National Defense Authorization Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. REED. Mr. President, I would like to rise and discuss the Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act.

First, I would like to salute the chairman. He has done an extraordinary job. We have both served on the committee for many years, and this is probably the most challenging year we have had due to many different factors: the pandemic, the virtual hearings, all those things.

And this has been particularly challenging, and the chairman, at every point, stood up to the challenge and led us. I want to thank him for that. It was a pleasure working with him.

We all recognize that this legislation passed both Chambers, the House and the Senate, by overwhelming bipartisan majorities. And it is very important legislation. That is why it earned this bipartisan support.

It enhances our national security. It strengthens our military readiness and defense capabilities. It protects our forces and their families and supports the defense industrial base.

Despite all that it does for our troops and their families, President Trump waited until the 10th day after he received it and vetoed it the last day he could exercise his veto. That was December 23, which made quite a Christmas for our military personnel and for all of my colleagues who are here today to start the process of responding to that veto.

The House already took the first step. They returned on Monday. Once again, by an overwhelming vote, over 300 Members of the House overrode the President's veto. Now we face the same task in the Senate. It is my hope we can quickly and resoundingly override the President's veto and provide our troops with what they need.

I will echo what the chairman said. You can go through all the thousands of pages, literally, but what is the most significant aspect of this legislation is keeping faith with the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States. So if anyone has any thoughts about their vote, just think about those men and women who are all across the world putting their lives at risk while their families share that risk and that sense of danger and sacrifice. That is what I think has motivated the chairman and myself and all of our colleagues on the committee and throughout this Senate to work hard to get this bill passed.

There are several reasons being advanced by the President for suggesting that this bill should be vetoed--the veto should be upheld. One reason is that he claims the bill fails to include critical national security measures. Yet this legislation provides critical tools and authorities for the Department of Homeland Security to perform network hunting for threats and vulnerabilities on Federal networks. These tools and authorities would help to counter breaches like the SolarWinds hack, which is possibly the largest intrusion into our system we have ever seen by a foreign nation state adversary. We do not yet know the extent and the degree of intrusion that we have suffered. In fact, we weren't aware of this intrusion for many, many months.

One of the disconcerting aspects is that it was discovered by a private company that is one of the most, if not the most sophisticated cyber intrusion expert in the world. Yet they were penetrated.

So we have a serious, serious situation on our hands. This legislation would start giving basic tools, which would allow our cyber security experts to go into other Departments to look at their procedures, their policies, all of their cyber activities, and recommend corrections.

In fact, this bill has done more, I think, for cyber based on the work of the Cyber Solarium Commission, which was chaired by Senator Angus King and Congressman Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin and also aided significantly by my colleague Congressman Jim Langevin of Rhode Island. They put the work together. We took a lot of the Solarium's work and put it into this bill. So there is absolutely no credence to the issue that we have not dealt with national security and cyber intrusions in particular.

Then again, the President, in his veto message, wrote that one of the reasons is the failure to essentially repeal section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. But this issue has nothing to do with the military--nothing at all. It was designed years ago to provide legal protections to social media companies so that they could expand and grow. Frankly, I think it has worked beyond our wildest imaginations. Everyone recognizes it should be reformed, but reform requires thoughtful, responsible analysis of the legislation. The effects of the legislation should offer both sides the opportunity to explain positions. None of that was done, and none of that can be done before we conclude this legislative session.

It is more, I think, a personal feud of the President, the section 230 repeal, than it is one of careful, deliberate, thoughtful legislation by the Senate.

There is another reason the President has used, and that is we have established a commission to make recommendations for the renaming and removal of symbols, displays, monuments, and paraphernalia that honor or commemorate Confederates who served voluntarily with the Confederacy. There is a clear exemption, by the way, for gravestones that we would absolutely respect. But these individuals--many of them who were on Active service with our Army or Navy at the time--decided to consciously fight against the United States of America. It is that simple. Yet we have bases that are named after them.

The President said this is part of the American heritage of victory and freedom, but, again, these are named after men who took up arms against the United States. In some cases--in most cases, they weren't particularly exemplary generals, with some exceptions. And it was done in a way that I think was not to honor the service of these individuals but to advance other forces.

I think it is time that this history be changed, that this chapter be closed, and the senior Defense Department officials have indicated they are open to these changes. There is bipartisan support for cooperation on this issue. It passed the committee. It passed the floor. It passed the House. Now, it is in this legislation.

When the President vetoed the bill, he also said it is a ``gift to China and Russia.'' I would strenuously disagree. This is one of the strongest bills yet on countering the threat China poses to the United States and our partners, including allies such as India, Taiwan, and other countries and regions.

Among the provisions of this legislation is the Pacific Deterrence Initiative. That is a new authority for the Department of Defense, modeled after the European Deterrence Initiative and authorizes an additional $150 million in funding.

This was the work--I was proud to collaborate, but the lead was the chairman, Chairman Inhofe, and I was his copilot on that one. This is the first time we really stepped back and said: We have a new threat-- significant threat--rising in the Pacific. We have to take a holistic review of strategy, capabilities, equipment, and we have to make this a top priority.

So rather than doing nothing about China, as the President alleges, I think we have made one of the most significant steps forward in consciously recognizing the relationship that has developed between China and the United States.

With regard to Russia and Europe, the conference report enhances our ability to deter Russian aggression, maintains strong support for Ukraine, and reaffirms our commitment to the transatlantic partnership, including by calling for a strong U.S. force posture in Germany.

Now, President Trump also vetoed this legislation because he wants the ability to remove our military from ``far away and very unappreciative lands.'' Those are his words. Particularly, I have concern about the situation in Afghanistan. First--and I have been to Afghanistan somewhere close to 20 times--since the beginning.

In fact, I was on the first congressional delegation to go in January after the invasion. I have tried to pay attention to what is going on there. And one point is that the Afghan people have struggled and fought with us side by side. They have suffered greatly. I don't think it is right to say they are unappreciative. I think every day they have been suffering casualties. They have been fighting with our soldiers-- in fact, in some cases, saving and helping our soldiers survive on the field.

Second, essentially, the provision allows the President to make the decision. In fact, he can waive all the provisions we built in by simply declaring that it is in the national security interests of the United States and communicating that to the respective leaders in the House and the Senate. That is something that is almost pro forma. So the notion that this seriously hampers his ability is misplaced.

What it does, though, is signal that we have to be very careful in recognizing all of the equities that are involved in Afghanistan. The fact is that there are numerous terrorist groups there, and we have to maintain a counterterrorism presence; the fact that, as I indicated before, the Government of Afghanistan, the Afghan people, in many cases, have suffered more than we have considering the onslaught of the Taliban and other forces. So, again, I don't think that reason measures up to the demands.

The National Defense Authorization Act has passed for 59 years. We need to ensure it will pass for 60 years by overriding the President's veto. The House, as I said, has already done that--322 to 87. I encourage my colleagues to show similar support for our military personnel and their families and override this veto.

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