National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, yesterday I talked about an amendment that is absolutely crucial that we include in this legislation. Again, I commend the chairman, Senator McCain, and the ranking member, Senator Reed, for their work on this underlying bill. But there is something missing, and it is very clear to everybody who is looking at this issue objectively, particularly what is going on right now on the eastern border of Ukraine. We do not have the ability in Europe, because we have pulled our armored units out, to say with credibility that we have the capacity to address the very real challenge now, unfortunately, that is emerging in Europe.

Last night, as some of you know, Russian and separatist forces launched an offensive again. I am told it is the largest attack since the February Minsk agreement. So this is just what so many people predicted, including President Poroshenko and others in Ukraine, which is that things are heating up again on the eastern border of Ukraine. The NATO forces--the United States of American in particular--need to be sure they have in Europe the ability to at least have some credibility to say they can respond to this.

We have moved our armored units out, meaning there are not Abrams tanks there, except for a few units that were up in the Baltics on a temporary basis this spring. I visited them a couple of months ago. They are doing a terrific job, but they are leaving.

What the Army has said is, we want to allow our troops who are there to be able to up-armor, particularly with a weapon--a 30-millimeter cannon rather than a .50-caliber machine gun--on our Stryker vehicles to be able to have some credibility there, to be able to say that we have armored units in Europe that can respond to these new challenges. The Army has asked for this. The Army wants this. They are pleading for it because the soldiers who are there know they will not be able to perform their mission without this enhanced capability.

We had this debate yesterday on the floor. I do not think Senator Reed and other Democrats necessarily disagree with the substance of this amendment. What they have said is they are concerned about the pay-for. Well, let's talk about the pay-for. The pay-for is taking this out of an account that is already being used for other purposes. It is already being used by the House Armed Services Committee. In fact, the House Armed Services Committee has already taken more funds out of this account than all of the funds in the SASC committee, the Senate committee, plus this amount that I believe ought to be taken out of this account. This is called the foreign currency fluctuation account at the Department of Defense.

GAO, which is the body that looks at these issues from our perspective, from a legislative branch perspective--they are the auditors--GAO has estimated that the Pentagon will have $1.86 billion in surplus from these fluctuations by the end of fiscal year 2016.

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Mr. PORTMAN. So GAO has looked at this. They have said there will be $1.86 billion in surplus in these fluctuation accounts at the end of fiscal year 2016. They have actually updated their figures now with even more recent data, and they have just adjusted the 2016 surplus even higher to $2.02 billion. No one has produced a currency projection to counter this GAO estimate. So we are talking about over $2 billion in this account that is available.

By the way, the money we are talking about here is not going to be taken and used for other readiness priorities because the SASC bill has already swept up that money for readiness. This money will be sitting in a reserve fund. The Pentagon does not need to be sitting on this size of a reserve fund--essentially a slush fund--when we do have these needs that have been identified. The Army has made a formal request for these. They have asked for assistance here. These deployed units need this assistance. They said they need it. We ought to put this to good use--namely, for an urgent requirement like this one.

Again, if you look at the House bill versus the Senate bill, the House has used more of this funding in this reserve fund, this slush fund, than we have used even when you include this additional requirement I am talking about today.

So this notion that somehow we cannot do this because the offset is not good--it just does not make any sense. It does not fit with what GAO has said, and it does not fit with what the House has done. So I do not know what the objection is, but I tell you what--if you vote against this, then you are saying that our troops in Europe ought not to have the capability that they have asked for, that they need.

Admittedly, this came late. I am sorry about that.

It should have come with it sooner. This was a requirement they had identified, but they had identified needing it later by 2020. Now, they need it now, and they need it now because the situation has changed in Europe.

We have to be flexible to be able to respond to that change. If we wait another 12 months, another year to do this, who knows what is going to happen. But I know one thing, having been in Eastern Europe recently, I know those countries of Eastern Europe and, in fact, those countries on the European Continent--our NATO partners, in particular, but also Ukraine--are looking to the United States of America to show that the commitment we have made on paper, to ensure we have that commitment in terms of our capability on the ground in Europe.

Again, this is an issue where I think we should come together as Democrats and Republicans. It is a bipartisan amendment. I commend Senator Peters for identifying this need with the Army.

I understand Senator Reed's concern that this came late in the process, but it is here. The request has been made. I would sure hope we would be able to come together today, given what is happening right now on the eastern border of Ukraine, to ensure that we send a strong message that, at a minimum, we are going to meet these requirements that the Army has insisted they need to be able to give our troops what they need to be able to keep the peace in this important part of the world.

I thank the Presiding Officer for the time. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

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