Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2017

Floor Speech

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Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of my amendment, to protect America's depots, arsenals, and ammunition plants, commonly known as the organic industrial base.

For over 200 years, the U.S. military has relied on a set of unique, highly technical facilities to equip its warfighters. They take equipment worn down in the field over months of hard use and remanufacture it, bringing it back to fighting condition and returning it to the hands of our Armed Forces.

In my district, Letterkenny Army Depot works tirelessly to get equipment turned around and to supply the Patriot missile battalions, the most deployed units in the Army. Everything from helicopters to small arms and tanks are brought into the depot system to be reset.

During the course of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the organic industrial base reset more than 3.9 million items, and over $30 billion worth of equipment for the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps have been reset. In 2015 alone, over 66,000 pieces of equipment were reset in our depots.

Even better, the organic industrial base makes good business sense. For every dollar invested in depots and arsenals, $1.78 is returned to the taxpayers. Taken together, these installations are America's national security readiness insurance policy.

My amendment seeks to restore a damaging cut that will directly impact our depots and arsenals, and would do concrete damage to the ability to support the warfighter.

According to the Army, these reductions will affect the Army's ability to repair equipment needed to sustain readiness, increase unit production cost, and could result in the loss of critical skill sets.

Further, these cuts threaten Army readiness and the ability to support future operations.

ISIS is on the move. Russia is flying their jets within a few feet of our ships. And China is building a small island empire. Now is not the time to make cuts to the depots and arsenals repairing equipment so we can reuse it to defend our Nation.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me compare this to something that we all can relate to, and that is, if we were building a house and we had $1,000 to build the external structure of that house and, at the end of the year, we had spent $250 to build the foundation, well, that $750 that is not going to be spent this year has to be spent next year building the walls, building the roof, and building the siding. And that is what this is tantamount to doing.

Those equipment have long lead times. It takes them time. They can't get it all done at the end of the year, so those dollars are already obligated. They are dollars that are going to be spent to rebuild these pieces of important equipment.

With a range of dangerous enemies and a U.S. military that is stretched thin, it is not in our best national interest to strip these funds for such a critical purpose.

So I ask all Members to fully support this amendment. It is fully offset with bipartisan support, Mr. Chairman, and, again, I urge Members to accept it.

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Mr. SHUSTER. Again, I certainly thank the chairman and my good friend from New Jersey for being a champion for our national defense, but I disagree. I think this does hurt our readiness because these are dollars that are obligated. These are projects that aren't completed at the end of the fiscal year but have to go on to the next year. The Army, in fact, has been reducing carryover for the last 5 years, and, again, these budgets that are tight, you still have to complete the reset for this equipment to be able to go back into the field.

Again, it is already obligated, and it will impact readiness. So, again, our bill offsets it. I think we have bipartisan support, so I would, again, urge all my colleagues to support this to protect our depot system which is critical to the Nation's readiness.

Mr. Chairman,

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Mr. SHUSTER. Again, I have great respect for both the gentlemen from Indiana and New Jersey, but this, I do believe, does affect readiness. As I keep saying, these dollars are obligated. By cutting them, we will stop the flow of work once the fiscal year ends and they continue to rebuild this vital, vital equipment that needs to get back into the field and needs to be back and deployed so that our warfighters have the equipment necessary.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

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