And finally, the bill addresses the ongoing health care needs of service members and their families, and it requires the establishment of the occupational resilience program for cyber personnel. | ||
| And interestingly and importantly, the bill waives fees and co-pays for TRICARE dental program for all members of the selected reserve. | ||
| And most importantly, it ensures the department doesn't further reduce the number of military medical personnel, which is, of course, vital at a time when there are medical professional shortages across this country. | ||
| We bring this bill to the floor to show that in a bipartisan way, our country is determined to support our service members and their families. | ||
| Sir, may I have 30 more seconds? | ||
| I yield the gentlelady an additional 30 seconds. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| We support readiness and recruitment. | ||
| I urge my colleagues to reject poison pill policy riders that will be added to this bill that could destabilize this very important work and not to put partisan politics above the well-being of our service members. | ||
| This NDAA would do just that. | ||
| Our service members and their families make considerable sacrifices, and we must fulfill our commitments to them and to their families as well. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Chair. | ||
| And I leave Speaker and I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I reserve. | |
| Gentleman from Washington Reserves, gentlemen from Alabama. | ||
| Madam Chairman, this time I'd like to yield two minutes to the chairman of the cyber subcommittee, the gentleman from Nebraska, Mr. Bacon. | ||
| Two minutes. | ||
| Gentleman from Nebraska is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Speaker. | ||
| I thank the Chairman and the Ranking Member for the Committee for their thoughtful leadership and navigators towards us passing this bill. | ||
| I rise today in strong support of H.R. 3838, our National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2026. | ||
| The 2026 NDA emphasizes ensuring the lethality of the U.S. Armed Forces by reforming the acquisition process to deliver innovative equipment to the warfighter at speed and scale. | ||
| It does so by accelerating the requirements process to reduce decision timelines from three years to three months, by making other transactional authorities more easily available for prototyping, and by cutting red tape through eliminating duplicative reporting requirements. | ||
| As the chairman of the subcommittee for cyber information and technology innovation, we've worked tirelessly to deliver the best and most cutting-edge technology to our service members. | ||
| This bill authorizes $142.6 billion to research, development, testing, evaluation of field-essential technology like hypersonics, AI, autonomous vehicles to win the wars of tomorrow. | ||
| China has a cyber force that is 10 times that of the United States. | ||
| China and Russia are attacking our networks every single day. | ||
| The threat in this cyberspace domain is real. | ||
| This legislation reflects that reality and takes essential steps to address it. | ||
| We could not have accomplished this without the tireless and dedicated efforts of the subcommittee staff, Sarah Moxley, Carolyn Curley, Andrew Smith, Brooke Allred, Maria Girado, Michael Herman, and Wendell White. | ||
| I also thank the Ranking Member Rocano for working in a bipartisan and friendly manner. | ||
| This NDA helps small business by fast-tracking promising technologies, establishing pilot programs to test and procure technologies that bolster operational capabilities, and incentivizing the consideration of commercial off-the-shelf products prior to entering extensive contracts. | ||
| I encourage my colleagues to support this NDA, and I yield the balance of my time. | ||
| Gentleman from Alabama Reserves, gentleman from Washington State. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Madam Chair. | |
| I'm now pleased to yield one and a half minutes to a member of the Armed Services Committee, Ms. Elfrith of Maryland. | ||
| Thank you, Lady from Maryland, is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Ranking Member Smith and Chair Rogers, for not just your leadership, but your sincere and deep commitment to collaboration. | ||
| As a freshman new member to this committee, I was thrilled to see that collaboration and bipartisan commitment throughout the nine-month NDA process. | ||
| And there is good things in this bill, as we've heard. | ||
| Together, we've secured language that defends the critical work of university-affiliated research centers that support the DOD, like the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. | ||
| We require our military academies to address the very real readiness threats posed by extreme weather and sea level rise. | ||
| We delivered $10 million to better track suicide, sexual assault, harassment, and domestic abuse in the military. | ||
| And those are just three of the many wins our committee secured through the bipartisan process, which is why I am now pleading with my colleagues to ensure that this process does remain bipartisan. | ||
| I'm old enough to remember that just 54 days ago, we passed this bill at a committee. | ||
| We did not cede to the pressure to politicize this bill. | ||
| We worked together to support those who make the ultimate sacrifice for our country. | ||
| And that's why we cannot allow these poison pill amendments. | ||
| Those amendments, just a few, will strip the collective bargaining rights of 400,000 civilian employees of the DOD, collective bargaining rights they've held for 60 years. | ||
| This bill does nothing to make sure we don't have U.S. troops used on U.S. civilians. | ||
| We cannot throw away the nine months of good faith negotiations. | ||
| And with that, I yield back. | ||
| Gentleman from Washington. | ||
|
unidentified
|
High Reserve. | |
| Gentleman from Washington Reserves, gentleman from Alabama. | ||
| Madam Chair, at this time, I'd like to yield two minutes to the chairman of the Readiness Subcommittee, Mr. Bergman of Michigan. | ||
| Gentleman from Michigan is recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Madam Chair. | |
| Madam Speaker, I want to thank the Chairman for yielding. | ||
| I rise in support today of the National Defense Authorization Act. | ||
| This bill is painstakingly thorough, with over 900 amendments considered, over 13 hours of markup deliberations, and a final passage vote in committee of 55 to two. | ||
| I am proud to offer my voice in support of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2025. | ||
| In the Readiness Subcommittee, this bill addresses some of the largest readiness challenges in the department, including a specific focus on the joint strikefighter and amphibious ship readiness concerns. | ||
| This bill establishes safety as a culture and seeks to partially correct the mistakes that led up to the Black Hawk collision with a commercial airliner here at DCA earlier this year. | ||
| This bill seeks to foundationally reform the military construction process. | ||
| And finally, this bill remains focused on our service member and their families during training, combat, and even during periods of transition. | ||
| My friends, this is a strong mark that sends a forceful signal of change. | ||
| It places our military on a secure footing and, if necessary, enables them to win decisively in conflict. | ||
| I also want to thank Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Smith for their steadfast support of passing this bill. | ||
| And I want to especially thank Ranking Member Garamende for his continued bipartisan support to the Readiness Subcommittee. | ||
| I urge all members to vote yes to this important legislation, and I yield back. | ||
| And I reserve. | ||
| Gentleman from Alabama Reserves, gentlemen from Washington. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Madam Chair. | |
| I'm now pleased to yield one minute to the gentlelady from New Hampshire, Ms. Goodlander, a member of the Armed Services Committee. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| The gentleman from New Hampshire is recognized. | ||
| Madam Speaker, exactly 249 days ago today, we came together in this chamber to swear an oath to this Constitution. | ||
| I keep it with me everywhere I go, and I remember that we did that not as Republicans or Democrats. | ||
| We took that oath as Americans. | ||
| And we honor that oath by doing our jobs. | ||
| It sounds simple, but it's pretty rare. | ||
| By working in good faith to get good things done and to solve real problems for the real people who have put their trust in us. | ||
| That's what I came to Congress to do. | ||
| That's what I joined the House Armed Services Committee to do, and that's what we worked to do in the National Defense Authorization Act. | ||
| We worked in good faith to find common cause on cracking down on the high costs from housing to health care that are crushing our service members and military families, and to crack down equally on Pentagon waste fraud and abuse. | ||
| We worked in good faith to find common cause to stand up for our service members, for our shipyards, and to stand up to determined and dangerous common enemies like Vladimir Putin and to stand up for our allies like the people of Ukraine. | ||
| I read every bill we vote on as we all should. | ||
| This one is 2,000 pages and I fear that the 200 amendments that have just come to this floor are going to make what was a bipartisan bill that was good for America a bill that is not going to serve the best interests of our country. | ||
| I hope that we can summon the spirit that brought us all to this body and with that I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I reserve. | |
| Gentleman from Washington Reserves, gentleman from Alabama. | ||
| Madam Chair, at this time I'd like to yield two minutes to the chairman of the Military Personnel Subcommittee, Mr. Fallon of Texas. | ||
| Gentleman from Texas is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Speaker. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| This year's NDAA builds on an outstanding year for our military and ensures our service members are lethal and ready. | ||
| And they're going to be a force that they're going to be able to project power and capable of confronting threats from our southern border to our eastern flank. | ||
| This NDA continues to root out the Biden-era policies that detracted from our main goal, which, of course, is winning and fighting our nation's wars and even better, deterring so we don't have to fight them in the first place. | ||
| DEI is gone. | ||
| Merit is back. | ||
| Standards are high. | ||
| Our service men and women will once again be the most highly trained, ready fighting force the world has ever known. | ||
| In the last year, recruitment and retention soared, and as a result, this NDAA gives the services the end strength they need to build and sustain a force equal to the mission. | ||
| But not to rest on a great year for recruiting, we are expanding access for our military recruiters at secondary schools and other institutions of higher learning. | ||
| As our men and women in uniform are our priority, the NDA authorizes a 3.8% service member raise, and that's much needed. | ||
| It also extends special pay authorities to attract and retain the best talent in some of the most critical career fields. | ||
| Additionally, we are enhancing the subcommittee's oversight of the military health system and remain committed to addressing the persistent shortage of child care for our service members through expansions of child care pilot programs. | ||
| And finally, this NDAA continues to deliver on our long-term goals of increasing quality of life because that's the one thing that's most important, and the chairman has done a fabulous job at that. | ||
| So this NDAA will continue to prioritize service members and their families. | ||
| I urge my colleagues to support the bill, and I yield back. | ||
| And I reserve. | ||
| Gentleman from Alabama Reserves, gentlemen from Washington. | ||
| I'm now pleased to yield two minutes to the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Financial Services, Ms. Waters. | ||
| Gentlewoman from California is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| The National Defense Reauthorization Act often includes provisions that have nothing to do with our national defense. | ||
| And that's not a bad thing. | ||
| In the past, members of my committee have passed reforms to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, updated our anti-money laundering bills, and made numerous changes to securities and consumer protection laws on the NDAA. | ||
| And this year, Speaker Johnson cut a deal with his Freedom Caucus members to insert a ban on the U.S. from researching how to create a digital dollar, knowing that Democrats overwhelmingly rejected it in July. | ||
| Even though Speaker Johnson included this provision, he blocked all of my committee members' financial services amendments from consideration in this bill. | ||
| So what did he block? | ||
| I offered an amendment to restore funding to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that Trump unlawfully cut. | ||
| I also offered language to protect workers, small businesses, and small community banks and credit unions by reforming deposit insurance. | ||
| Another amendment that the Republicans are blocking would increase funding for affordable housing. | ||
| And finally, I tried to attach my bill to stop Trump families' crypto corruption, which now exceeds $7.7 billion. | ||
| But Republicans won't bring these ideas to the fore, probably because Republicans are scared that they would pass. | ||
| It's why Republicans also jammed in their banned of a digital dollar. | ||
| They know that most Americans reject what they are doing. | ||
| For all of these reasons and many more, I urge a no vote on H.R. 3838, and I yield back the balance of my time. | ||
| The gentleman from Washington, Reserves. | ||
| The gentleman from Alabama, you are recognized. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, at this time I'd like to yield one minute to an outstanding freshman member of the Armed Services Committee, Mr. Maguire of Virginia. | ||
| You are recognized. | ||
| One minute. | ||
| Thank you, Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Smith for your leadership and vision during this process. | ||
| Mr. Chair, this year's National Defense Authorization Act represents a significant step towards achieving President Trump's vision of peace through strength. | ||
| Since the end of the Cold War, the United States Defense Industrial Base has severely atrophied, and the Pentagon's overburdensome and bureaucratic acquisition process hasn't kept up with the speed needed to procure and field the cut-and-edge technology. | ||
| As we have seen from conflicts in the Ukraine and the Middle East, our adversaries are not wasting time innovating and changing the face of modern warfare. | ||
|
unidentified
|
God forbid we have to go to war. | |
| We want our men and women to be able to win the fight and return home safely. | ||
| I'd also like to thank the professional staff of the committee for including several of my proposals that strengthen the industrial base in the Commonwealth of Virginia's 5th congressional district. | ||
| I'd like to thank the hard work of my own staff and again the professional staff on this year's bill. | ||
| I encourage all of my colleagues to vote in favor of what I will. | ||
| I yield back the balance of my time. | ||
| Gentleman from Alabama Reserves, the gentleman from Washington is recognized. | ||
| We have no further speakers or are prepared to close the Woe Reserve. | ||
| The gentleman reserves, the gentleman from Alabama. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, at this time, I'd like to yield one minute to another outstanding member of the Armed Services Committee, Mr. Wilson of South Carolina. | ||
| The gentleman is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| And again, all of us are so grateful for the bipartisan leadership of Chairman Mike Rogers and Ranking Member Adam Smith in developing the National Defense Authorization Act. | ||
| I support the bill, but failure to include urgent provisions for the national security agenda of President Donald Trump amounts to sabotage of the successful Trump policies for peace through strength. | ||
|
Regretted Amendments
00:09:19
|
||
| I regret Amendment 535 was not included to repeal the CESAR Act. | ||
| Repeal promotes President Trump's historic announcement to, quote, give Syria a chance, end of quote. | ||
| After 50 years of murderous Bathist Socialist dictatorship, Ambassador Tom Barrick, the very talented envoy for President Trump, is making every effort to support stabilization in Syria to prevent resurgence of ISIS threatening the region and the American families. | ||
| I regret that Amendment 545, the Megabari Act, was not included. | ||
| Earlier this year, the House voted 348 to 42, 90 percent for the Megabari Act supporting fair elections in the Republic of Georgia. | ||
| War Colonel Putin has rigged elections in Georgia. | ||
| The Georgian regime has given its port on the Black Sea to the Chinese government has given the port on the Black Sea to the Chinese Communist Party. | ||
| Failure to include Megabari only benefits the Chinese Communist Party, undermining President Donald Trump. | ||
| It is critical that Congress support peace through strength policies of President Donald Trump. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Gentleman yields. | ||
| Gentlemen from Alabama. | ||
| Reserves. | ||
| Reserves. | ||
| Does the gentleman from Washington continue to reserve? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| He does. | ||
| Back to the gentleman from Alabama. | ||
| You are recognized. | ||
| I have no further speakers if the ranking member is ready to close. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Gentleman from Washington, you're recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chair. | |
| I yield myself the balance of my time. | ||
| Again, I think, and we've heard from both sides, you know, just an excellent description of what the bill does as it came out of committee and why it's so important. | ||
| It's what the Armed Services Committee does. | ||
| We exercise oversight of the Department of Defense to make sure that we can properly meet our national security needs and, crucially, make sure that the men and women who serve in our military have all the tools they need. | ||
| Nothing is more important to that effort this year than acquisition reform, getting them the tools they need quicker, more efficiently, and making sure they get the innovative technologies as soon as they need them. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And so I look forward to that part of it. | |
| But the problem is, as I said, the amendment process, very partisan, is going to lead to a partisan outcome at the end of it. | ||
| And also, I do hope that members on both sides of the aisle will take seriously the concerns about the executive overreach that we are seeing from President Trump and from Secretary Hagseth. | ||
| I mentioned some of them in my opening remarks, but there are a lot more. | ||
| The attack on the boat in the Caribbean just last week, no particular legal justification for that. | ||
| I want to make sure we understand the implications of that. | ||
| If the President is saying he has the right to use the U.S. military to strike out against any drug cartel anywhere in the world, that is a massive expansion of executive power and the use of his war power's ability, and it's dangerous. | ||
| Congress is supposed to exercise some oversight of that. | ||
| We do not want to be dragged into a war with Venezuela, with Mexico, with Colombia, with any number of different countries. | ||
| That if we take the position as the U.S. that we can do military strikes in any country around the world, it's dangerous. | ||
| It's something we should exercise oversight on. | ||
| Also, another thing I didn't mention in as much detail as I would have liked, the efforts to ban books, ban speakers, I didn't mention the firing of people, all around the basic idea that nobody in the military should say anything critical of Donald Trump is a direct undermining of our constitutional republic and of the crucial neutrality of the United States military in doing their jobs. | ||
| We have speakers now who are being disinvited from speaking to our military academies if they said something critical of President Trump on social media. | ||
| That's not a reason to ban a speaker. | ||
| Most recently, we've had the instance where even a group of people from the service academies was going to give an award to Tom Hanks, basically for his support for service members, something they've done repeatedly in a number of different instances. | ||
| He has been very supportive of service members and veterans. | ||
| And the award was pulled because he did a fundraiser for Joe Biden a year ago. | ||
| That is the politicization of the military and the undermining of our constitutional democracy. | ||
| I think we need to exercise oversight of that. | ||
| We had a number of amendments that would have at least given this chamber the opportunity to debate those. | ||
| They were all silenced. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We need to continue to be a democracy. | |
| We need to continue to support free speech. | ||
| And I think part of our obligation as Congress is to exercise that oversight when that impacts certainly what's going on at the Department of Defense as it clearly is. | ||
| So we'll see how the amendment process goes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Again, I'll close on a positive note. | |
| The bill was put together in a very bipartisan and effective way in committee, and it really addresses crucial issues to make sure that we support the men and women in the armed services and their families and also meets our national security and defense needs. | ||
| And with that, I yield back the balance of my time. | ||
| The gentleman from Washington yields back. | ||
| The gentleman from Alabama. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| I first want to thank my good friend, the ranking member, for his leadership. | ||
| He has been a great partner in this process, and I'm very proud of the work we did together in putting together a bipartisan bill. | ||
| I also want to thank our staff for their outstanding work, as well as the House Legislative Council, CBO, the parliamentarian, and leadership staff on both sides of the aisle. | ||
| This is a very important bill. | ||
| It provides critical authorities to our warfighters that keep us safe. | ||
| I urge all members to support it, and with that, I yield back. | ||
| The gentleman from Alabama yields back. | ||
| All time for general debate has expired. | ||
| Pursuant to the rule, the bill shall be considered for an amendment under the five-minute rule. | ||
| In lieu of the amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on Armed Services printed in the bill, an amendment in the nature of a substitute consisting of text of Rules Committee Print 119-8 shall be considered as adopted. | ||
| The bill, as amended, shall be considered as an original bill for purpose of further amendment under the five-minute rule and shall be considered as read. | ||
| No further amendment to the bill as amended shall be in order except for those printed in Part A of House Report 119-255 and amendments on block described in Section 3 of House Resolution 682. | ||
| Each further amendment printed in Part A of House Report 119-255 may be offered only in the order printed in the report by the member designated in the report shall be considered as red. | ||
| Shall be debatable for the time specified in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent shall not be subject to an amendment and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question. | ||
| It shall be in order at any time for the chair of the committee on armed services or his designee to offer amendments on block consisting of amendments printed in part a of the report not earlier disposed of. | ||
| Amendments on block shall be considered as red shall be debatable for 40 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee or their designees shall not be subject to amendment and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the questions. | ||
| We will now proceed to amendment. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Alabama seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Chairman, pursuant to H.R.I. 682, I offer amendments on block. | ||
| The clerk will designate the amendments on block. | ||
| On block number one, consisting of amendments numbered one, two, three, four, five, six, eight, twelve, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, thirty, thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, | ||
| forty, forty-one, forty-two, forty-three, forty-four, forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight, | ||
| fifty-nine, sixty, sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four, sixty-five, sixty-six, sixty-seven, sixty-eight, sixty-nine, seventy, seventy-one, seventy-two, seventy-three, seventy-four, seventy-five, seventy-six, seventy-seven, seventy-eight, seventy-nine, eighty, eighty-one, eighty-two, eighty-three, eighty-four, eighty-five, eighty-six, eighty-seven, eighty-eight, eighty-nine, ninety, and ninety-one. | ||
| Printed in part A of House Report number 119-255, offered by Mr. Rogers Alabama. | ||
| Pursuant to House Resolution 682, the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Rogers, and the gentleman from Washington, Mr. Smith, will each control 20 minutes. | ||
|
Supporting Pulse Laser Capabilities
00:15:27
|
||
| The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Alabama. | ||
| You're recognized, sir. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, at this time, I'd like to yield two minutes to my friend from Iowa, Mr. Nunn. | ||
| The gentleman is recognized for two minutes. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you so much, Chairman Rogers, as well as Representative Smith for your leadership on this. | ||
| As an Air Force counterintelligence officer, it is good to see America's defense being led again by great leaders. | ||
| Not only does this include troop pay, but it also ensures innovation in our technology, a force for good in the world. | ||
| And yet, challengingly, we have seen on the world stage leaders flock to Beijing. | ||
| From Moscow and Pyongyang, they have come to kneel at the altar of Xi Jinping. | ||
| The reality here is that China is looking deep to degrade the West, fracture our allies, and capture emerging nations around the world. | ||
| It illustrates why the U.S. must now, more than ever, continue to lead. | ||
| Luckily, we are not alone in this fight. | ||
| In just the past five years, over $100 billion in private capital flowed to our defense technologies, signaling that our best innovations and our ability to solve our nation's largest security strategies happen not just in this chamber, but across the whole nation. | ||
| These new entrants need a welcoming defense environment, something the Department of Defense has struggled with in the past. | ||
| This bill takes a long overdue step to ensure the quick delivery of advanced capabilities to our warfighters when and where they need them. | ||
| And I am confident that this bill, along with the number of targeted amendments that we've been privileged to lead, will help lead in that fight. | ||
| To begin with, expanding private financing. | ||
| My amendment would expand the private financing opportunities for equity and private credit providers. | ||
| This ensures that the taxpayer alone is not on the hook for defending our entire national security. | ||
| Just today, I spoke to another member who wanted to invest another $100 billion into private initiatives to help protect our country. | ||
| Additionally, we need to harness the best who are out there, including those at the Defense Innovation Unit, through putting forward a joint reserve detachment to bring in our technological partners, as well as our partnership with Taiwan, an amendment to ensure that we extend that innovation to where it can do best. | ||
| Together, we're working on amendments to include blockchain for clarity, artificial intelligence plan for our defense industrial base, and integrated air defenses for U.S. income. | ||
| As someone who has served as well as our 2,000 members from the Iowa National Guard, they demand this level of support, not only in their pay, but in their protection. | ||
| With that, I yield my time. | ||
| The gentleman's time has concluded. | ||
| The gentleman from Alabama reserves. | ||
| The gentleman from Washington, you are recognized. | ||
| Mr. Chair, I'm pleased to yield two minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania, Ms. Hulhan. | ||
| The gentleman is recognized for two minutes. | ||
| Thank you, Ranking Member Smith. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the on-block package, which includes my bipartisan amendment that would require the Department of Defense to develop a comprehensive strategy for emerging biotechnologies. | ||
| Biotechnology can transform defense capabilities, including producing food, fuel, and medicine on the battlefield, enhancing surveillance and stealth, and reducing supply chain vulnerabilities while increasing operational flexibility. | ||
| Our adversaries, particularly the Chinese Communist Party, are investing heavily in this field, and it's critical that we act and that we act now. | ||
| This amendment directs the Department to develop a strategy to expand biomanufacturing and to update military specifications, to leverage market commitments, to integrate biotech into planning and exercises, to pursue research grand challenges, and to build regulatory and digital infrastructure, and lastly, to strengthen our NATO coordination as well. | ||
| I thank my fellow leaders of the House Biotech Caucus, Representatives Khanna, Sessions, and Billericus, for their partnership on this amendment, and I urge my colleagues to support the on-block package. | ||
| Thank you, and I yield back. | ||
| Gentlelady yields back the gentleman from Washington. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I reserve. | |
| Reserves! | ||
| The gentleman from Alabama, you are recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| This time, I'd like to yield one minute to the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Bayard. | ||
| The gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| I thank the gentleman for yielding. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise to support my amendment to direct the Department of Defense to begin evaluating Pulse laser capabilities and to brief Congress within 90 days on its feasibility against drone swarms in the near term and missile threats in the medium term. | ||
| Drone swarms and hypersonic weapons are advancing rapidly. | ||
| Overwhelming traditional defenses, kinetic interceptors are costly, and continuous wave lasers require long engagement times. | ||
| Pulse lasers offer an opportunity and a breakthrough, delivering multi-gigawatt bursts that can neutralize drones instantly and engage multiple targets rapidly, making defense more affordable and scalable. | ||
| Pulse lasers have advanced rapidly in recent years, building on the same industrial and scientific foundation as existing directed energy systems, but with greater efficiency and lethality. | ||
| The purpose of this amendment is not to deploy this technology immediately, but to ensure the Department of Defense has a pathway to manure, to mature. | ||
| Gentleman's time has expired. | ||
| The gentleman is recognized for an additional 30 seconds. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| To integrate this promising technology, pulsed lasers are complementary to existing missile defense programs. | ||
| Kinetic systems remain essential for some threats, but magazine depth and cost limit them. | ||
| Pulsed lasers provide a scalable, low-cost layer and extends the effectiveness of the entire air and missile defense portfolio. | ||
| My amendment directs the U.S. Secretary of Defense to stay ahead of the adversaries and modernize our layered defenses and assess our potential pulse layer capabilities. | ||
| I greatly appreciate the inclusion of my amendment in the end block. | ||
| I ask my colleagues to support my amendment. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| The gentleman's time has expired. | ||
| The gentleman from Alabama Reserves. | ||
| The gentleman from Washington. | ||
| You are recognized. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Mr. Chair, I'm now pleased to yield two minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Ms. Stansbury. | |
| The gentlelady is recognized for two minutes. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I am proud to represent a district with among the highest proportion of active duty service members and veterans in the United States. | ||
| Men and women who put their lives on the line every day and embody New Mexico's tradition of service and sacrifice, because service is a part of who we are. | ||
| As written, there is so much important bipartisan work in this bill. | ||
| It puts our soldiers and their families first. | ||
| It delivers 3.8% pay raise across the board, increases food allowances, strengthens education for military kids, expands access to dental care under TRICOR, and invests in modernizing our military to keep America safe. | ||
| And it includes report language, which I am so grateful on a bipartisan basis that the committee worked with us to help clean up unexploded ordinance on tribal lands in New Mexico. | ||
| This is the best of what America has to offer. | ||
| True bipartisan work. | ||
| And so that is why I say to my colleagues across the aisle, please don't blow up this bill. | ||
| Our troops need this bill. | ||
| Don't add poison pill riders that undermine our national security, that weaken our military, and make our nation less safe just to appease a small fraction of your base. | ||
| We know that there are culture amendments that are teed up for later today that undermine support for Ukraine, that undermine environmental protections, and yes, which undermine the readiness of our force by continuing to attack both women and LGBTQ plus service members. | ||
| That is the worst of our country. | ||
| So I ask my colleagues across the aisle, do what is right for our military, for our country, and for our national security and preserve the base bill. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| The gentlelady yields back. | ||
| The gentleman from Washington Reserves. | ||
| The gentleman from Alabama. | ||
| Reserves. | ||
| The reserves. | ||
| The gentleman from Washington. | ||
| What's your pleasure? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I yield myself the balance of our time. | |
| I have no further speakers, urge support for the en bloc amendment. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And with that, I yield back the balance of my time. | |
| The gentleman yields back. | ||
| The gentleman from Alabama. | ||
| You are recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| This bipartisan en bloc package is comprised of amendments worked in advance with the ranking member. | ||
| I thank the members for their contributions to the NDA and their commitment to national security. | ||
| I urge members to support the en bloc package and yield the balance of my time. | ||
| The gentleman has yielded back. | ||
| The question is now on the amendments on block offered by the gentleman from Alabama. | ||
| Those in favor, please say aye. | ||
| Those opposed say no. | ||
| In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. | ||
| The on-block amendments are agreed to. | ||
| It is now in order to consider amendments number seven printed in Part A of your House report, 119-255. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from New Jersey seek recognition? | ||
| Chairman I have been amended at the desk. | ||
| The clerk will designate the amendment. | ||
| Amendment number seven, printed in part A of House Report number 119-255, offered by Mr. Smith of New Jersey. | ||
| Pursuant to House Resolution 682, the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Smith, and a member opposed, each will control five minutes. | ||
| The chair recognizes the gentleman from New Jersey. | ||
| Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, my amendment, similar to a previous amendment that I offered to the FAA reauthorization, which passed the House in July of 2023, requires the Secretary of Defense or his designee to certify that offshore wind turbine projects in the North Atlantic and mid-Atlantic planning areas will, | ||
| quote, not weaken, degrade, interfere with, or nullify the performance and capabilities of radar relied upon by commercial aviation, military aviation, space launch vehicles, or other commercial space entities. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, many of us are deeply concerned over the safety, efficacy, and likely detrimental environmental impact of embedding ocean wind turbines east the size of the Chrysler building in New York City, that's how big they are, off our coast. | ||
| This amendment is not that. | ||
| It focused exclusively on the serious well-founded concerns that offshore wind turbines will interfere with radar capabilities and as a consequence create a dangerous and potentially catastrophic impact on both military and commercial aviation activities. | ||
| As far back as 2016, Mr. Speaker, the Federal Interagency Turbine Interference Mitigation Strategy stated, and I quote, in part, wind development located within the line of sight of radar systems can cause clutter and interference, which at some raters has resulted in significant performance degradation. | ||
| The probability of wind development to present conflicts with radar emissions related to air traffic control, weather forecasting, homeland security, and national defense is likely to increase, close quote. | ||
| So many years later, where's the mitigation? | ||
| I've asked that question repeatedly, nowhere to be found. | ||
| As a matter of fact, a 2022 comprehensive study on offshore wind development by the National Academy of Sciences found wind turbine generation mitigation techniques have not been substantially investigated, implemented, matured, or deployed. | ||
| It's not there. | ||
| It's a hope, a wish, but it's not there. | ||
| And that puts people in airplanes, people in aviation, military and civilian, at grave risk. | ||
| I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| From New Jersey. | ||
| Reserves. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Connecticut seek recognition? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the amendment. | ||
| You are recognized for five minutes. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, representing the state of Connecticut, which today is a site in southern New England of an offshore wind energy project that is nine years into the process, 80% complete, with offshore wind turbines already installed, 45 out of 65 turbines that are in the ground, and have gone through exhaustive permitting, including the Department of Defense, | ||
| in terms of making sure that this project will proceed safely and securely in an area where we have the largest military installation in New England with the New London submarine base, Coast Guard presence that are there. | ||
| There is no question that this issue of radar interferences was exhaustively investigated with the Federal Aviation Committee, the Air Force, and NORAD. | ||
| All of them were brought into the permitting process. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I have a letter dated December 2024 which states clearly that the Department of Defense has found that construction of the Revolution Wind Project would not have adverse impacts on DOD missions in the area. | ||
| It asks that it be admitted into record. | ||
| The request is covered under General Lee. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Again, this is documentary proof that the concern that's being raised with this amendment is something that is already part of the permitting process. | ||
| The Bureau of Energy Ocean Management signed off on the project. | ||
| And again, we're about $4 billion into the project. | ||
| The Trump administration on August 22nd put out a halt work order citing national security concerns, not a single bit of detail. | ||
| We have union jobs, laborers, operating engineers, longshoremen that are now totally in limbo in terms of whether or not the good work that they've been doing in compliance with a federal permit and that a project that's been paid for is going to be suspended by issues that don't exist in terms of the process. | ||
| This issue is covered, and having this amendment pass would add an additional layer of delay on this project. | ||
| Time is the enemy in terms of these working family jobs having their security at a time when our labor market is eroding and also will bring lower energy costs to southern New England. | ||
| I reserve my time. | ||
| The gentleman from New Jersey, you're recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have? | ||
| Two and a half minutes for the gentleman from New Jersey. | ||
| I appreciate that. | ||
| Let me just point out to my colleagues that the GAO looked at this at our request and found, again, that wind turbines reduce the performance of radar systems used for defense and maritime navigation and safety in several ways, and then they enumerated them. | ||
|
Due Diligence Debate
00:15:16
|
||
| There have been a number of other studies that have suggested that this is a problem. | ||
| Now, what does this amendment do? | ||
| It says that there needs to be the due diligence that was lacking. | ||
| I asked the head of BOEM, Ms. Klein, at a hearing, whether or not she had looked at this problem of the military and radar being disrupted. | ||
| She didn't have a clue. | ||
| It's been a record, open record that was held by the committee. | ||
| And I was shocked at it, frankly, but she didn't have any idea. | ||
| Her staff, we asked, get back to us. | ||
| They never did. | ||
| So why don't you want to have the due diligence that comes with a certification by the Secretary of Defense or his designee that this is a problem? | ||
| Other countries, Mr. Speaker, like Sweden and others, they have delayed or ended their offshore wind because of fears of radar intervention. | ||
| Sweden just recently did it. | ||
| I yield to my friend from Maryland. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| I want to thank the gentleman from New Jersey for bringing this topic up. | ||
| The fact of the matter is, is that the permitting process was abbreviated for offshore wind because we have this fascination that we have to bring this very expensive type of energy production somehow to the United States. | ||
| And the gentleman from New Jersey brings up the point. | ||
| The fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, these new windmills that they propose off my district are twice as high as the ones that they have initially proposed. | ||
| They have never been placed in the maritime environment, so we have no idea what the effect is on the undersea, the undersea effect. | ||
| And in my district, this is the closest point to Washington, D.C. off the coast. | ||
| Now, wouldn't now time is not our enemy. | ||
| Russia and China are our enemies. | ||
| They have submarines. | ||
| Russia has submarines that could come close to our coast, launch a weapon, and not be detected because we don't know what the effect is of these windmills. | ||
| And the gentleman brings it up. | ||
| Sweden canceled 12 of 13 offshore projects on their side toward Russia because it would delay detection by one minute. | ||
| From one minute, it would go to two minutes, the time needed to detect a missile because of that interference. | ||
| Now, we sit here, we stand here, closest to the shore. | ||
| We absolutely should make certain that these windmills are not going to affect our safety standing right here in the Capitol. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Gentleman, time has expired. | ||
| The gentleman from Connecticut, you are recognized. | ||
| An FAA examined this issue. | ||
| It was raised about radars. | ||
| There was a software upgrade that all parties agreed upon would mitigate and solve this problem, and that's why they issued the order permitting this project. | ||
| I yield one minute to my good friend from Rhode Island, Mr. Magazine. | ||
| The gentleman is recognized. | ||
| Thank my friend from Connecticut. | ||
| The gentleman from New Jersey is asking for a review that has already been done. | ||
| The Department of Defense, in no uncertain terms, stated in this December 2024 letter just 10 months ago that the Revolution Wind Project would not have adverse impacts on DOD missions in the area. | ||
| The Air Force, NORAD, the Navy all participated in the review of Revolution Wind. | ||
| And in fact, if you read the Bowen record of decision, if you actually read the record of decision, there's a whole section on radar where it talks about how that has been addressed, the situation has been taken care of, and the Department of Defense has signed off on it. | ||
| What this is really about is the larger war on clean energy that this side of the aisle is waging that has led to hundreds of people in my district being put off the job site. | ||
| A project that is 80% complete is dormant right now, while my constituents are desperate for lower energy prices. | ||
| And you want to talk about national defense? | ||
| This amendment would hurt our national defense. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Because if we want to achieve American energy independence and not be dependent on other parts of the world, we should be opening the door to affordable clean energy, not fighting with one hand behind our back. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| The gentleman from Connecticut is recognized. | ||
| Gentlemen, the gentleman has the only time remaining, and that time is one and a quarter minutes. | ||
| Okay, I'm going to give Mr. Carbohoff 45 seconds. | ||
| You're recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| I rise in opposition to this amendment. | ||
| For over 20 years, the Federal Administration, Aviation Administration, and the Department of Defense have successfully evaluated land-based wind facilities and ensured they do not interfere with military or FAA operations. | ||
|
unidentified
|
There is absolutely no reason to think that their evaluations of offshore wind facilities will be any less rigorous. | |
| This amendment will require the Department of Transportation's Inspector General to submit a study on the effects of offshore wind on commercial and military technical abilities such as radars, sonar, and navigation. | ||
| However, these issues are already fully considered by experts at the Department of Defense, FAA, Coast Guard, and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management during the existing permitting process. | ||
| I urge everyone to vote against this amendment. | ||
| The gentleman from Connecticut. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Again, I would yield the balance of my time to Mr. Amo from Rhode Island. | ||
| The gentleman is recognized. | ||
| Thank you to my friend from Connecticut. | ||
| Look, Donald Trump is breaking promises left and right to American workers. | ||
| His latest target is revolution win. | ||
| His stop work order is abusing the definition of national security and hurting hundreds of union workers in my home state of Rhode Island ready to finish this project that is 80% complete. | ||
| We already have a permitting process that works. | ||
| This amendment perpetuates a false narrative that leaves thousands of family-sustaining union jobs at risk. | ||
| The gentleman's time has expired. | ||
| All time has expired. | ||
| The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from New Jersey. | ||
| Those in favor, please signify by saying yay. | ||
| Opposed, nay. | ||
| In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. | ||
| amendment is agreed to. | ||
| Pursuant to, there is a request for a recorded vote pursuant to Clause 6 of Rule 18. | ||
| Further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from New Jersey will be postponed. | ||
| It is now in order to consider amendment number nine, printed in part A of House Report 119-255. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Florida seek recognition? | ||
| In order to consider amendment, Mr. Chairman, the clerk will designate the amendment. | ||
| Amendment number nine, printed in part A of House Report number 119-255, offered by Mr. Petronas of Florida. | ||
| Pursuant to House Resolution 682, the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Petronas, and a member opposed will each control five minutes. | ||
| The chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| I yield myself as much time as I may consume. | ||
| Mr. Chair, on behalf of myself and Representative Moore of Alabama, I encourage all my colleagues to vote in strong support of my amendment, which eliminates the general ban on purchasing conventionally powered vehicles and repeals the statutory preference for EVs and non-hybrid tactical vehicles within the Department of War. | ||
| I'm grateful to Chairman Rogers for his leadership in this act. | ||
| I also want to thank Congressman Moore for supporting this good amendment. | ||
| How in the world can the most powerful military in the whole world live up to that reputation while driving a bunch of weak EVs that require charging? | ||
| My amendment builds on President Trump's executive order that we must put the mission and core of what we do forward. | ||
| Under the Biden administration, the Air Force previously had planned for acquisition of all light-duty non-tactical vehicles to be electric. | ||
| By 2027, Mr. Chair. | ||
| Now, what they forgot is in many of the defense facilities in my district and also across the globe that they are near saltwater. | ||
| We have all seen the horrible fires that occur when saltwater and batteries mix. | ||
| It is horrific runaway fires. | ||
| In the Joe Biden Department of Defense, I can only imagine a scenario where a natural disaster causes critical installations, just like in my district, to be stuck with a large fleet of vehicles both burning and inoperable. | ||
| Congress cannot allow this to happen to our troops. | ||
| Beyond the expense and the sudden increase of electric vehicles, this would bring further excessive spending on chargers, such as which would repeal this costly, unwise policy. | ||
| My amendment does just that. | ||
| It eliminates the ban on purchasing convention-powered vehicles, non-tactical vehicles, which would start in 2035. | ||
| It also removes the statutory preference for electric and hybrid non-tactical vehicles. | ||
| Congress must give the Department of War the proper authorities to protect this great country that we call home. | ||
| I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment that builds upon both what the President's executive order does and Secretary Hegs' charge to restore the Department of War to Great List. | ||
| I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| The gentleman from Florida Reserves, the gentleman for what purpose does the gentleman from Virginia seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment at the desk. | ||
| You were recognized for five minutes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| Mr. Chairman. | ||
| The current law that this amendment addresses doesn't hinder our readiness at all, nor does it raise costs. | ||
| It is not costly. | ||
| It's not a general ban on the internal combustion engine. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I believe I may be the only certified internal combustion engine mechanic in the U.S. Congress right now, although my certification has long since run out. | ||
| I love internal combustion engines, but they do run out of fuel. | ||
| They need fuel just as electric vehicles need electricity. | ||
| The current law allows for a preference for leasing or procuring electric, hybrid, biofuel-capable, or hydrogen-fuel-celled vehicles when reasonably compared on cost to an internal combustion engine. | ||
| The current law does not mandate buying a non-ICA vehicle. | ||
| It just establishes a preference when all else is equal. | ||
| It also, Mr. Chairman, has many exemptions that prevent impacts to readiness and makes this a non-problematic, common sense provision. | ||
| These include tactical vehicles are entirely excluded from this preference policy. | ||
| The policy can only be put in place if the alternative fuel vehicle fully meets the needs of the Department of Defense. | ||
| The alternative fuel vehicle must be commercially available at a cost, including both purchase or leasing price and operating costs, that is comparable to traditional internal combustion engine motor vehicles. | ||
| And there is an exemption if the purchase or lease of such a vehicle is, to quote directly from the law, impracticable under the circumstances. | ||
| In addition to these numerous exemptions, there's also a waiver provision with no certification reporting requirement, making it very straightforward to get a waiver if an electric vehicle or alternative fuel vehicle is not the right fit. | ||
| The preference policy is not restrictive. | ||
| It's not overly burdensome in any sense. | ||
| It's just truly a preference if all other conditions are equal. | ||
| But in addition to eliminating the preference itself, it's pretty interesting to see that there are two other provisions in this amendment that both eliminate even the consideration of non-internal combustion engine vehicles, even the consideration and other alternative energy initiatives and the Department of Energy's energy performance goals or when setting energy plans for installations. | ||
| It's hard to look at that language and consider this amendment with a straight face. | ||
| I'd be curious to know if the sponsor talked to the agricultural community. | ||
| I'm sure they would have concerns about the attacks on biodiesel and on ethanol. | ||
| The attacks is actively harmful and it sets us backward, especially when newer fuels and technologies have struck strong potential for energy efficiency, resiliency, and cost-saving gains. | ||
| The EV business is just getting better and better every single day. | ||
| In an environment where our bases need resilience more than ever, it makes no sense to remove the consideration of practices that could make energy performance goals or plans more efficient and help the Department and installations meet their targets. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I urge opposition to the Harvard Amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
| The gentleman from Virginia Reserves, the gentleman from Florida. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chair. | ||
| The good gentleman might be the only mechanic in the chamber, but I'm the only one who was the state fire marshal who saw firsthand how our lithium-ion battery-powered vehicles are not ready for prime time. | ||
| If you look at what happened with Hurricane Ian devastated southwest Florida, over 25 runaway fires because of EVs that had gotten flooded with saltwater. | ||
| Heavy metals bridge the batteries, short them out. | ||
| You can do nothing but park them and watch them burn. | ||
| These devices, I bet they are fantastic technology. | ||
| They are not battle-tested for our men and women, especially when they're putting themselves in harm's way. | ||
| And a lot of times, the encroachment of those areas they may be dealing with are going to be in saltwater venues. | ||
| Any type of flooding and EVs do not work. | ||
| In the middle of America, have them all you want. | ||
| But along our coastal regions, where our military has to count on reliable vehicles, combustible engines are the only thing that are battle-tested that can do the job. | ||
| I reserve my time. | ||
| Gentleman from Florida Reserves, gentleman from Virginia. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, that would make sense why there's a preference so they could do different if they're near saltwater versus being, say, in Dayton, Ohio. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of our time to my good friend, the Congressman from California, Mr. Guerriman. | ||
| Yield, please. | ||
| Very good. | ||
| One and three-quarter minutes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| One minute, 45 seconds. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Got it. | |
| Mr. Chairman, I was curious what this day is all about, and I was curious about these amendments. | ||
| Isn't it interesting to ponder these two amendments? | ||
| The one we just had about offshore wind and the administration's termination of a project that's 80% complete, an environmental project. | ||
| And here we are with the other side of it. | ||
| That is where that energy might wind up, and that is in an electric vehicle. | ||
| Non-tactical, to be sure, although there are places for tactical vehicles. | ||
| At the same time, I think what we have here, I finally figured it out. | ||
| Why we want to rename the Department of Defense the Department of War. | ||
| It is the war on the environment. | ||
| Perhaps that's what this is all about from my Republican colleagues. | ||
| The war on the environment. | ||
| No, no, no, we shall not have wind turbines that actually are efficient, effective, and competitively in providing electrical energy. | ||
| And oh my goodness, we certainly shouldn't buy any vehicle that might be electric because we want drill, baby, drill, and oil and coal and all of that nasty stuff to pollute the environment. | ||
|
Thermal Runaway Risks
00:02:22
|
||
|
unidentified
|
It is the war on the environment that we are engaged here. | |
| My colleague from Virginia laid out what this bill is all about, and apparently my colleague from Florida didn't bother to read the bill. | ||
| There is total authority within the department not to buy vehicles that might be damaged by a hurricane. | ||
| And by the way, why did you ever allow the rebuilding of an airbase where we know the next, or maybe the next 10 hurricanes, might once again flood it? | ||
| Oh my my. | ||
| The Department of War on the Environment. | ||
| Is that what this is all about? | ||
| I certainly hope not. | ||
| With that, I yield back. | ||
| Gentleman's time has expired. | ||
| The gentleman from Florida is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chair. | ||
| Obviously, my colleagues are not familiar with Northwest Florida and what we call the Gulf of America range. | ||
| This is a place where we train our best and brightest that are defending our country around the globe. | ||
| Unfortunately, in order to have access to a range like that, you're going to have installations that are going to be on the Gulf of America as they train. | ||
| But as you have anywhere along the United States, coastal cities are going to exist. | ||
| They're not going away. | ||
| And unfortunately, electric and hybrid vehicles and saltwater do not mix. | ||
| Now, I understand their point they want to make about tactical vehicles, but they're not seeing the big picture. | ||
| These particular vehicles cannot sustain any type of saltwater flooding. | ||
| They create a thermal runaway. | ||
| Unfortunately, they may not have experienced where the thermal runaway is where they live, but these are catastrophic events that ultimately affect not just that vehicle, but everyone around that vehicle. | ||
| And it ties up precious resources, babysitting a fire that does not need to exist in the first place if we ensure that these vehicles are never part of the military missions of the United States of America and the Department of War. | ||
| I reserve my time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman has the only time remaining. | |
| I yield. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Florida. | |
| Those in favor say aye. | ||
|
Amendment Expands CMP Firearms
00:09:54
|
||
|
unidentified
|
Those opposed say no. | |
| In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. | ||
| The amendment is agreed to. | ||
| Mr. Chairman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gentleman from Virginia is recognized. | |
| Mr. Chairman, I request a recorded vote. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Pursuant to clause 6 of Rule 18, further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Florida will be postponed. | |
| It is now in order to consider amendment number 10 printed in Part A of House Report 119-255. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Alabama seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer amendment number 10 as a designee of Mr. Fluger of Texas. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The clerk will designate the amendment. | |
| Amendment number 10, printed in Part A of House Report number 119-255, offered by Mr. Rogers of Alabama. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Pursuant to House Resolution 682, the gentleman from Alabama and a member opposed each will control five minutes. | |
| The chair recognizes the gentleman from Alabama. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| The Civilian Marksmanship Program, also known as the CMP, was created in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt, who felt too many Americans were at best mediocre marksmen. | ||
| President Roosevelt ordered the Army to work with gun clubs and other civilian groups to improve the country's national defense by teaching marksmanship. | ||
| In 1996, Congress established the CMP as a federally chartered 501c3 corporation that places its highest priority on serving youth through gun safety and marksmanship activities that encourage personal growth and build life skills. | ||
| These member organizations range from the Army's Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps, voyage clubs, Boy Scout groups, summer youth camps, and gun clubs. | ||
| This amendment would allocate additional surplus military weapons from the Department of the Navy and the Department of the Air Force to the CMP to further their mission of educating youth on the importance of gun safety and marksmanship activities. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote yes on the amendment and I reserve the balance of my time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gentlemen Reserves, for what purpose does the gentleman from Florida seek recognition? | |
| Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this amendment. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You recognize for five minutes. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Today I rise in opposition to this amendment, which will put American lives at risk. | ||
| You know, the gentleman from the other side of the aisle made a point to talk about the civilian marksmanship program and what it was intended to do and what it is intended to do. | ||
| This amendment would make our country more dangerous by adding another responsibility and priority to the program to not just train people to but to essentially become an arms dealer, putting more weapons on the streets of this country. | ||
| It'll increase the number of military firearms that will be put into circulation by the civilian marksmanship program. | ||
| It'll increase the types of firearms that can be put into circulation by the CMP. | ||
| And it'll transform an entity that's existed for a century intended to focus on gun safety and education into an arms dealer. | ||
| Since 1996, purchasing a firearm from the civilian marksmanship program has required a person to certify that they are purchasing a gun only for their personal use. | ||
| Just like purchasing a gun from any federally licensed gun dealer, it is illegal to buy a handgun intending to sell it to somebody else. | ||
| This amendment would change that. | ||
| It would allow military guns to be bought and then immediately resold. | ||
| We aren't just talking about World War II rifles or pistols, such as the CMP has sold for about 100 years, like it currently is. | ||
| This amendment will allow modern military and government shotguns and some rifles too to be sold. | ||
| To save lives, Democrats have now twice passed a bill that would expand background checks on every gun sale. | ||
| And here my Republican colleagues are wanting to make it even easier to dodge the rules that we do have. | ||
| Recirculating retired service weapons already has inherent risk. | ||
| More than 52,000 retired law enforcement firearms that have been resold to the public, have been found at crime scenes between 2006 and 2022. | ||
| 52,000 resold guns. | ||
| Now they want to make the number even more. | ||
| We have more guns than people in this country. | ||
| We have a gun violence problem in this country. | ||
| The solution is in the federal government putting more guns on the streets of this country. | ||
| I reserve the reminder of my time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gentlemen, Reserves, Alabama is recognized. | |
| Not reserved. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gentlemen, Reserves. | |
| Gentlemen, Florida is recognized. | ||
| You know, the interesting thing is the sponsor of this amendment, Mr. Fluger, in his home state of Texas, there were 22 mass shootings in just the four first months of this year. | ||
| You know, I'm just confused on where this amendment is coming from. | ||
| Why do we need to task the CMP with selling more guns with less restrictions in a country where we have a gun violence problem? | ||
| It's interesting. | ||
| You know, one thing, you know, it was one thing when the guns in question were relics of World War II and World War I, but this amendment takes it several steps further, increases the potential number of weapons being transferred, expands the type of weapons to include modern .45 caliber pistols and shotguns, and it adds sources to every federal department and agency so they can offload their firearms to secondary market, including folks like the FBI or ICE. | ||
| But we got to dig deeper here because the CMP is a non-profit, and this new rule for the CMP, where they would sell massive amounts of firearms, is actually going to help gun manufacturers make mountain loads of money by putting more guns into circulation. | ||
| It's interesting. | ||
| I looked it up on a list of the 22 major sponsors of the CMP. | ||
| Six are gun manufacturers, companies like Colt, Glock, and Springfield. | ||
| And then seven make gun accessories and they produce ammunition. | ||
| That means that the gun manufacturers funding the CMP stand to benefit from the CMP selling even more weapons and having less restrictions. | ||
| It's the same old, same old on every issue, finding loopholes for corporations to make more money when we have kids dying on the streets due to gun violence. | ||
| The research shows that more guns lead to more violence. | ||
| Most Republicans, most Democrats, and my favorite one, most NRA members are for common sense gun reform like universal background checks. | ||
| Instead of wasting time on figuring out ways to make quasi-federal agencies sell more guns on the streets, why don't we partner on that? | ||
| I oppose this amendment and urge my colleagues to vote no. | ||
| I reserve the remainder of my time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gentleman from Florida Reserves, the gentleman from Alabama is recognized. | |
| Gentleman from Alabama Reserves. | ||
| Gentleman from Florida is recognized. | ||
| How much time do I have left? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gentleman has one minute remaining. | |
| Well, look, I'll take the one minute to say this. | ||
| This is one of many amendments I've come to debate this Congress where it seems like it was just written by the gun industry and the gun manufacturers. | ||
| And it's disappointing because when gun violence happens, it doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or Republican. | ||
| Bullets don't care who you voted for. | ||
| It impacts every single one of us in all of our districts. | ||
| And I'm a member of Gen Z, but I call my generation the mass shooting generation, because when I visit the schools in my district, they tell me that they go through more school shooter drills than fire drills. | ||
| In fact, we just had a shooting at a Florida State University where a student used a retired service weapon to go into the school and kill people. | ||
| This is not what we need to be doing at this time. | ||
| You can argue on the merits of the CMP and the work they do on gun safety, but adding another priority where they can sell more guns with less restrictions in our country, where we have this problem where we lose over 100 lives a day due to gun violence, is disgraceful. | ||
| And my hope is that everyone will vote no on this amendment. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman's time has expired. | |
| Gentleman from Alabama is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| The gentleman is conflating gun violence statistics at large with the Civilian Marksmanship Program, and they are not the same thing. | ||
| The Civilian Marksmanship Program is selling basically antique weapons, surplus weapons from the various services, to collectors who buy them as collectors, and the proceeds go into a trust fund that then funds the gun safety and marksmanship training that I talked about earlier. | ||
| It is a very worthwhile program. | ||
| I urge its support, and with that, I yield the balance of my time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gentleman yields. | |
| The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Alabama. | ||
| Those in favor say aye. | ||
| Those opposed say no. | ||
| In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. | ||
| The amendment is agreed to. | ||
| It is now in order to consider Amendment No. 11, printed in Part A of House Report 119-255. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from South Carolina seek recognition? | ||
|
National Defense Areas Clarified
00:12:32
|
||
| Mr. Speaker, I'd like to speak on the amendment. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The clerk will designate the amendment. | |
| Amendment number 11, printed in Part A of House Report No. 119-255, offered by Mr. Wilson of South Carolina. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Pursuant to House Resolution 682, the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Wilson, and a member opposed, each will control five minutes. | |
| The chair recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| And I rise in support of Amendment 495. | ||
| It modifies the federal statutes 50 U.S.C. 797 and 18 U.S.C. 1382. | ||
| This amendment will modify two federal statutes to make it easier for the Department of War to prosecute violators of the national defense areas. | ||
| Responding to the President's declaration of national emergency on the southern border, an executive order directing the military to seal the United States' southern border and maintain territorial integrity and security of the United States, the Department of War has established several National Defense Areas, NDAs, which have allowed it to better control large swaths of borders using military personnel and resources. | ||
| These NDAs are now considered military installations. | ||
| Unlawful entry or trespass in these NDAs are also managed similarly to trespass on traditional military installations with prosecutions handled by the United States Attorney's Offices. | ||
| U.S. Attorneys in New Mexico and Texas have processed thousands of cases since the national defense areas were first established with charges under two statutes at issue. | ||
| Although there are many successes, they have also faced some challenges in court. | ||
| With one irresponsible judge tossing out 100 cases at foolishly overconcerns that illegal aliens, trespassers, did not have sufficient knowledge that they were on a military installation based on the knowledge requirement of the current statutes. | ||
| Very bizarre for criminal, illegal aliens whether they actually knew they were on military installations or not. | ||
| And it's also bizarre that they knew they were crossing the border, and so they needed to shouldn't have to check title as they crossed the border as to who owns the property. | ||
| The amendment would clarify that there are general intent crimes. | ||
| For example, the defendant intended to enact to do an act prohibited by law. | ||
| These amendments would also clarify NDAs are considered Department of War real property for the purposes of the charges based on how they are administered. | ||
| They also enhance the penalties for violations to help ensure illegal aliens prosecuted for these crimes are not immediately released, and any additional attempts at unlawful entry after removal will be punished accordingly. | ||
| In addition to the Positive Deterrence Act aspects of the Department of War personnel at the border, effective prosecution of individuals apprehended will have a complimentary impact for deterring future crises both for repeat and first-time offenders. | ||
| I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gentleman Reserve. | |
| Joe Reserve. | ||
| Does the gentleman reserve? | ||
| Joe. | ||
| Reserve. | ||
| Reserve or you reserve. | ||
| I reserve. | ||
| Gentlemen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Does what purpose does the gentleman from Washington seek recognition? | |
| I rise to claim the time in opposition. | ||
| Gentleman asks for five minutes. | ||
| And I yield myself two minutes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman is recognized. | |
| Thank you, Vera. | ||
| It's actually a very, very dangerous amendment. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I want people to understand what it does. | |
| It sort of, broadly speaking, does two things. | ||
| One, just for any sort of entry onto a defense property, let me make sure I'm getting the language exactly right here. | ||
| It makes unlawful entry onto a defense installation a crime regardless of intent. | ||
| And defense installation covers a wide range of areas. | ||
| So now, even if you don't have any sort of criminal intent, if you are on a set of property and they determined that you weren't basically allowed on there, they make that a crime. | ||
| But the far worst part of this refers to it makes it a felony to enter a national defense area. | ||
| And national defense areas are enormous. | ||
| One of the things that the Trump administration has done is they have designated wide swaths of our southern border a national defense area. | ||
| We're talking thousands of miles here. | ||
| If you go onto that area without permission, you are committing a felony and you are guilty of a felony. | ||
| Now, the gentleman has focused on immigrants coming across the border without documentation, but across that border there's a whole lot of people who go out and ride ATVs or they go hunting or whatever. | ||
| There is no way on earth you are going to be able to know all of this land that just suddenly in the last several months became a national defense area. | ||
| So we are going to place people at risk of committing felonies for where they walk across land. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is a horrible idea. | |
| Please, Republicans, you should not want to criminalize the behavior of people in the United States to this degree. | ||
| It is a very, very problematic idea that is going to place many, many people at jeopardy of being charged with a felony. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And felonies are very, very serious. | |
| So we should not be doing this. | ||
| There's a better way to deal with this area. | ||
| I urge opposition to the amendment. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I reserve the balance of my time. | |
| Gentleman from Washington Reserve, the gentleman from South Carolina is recognized. | ||
| I yield two minutes to the gentleman from Michigan, General Jack Bergman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gentleman is recognized. | |
| Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and urge strong support for this amendment to increase penalties for unauthorized access to DOD facilities. | ||
| In 2023, five Chinese nationals were caught in my district at Camp Grayling, Michigan, photographing military vehicles during Allied exercises and attempting to conceal the evidence that they did take those photographs. | ||
| This was not innocent trespassing. | ||
| It was a deliberate act threatening service member safety and national security. | ||
| This was also not an isolated incident. | ||
| Chinese nationals have also been caught near U.S. military installations in California and South Korea in recent years. | ||
| Current law lacks deterrence. | ||
| State trespass laws aren't sufficient for protecting federal military sites. | ||
| The amendment creates clear federal authority and escalating penalties to counter repeated or hostile intrusions. | ||
| A slap on the wrist is not enough when foreign actors surveil U.S. military bases. | ||
| Protecting our installations equals protecting readiness, our troops, and national security. | ||
| Urge my colleagues to support this common sense measure to send a clear message. | ||
| Trespassing on U.S. military property will not be tolerated. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| The gentleman yields back. | ||
| I reserve my time. | ||
| How much time do you have? | ||
| The gentleman reserves. | ||
| The gentleman from Washington is recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Madam Chair. | |
| I'm now pleased to yield two minutes to the gentlelady from California, Ms. Jacobs. | ||
| The gentlewoman from California is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member. | ||
| Unauthorized entry on a military defense installation property or national defense area is already illegal under federal law, and there is no need to make it a felony. | ||
| This is something that actually happens all the time in San Diego because our military bases are literally right in the middle of neighborhoods, and to be honest, there's not great signage. | ||
| In fact, many military bases don't have obvious or well-marked perimeters, especially in rural or desert areas. | ||
| This provision would apply to DOD properties, such as military housing, areas and ranges that don't have a traditional gate and often are not completely fenced off. | ||
| This means that someone who is hiking or off-road driving in the vicinity of range property could find themselves in violation. | ||
| On top of that, since President Trump approved the land transfer to DOD, most of the southern border is now considered an installation, making it even harder to distinguish if you're on a military base or not. | ||
| We shouldn't punish people who accidentally make a wrong turn, tourists who get lost, or anyone who follows bad GPS directions with a felony charge that can result in prison time, a loss of voting rights, and barriers to employment, housing, and education. | ||
| And making it a general intent crime means that it would apply to anyone who entered a base without requiring a prosecutor to prove an actual intent to commit a crime or do harm. | ||
| Law enforcement and the military already have sufficient tools to deter and respond to intrusions without felony charges, and this isn't a proportionate punishment, especially if no one is harmed. | ||
| I urge my colleagues to reject this short-sighted amendment that will hurt my constituents who so proudly support our military community in San Diego. | ||
| And with that, I yield back. | ||
| The gentlewoman yields back. | ||
| The gentleman from South Carolina is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Speaker. | ||
| And indeed, it's so clear one of the greatest achievements of President Donald Trump has been to secure our border. | ||
| Five years ago, I went to the border. | ||
| I was at Del Rio and I asked the Board of Security how many people on the terrorist watch list had crossed. | ||
| And they said, Congressman, we're not allowed by this administration to tell you that. | ||
| You're not supposed to know. | ||
| The American people are not supposed to know how many terrorists have come into the United States. | ||
| The good news is that with the leadership of Chairman Mike Rogers and others, we had hearings, were able to identify several hundred terrorists came across. | ||
| Only one terrorist, highly skilled, could conduct mass murder in our country. | ||
| So it's so important that we maintain our border. | ||
| President Donald Trump is doing that. | ||
| We need to reinforce this and send a message to people around the world that they just can't pick and choose coming into America to threaten American families. | ||
| And with that, I yield back and urge adoption of the amendment. | ||
| The gentleman from Washington is recognized. | ||
| May I ask how much time is left on both sides? | ||
| The gentleman has one minute remaining. | ||
| And the gentleman from South Carolina has no time remaining. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| All of those things that have been said are already illegal and already taken care of. | ||
| The Chinese who were doing espionage, as the gentleman said, they were caught. | ||
| Espionage, unsurprisingly, is a crime. | ||
| There was no need to enhance the criminal procedures. | ||
| People coming across the border with an intent to commit terrorist acts, also a crime. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's taken care of. | |
| What this is doing is it is criminalizing a wide range of behavior that has nothing to do with that. | ||
| So please, let's be able to have two thoughts in our head at one time: terrorism, espionage, crimes already dealt with. | ||
| But now you are saying that if you enter onto any military installation or any defense area, which again, thousands of miles across our southern border, nobody is going to know whether or not they're walking onto this territory. | ||
| No way on God's green earth they're going to know. | ||
| And if they do, under this bill, they will now be guilty of a felony. | ||
| Now, if their plan was to commit a terrorist act or engage in espionage, they're going to be criminals anyway. | ||
| We are now going to do this to your average American citizen just walking across territory. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Very bad idea. | |
| I urge a no vote. | ||
| The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from South Carolina. | ||
| Those in favor say aye. | ||
| Those opposed say no. | ||
| In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. | ||
|
Amendments On Block
00:02:31
|
||
| The amendment is agreed to. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I request a recorded vote. | |
| Pursuant to Clause 6 of Rule 18, further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from South Carolina will be postponed. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Alabama seek recognition? | ||
| Madam Chairman, pursuant to H.R.I.S. 682, I offer amendments on block. | ||
| The clerk will designate the amendments on block. | ||
| On block number two, consisting of amendments numbered 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, | ||
| 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, | ||
| 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, and 138. | ||
| Printed in Part A of House Report No. 119-255, offered by Mr. Rogers of Alabama. | ||
| Pursuant to House Resolution 682, the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Rogers, and the gentleman from Washington, Mr. Smith, each will control 20 minutes. | ||
| The chair recognizes the gentleman from Alabama. | ||
| Madam Chair, at this time I'd like to yield two minutes to the gentlelady from South Carolina, Ms. Biggs. | ||
| The gentlelady from South Carolina is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Chairman. | ||
| I rise today in strong support of this package because it includes several of my priorities that will directly help out troops, will strengthen our national defense, and support American jobs. | ||
| One of those is my Made in America Defense Act, which ensures more of our military equipment is made right here at home, not overseas. | ||
|
Rise in Support
00:15:58
|
||
| That means more jobs for American workers and stronger partnerships with our allies. | ||
| This package also includes my efforts to improve our cyber defense and strengthen our military's readiness so our service members are better equipped, they're better supported, and always prepared to meet the mission. | ||
| These are common sense steps that put our troops first and make our country stronger. | ||
| I'm proud to deliver results to South Carolina's 3rd District, where we honor our veterans, support our military, and believe in peace through strength. | ||
| I urge adoption of this en bloc and yield back. | ||
| Gentlewoman yields back. | ||
| Gentleman, reserves, the gentleman from Washington is Mr. Smith is recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Madam Chair. | |
| I'm now pleased to yield two minutes to the gentlewoman from the U.S. Virgin Islands, Ms. Plaskett. | ||
| The gentlewoman from the U.S. Virgin Islands is recognized. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I rise today in support of this en banc, as well as in support of my amendment, which is within there, to the National Defense Authorization Act. | ||
| Presently, the Caribbean region and Latin America face evolving security challenges, from transnational criminal gangs to threats from nation states. | ||
| St. Croix Henry Rolson Airport sits at a critical geographic crossroads, perfectly positioned to enhance the United States' regional defense posture and emergency response capabilities. | ||
| This amendment requires the Department of Defense to assess Rolson Airport's readiness for Air Force operations and provide recommendations for infrastructure improvements. | ||
| The study will identify how the airport can support regional security missions, emergency actions, and Southcom regional priorities. | ||
| Already, C-130s, C-17s, Falcons, Super Hercules, as well as the Hurricane Hunters are on the island of St. Croix. | ||
| With one of the largest airstrips in the Caribbean, near one of the deepest ports, which is just several miles from the airport, and an oil storage and oil refinery, we are positioned to be able to do something very important in the Caribbean. | ||
| When hurricanes devastate the Caribbean, security threats emerge, or humanitarian crises unfold, an enhanced airfield on the island of St. Croix enables faster response times and more effective operations. | ||
| We are the most easterly point in the United States, 1,000 miles from Miami and approximately 500 miles from Venezuela. | ||
| This is a smart defense policy that protects American interests. | ||
| I urge my colleagues to support this vital amendment, and I yield back. | ||
| The gentlewoman yields back. | ||
| For what purpose is the gentleman from Washington Reserves? | ||
| For what purpose do the gentleman from Alabama seek recognition? | ||
| Madam Chair, at this time, I'd like to yield three minutes to the gentleman from California, Mr. Fong. | ||
| The gentleman from California is recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| I rise today in support of my amendments 390, 737, and 745, which would deliver vital resources to the military installations of California's 20th Congressional District, their personnel, and surrounding communities. | ||
| These critical provisions would ensure our service members and their civilian counterparts have the resources they need for success. | ||
| Specifically, my amendments will improve health care access for Navy personnel at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, strengthen the readiness of the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, and the Air Force Test Center, including Edwards Air Force Base. | ||
| At China Lake, the local community hospital, which serves both the Ridgewest community and base personnel, is facing significant challenges. | ||
| My first amendment would direct the Department of Defense to assess the health care resources available to our Navy personnel at the base and provide recommendations to improve them. | ||
| My second amendment focuses on strengthening the largest component of China Lake, the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division. | ||
| It would direct the Secretary of the Navy to review the challenges NOCWD is facing and report back to Congress on how they're working to address them. | ||
| And my third amendment supports Edwards Air Force Base by extending an existing provision for several more years, helping to further strengthen the base's vital mission. | ||
| With new technology like the B-21, our nation's newest bomber, it's critical Edwards Air Force Base has the tools to test these modern technologies so they can be utilized by our warfighters. | ||
| I am proud of the incredible men and women, both civilian and military, who provide our military with the best technology to keep our nation safe. | ||
| I urge my colleagues to support these amendments, which would ensure China Lake and Edwards Air Force Base have the resources they need to continue their critical work of research, development, testing, and evaluation of our latest military technology. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And with that, I yield back. | |
| The gentleman yields back. | ||
| The gentleman from Washington is recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I reserve. | |
| The gentleman reserves. | ||
| Are you prepared to close? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, go ahead. | |
| The gentleman from Alabama is recognized. | ||
| I reserve. | ||
| The gentleman from Washington can close and then I'll close. | ||
| The gentleman from Washington is recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Madam Chair. | |
| I yield myself the balance of our time. | ||
| I just say I support the en bloc amendment and I urge passage and I yield back the balance of my time. | ||
| The gentleman from Alabama is recognized. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Chair. | ||
| And I too do support the en bloc package comprised of amendments worked in advance with the ranking member. | ||
| I thank the members for their contributions to the NDA and commitment to national security. | ||
| I urge members to support the en bloc package and I yield back the balance of my time. | ||
| The question is on the amendments on block offered by the gentleman from Alabama. | ||
| Those in favor say aye. | ||
| Those opposed say no. | ||
| In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. | ||
| The en-block amendments are agreed to. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Alabama seek recognition? | ||
| Madam Chair, pursuant to H. Rez 682, I offer amendments on block. | ||
| The clerk will designate the amendments on block. | ||
| On block number three, consisting of amendments numbered 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, | ||
| 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, | ||
| 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, and 188, printed at part A of House Report number 119-255, offered by Mr. Rogers of Alabama. | ||
| Pursuant to House Resolution 682, the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Rogers, and the gentleman from Washington, Mr. Smith, will each control 20 minutes. | ||
| The chair recognizes the gentleman from Alabama. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Chair. | ||
| I yield myself such time as I may consume. | ||
| This bipartisan enblock package is comprised of amendments worked in advance with the ranking member. | ||
| I thank the members for their contribution to the NDA and commitment to national security. | ||
| I urge members to support the en-block package, and I yield back the balance of my time. | ||
| Yields back. | ||
| The chair recognizes the gentleman from Washington. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Madam Chair. | |
| I yield myself such time as I may consume. | ||
| I urge adoption of the enblock package, and I yield back the balance of my time. | ||
| The gentleman yields. | ||
| The question is on the amendments on block offered by the gentleman from Alabama. | ||
| Those in favor say aye. | ||
| Those opposed say no. | ||
| In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. | ||
| The on-block amendments are agreed to. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Alabama seek recognition? | ||
| Madam Chair, pursuant to H.R.I.S. 682, I offer amendments on block. | ||
| The clerk will designate the amendments on block. | ||
| On block number four, consisting of amendments numbered 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, | ||
| 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, | ||
| 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, | ||
| 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251, and 252, printed in part A of House Report number 119-255, offered by Mr. Rogers of Alabama. | ||
| Pursuant to House Resolution 682, the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Rogers, and the gentleman from Washington, Mr. Smith, will each control 20 minutes. | ||
| The chair recognizes the gentleman from Alabama. | ||
| Madam Chair, at this time I reserve. | ||
| The gentleman reserves. | ||
| The chair recognizes the gentleman from Washington. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Madam Chair. | |
| I'm now pleased to yield two minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington, Ms. Randall. | ||
| The gentlewoman from Washington is recognized. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Speaker, and thank you, Mr. Ranking Member. | ||
| I rise today to urge the support of three amendments to the NDAA that the House will be considering today. | ||
| The First Amendment directs Department of Defense to identify and address barriers to tribal participation in the Defense Community Infrastructure Program, also known as DSIP. | ||
| In Washington's sixth, that means working with tribes like the Jamestown Sklum, Lower Elwha Collum, Port Gamble, Sklum, Skokomish, and Suquamish, whose communities are near naval installations. | ||
| By including tribal voices and needs in this critical program, we can ensure that tribal infrastructure priorities such as clean water, transportation, and broadband support both our installations and the quality of life of our service members. | ||
| My second amendment directs DOD to implement GAO's October 2024 recommendations on military housing. | ||
| In Washington's sixth, we know housing shortages and rising costs force long commutes for sailors, their families, and the local federal civilian workforce. | ||
| Safe, affordable housing is not a perk. | ||
| It's a prerequisite for military readiness, retention, and strong communities across Kitsap and the Olympic Peninsulas. | ||
| Finally, my third amendment adds language supporting robust funding for DSIP. | ||
| The program is oversubscribed every year, leaving worthy projects in Bermerton and across the Olympic Peninsula and the country unfunded. | ||
| Robust investment will allow us to deliver shovel-ready projects that improve quality of life, readiness, family stability, and resilience. | ||
| Together, these amendments strengthen fairness, housing, and infrastructure for service members, their families, and defense communities in Washington's 6th Congressional District. | ||
| I urge my colleagues to support these amendments and to not include any poison pill amendments that would jeopardize these bipartisan priorities. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| The gentlewoman from Washington yields back. | ||
| The chair recognizes the gentleman from Alabama. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Chair. | ||
| This is a bipartisan block package comprised of amendments worked in advance with the ranking member. | ||
| I thank the members for their contributions to the NDA and commitment to national security. | ||
| I urge members to support the package, and I yield the balance of my time. | ||
| The chair recognizes the gentleman from Washington. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Madam Chair. | |
| I yield myself such time as I may consume. | ||
| I support the on-block package, and I urge passage. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And with that, I yield back the balance of my time. | |
| The gentleman yields. | ||
| The question is on the amendments on block offered by the gentleman from Alabama. | ||
| Those in favor say aye. | ||
| Those opposed, say no. | ||
| In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. | ||
| The en bloc amendments are agreed to. | ||
| The gentlemen from Alabama seek recognition. | ||
| Madam Chairman, I move that the committee do now rise. | ||
| The question is on the motion that the committee rise. | ||
| All those in favor say aye. | ||
| All those opposed say no. | ||
| The ayes have it. | ||
| The motion is adopted. | ||
| Accordingly, the committee rises. | ||
| The committee of the whole House on the State of the Union reports that the committee has had under consideration H.R. 3838 and has come to no resolution their own. | ||
|
Entertain Requests for Speeches
00:03:10
|
||
|
unidentified
|
So that's the career on the standard. | |
| I'll entertain requests for one-minute speeches. | ||
| Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3rd, 2025, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Roy, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. | ||
| Thank you, Madam Speaker. | ||
| I appreciate the opportunity as always to be here in the House chamber and try to be a voice for the people across this country. | ||
| The people that I represent, of course, as does the Speaker and my colleagues, we each represent three-quarters of a million people, give or take. | ||
| But we also try to be a voice for everybody. | ||
| We try to be a voice for the people who don't have a voice. | ||
| And the people that I represent, and the people across this country that I talk to, are sick and tired. | ||
| They're sick and tired of being put in danger because radical progressive Democrats, radical progressive politicians, radical progressive judges, radical progressive district attorneys, radical progressive NGOs, George Soros, the people funding all these entities, are pushing criminals onto the streets of our country and causing harm to Americans. | ||
|
Why They Wear Ribbons
00:02:28
|
||
| Americans who have been here for generations, or Americans who came here seeking refuge from, for example, Ukraine. | ||
| How many of my colleagues come to the floor of the House wearing a blue and yellow ribbon or a blue and yellow pen? | ||
| And they wear it for show. | ||
| And they wear it to pat themselves on the back. | ||
| And they wear it to seem like they're the ones with a heart when other people question whether we should fund endless war. | ||
| But they wear it to say that they care. | ||
| But where were they when Irna Zarutska was being brutally stabbed in public transit in North Carolina? | ||
| Where is the media who were outraged when Daniel Penny, a Marine, stopped a violent offender on a New York subway and then was the one being charged and prosecuted for a crime? | ||
| Would that Irna Zarutska have had Daniel Penny sitting next to her so that she wouldn't lose her life as a refugee from Ukraine coming to supposedly the freest and strongest and greatest country on earth just to be brutally murdered because feel-good radical liberals with their jailbreak, | ||
| let all the criminals out, open borders, take money from George Soros, DAs and judges putting these criminals on the streets to have a guy who was a 14-time offender, | ||
| 14-time offender, sitting behind this beautiful girl and just stabs her to death on a train car. | ||
|
Streets No Longer Safe
00:02:56
|
||
| Where is all the wailing and the gnashing of teeth from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle? | ||
| Where are their blue and yellow ribbons today? | ||
| All of the sanctimonious preaching sure is silent because they can't bear to acknowledge that if you don't enforce the law, if you invite criminals from around the world into our country with open borders, if you let criminals on our streets with foolish policies by radical judges and district attorneys, | ||
| then as my friend from Louisiana knows, as a former law enforcement officer, our streets are no longer safe and the American dream is no longer able to be achieved. | ||
| And the freedom we're supposed to enjoy is not possible without the security you're supposed to have under the rule of law. | ||
| We use a lot of big words from the Declaration of Independence all the way through today. | ||
| We talk about a lot of great words. | ||
| Equal justice under the law. | ||
| Liberty. | ||
| Rights. | ||
| Freedom. | ||
| But if you don't have the rule of law, none of it matters. | ||
| The reason people come to the United States, the reason they flock to our country from around the world, is because of the rule of law. | ||
| Enforcing our constitutional rights given to us by God, recognized by our founders, defended with the blood of patriots, but enforced under the law. | ||
| They come here knowing they can invest their capital, build a business, and not have it taken away by the state. | ||
| They know that they can walk the streets freely, or they think that they can walk the streets freely and not be assaulted. | ||
| They believe that they can raise a family and grow and develop a community and live the American dream that they've seen play out. | ||
| So they want to come here. | ||
| But then when people, with their fake ribbons and their feel-good propaganda, let criminals on the streets ignore the rule of law and walk away from the men and women in blue as they did in the summer of 2020 when our cities were burning and our law enforcement were being attacked. | ||
|
Suspect with a History
00:04:46
|
||
| When they defund the police in Austin, Texas, as the radical city council did there, then real people suffer. | ||
| Americans get hurt. | ||
| And the American dream dies. | ||
| The suspect that I talked about with the brutal stabbing in North Carolina, 34 years old. | ||
| History of mental illness. | ||
| Long rap sheet. | ||
| Had multiple convictions. | ||
| Armed robbery, felony, larceny, breaking and entering, more than five years in prison, 14 criminal cases. | ||
| His own family had warned of his history with schizophrenia. | ||
| His own sister said, quote, he didn't seem like himself when he was released from prison, assaulted his sister, and now that guy's roaming the public. | ||
| His release from this incident was conditioned on a written promise that he would appear for his next hearing, only for him to be charged with murdering this young woman. | ||
| Why would North Carolina office holders, why would North Carolina politicians, judges, not confine or institutionalize this young man? | ||
| Because a radical ideology has taken root, particularly in my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, but my colleagues on this side of the aisle are not immune to the belief that you can put criminals on the street and not undermine the American dream. | ||
| The so-called progressive prosecutor movement advocates for less incarceration and less policing, decarceration, pro-criminal policies that undermine public safety. | ||
| On January 22nd, 2025, San Antonio Police Department officers responded to calls at a San Antonio apartment complex reporting a suicidal individual who was armed and firing his weapon. | ||
| When officers arrived, the suspect, Brandon Scott Polis, fired upon the officers, striking one of them in the leg. | ||
| Polis wound up barricading himself in an hours-long standoff and shot an additional six officers before San Antonio PD neutralized the situation. | ||
| Thankfully, all seven officers survived. | ||
| But he was a 46-year-old with a history of erratic behavior. | ||
| He was charged with DWI and assault. | ||
| And a few days before the shooting, he had been arrested for two charges of injury to an elderly person, one charge of assault family violence, causing bodily injury, and one charge of driving while intoxicated. | ||
| The Bear County Magistrate's Office, Bear County, is where San Antonio is issued a protective order against Polis with instructions not to contact the family members. | ||
| Three days later, and less than 24 hours before the January 22nd shooting of seven San Antonio cops, Polis violated its protective order by visiting a prohibited residence, threatening to kill himself and shoot at any officer. | ||
| The Bear County DA in San Antonio, led by a progressive prosecutor, has imposed criminal leniency initiatives that have not only put law-abiding Americans in danger, but also police officers too. | ||
| The fact is, we are letting the inmates not just run the asylum, we're letting the inmates run our communities. | ||
|
The Price of Compassion
00:08:37
|
||
| And then we're inviting other countries under the Biden administration to dump their prisons out into our communities. | ||
| And the radical progressives who allowed that to happen, supported it, and encouraged it, are now attacking President Trump for daring to undo the damage, to reverse the open borders, to secure them, and then try to remove the dangerous criminals that are walking the streets of the United States because of the radical progressives and their open border policies. | ||
| I know my friend from Louisiana has a lifetime of service, not just as a congressman, but also in law enforcement. | ||
| And I wonder if my brother from Louisiana would like to expand upon my thesis that the rule of law is the central element to a strong and prosperous United States, and that when our radical progressive friends undermine it by releasing criminals, leaving our borders open, refusing to enforce the law, handing down life sentences, | ||
| that it endangers our people and undermines the very American dream that people seek to come achieve when they come to our land. | ||
| I would yield to my friend from Louisiana. | ||
| From Texas, my colleague and friend, Mr. Roy, and I would prefer to not have to expound upon this topic because what I would prefer is that my colleagues in this body on both sides of the aisle embrace the very somber responsibility of encouraging and supporting the laws of our land. | ||
| And yet we find ourselves in a position, as conservatives, where our warnings of the past echo upon a nearly empty chamber as we discuss the horrors of the day and the crimes that have been committed upon the citizens we're sworn to serve. | ||
| That need not have been committed because the culture that we have allowed, as my friend has spoken on, the culture that we have allowed to spread across our country, that we have allowed elected officials to embrace, | ||
| that culture that has woven its way into. | ||
| the fabric of our country, that pushes back against the prevention and enforcement of law, the prevention of crime and the enforcement of law, and sells this idea that we are somehow a less compassionate nation if we do not continually release career criminals upon the street. | ||
| This notion that we can somehow enforce criminal law with social vagaries. | ||
| This idea that somehow, if we will just be very, very nice to the criminal element, they'll just stop committing crimes upon the law-abiding of our country. | ||
| We have to stand against the existence of that concept, certainly in this body that is responsible for being the voice of we the people. | ||
| And in cases where horrors are forced upon our innocent citizens by career criminals that should have well been institutionalized or imprisoned for many, many years. | ||
| And we have a responsibility to speak out. | ||
| And I would say that it is far from compassionate as a citizenry to continue to release a career criminal who maybe, and I would offer to the country, Mr. Speaker, for your consideration. | ||
| Maybe my fellow citizen has to realize that the best shot, some of these guys that are in the game on the criminal side of this thing, the best shot they have at rehabilitation is jail. | ||
| The very best shot. | ||
| I've seen it again and again and again in my career. | ||
| I've had criminals that I've taken off of the street, that lived a life just immersed in drugs and crime and alcohol and violence. | ||
| And maybe for the first time in their life, they were truly treated with the respect of man to man when I arrested them and took them off the street and walked them through the booking process and told them that they have a potential for a better life and a better day, but their path to a brighter future comes through my jail. | ||
| And I advise them to take that time in that jail to reflect upon their life and the potential that they have to turn themselves around. | ||
| And years later, Mr. Speaker, I've had these same guys come to me who are now free and say thank you, thank you for talking to me the way you did and handling me the way you did and making me realize that my path to a better life began through jail. | ||
| And the fact that this horrible man should brutally stab this innocent woman that is part of the national narrative right now, | ||
| The fact that we are dealing with that horror brings us to hold accountable every judge that let him go and every prosecutor that refused to force charges upon that man. | ||
| Every elected official and politician that stood for cashless bail, every member of our society that stood on the wrong side of this thing, should take a deep look in the mirror. | ||
| I say to my friend, Mr. Roy, who's a gentleman who supports the enforcement of law, is a good and compassionate man, a father and husband, determined to serve his country, and asking our fellow man, Mr. Speaker, to hear this message. | ||
| Enforce existing laws. | ||
| Prosecute violent criminals. | ||
| Incarcerate those who are convicted, and maintain that incarceration until they are reformed or their sentence is complete. | ||
| We say this not just for ourselves, but for the murdered, for the lost, for the forgotten, for the unseen victims of crime across our country. | ||
|
Dropped To Help
00:05:29
|
||
| I yield back to the gentleman from Texas. | ||
| I assume my friend from Louisiana can stick around a little bit longer. | ||
| Yes, sir. | ||
| I appreciate my friend from Louisiana because of his long history of distinguished service and he knows what he's talking about. | ||
| And I know that the gentleman from Louisiana came to my home state of Texas when the people that I represent were ravaged by the floods that affected our community in Kerrville, Texas. | ||
| The gentleman dropped what he was doing to come up and help when we were in the search and in the rescue. | ||
| And I just want to say to the gentleman, as a representative of the thousands of people who came to our state to try to help at a time when our people were hurting, | ||
| but also people around the nation were affected because of what happened to the camps that I'm proud to represent and that we will rebuild and that we will have going forward to have these wonderful children be able to learn the gospel and spread the gospel and become lights into the world. | ||
| And I know that my friend from Louisiana would allow us to indulge a favor to our friend from Georgia, Mr. Carter, to have a one-minute remark about something that's important to him. | ||
| But I wanted to take the moment to share my prayerful solidarity with my brother from Georgia because he had a family member, a young girl that was unfortunately lost in that terrible flood. | ||
| And I bring that up because we were all affected by it and so many loved ones that were impacted. | ||
| But the faith of that community and the faith of the people in this nation and the faith of the people in Texas that have come together under the cross that stands up on that hill in Kerrville and the people that have generously contributed now $150 million in counting that are going in to help those people and the first responders who showed up on the scene and the people like my friend and the former sheriff, | ||
| my buddy from Louisiana who dropped everything to come up, represents all that is good and great about this great nation who show up to help each other when we need to. | ||
| And I would like to yield two minutes to the gentleman from Georgia for a different topic, but I wanted to tell him how much my family's been praying for him and all the families affected. | ||
| And I would yield two minutes to my friend. | ||
| And I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank you for your kind comments. | ||
| I did have two granddaughters in Texas, and they're okay, but they did lose their cousin, Janie Hunt, nine years old. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What a tragedy. | |
| And thank both of you for your work during that time. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life and the legacy of Judy Jergenson Melroy. | ||
| A native of Savannah, Georgia, Miss Melroy lived a life defined by faith, service, and love for others. | ||
| Her passion for learning led her to become a teacher, where she inspired countless young people and passed on her joy for education to future generations. | ||
| At home, she poured her heart into raising her sons who remember her not only for her guidance, but also for her playful spirit, often joining them in the yard. | ||
| Through her devotion, each pursued the highest levels of education, a reflection of the values she instilled. | ||
| Beyond her family and classroom, Ms. Melroy was known throughout her community as a nurturer, always ready to offer comfort, encouragement, and care. | ||
| Her faith was central to her life, and her talents as a painter and a singer brought joy to all who knew her. | ||
| To her husband, Donald, to her sons, Michael, Chris, and Joel, today we celebrate her extraordinary legacy of love, service, and light. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I thank the gentleman from Georgia. | ||
| And since we're talking about the rule of law, I will not regale the stories of my misspent youth at St. Patrick's Day and its fair city of Savannah. | ||
| But I will say that my friend from Louisiana was talking about earlier the importance of the rule of law. | ||
| And we were talking about the context of criminals being let out prematurely, not giving them the ability to actually come to a place where they can again interact with society. | ||
| And we can talk about the mix with mind-altering drugs. | ||
| We can talk about the misdiagnosis. | ||
| We can talk about all of the things that we can and should do better. | ||
| And I know that my friend from Louisiana, a devout Catholic, a devout believer in the healing power and the grace of our Savior, I know that he, like I, believes in the power of forgiveness and being able to work to rehabilitate. | ||
|
Sovereign Border Enforcement
00:14:23
|
||
| And that we're called to do that. | ||
| But that is not an excuse for irresponsibly, programmatically, and politically putting individuals on the street who have no business being there. | ||
| And in that same vein, I know that my friend from Louisiana is a staunch believer in a secure border, as most Americans are. | ||
| And I wanted to make a couple of points and see what the gentleman thinks. | ||
| That when you look at the damage that was being done by the previous administration, not as most people think, by just ignoring the border and letting people get in, but rather encouraging and purposefully pulling people into the United States by virtue of the misapplication, misinterpretation, | ||
| and straight out disregard of the law to abuse our compassionate parole and asylum policies meant and reserved for those in dire need of protection from political persecution and other areas defined in the law for special purposes. | ||
| You might be granted parole to care for a sick loved one legally in the United States. | ||
| You might be granted some specific purpose for that one individual because we're a compassionate nation. | ||
| But our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, led by the previous president, led by the previous secretary, led by the previous vice president, purposely bastardized the law for political purposes, | ||
| endangering children, raped on the journey, used this human chattel callously for political purposes, flooding our communities with criminals from other countries. | ||
| And now the President of the United States, who ran on reversing that, is doing so. | ||
| And President Trump and Stephen Miller and Tom Homan, Secretary Noam, the brave men and women of ICE, the brave men and women of Border Patrol, all of our law enforcement should be roundly commended for doing their job. | ||
| And I can tell you the relief of those great men and women to have a president and a secretary that has their back and that believes in them and has allowed them to carry out their mission under the law rather than accusing them of whipping someone they fully knew did not happen. | ||
| It is a new day in America where the flow across the border is statistically zero, as it should be, compared to the millions that flowed in for the four years under Joe Biden. | ||
| And now the Trump administration has, to the best of my understanding, arrested some 359,000 individuals for removal in the first seven months of this administration of 47. | ||
| 70% of whom had pending criminal charges or convictions, contrary to the allegations of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. | ||
| Why are our colleagues on the other side of the aisle protesting the removal of murderers, sex offenders, drug traffickers, child abusers, gun criminals, | ||
| gang members threatening our communities, killing our citizens like Jocelyn Dungare or Rachel Morin, Lake and Riley? | ||
| And to the other 30%, they're illegal aliens who broke our immigration laws. | ||
| They literally broke our laws. | ||
| And I know that the gentleman from Louisiana feels so strongly that we should back up our law enforcement community that he raised a privileged matter on the floor of the House involving one of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who has been indicted for interfering with law enforcement. | ||
| And not just interfering with law enforcement, interfering with ICE law enforcement personnel, which she is charged with overseeing in her service on the Homeland Security Committee. | ||
| I know the gentleman rightfully brought that matter before the House. | ||
| We will continue to address that matter in the future. | ||
| But I wonder if the gentleman could speak to the importance of this body and our leaders of this country, the 435 people in this chamber, the 100 on the other side of the building, the president and the people that report to him, the judges in the Supreme Court and our courts throughout the country, the importance of enforcing the law, of standing alongside, not blindly, | ||
| but standing alongside our law enforcement community to protect the rule of law that he so artfully described with respect to our jails and the enforcement of our laws in our communities, but also to enforce our border in concert with local law enforcement and how important it is that we stand alongside them, | ||
| that we stand up and hold ourselves accountable for doing that work and the proper oversight and the proper leadership to secure our nation. | ||
| I deal with my friend from Louisiana. | ||
| I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me additional time to address these issues. | ||
| Our sovereign border, Mr. Speaker, to the southern, our southern border is 1,954 miles long. | ||
| I've scouted every mile by airplane and helicopter and four-wheel drive vehicle on horseback and on foot. | ||
| I've scouted every mile. | ||
| That 1,954 miles of southern border on the American side of our border, the northern side of that border, is patrolled by some of the finest law enforcement professionals that the world has ever known. | ||
| And it is absolutely within the reach of those law enforcement professionals to effectively enforce our laws on American territory and American soil to the north of that 1,954-mile sovereign border. | ||
| But the southern side of that sovereign border is 100% controlled by criminal cartels. | ||
| So if you have an American government executive authority that determines by its policy, | ||
| It is not going to enforce the law with a certain vigor that is required when on the other side of your sovereign border is very well armed and funded and organized criminal cartels, then you are effectively partnering with those cartels. | ||
| And when whatever criminal activity they're engaged in was at our southern border, the criminal cartels traffic human beings and drugs into our country. | ||
| So what we had in 2021, 22, 23, and 24 was the executive branch of our government, | ||
| the prior president and Secretary of Homeland Security effectively partnered with the criminal cartels to traffic in human beings and drugs into the heart of our country. | ||
| So the impact that we had to bear was immeasurable. | ||
| It delivered generational trauma into our country. | ||
| That was a policy decision and a series of expansion of that policy over the course of four years that led to millions upon millions upon millions of illegals coming into our country, | ||
| themselves in many cases victims of the lies that the former executive branch put forth into the pipeline deep into South America, through Central America, | ||
| through the entire cartel pipeline to draw these illegals into our country where they were waved in by a federal law enforcement body transformed into a reception and processing force rather than a law enforcement professional body. | ||
| And the negative impact was 100% the result of policy. | ||
| Our colleagues across the aisle told us for years, Mr. Speaker, we need more money. | ||
| Well, why don't Republicans give more money to the Biden administration? | ||
| Well, Congress should pass more laws. | ||
| And we said for those years, more laws are not required. | ||
| Enforcement of existing law and the will to do so is what's required. | ||
| More money is not required. | ||
| If the same 1,954 miles of border, the same personnel, the same roads, the same physical barriers, the same communication systems, the same surveillance systems, within two weeks of the new administration, we went from 8,000 to 10,000 a day illegal crossings to almost zero, Mr. Speaker, because of a change of policy. | ||
| So the guilt and the deep accountability of every injury and every dead American, every injured family, that responsibility lies with those who developed the policy that encouraged the illegal trafficking of human beings and drugs into our country. | ||
| Over 200,000 Americans are now dead. | ||
| They can't vote for either party. | ||
| They're dead from drugs trafficked into our country in those four years, from fentanyl poisoning. | ||
| So the members of this body and our colleagues across campus in the Senate, there's 435 of us here and 100 there. | ||
| 535 children of God, Democrat or Republican, by God are absolutely responsible for the decisions and the laws that come out of the American Congress. | ||
| Article 1 gives us the authority and therefore the responsibility to be the voice of we the people. | ||
| And for four years, that voice cried out to be heard, enforce the law, protect the citizens, restore the sovereignty of our border. | ||
| And now, thank God, we have and we have and we have. | ||
| I thank the gentleman for allowing me to address these concerns. | ||
| I thank my friend from Louisiana. | ||
| I want to put a name and a face on the environment that was created by our colleagues and by the previous administration in endangering the people. | ||
|
Father, Veteran, Victim
00:03:46
|
||
| We talk about say his name, say his name, say the name of Jimmy Friesenhan. | ||
| In San Antonio, a father of a young daughter, a veteran of the Marine Corps, Jimmy fell victim to the pro-criminal policies and the open border that my friend from Louisiana just described. | ||
| On May 4th, 2025, a mere four months ago, he was working as a security guard at a restaurant on the west side of San Antonio. | ||
| The perpetrator, Wilmer Vladimir Ruiz Ortega, attempted to enter the bar, stopped by Jimmy, to search for contraband. | ||
| Jimmy identified a handgun, and it led to a struggle, which resulted in the suspect gaining control of it, firing it, and striking Jimmy at least once. | ||
| Jimmy medically died on the scene, but was revived. | ||
| It struck him in the neck, leaving him with a spinal injury, along with a ruptured esophagus and vocal cords. | ||
| He was in the ICU at San Antonio Military Medical Center with life-threatening injuries for months. | ||
| Dr. Say will never fully recover. | ||
| The suspect is a 29-year-old illegal alien who entered the United States as a gutaway. | ||
| He was arrested in San Antonio and charged with DWI in 2020. | ||
| He was let go on a personal recognizance bond, but failed to show up. | ||
| The Bear County TA downgraded the DWI. | ||
| He pleaded guilty to obstructing a passageway, but violated the probation. | ||
| Got arrested again, was let go after posting a $1,500 bond, failed to show up. | ||
| He was arrested a fourth time in November of 24, sentenced to time-served. | ||
| He assaulted a girlfriend, fled the scene. | ||
| And then the Bear County DA, after shooting Jimmy, only pursued aggravated assault charges and set his bond at $200,000. | ||
| He's not in jail. | ||
| He was granted house arrest. | ||
| A father, a veteran. | ||
| His brother said Jimmy always put himself before others. | ||
| Well, why do the people entrusted with securing our communities and enforcing the law not put Jimmy before the illegal alien who shouldn't have been here, shouldn't have been removed, shouldn't have been let out five times to carry out and perpetrate this kind of crime? | ||
|
War On Our Way Of Life
00:14:44
|
||
| The American people are asking, what happened? | ||
| What happened to our country? | ||
| How can a refugee from Ukraine? | ||
| You remember when our colleagues waved all the Ukrainian flags on the House floor? | ||
| Where were they today? | ||
| Were they waving the Ukrainian flag to honor that young girl who was brutally murdered by a criminal, released by a radical progressive, funded by radical progressives? | ||
| They are nowhere to be found. | ||
| MIA and the legacy media, also run by radical progressives, can't even bring it up, can't even put it on the television, don't dare to talk about it because it doesn't fit the narrative. | ||
| The American people are sick of having their way of life that their forefathers fought and bled and died for, and that their brothers and sisters and moms and dads worked to build for them and to pass down to their kids. | ||
| They're sick of having it ripped to shreds by people who don't give a rip about the rule of law or the Constitution or our way of life as God-fearing Americans who say that we put our trust in God right above the flag that those brave men and women wore into combat so that we could be here and live supposedly free. | ||
| But we're unable to live free because we're not secure and we're not secure because radical politicians and judges and NGOs are working furiously for political gain and political purposes to advance a radical Marxist ideology to undermine your security. | ||
| It is a war on our way of life. | ||
| It is a war on Western civilization itself. | ||
| It is a war on the Constitution and the rule of law. | ||
| Every day that goes by is another day in which the very things that built this country are under assault, including, I might add, and no doubt controversially, | ||
| Our belief in the almighty God and his son punished for our transgressions on the cross and our collective belief in him as a nation that built this country and this country and too many of its citizens that have turned its back. | ||
| that truth. | ||
| The fact is, the last point I'll make, those radical progressives with their remaking of America with wide open borders. | ||
| And open borders includes unfettered visas from all corners of the world, purposely driven for economic, political, and other purposes, but usually involving the buck in power. | ||
| The people that are advancing Sharia law and advancing an Islamist political worldview directly and purposely in conflict with our Western values and our Constitution, it is a declaration of war on our way of life. | ||
| In Houston just this weekend, an Imam affiliated with the Nation of Islam was going around claiming to be patrolling Muslim-owned shops, | ||
| telling them to stop selling alcohol, lottery tickets, because they violate Islamic law as communities in Texas are built up on large pieces of land, | ||
| hundreds of acres, building up Muslim-only cities. | ||
| This is purposeful. | ||
| We had Nigel Farage and others testifying in the Judiciary Committee this past week. | ||
| And I asked Mr. Farage if the advance of Islam and the importation of Sharia law is consistent with Western civilization, the Western civilization responsible for providing more peace and more prosperity and better living conditions and more freedom for more people than the world has ever seen. | ||
| And his answer was, of course, no, it is not. | ||
| And our friends across the pond can barely find themselves able to defend what little free speech remains on their island. | ||
| When a comic comes to the United States, a comedian, and he makes a joke about transgenderism, I don't even know what the joke was. | ||
| And he flies home to the UK and he's arrested for hate speech. | ||
| Even as the parliament is advancing an Islamophobia bill, to which I say, who's going to win that war? | ||
| Who's going to win that fight? | ||
| We either believe and uphold the values of Western civilization or we don't. | ||
| You can believe what you want. | ||
| You can believe in God or not. | ||
| You can go to church or not. | ||
| But what you cannot do is advance a radical ideology deeply at odds, directly in conflict with, and purposely designed to undermine the very values that have built this nation and the advance of freedom around the world. | ||
| Because at our core, our values are built on our faith. | ||
| This nation is more likely to crumble under its own weight, its own errors, than it is by invasion. | ||
| Unless we meet the moment, unless we stand up, unless we say never again, never again will we allow the power of government to be rained down upon the American people with mandates of masks and vaccines in the name of fear, in the name of health care. | ||
| Never again will we allow open borders to trample our communities, endanger our citizens, filter dangerous narcotics into our communities. | ||
| Never again will we allow the Chinese Communist Party to buy up our lands and to buy up our meat packing facilities and to buy up our critical medical production companies. | ||
| Never again will we allow our communities to get overrun with forced Marxist DEI and critical race theory ideology that undermines the very fabric of our communities. | ||
| Never again will we allow the lawless, the dangerous criminal to be on our streets because a faraway judge or bureaucrat getting paid off by an NGO says so. | ||
| Never again, never again. | ||
| This moment of reprieve, this moment of common sense in which President Trump is restoring a modicum of what we need to restore the rule of law and secure borders and enforcement of the law and removal of criminals, meeting resistance at every turn. | ||
| Even this moment of reprieve in which the president, President Trump, is restoring common sense by eliminating DEI and CRT and all this stuff from our agencies and our Pentagon. | ||
| Even this moment of reprieve is just that. | ||
| A moment of reprieve from the march of the Marxist, tyrannical ideology that is deeply at odds with our founding principles and who we are as a Judeo-Christian nation and as people who believe in something bigger and better for our kids and grandkids, rooted in the sacrifice of the millions who came before us. | ||
| This reprieve must be met with the energy and the resolve of those who died before us. | ||
| The men on the wall of the Alamo, the men who stormed the beaches at Normandy, the men on the fields at Lexington and Concord. | ||
| The men and women who have answered the call to defeat terror. | ||
| The men and women in blue who actually stand on that thin blue line, even when they're abandoned. | ||
| All of those who have answered the call deserve members of this body, members of the Senate, elected leaders across the country, to risk even an ounce of what those men and women are willing to risk. | ||
| Risk the election certificate upon which you hold like a death grip, I say to my colleagues, to do something bigger and better. | ||
| Take this moment of reprieve and say never again, never again will we endanger our citizens. | ||
| Never again with open borders, never again with criminals on our streets, never again with drugs, never again with tyrannical mandates, vaccines stuck in the arm, never again with radical ideologies and transgender ideology, politically motivated, harming our young women, undermining their advancement. | ||
| Never again, never again do we yield to the corporatists who gobble up our small businesses and undermine our way of life. | ||
| Never again will we yield to ideology in the name of political expediency, but rather stand up and defend this, the greatest country that the world has ever known, without which people will be relegated to a world without the American dream, | ||
| backed by the security and safety of the people willing to lay all on the line to defend it. | ||
| With that, I thank my friend Louisiana. | ||
| I thank the Speaker, and I yield back. | ||
| The gentleman yields. | ||
| The chair lays before the House a communication. | ||
| The Honorable Speaker, House of Representatives, sir, this is to notify you formally, pursuant to Rule 8 of the rules of the House of Representatives, that I, Evelyn Cruz, District Director to the Honorable Nydia Velasquez, U.S. Representative for the 7th Congressional District of New York, have been served a third-party deposition subpoena in litigation before the Supreme Court of the state of New York. | ||
| After consultation with the Office of General Counsel, I have determined that compliance with the subpoena is consistent with the privileges and rights of the House. | ||
| Signed sincerely, Evelyn Cruz. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Texas seek recognition? | ||
| Thank the speaker, the gentleman from Georgia. | ||
| I move to adjourn. | ||
|
C-SPAN's Live Coverage
00:02:12
|
||
| The question is on the motion to adjourn. | ||
| Those in favor say aye. | ||
| Those opposed, no. | ||
| The ayes have it. | ||
| The motion is adopted accordingly. | ||
| The House stands adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow for morning hour debate. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Today, the House is beginning work on two bills, the 2026 Defense Programs and Policy Legislation, the National Defense Authorization Act, also referred to as the NDAA, and a measure to increase criminal penalties on those who illegally re-enter the United States after being deported. | |
| Debate on the nearly 300 amendments to the defense bill will continue into tomorrow. | ||
| Also on the radar, funding for the federal government expires at the end of this month. | ||
| Live coverage when the U.S. House gabbles back in here on C-SPAN. | ||
| C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered. | ||
| We're funded by these television companies and more, including Mediacom. | ||
| Dear Future, we're on a mission to make small-town America bigger than anyone ever dreamed. | ||
| That's why at MediaCom, we're always pushing the limits, increasing speeds, improving reliability, and we'll do whatever it takes to make it happen. | ||
| Mediacom supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. | ||
| Thursday morning, watch C-SPAN's live, all-day coverage of the commemoration ceremonies marking the 24th anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attacks. | ||
| Coverage begins at 7 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, and then at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, we'll take you to the remembrance ceremony at the 9-11 Memorial in New York City with Vice President JD Vance in attendance. | ||
| At 9 a.m. Eastern, the observance ceremony from the Pentagon with President Donald Trump. | ||
| And at 9:45 a.m. Eastern, the Flight 93 National Memorial Ceremony in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. | ||
| Watch live all-day coverage of the commemoration ceremonies marking the 24th anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attacks. | ||
| Thursday morning, beginning at 7 a.m. Eastern on the C-SPAN networks. | ||