Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2014

Floor Speech

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes.

This amendment is very similar, almost identical, to a similar amendment that Mr. Van Hollen and I offered during the National Defense Authorization Act several weeks ago. We've added a couple of cosponsors. We've added Mr. Coffman, a Republican, and also Mr. Murphy, a Democrat. In addition to that, we've made some important changes to the amendment.

What does the amendment do first of all? The amendment simply seeks to take the OCO budget back down to what the Pentagon asked for. The Pentagon asked for roughly $81 billion. The committee saw fit to give them $86 billion, and we think maybe letting the Pentagon decide how much the Pentagon needs for OCO is probably a good basis for discussion, and it is the basis for this discussion.

There is one exception to that, Mr. Chairman, and this is where the important difference from the last amendment several months ago comes in, which is there is some concern. Mr. Van Hollen and I believed it was ill founded, but there was some concern as to whether or not the previous amendment prejudiced in some fashion the National Guard. While we disagreed with the National Guard's position, we respect it. So for that specific reason, there is explicit language in this amendment that excludes the National Guard from this reduction. Instead of going all the way back down to where the Pentagon asked for, we're giving the Pentagon what they asked for, plus the $1.5 billion for the National Guard.

For folks who had some difficulty with our amendment a couple of months ago because they were concerned about the impact on the National Guard, even though we thought that was, again, ill founded, we have sought to protect that in this particular amendment.

To sum up, Mr. Chairman, what we're asking for is simply what the Pentagon asked for in the first place, with extra protections for the National Guard.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Chairman, in closing, I thank my friend for the opportunity here today. I would simply agree with him that it is difficult to plan out 18 months in advance as to what is going to be happening in Afghanistan. However, I would think that the folks best suited to be able to do that planning would be the folks who are actually running the overseas operations. It would be the Pentagon and the Armed Forces, who are the folks who asked for the $81 billion that we are giving them.

To Mr. Van Hollen's point, the Secretary was here saying this is exactly what he needs. I recognize the fact that there could be contingencies, but you have to think that number is already built into the request. More importantly, the additional money, the slush fund, the money over and above the $80.7 billion that the Defense Department has asked for, is not saved for some rainy day, it's not saved for some
contingency that we haven't anticipated that might come up in the next 18 months--it's spent. It's spent.

So we simply ask for support for this amendment and try to get us back in line with spending the amount of money that the Pentagon asked us to spend, respecting the integrity of the base budget, the 302(b)s, but also not using up money in a wasteful fashion in the OCO account.

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