National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. DesJARLAIS. Mr. Chair, I join the gentleman in expressing my opposition to this amendment. The NNSA's mission is, arguably, one of the most critical national security roles across the U.S. Government.

As my colleague from Alabama pointed out, after years of insufficient funding, our Nuclear Security Enterprise is now facing a myriad of infrastructure problems and potential failures. To quote Los Alamos lab director Dr. Charlie McMillan: ``One of the things that keeps me up at night is the realization that essential capabilities are held at risk by the possibility of such failures.''

The amendment offered by the gentleman from Colorado would only exacerbate these problems. Most of the cuts made by this amendment would come from high-priority deferred maintenance and infrastructure repairs. With a $3.7 billion infrastructure and maintenance backlog, these cuts are unacceptable and pose a serious threat not only to the NNSA mission, but to the occupational well-being of its employees as well.

Under the leadership of Chairman Thornberry and Chairman Rogers, the committee has worked hard over the past 2 years to mitigate these infrastructure issues and prevent the occurrence of a single-point failure within the Nuclear Security Enterprise. It is critical that we continue to push forward with these efforts and resolve these outstanding issues. As such, I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment.

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