National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I am very pleased to join Senator Inhofe, the ranking Republican on our committee, in bringing to the floor the agreement between the Armed Services Committees of the Senate and the House on the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014.

The House passed this bill last week with a vote of 350 to 69, and if we pass it in the Senate, which I am optimistic now that we will, it will mark the 53rd year in a row we have enacted this bill that is so essential to the defense of our Nation and to our men and women in uniform and their families.

I wish to thank all of the members of the Armed Services Committee and our staffs. I especially want to thank our subcommittee chairs and ranking members for the hard work they have done to get us to the finish line on this bill.

Of course, I thank Senator Inhofe for the close partnership we have had in leading this committee. We have both had the benefit of a strong relationship with the chairman and ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, Buck McKeon and Adam Smith, in our endeavor.

I share the disappointment of Senators with our inability to vote on more amendments when our committee bill was brought to the Senate floor a few weeks ago. Senator Inhofe and I spent a week on the Senate floor before Thanksgiving trying to bring up more amendments and to have them debated and voted on.

We tried to reach agreement to limit consideration to defense-related amendments, but we were unable to do that. We tried to consent to vote on two sexual assault amendments, the Gillibrand amendment and the McCaskill amendment, which had been fully debated, but we could not get consent to do that. We tried to get consent to adopt a package of 39 amendments that had been cleared on both sides, but we were unable to do even that.

It then became clear, given the Senate schedule, that our only hope of enacting a defense bill this year was to negotiate a new bill with the House Armed Services Committee on the basis of two bills: one that was reported out of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and, two, the bill that was passed by the House of Representatives, and then we decided we would seek enactment of a new bill in both Houses.

That new bill passed the House without amendment. If we fail to pass the same bill, there will be no National Defense Authorization Act this year, with the result being we would deny the Department of Defense vital authorities, we would undermine congressional oversight of the military, and we would fail in our duty to provide our men and women in uniform the support they need and deserve.

The bill before us is not a Democratic bill and it is not a Republican bill. It is a bipartisan, bicameral defense bill. It is a good bill and one that deserved the strong support it received in the House of Representatives and that I hope will receive a strong vote in the Senate tomorrow.

The bill includes hundreds of important provisions to ensure that the Department can carry out its essential national defense missions.

Here are just a few examples: Our bill extends the Department of Defense authority to pay out combat pay and hardship duty pay.

The bill extends supplemental impact aid to help local school districts educate military children.

The bill extends existing military land withdrawals at China Lake, Chocolate Mountain, and Limestone Hills that would otherwise expire, leaving the military without critical testing and training capabilities.

The bill includes a new land withdrawal, which is critical to the Marines, to expand its training area at 29 Palms.

Our bill provides needed funding for the destruction of the Syrian chemical weapons stockpile and for efforts of the Jordanian Armed Forces to secure that country's border with Syria.

Our bill enables the Department of Defense to save more than $1 billion by authorizing a number of multiyear contracts.

Our bill includes more than 30 provisions, as our Presiding Officer well knows, to address the problem of sexual assault in the military. For example, we provide every military sexual assault survivor a special victim's counsel--a lawyer who works not for commanders, not for prosecutors or defense attorneys or a court but for the victim.

We include strong new protections for survivors, for those people who have been victims, making it a crime under the

Uniform Code of Military Justice to retaliate against a servicemember who reports a sexual assault and requiring that the Department of Defense inspector general review and investigate any allegation of such retaliation.

Our bill requires that commanders who become aware of a reported sexual assault immediately forward that information to criminal investigators.

Our bill ends the ability of commanders to modify findings and convictions for sexual assaults and other serious crimes.

Our bill provides that any decision by a commander not to prosecute a sexual assault complaint undergoes an automatic review by a higher command authority, which in nearly all cases would mean a general or a flag officer.

Our bill includes the Boxer amendment to make the article 32 process more like a grand jury proceeding in which the purpose is to determine probable cause rather than the current process which is used as a discovery tool by the defense.

While this change is not limited to sexual assault cases, it will mean the victim of a sexual assault will not have to appear in person and be subjected to cross-examination by the defense.

As Senators are aware, we were unable to vote on either the Gillibrand amendment or the McCaskill amendment on the floor because of procedural objections. I hope the Senate will be able to consider and vote on both of these important initiatives early next year.

Again, relative to sexual assault, our bill does contain groundbreaking reforms that will provide much needed assistance to victims of sexual assault while also helping establish a climate in the military in which there is no tolerance for sexual assault or for retaliation against those who report it.

With regard to Guantanamo, the bill we reported out of the Armed Services Committee included both language making it possible to bring detainees to the United States for trial and a provision making it easier to transfer detainees back to their home countries. The full Senate voted to retain these provisions by a 55-to-43 vote when the committee-reported bill was on the floor.

The compromise we reached includes the House prohibition on bringing Gitmo detainees to the United States but follows the Senate language generally, which provides our military greater flexibility to transfer Gitmo detainees to third countries. As a result, our military will be able to make decisions about how long to keep detainees and under what circumstances to transfer them to third countries on the basis of a real-world evaluation of risks rather than the current law, which provides an arbitrary and extreme checklist of certification requirements.

We recently received letters from our senior military leaders urging us to enact the Defense authorization bill before we leave this year.

For example, GEN Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, wrote that the authorities included in this bill ``are critical to the Nation's defense and urgently needed to ensure we all keep faith with the men and women, military and civilian, selflessly serving in our Armed Forces.''

GEN Ray Odierno, the Army Chief of Staff, told us:

From authorities that help us prevent and respond to sexual assault, restore readiness, allow for continuous work in our industrial base, and start important military construction projects, this NDAA is critical to your Soldiers, their Families, and the numerous local communities that support our installations.

ADM Jonathan Greenert, Chief of Naval Operations, stated that pushing the bill into the next year ``would mean critical authorities expire, which would exacerbate my readiness challenge and jeopardize our commitment to our service men and women.''

Gen. James Amos, Commandant of the Marine Corps, wrote:

Without an NDAA, landmark legislation transforming the Uniform Code of Military Justice and improving the support provided to victims of sexual assault will be lost.

He continued:

I am also concerned about the adverse impact on logistical support for Coalition forces in Afghanistan, our ability to retrograde military equipment along the Northern Distribution Network, and the impact on Coalition Support Funds that support ground transportation of supplies and retrograde of equipment through Pakistan.

Gen. Mark Welsh, the Air Force Chief of Staff wrote:

The FY 14 NDAA contains critical authorities that enable us to protect the American people while keeping our promise to our active duty, Guard, Reserve, and civilian airmen. If this important legislation is not enacted, I worry about significant impacts to Air Force operations that could jeopardize the missions we are tasked to perform. ..... Simply put, we cannot operate effectively without your help and without the direction that the NDAA provides.

Gen. Frank Grass, the Chief of the National Guard Bureau, told us:

Failure to enact an NDAA would break faith with our Army and Air Guardsmen by not re-authorizing special pay and bonuses.

Also, authorities contained in the NDAA are crucial to maintaining the training, equipment, and opportunities necessary for the National Guard to remain an operational force ready to respond to domestic and overseas contingencies.

I ask unanimous consent that these letters be printed in full in the Record.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. LEVIN. Finally, we have managed to pass a national defense authorization bill for 52 straight years, including a number of recent years when we were unable to pass a bill in the Senate, and therefore unable to go to a traditional conference. That is not best way to proceed. I think we all acknowledge that.

Our troops, their families, and our Nation's security, deserve a defense bill, and what we are offering to the Senate is the only practical way to get a bill passed and enacted.

Again, before I yield the floor, I wish to thank Senator Inhofe and his staff who have joined so closely with myself and all of the members of the Armed Services Committee and our staff to make it possible to get, as I said before, this close to the finish line.

I am confident we are going to cross that finish line because of the hard work of our members. I want to especially point out our subcommittee chairs and the ranking members as well as all of the members of the Armed Services Committee, including Senator Blumenthal, who at this moment is presiding over the Senate and has personally played such an important role in getting us to where we are.

With that, and again with my thanks to Senator Inhofe, I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I again thank all of the members of our committee and staff who worked--I don't know how to describe the effort that every year is put into our authorization bill. It is a round number--52, maybe now 53 years. It is a big number. It doesn't say what each year--each month of every year--our staffs put into the annual authorization bill. It is an extraordinary effort that they make. Senator Inhofe and our colleagues and I watch them really with amazement because of what they give up to accomplish this. We are not quite there yet. We have to have a final passage vote. I hope it comes a lot earlier than late tomorrow.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source