National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024--Conference Report--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I am pleased and honored to join my colleague from Rhode Island, the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee, in urging adoption of this important step in getting our National Defense Authorization Act passed and signed into law.

It is routine now and profound at the same time. It is routine because, as the chair said, this is the 63rd time that this House and this Senate will have come together on a bipartisan basis to join hands and try to move our national defense forward.

It is profound because it has become routine, because no matter what other things we are discussing and differing about and expressing our deeply held views, this is something that we feel must be done every year, regardless of the other things that divide us. So the fact that it has become routine does make this a profound step, and I am honored to be part of that great list of persons who have been part of this.

Senator Reed is absolutely correct to thank our counterparts in the House, Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Smith, and our staff.

Let me also give a shout-out to the ranking members of the subcommittees, who took this from subcommittee to subcommittee to the full committee and helped us get started in a very meaningful way: Senator Cotton, ranking member of Airland; Senator Mike Rounds, Cybersecurity; Senator Joni Ernst, Emerging Threats and Capabilities; Senator Rick Scott, Personnel Subcommittee; Senator Dan Sullivan, Readiness and Management Support Subcommittee; Senator Kevin Cramer, Seapower, a committee that I served on as ranking member and as chair; and Senator Deb Fischer, who has worked so diligently in a very technical and important area, Strategic Forces.

And then, as the chair mentioned, I will try not to leave out any of the staff--the experts who took our concepts and who were able to put them into words that became statutory language. Of course, there is John Keast, the staff director on our side, who has been a great partner of Elizabeth King; and then other talented, just absolutely brilliant and diligent and hard-working American public servants who helped get it right: Rick Berger, Brendan Gavin, James Mazol, Greg Lilly, Adam Barker, Zach Barnett, Kristina Belcourt, Jack Beyrer, Travis Brundrett, Isaac Jalkanen, Kevin Kim, Eric Lofgren, Katie Magnus, Jonathan Moore, Sean O'Keefe, Brad Patout, Katie Romaine, Pat Thompson, Eric Trager, Adam Trull, Olivia Trusty, and Phillip Waller.

And I wouldn't be surprised if I have left somebody out, even so, Mr. President.

It does contain some very high hopes and dreams, and I hope this legislation builds on an opportunity for further expansion of our defense industrial base, because so many of the things that we need to do cannot be done unless we have got the resources in place to actually put Americans to work making our country stronger.

It does contain one of the largest pay raises in decades.

There will perhaps be more said on final passage, but I am grateful to my colleague and friend and fellow veteran, Senator Reed, and I urge the passage of this vote.

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