Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2024
Floor Speech
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Ms. JAYAPAL. Madam Chair, my bipartisan amendment would prevent funding from this bill to be used to carry out the Defense Department's ``unfunded priorities list.'' This list that the DOD is required to send to Congress is simply a wish list of things that individual commanders and generals would like to fund and by definition have been determined nonessential to our national security.
This practice does not serve the national security interests of the United States, and it was not mandatory until the passage of the fiscal 2017 NDAA. Mandating these wish lists only serves special interests in the defense contractor industry eager to grow their profits by selling expensive equipment that was not important enough to make it into the Pentagon's own budget. This is corruption and a waste of taxpayer dollars.
This practice has long been criticized by DOD officials and lawmakers of both parties. Bush-appointed Defense Secretary Robert Gates all but banned the list, strongly discouraging his generals from submitting wish lists to Congress during his tenure. Senator John McCain, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, publicly stated his skepticism of the practice.
In fact, in response to a letter that I sent to the Department of Defense on this practice, Under Secretary of Defense Michael McCord said on behalf of Defense Secretary Austin: ``Therefore, the Department supports your proposal to repeal the requirement in 10 U.S.C. 222a''-- that is, to send Congress an unfunded priorities list.
These wish lists are packed with billions of dollars of excessive line items, this year totaling more than $17 billion on top of the $842 billion requested by the White House. The Space Force alone requested half a billion in unfunded priorities, almost all classified. Meanwhile, we cannot verify that the money that we authorize for DOD is even spent responsibly because the Department of Defense has never passed a budget audit.
Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues, especially those across the aisle who are interested in fiscal conservatism, to vote ``yes'' on this bipartisan and commonsense amendment.
I thank my Republican colleagues, Congressman McClintock and Congressman Davidson, as well as members of my own party, Congressman Garamendi and Congressman Moulton, who understand that this is wrong and have worked in concert with me to rein in this wasteful spending that has no benefit to our national security.
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Ms. JAYAPAL. Madam Chair, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. McCollum), the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee's Defense Subcommittee.
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Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Chair, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Garcia).
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Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Chair, I include in the Record the letter from Under Secretary of Defense Michael McCord that I quoted from earlier. Under Secretary of Defense, Washington, DC, March 20, 2023. Hon. Pramila Jayapal, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Dear Representative Jayapal: I am responding on behalf of Secretary Austin to your letter of January 31, 2023, regarding the submission of unfunded priorities lists (UPLs) to Congress.
The Department appreciates your sustained commitment to our service members, their families, and our entire work force. We are grateful for your leadership, and we share your commitment to maximizing the impact of every dollar Congress appropriates.
The practice of senior military leaders providing to Congress a list of unfunded priorities was initiated by Congress, first as a request and, since 2017, as a statutory requirement. This process was created by Congress and we agree the Congress should reconsider the merits of this approach. Every Department of Defense (DoD) budget supervised and submitted by Secretary Austin is built to implement his National Defense Strategy and represents the Department's highest priorities. The current statutory practice of having multiple individual senior leaders submit priorities for additional funding absent the benefit of weighing costs and benefits across the Department is not an effective way to illuminate our top joint priorities.
Although Secretary Austin follows a similar practice to that of former Secretary Gates by requiring that these lists are submitted for his review, that process alone does not effectively address the underlying issue of requiring individual leaders to submit proposals with no necessary connection to the Secretary's global priorities. Therefore, the Department supports your proposal to repeal the requirement in 10 U.S.C. 222a.
In contrast to the UPL requirement, in November 2022, after the Congress had already decided to increase the Department's budget, and in response to multiple Congressional inquiries as to how higher than expected inflation was impacting the Department, DoD provided the congressional defense committees, as drafting assistance for conference, our best assessment of the highest priorities for additional funding, with a focus on addressing unbudgeted inflation. This document was in lieu of, not in addition to, any unfunded priority list submitted under 10 U.S.C. 222a.
That list included upward adjustments for various fact-of- life increases including service member's Basic Allowances for Housing and Subsistence rates, health care costs, additional costs to complete military construction projects, and fuel price impacts. The list also included other critical emergent requirements such as the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan you noted, as well as additional funds to increase capacity to enable the Defense Industrial Base to accelerate the replacement of defense articles being drawn down and provided to Ukraine.
I hope that this information is helpful and look forward to working with you in the 118th Congress. A similar letter is being sent to the other signatories of your letter. Michael McCord
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Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Chair, I close out by saying that we know that the Department of Defense is necessarily a hierarchical institution where the top leaders identify the most important priorities across a very vast swath of departments within the Department of Defense, and they are the ones who we confirm, frankly, to be in charge of that appropriations request and budget.
What is happening now with this unfunded priorities list--and we have had testimony on this in the Budget Committee and other committees--is that these lists are just coming from people who simply do not have any authority to determine the importance.
Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
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