Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2024
Floor Speech
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Mr. CALVERT. 4365, and that I may include tabular material on the same.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of H.R. 4365, the fiscal year 2024 Defense Appropriations bill, which is a result of months of hearings, briefings, and engagements by all members of the subcommittee.
To provide for our strong national defense, this bill recommends $826.45 billion for the Department of Defense and the intelligence community, which is $27.8 billion above the fiscal year 2023 enacted level.
When I became chairman of the subcommittee, I made it clear to the Department they would not receive any blank checks. Any requests that lacked adequate justification, was early to when the funds were needed, had unjustified cost growth, or did not directly support DOD's mission would not be funded in the bill.
It is our constitutional obligation of Congress and this committee in particular to ensure the proper and appropriate use of taxpayer funds. At a time when the Department of Defense leadership is more focused on cultural issues than its warfighting mission, this obligation is more critical than ever.
I am proud to say that, due to the hard work of the members of the subcommittee, the bill funds our defense needs in a fiscally responsible manner.
Specifically, this bill cuts nearly $20 billion from the President's misguided request and reinvests these funds into warfighting capabilities and additional support for our servicemembers.
I also approached crafting this bill with a comprehensive strategy focused on specific lines of effort: investing in America's military superiority to deter the People's Republic of China; combating illicit fentanyl and synthetic opioids which are killing over 100,000 Americans every year; shaping a more efficient and effective workforce; creating a culture of innovation; enhancing oversight of all programs to ensure the appropriate use of taxpayer dollars; and taking care of servicemembers and their families.
To counter China, this bill doubles funding for the International Security Cooperation Programs for Taiwan, provides an additional $200 million to accelerate the delivery of the E-7, prohibits the decommissioning of four ships to grow the fleet, adds aircraft like the F-35 and the CH-53K, continues investments in next-generation platforms, and supports recapitalization of the nuclear triad.
To enhance DOD's efforts to counter the flow of deadly drugs into the country, the bill includes a historic investment of $1.1 billion in drug interdiction and counterdrug activities account, including increased funding for counternarcotics support, demand reduction, the National Guard Counterdrug Program, and the National Guard Counterdrug Schools. The bill also moves Mexico into the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility, which will foster a more holistic approach to Latin- American security issues.
To drive reforms to the Department's workforce, this bill cuts over $1 billion from the budget request for the Department's civilian workforce. This bill accomplishes this goal through attrition while exempting employees engaged in shipyard, depot, healthcare, and sexual assault and response duties.
I want to be clear. No one will be fired as a result of this language. During our analysis of the budget request, the services and agencies across DOD reported attrition rates as high as 14 percent. This bill directs DOD to adopt smart business practices to become more effective and efficient, which is desperately needed.
The bill also mandates a reassessment of DOD's manpower requirements, a plan to adopt technology to improve its business processes and provides $751 million for the Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Office to further accelerate business modernization.
This multipronged approach is critical to create a physically sustainable and efficient workforce and is informed by previous Defense reform efforts.
Next, we are aware the Department must innovate faster to keep pace with global threats. To do this, the bill includes over $1 billion to the Defense Innovation Unit to get needed capability into the hands of the warfighters. The bill focuses on near-term delivery of capability and partnering with the private sector. We cannot continue to take decades to produce new systems or, even worse, invest billions into programs that must be eventually canceled due to nonperformance.
To bridge the valley of death, the bill includes $300 million to expand the successful procurement pilot program, APFIT. Further, it creates a new portfolio to rapidly field commercial technologies for the warfighter through nontraditional entities within the Department.
To get the Department focused on its warfighting mission and away from culture wars, the bill includes a number of new general provisions to send a clear message to the Department. These include funding prohibitions on teaching critical race theory, facilitating access to abortions that attempt to ignore the long-standing Hyde amendment, overreach by the Biden administration on climate change, and promoting so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
The fact that the committee has to address these issues reflects the failure of the Department's leadership.
Finally, investments in weapons systems do not matter if we fail to invest in our most important resource, our servicemembers. With changes in this bill, junior enlisted servicemembers will receive an average pay increase of 30 percent. This will have a significant impact on recruitment, retention, and will improve the quality of life for our servicemembers and their families. I was shocked to see that the Biden administration opposed a pay increase in their Statement of Administration Policy.
As an appropriator, it is our responsibility to ensure our military has the resources necessary to deter conflict and, if we do get into a fight, that we win and they lose. This bill makes it clear to any adversary that challenging the United States military is not in their best interest.
Before I close, I will comment on the number of amendments we have received for this bill. I am supportive of this open, transparent, and inclusive process. However, we have to be mindful not to rob our readiness accounts to fund other priorities. I look forward to working with all Members on this as we move forward in the process
Finally, I thank all the staff for the incredible work they do to vet the budget request, work with the Members, put forward recommendations, and assemble the final product.
As my ranking member and former chair, Ms. McCollum, knows, putting together this bill is not an easy task, so I thank her and her staff for their cooperation.
This is a strong bill for our servicemembers and their families.
I look forward to working with my friends on the other side of the aisle, the Senate, and the administration to enact a bill as soon as possible. Not doing so is a disservice to the men and women of the United States Armed Forces.
I strongly urge support of this bill.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, let's be clear about what critical race theory is. It is a divisive, leftwing intellectual construct that advances the notion that racism is systematic in our country's institutions. It advocates for race-based solutions and rejects equal opportunity in favor of equal outcomes.
My friends on the other side like to deride the prohibition in our bill for funding activities that promote, in part, condoning an individual feeling discomfort, guilt, or anguish. They claim that the bill will prohibit teaching uncomfortable historical truths, but they always omit the last part of that statement, which is ``on account of that individual's race or sex.''
Do my friends on the other side really want to fund activities that debase individuals because of their race or sex? I don't think so. I reject it, and this bill rejects it.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Oklahoma (Mrs. Bice), a member of the Committee on Appropriations.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Mike Garcia), a member of the Committee on Appropriations and a champion for our members in the military.
Mr. MIKE GARCIA of California. Mr. Chair, I thank Chairman Calvert for this historic bill, and I rise today in support of this very conservative DOD appropriations package.
I remind the American people that the purpose of the military is twofold. The first is to deter a war if diplomacy fails, to augment diplomacy in that deterrence. The second is, if by the exhaustion of all means we have to go to war, to actually give the American people the tools to win the war and keep our security. That is it, to deter a war and win a war.
This bill does exactly that. It trims the fat and removes the excess programs, the woke CRT programs, within the current policies under this administration. It also critically funds our Nation's most essential programs, like the F-35, the Columbia-class submarine, the B-21 Raider, which I am proud is made in my beautiful district, California's 27th Congressional District.
It removes Mexico from a command that is kind of an orphan right now by itself. During this open-border policy, we are now removing Mexico and putting it back into SOUTHCOM so that the combatant commanders can treat Mexico as the threat that it is to our southern border and the influx of immigrants.
That is very important, but with all those things as important as they are--the weapons systems, the change of Mexico to SOUTHCOM--the single biggest thing that we are taking care of, the single biggest asset within our military that we are taking care of, is our troops.
I stood at this podium about 6 months ago and said I would not support a Defense Department spending bill or an NDAA that did not adequately address the pay issues, especially that our junior enlisted have right now. About a third of junior enlisted live below the poverty line. About a third of our enlisted qualify for food stamps right now.
I am very proud that our Committee on Appropriations' Subcommittee on Defense was able to reconcile and address this adequately. The starting pay of a junior enlisted E1 was $22,000 a year.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from California.
Mr. MIKE GARCIA of California. The starting salary of an E1 in the military right now is $22,000 a year. That is the equivalent of $11 an hour.
This bill takes that to $31,200, gives them parity with their civilian counterparts, and addresses the record-high civilian pay gap of our junior enlisted.
Mr. Chair, I urge support of the DOD appropriations package and a ``yes'' vote on the bill.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, to my friend, we fund resilience in this bill. What we don't fund is electrifying Bradleys and tanks, which makes no sense.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, I thank the gentlewoman for her comments, and I know that eventually we will work out our differences, but, yes, I admit, this bill prohibits funding for drag queen story hour for kids and drag queens in recruitment. I had to choose between building ships or those kinds of decisions. I chose the ships.
With that, this debate going forward, I want to talk about the readiness of our military operations, building the necessary equipment to make sure that our men and women win any war that we may have to involve ourselves in. Hopefully none.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, pursuant to House Resolution 723, I offer an amendment en bloc.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, these are noncontroversial amendments supported by both sides.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, pursuant to House Resolution 723, I offer amendment en bloc.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, these are noncontroversial amendments supported by both sides.
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Mr. CALVERT. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Guam (Mr. Moylan).
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, pursuant to House Resolution 723, I offer an amendment en bloc.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, these are noncontroversial amendments supported by both sides.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin, a retired Navy SEAL.
Mr. VAN ORDEN. Mr. Chair, I rise today with deep, deep reservations about the provisions in this bill funding the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, a program that has been in place since 2016.
Today, the United States has given $113 billion in security and humanitarian aid to Ukraine for their war against Russia. I acknowledge the fact that is an illegal war and Vladimir Putin should be punished. However, I am not happy with the level of visibility that we have given to this funding.
The United States Government must be in charge of our foreign policy. The United States Government must be in charge of our defense policies, and we should not be handing these over to the Ukrainian Government.
We are funding Ukrainians, we are paying their salaries for their troops and giving them stipends when we are potentially looking forward to shutting down our government due to Democratic intransigence, which means we will not be funding our own troops. This is simply unacceptable.
Before any new money is dispensed to Ukraine, we need a strategic exit plan from the Biden administration with quantifiable metrics. Still, I will not allow D.C.'s dysfunction to undermine our national security and hurt our military families and will support the underlying bill, again, with great reservations.
We must fund our military and we must pay our troops.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment. The bill has a constrained top line. I cannot support directing $50 million to a pilot program.
Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, I rise in reluctant opposition to this amendment. The amendment proposes to develop a single-stage-to-orbit rocket. The idea of a single-stage-to-orbit rocket is appealing, but the laws of physics are stubborn.
In the early 2000s, I was the chair of the Space and Aeronautics Committee at the time, and NASA and industry spent more than a billion dollars on such a concept and concluded that it wasn't practical or feasible.
I am not aware of any facts that changed that conclusion. I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, as the designee of the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Granger), I move to strike the last word.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
First, I want to address some confusion surrounding this funding. This is not the same funding that is included in the supplementals for Ukraine. This funding is not sent directly to Ukraine. Rather, it pays for training and procurement of U.S. equipment.
Congress has funded this initiative in every single year since it was authorized in 2016 during both Democrat and Republican administrations. In July, the House voted to authorize this funding at the same level. After the invasion of Crimea by Russia, we decided to fund this training for the Ukrainian military.
Not only would this amendment strike the funding, it would also strike the important conditions on funding. We have sent a very clear message to the Department, no blank checks. That is why this bill contains many new oversight provisions, including notification requirements before funds are spent, a GAO report review of the Defense Department's execution of Presidential drawdown authority, a reporting requirement on increasing burden sharing for Ukraine, and a requirement that the inspector general review the Department's end-use monitoring program. This bill also includes funding for a special inspector general for Ukraine, if authorized by the final NDAA.
The funding included in this bill is not supplemental funding. It is not a blank check. It has broad support. I urge a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time. Amendment No. 150 Offered by Mr. Griffith
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, I rise in strong opposition to this amendment. Under the guise of fighting misinformation, our government agencies have become increasingly weaponized against America's right to free speech.
In the last month, a panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the Biden administration and the FBI likely violated the First Amendment by pressuring social media firms to suppress or remove posts.
The bill addresses the case of over 50 former intelligence officials misusing their clearances and status to interfere in our Presidential election by signing the bogus Hunter Biden letter.
The gentlewoman's amendment would facilitate this continued war on the First Amendment. I strongly urge a ``no'' vote and yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, I claim time in opposition to the amendment.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment. The amendment is unnecessary.
Section 129(a) has long been codified in Title 10. However, I am compelled to point out that the section in question directs the Secretary of Defense to achieve a cost-efficient personnel mix.
The administration has failed in this regard and continues to grow the Department civilian workforce to a fiscally unsustainable level. The bill before us directs the Secretary of Defense to address the issue by noting the unsustainable cost of civilian personnel within the Department over $101 billion in fiscal year 2022 alone.
Reducing the civilian workforce request by $1.1 billion, which is less than 1 percent of the total request, and achievable through attrition, to fund a historic 30-percent pay raise for our junior enlisted--a 30-percent pay raise which they richly deserve--and directing the Secretary to reassess manpower requirements against core missions and adopt technology to create a cost-efficient workforce, is essentially directing the Secretary to abide by section 129(a).
Mr. Chair, I urge a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, I rise in support of the gentleman's amendment. I don't support the deployment of U.S. troops into Ukraine. The Ukrainians are doing an able job against Russian aggression.
They degraded the third-largest standing army in the world and taken out 50 percent of the Russian conventional capability. They are doing fine on their own. They don't need U.S. troops.
Mr. Chair, I urge a ``yes'' on the gentleman's amendment.
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Mr. CALVERT. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition.
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Mr. CALVERT. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment. Artillery has been a critical part of Ukrainians' fight for survival. Cluster munitions fill a needed gap right now until the U.S. production and inventory of 155 ammunition can catch up.
The Russians have been using cluster munitions for 1\1/2\ years--from day one. We should not limit Ukrainians' ability to fight the Russians.
I also note that there must be a commitment for all parties involved to clean up any remnants after this war ends.
This amendment goes beyond prohibiting the transfer of cluster munitions to Ukraine and would tie our hands in future conflicts.
It is not hard to imagine, unfortunately, a situation where we might need to transfer these munitions to our allies and partners, for example, during a conflict on the Korean Peninsula or over Taiwan.
Finally, the amendment may prevent the Department from transferring used munitions among the military services, limiting the flexibility to support our war fighters. Madam Chair, I urge a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. CALVERT. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
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Mr. CALVERT. Madam Chair, I rise in support of the amendment.
Regular telework was a necessary evil to sustain DOD operations during the COVID lockdown, but that time is over.
Main Street small business went back to work in person years ago, and big business is steadily ending full telework policies.
Leaders across the country have found that full-time telework drives more meetings, reduces productivity, and hinders the development of new employees.
Further, DOD personnel must also access and work on highly classified national security issues.
Madam Chair, I urge a ``yes'' vote.
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Mr. CALVERT. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.
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Mr. CALVERT. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
Unfunded priorities lists are a critical tool to provide Congress with unfiltered information on what the military services and combatant commanders need. Access to this information is so important that the FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act established a statutory requirement.
Unfunded priorities lists give our military services and combatant commanders a direct channel to Congress, which allows Congress to make more informed decisions.
I would just say, for instance, USINDOPACOM obviously has challenges dealing with China, and unfortunately, we are constrained by our budget in getting the resources there that they would like to have. If, in fact, resources become available, we would like to take care of those combatant commanders to deal with the threats that they have.
Madam Chair, I urge opposition to this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, I rise in support of the amendment. The Biden administration is failing our country and undermining our security with the unmitigated crisis along our southern border.
This policy-driven crisis affects more than just the four States that share a border with Mexico, mine included. Today, every city in America is dealing with the influx of illegal migrants because the Biden administration has failed to secure the border and is unwilling to enforce the Nation's immigration laws.
The administration's refusal to act has created a looming crisis at our Nation's military installations, which should not be used to house migrants. They are not designed or equipped for refugee camps.
Housing illegal immigrants on military installations negatively impacts our security and readiness. I understand that New York Democrats have created over 200 migrant camps in the gentleman's area, and I stand with them on the need for real solutions to the border crisis.
Mr. Chair, I urge a ``yes'' vote.
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