Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. RUNYAN. Mr. Chairman, my amendment moves $6 million to Air Force Other Procurement to provide for a much-needed joint training platform and for facility upgrades. More specifically, the funding is aimed at supporting upgrades to joint training and training development facilities at Air Force installations. The offset for this amendment reduces the amount allocated for the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Over the last decade, many of the service branches have procured various training systems and infrastructure that are in desperate need of repair. These are not expensive upgrades, and they will preserve the shelf life of some of the most state-of-the-art training systems in the United States military. My amendment seeks to increase the Air Force procurement funding to provide for critical upgrades for these underfunded systems, technologies, and training infrastructure.

We have made great investments in our joint training aids and support systems to ensure our servicemembers are combat ready and proficient at a low cost for high value to the taxpayer. It would be a shame to see these assets atrophy from the withholding of what is a relatively small amount in comparison to our initial investments in these programs.

I urge my colleagues to support the passage of this commonsense amendment and support our warfighters.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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