Providing for Consideration of the Justice for Victims of Iranian Terrorism Act and for a Report on the National Defense Authorization Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition today to this rule and to both of the underlying bills.

Both of these bills, the conference report to accompany the annual National Defense Authorization Act and the so-called Justice for Victims of Iranian Terrorism Act, are simply partisan political charades. They are not a serious effort at the lawmaking process. They are not a serious effort at improving our national defense, nor do they even attempt to solve the problems that the American people want this Congress to take up.

I would first like to acknowledge that at least these two bills are somewhat related under this rule. In the past, we have had bills in vastly disparate areas.

A couple of points about these bills:

The National Defense Authorization bill is not a version of the bill that is going anywhere. It contorts the budget process in a way that doesn't make sense to anybody. It doesn't make sense to budget hawks or defense hawks, and it is a way that many Members of the majority party don't even seem to understand.

Neither bill will be signed into law. The President has indicated he will veto them, nor will consideration of them today here on the floor of the House advance national security one iota.

Even after knowing the budget plans on National Defense Authorization for months, here we have a convoluted bill that won't make us any safer or financially secure. What it does is it takes the emergency account, the overseas contingency operations fund, and turns it into a slush fund to temporarily fund all kinds of other programs. So effectively, it is a deficit spending bill by fudging the different pots of money that we have for defense.

Now, I should point out this doesn't even appeal to the Pentagon or to the military. The Pentagon strongly dislikes this plan of using overseas contingency money to fund items in the base budget.

So the question I pose, Mr. Speaker, is, if it is not being done to satisfy defense hawks and the Pentagon and it is not being done to satisfy budget hawks because it is an increased spending proposal, who is the constituency for this and why are people even proposing this?

Now, it is completely fiscally irresponsible to disregard budget caps in a way that anybody who cares about our deficit should find maddening, and it is why so many of our colleagues on the majority, from what we have heard, had to be pushed to even go along with this highly flawed plan

As I mentioned, it doesn't make sense to the defense hawk contingency in this body either. The Pentagon does not like the plan. Using short-term money for base funding and long-term problems makes planning and procurement nearly impossible on the ground. This budget plan hurts national security, and it damages our fiscal responsibility in our country.

Like many bills, it is simply not going anywhere. The President said he opposes a version of the NDAA with this budget gimmick in it.

Congress, of course, needs to pass a National Defense Authorization bill. Unfortunately, the time that we are spending on this today gets us no closer.

Passing a National Defense Authorization Act is very important, and it seems like an obvious and routine thing to do; but with this Congress, nothing is surprising. Even routine matters are made infinitely more difficult as we jump through these self-created hoops to appeal to whoever is yelling loudest at the time, and that seems to be what we are doing today on the floor of this body is turning our national defense into a political football and missing yet another opportunity to provide the stability that our national defense needs to defend our country.

Now, this could have been an opportunity to address what voters want us to address. We could have talked about an Authorization for Use of Military Force. I have heard from so many of my constituents regarding that.

We could be talking about the fact that just yesterday Russia is supposedly bombing targets in Syria in support of Assad, and we have been conducting military operations in that part of the world for over a year without a specific Authorization for Use of Military Force.

We could have talked about Guantanamo Bay and how we can approach finally leaving that chapter behind and closing down our extra-legal detention facility there.

We could have debated how we can save money by right-sizing our massive nuclear arsenal that would allow us to blow up the world several times over to meet our needs here in the 21st century. Perhaps being able to blow up the world once might be enough for our nuclear arsenal, and that would save a lot of money that we could reduce the deficit with.

Instead, this bill would have us spend billions upon billions of dollars, reassign money to a slush fund, blow through budget caps that we put in place to reduce the deficit in support of a war we have never debated, never voted on, and in support of a failed policy in continuing to fight wars that we have not approved and the military arsenal that was meant to fight a cold war which ended decades ago.

This is simply a charade that does not advance our national security, and I urge my colleagues to reject it.

The other bill under consideration is another charade. It is another symbol of the failure of this body to take up the issues that matter to the American people. It is a bill, as we talked about in our Rules Committee, that had zero hearings, no markup, no amendments, and was rushed to the floor for unknown reasons. This bill serves as nothing more than another attempt to undermine the agreement that prevents Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Now, Members on my side of the aisle were on varied sides of that Iran agreement. Some felt that the agreement was the best way to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Others felt that there were other ways. But nearly everybody on my side agrees that this bill is simply a terrible idea.

Now we are in the stage of implementing the Iran Nuclear Review Act, consistent with the agreement that was reached to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. If we want to advance national security, let's have a discussion about how to enforce the agreement to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

If there is a problem with the compensation of victims of state terrorism, we should have a broad bipartisan bill that addresses that. Iran is one of the countries, but there are certainly other sponsors of state terrorism; and if there is a problem collecting court judgments, let's add some teeth to that in a bipartisan proposal to do that rather than attach it to sanctions that were put in place for the specific purpose of deterring Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Congress said that was the purpose of those sanctions. They were part of that discussion for Iran to open themselves up to inspections and agree not to develop nuclear weapons. This is a separate and legitimate issue that there are judgments against Iran that are not being enforced.

There are probably judgments against a number of other nation-states that are not being enforced. That is a perfectly fine issue and one that there is no reason in the world for it to be partisan. We should have a thoughtful, deliberative process with hearings and markup in committee with the opportunity to take good ideas from both sides and simply address that problem to make sure that we add some teeth to the ability to make sure that payments are made to victims of terrorism, a concept that this bill wouldn't even come close to accomplishing.

This bill adds no teeth to making sure that terrorist victims actually get their money. It merely tries to reinstate sanctions that are tied to the development of Iran's nuclear problem. It makes it no more likely that a single victim of terrorism will ever see any kind of restitution.

Now, if we are serious about national defense, what in the world have we been doing the last few days? Because of this body's inaction in maintaining government funding, you know what the Pentagon has been doing the last few days? They have been focused on planning for a shutdown, because we were just hours away from a shutdown when finally this body figured out how to continue funding national defense. We should have done that weeks ago.

Why did we put the Pentagon through the exercise these last few days of figuring out who had to go home and what missions had to be grounded? Do you think ISIS or Moscow or the Assad regime spent yesterday wondering if they would have the money when they showed up for work today? Well, that is what this Congress has done to our military and risks doing again in December when we face another government shutdown. We might as well be telling our generals: ``Okay, keep doing what you are doing, but don't make any plans to combat ISIS on December 12.''

Well done, Congress. I am sure America and the rest of the world is impressed with your work.

It is completely incongruous to be discussing a budget trick for defense authorization just a day after we risked closing down many parts of our military. Just yesterday, 151 Republicans voted to shut down the Pentagon and the military. They voted to shut down the Department of Homeland Security. They voted to shut down the State Department just because they couldn't get their way on an unrelated healthcare provision for low-income women. Now, suddenly, the Republicans support national security? I don't think so.

I urge my colleagues to reject this rule and both of the underlying bills

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Just to be clear, what we are offering as a previous question, if we win the previous question vote, this bill will then be amended and sent back to include a reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank, so the Democrats are choosing to focus on protecting American jobs rather than partisan games.

Unfortunately, I wish either of these two bills under this rule had something to do with national defense. They don't. One of them diverts money from the overseas contingency fund to a slush fund, which the military says will weaken their ability to prepare for conflict around the world. The other one is another attempt to undermine a deal that prevents Iran from developing nuclear weapons and won't lead to American victims seeing money.

If they were serious about making sure American victims were compensated, we would be talking about putting teeth in the ability of American courts to impound assets and make sure that judgments are paid for victims of state terrorism. Why, instead, are we seeing a deal that relates only to one particular sponsor of state terrorism and deals with a set of tariffs that were put in place to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons? The tariffs that are in place with regard to Iranian sponsorship of state terrorism are still in place and weren't even on the table during the discussions around the nuclear agreement.

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We haven't even passed an Authorization for Use of Military Force to establish the legal way for who we are supposed to be fighting against. We are still operating under the post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force that names al Qaeda. But if you talk to most military experts, al Qaeda is not the preeminent threat today.

There are a lot of threats in the world, including ISIS, including threats in the Syrian civil war, including threats of the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and this body needs to take up an Authorization for Use of Military Force to ensure that funds that we appropriate for defense are used in a way that Congress is aware of and has oversight of.

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It is remarkable the gentleman from Alabama hasn't been able to find any other Republicans to support these bills and come down and help him argue. I think that that speaks volumes about how these bills are simply not consistent with promoting our national defense and are fiscally irresponsible. They don't please the defense hawks or the budget hawks. So my poor colleague, Mr. Byrne, is left alone to fend for himself.

Here we are, trying to use the contingency funding as base funding and use it to somehow form the base from which our military must fund its everyday operations. The commanders and generals all agree this is a bad idea, and the gentleman from Alabama has even acknowledged that.

Here we are, discussing a bill that won't result in any of the victims of state-sponsored terrorism actually seeing their settlement, when there is another path and we certainly could have a deliberative process around a bill that empowers the impoundment and collection of assets from state sponsors of terrorism States here in our country to ensure that victims see their judgements.

What this bill does is it ties it to an unrelated set of sanctions that were put in place to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons to settlement of these claims when, actually, we should be giving our courts, or if we are concerned about this issue with regard to settlements against sponsors of state terrorism, we should give courts the increased ability to make sure that they can see that restitution and impound assets from sponsors of state terrorism.

Now, Democrats have come down and offered something, if we defeat the previous question, that actually will improve our national defense. It will ensure that we have a strong aerospace industry here in our country.

The gentleman from Alabama has mentioned that Airbus is in his district. Well, Airbus is a company that will do very well if we fail to authorize the Export-Import Bank because it will put American competitors like Boeing and Lockheed at a significant disadvantage.

Now, I hope that we are fighting to ensure that America maintains its aerospace capacity and leadership and we don't cede all of that to European companies like Airbus that are welcome to compete on a level playing field. It is critical for our national security that we have the ability to lead the world as we have in the aerospace industry.

I also want to bring up that we should be discussing an Authorization for Use of Military Force. The National Defense Authorization Act does contain some parameters about how money is used, but it is not a substitute for an Authorization for Use of Military Force, and we should be having that debate.

Who are we even fighting? Who are we even fighting? I don't think that most people believe that it is still al Qaeda from the post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force.

Now, I don't know what to call what we are doing in Iraq and Syria. Maybe it is a war. Maybe it is a security operation. Maybe it is occasional support to some Syrian rebels or support to the Iraqi Government or on-and-off commitment to the Kurds. But whatever it is, I don't think it is what Congress voted for in 2001 or 2003, before I was here, before Mr. Byrne was here, before the vast majority of this body that currently serves was even here.

Those authorizations should be in the history books, not being invoked as legal justification for conducting operations in a world, in 2015, which is vastly different than the world of 2001 and 2003. And who knows how much longer or how many different wars or security operations will continue to be administered if Congress doesn't finally specify and do our job with regard to an Authorization for Use of Military Force.

Now, that is a hard debate. It is a hard issue. It is not a partisan debate. There are Democrats and Republicans on all sides; and many Members, when we have that debate, will make sure that we have the very best information to act on.

But since we authorized military force against al Qaeda and ``affiliated'' groups in 2001, there have been over 300 new Members of Congress elected, so the vast majority of this body, including myself and Mr. Byrne, including Mr. Heck, including Mr. Kildee--I believe, of all of us. I believe Ms. Jackson Lee was the only one who was actually here when we even had that discussion. The rest of us talking about defense and NDAA didn't even play any role in choosing what the target and what our focus of our national security operations are.

The American people deserve and demand this debate. They don't want yet another fight with Congresspeople playing budget tricks around defense. They want to know what our Nation's plan is for the operations that have been ongoing. They want to see Congress take its constitutional responsibilities for actions in the world.

And whether any one of us ultimately votes in favor or against an Authorization for Use of Military Force, we all, I hope, are for the debate, and we should join in demanding one.

On the conference report, Madam Speaker, this plan will not work, will not become law. The President will veto it. The generals oppose it. The budget hawks oppose it. No one even came down to join Mr. Byrne in arguing for it. It is a terrible plan. It will hurt our national defense. We need to defeat it.

The Iran bill tries to get at a legitimate issue in completely the wrong way. It is not a partisan issue that we want to see restitution for victims of state terrorism. Let's get into that act and look at the enforcement mechanisms rather than try to use these victims as yet another attempt to go after the deal that prevents Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

I think it is clear from our Rules Committee debate that everyone supports efforts for American victims of terrorism to pursue compensation. The Iran nuclear agreement has nothing to do with that, and it certainly doesn't prevent that from happening.

No matter what country, whether it is Iran or other sponsors of state terrorism, we all remain committed to this process of seeing justice. Undermining the ability to enforce a nuclear agreement is not the proper way or even a relevant way to achieve this goal.

The reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank is ready to go. If we defeat the previous question, we will bring it to the floor. We have the votes in the House. I hope my colleague, Mr. Byrne from Alabama, will join us in that vote if we can defeat the previous question. We have the votes in the Senate, the President. We can stop this unnecessary loss of jobs every single day in districts across our country solely due to our inability to act.

Hopefully, we can move to take up highway authorization, ESEA, immigration reform, raising the minimum wage. These are some of the issues that I hear from my constituents about every day that we need to act on. So rather than waste time, waste money, hurt our national defense, let's get to work and accomplish something.

I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question and defeat the rule.

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