National Defense Authorization Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, on another matter, the USMCA is not the only important legislation Democrats are holding up. As if neglecting the first major update to North American trade policy in a generation were not enough, they are also on track to break a nearly 60-year tradition of passing a bipartisan Defense authorization bill.

Passing the NDAA is one of Congress's most basic governing responsibilities. It authorizes and assures the ongoing missions of our Armed Forces and the resources the Department of Defense needs to carry them out.

Every year since 1961, these goals have been enough to get Members across the ideological spectrum to come together and deliver a comprehensive, bipartisan piece of legislation--but not this year, at least not yet.

House Democrats are so intent on picking fights with the White House that they decided to play partisan games with our Armed Forces. They passed a fully party-line NDAA--not one Republican vote--for their House version on the floor. I believe it is the first time ever that either Chamber has passed a purely partisan NDAA.

The House, on a partisan basis, also included many provisions that aren't even in the jurisdiction of their Armed Services Committee. Even in conference, House Democrats are holding germane provisions hostage in order to secure partisan, nongermane provisions that literally have nothing whatsoever to do with our national security.

Their demands to treat the NDAA like a gift basket to liberal interest groups is imperiling the passage of this important legislation. We are talking about demands like a new taxpayer-funded benefit for all Federal employees and burdening farmers, ranchers, small businesses, local airports, and community water utilities with expensive new environmental liabilities--all kinds of domestic policy changes that were not in the Senate's bipartisan version and have no business bringing this crucial process to a halt.

The Senate did things the right way. We passed a bipartisan NDAA back in June, just as we do every year. That is a credit to Chairman Inhofe, Ranking Member Reed, and the rest of the Senate Armed Services Committee. It was a thoroughly bipartisan product, debated out in the open.

But House Democrats literally went off the rails. The House Rules Committee afforded floor debate only on a single substantive Republican amendment while they jammed through their own partisan priorities. They passed a totally partisan NDAA with zero Republican votes--none. Now they are risking the entire conference committee to insist those partisan demands wind up in the end product.

Enough is enough. The USMCA and NDAA cannot be clearer examples of bipartisan legislation that would make our country stronger.

Our Democratic friends said that they want to do more than just impeach. They say they came to Washington to do more than pick fights with the President. Well, in the next days and weeks, we will find out if they mean it.

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