Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025
Floor Speech
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
First of all, I thank the chairman, as well as the staff both on the Republican and the Democratic side and our bipartisan staff in the process to date.
As the chairman noted, we produced a very strong bipartisan bill out of committee. It passed by a vote of 57-1 and addressed a number of key concerns to our national security. A lot of work went into that. I always lose track of the exact numbers, but well north of a thousand amendments were considered in committee and in the Rules Committee.
The staff sifted through all of those and really helped produce that product. That is not an easy job. We are blessed on both sides of the aisle, both on the Armed Services Committee and on the Rules Committee, with an outstanding staff. I thank them for their work in producing this product.
The number one highlight of the product, as the chairman mentioned, is the focus of the quality of life for our servicemembers and their families. We impaneled a group, a task force, to examine quality-of- life issues, led by Don Bacon on the Republican side and Chrissy Houlahan on our side.
The task force really did a remarkable job of doing outreach to servicemembers, their families, and veterans and listening to them about what they need and what is most important to ensure that they have everything they need to take care of their families.
Certainly, one of the biggest issues was pay for junior enlisted. We upped that pay by 19.5 percent, which is a pretty dramatic number, but it reflects the need that those servicemembers face in the current environment.
We also focus on childcare, which is a crucial need, building more childcare centers and eliminating the backlog of people waiting to get access to childcare because we all know that what makes our military the best in the world is not any of the equipment, but the people who serve. We need to take care of the people who serve, and we need to take care of their families, as well. That is the crucial part of the military.
That is what this bill does better than any bill that we have ever done before in this committee and one of the many reasons why this bill is so important.
It is also crucial, as the chairman pointed out, to modernize and update our military. We are in a rapidly changing environment. We have seen that in the war in Ukraine. We saw that in the war in Azerbaijan and Armenia. Drones, counterdrones, and the ability to protect your information systems and make vulnerable the information systems of your adversaries are now absolutely crucial to fighting. We have to be able to upgrade that.
I compliment the chairman. We have worked in a bipartisan way to make sure that we can upgrade our technology more quickly, to work with those companies who are developing the most innovative technologies so that we can field them quickly and get our warfighters what they need in a timely manner.
Then there is the matter of production. We have seen this in the war in Ukraine. We and our allies need to be able to produce more of the critical ammunition and weapons systems that we need to fight, and we are making progress. I think the Biden administration and, particularly, under Secretary Austin, the coalition that was pulled together in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine is remarkable.
North of 50 countries are now working together to help defend Ukraine, but, also, crucially, to build up the partnerships and alliances and to make sure we have enough weapons to be an adequate deterrent to our adversaries. That process is going well. More needs to be done. This bill helps move us forward in that direction.
This bill also focuses on oversight, as the chairman mentioned. We want to free up the military to buy the systems they need by making sure that we don't continue to spend money on systems that they don't need and that we exercise proper oversight.
I particularly highlight the F-35 program. It has been a vexing and difficult program that has been over budget and underperforming for far too long. In this year's bill, we pare back on the number of F-35s purchased and put that money instead into making sure that we can get the F-35s that we are paying for, that they can reach the block 4 that has been so elusive for so many years. That is the crucial part of the job we do.
I think we have put together an excellent product. I am deeply concerned about the amendment process that will play out over the course of the next couple of days, but we will see how that plays out.
The one point I do make on this, an area of contention, has always been diversity. The other side has been critical of what the Department of Defense has done to try to recruit the most diverse people possible. I will say much more on this throughout the amendment process.
Mr. Chairman, we need to be able to access all the talent in this country, not just White men. We need to recruit women. We need to recruit from communities of color. We need to recruit from the LGBT community. That is crucial to making sure we have the talent we need. I hope that this bill doesn't undercut those efforts as we go forward.
As passed out of committee, as it stands right now, this is an outstanding piece of legislation, and I strongly urge everybody to support it.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Norcross), the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney), the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gallego), the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Khanna), ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Kim), the ranking member of the HAS Subcommittee on Military Personnel.
Mr. KIM of New Jersey. Mr. Chair, the bipartisan bill that passed out of committee includes some incredible support for our servicemembers and their families.
The bill includes a 19.5 percent pay raise for junior enlisted servicemembers and a 4.5 percent pay raise for all other servicemembers and reverses a 5 percent reduction in basic allowance for housing. These provisions mean more money in servicemembers' pocketbooks and more food on the table.
The bill also fully funds childcare fee assistance programs to eliminate wait lists and expand on the ongoing success of spouse employment programs by making permanent the Military Spouse Career Accelerator Pilot, which provides employment support to military spouses through a paid fellowship with employers across various industries.
It is no secret our Armed Forces are facing an unprecedented recruiting crisis, so we are asking the Department to take a second look at how medical treatments, conditions, and medications are evaluated.
Finally, the bill addresses the ongoing healthcare needs of servicemembers and their families by waiving fees and copays on the TRICARE Dental Program for all members of the Selected Reserve.
We bring this bill to the floor to show, in a bipartisan way, that our country is determined to support our servicemembers and their families, that we support readiness and recruitment efforts that are proven to work, and that we support servicemembers no matter who they are.
Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to reject poison pill policy riders that could destabilize this important work and not put partisan politics over the well-being of our servicemembers.
Promoting a strong national defense and taking care of our servicemembers are bipartisan issues.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I have no further speakers and am prepared to close whenever the gentleman is. I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.
I really don't have a lot more to add from my opening statement. I think we have produced an excellent product out of committee. I just want to mention one thing, and that is I think it is really important, we have passed the NDAA 63, 64 consecutive years? Sorry, I lost track at this point.
There is a reason for that. One of the most important things that we do here in Congress is to give the support to the men and women who serve in our military to defend this country. We take that job very seriously on a bipartisan and bicameral basis. We work together to make sure that we produce a bill that supports the men and women who serve in our military and puts our country in the best position to meet its national security needs.
I believe, again, that we have done that. I don't love everything that came out of the committee bill, but then you never do. I think we worked in a bipartisan way and produced an excellent product.
I urge Members to support that. I also urge Members to reject any of the amendments that will make this needlessly divisive. I will say, we do not have a woke military. Frankly, I am offended every time I hear Members come down here and claim that we do. We have the best fighting force in the world. If you talk to the men and women who serve, they will tell you that they work very well together, and they deal with the challenges they face in a way that would make us all proud.
What we do have is an effort to make sure that we include everybody in the military, that we recruit from across the country, from across diverse populations, that we include women in a meaningful way in the military so that we can take advantage of the talent that women would bring to the military and do bring to the military.
I hope we will not go too far down the road of denigrating our military as being somehow woke and weak. It is neither. We need to continue to support it and the excellent job that the military does and the men and women who serve and their families who support them do for our country.
I urge us to support this bill, reject divisive amendments, and get us the bipartisan product that we produced out of committee.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I will be brief on this, but this is a requirement the DOD at the moment doesn't want to do. For the uninitiated, B-52s are not all nuclear capable because there are limitations within the New START treaty, which is still in existence, even though it may not be in a little while. The Department of Defense is not interested in doing this.
What they are interested in doing is investing in the B-21, which is the next generation nuclear-capable bomber. This would cost a great deal of money. Also, they are currently trying to extend the life of a number of B-52s out to 2050, which they are confident they can do. This would be another added expense to that. I think we should look at this issue a little bit more before we require the Department of Defense to go down that route. I would urge a ``no'' vote.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I urge support of the en bloc package, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment for several different reasons.
First of all, it is not 100 percent clear what exactly constitutes funds to build or rebuild. This body did just approve, a month or so ago, a large package that included humanitarian assistance to deal with the war in Gaza. I would not want this to restrict that.
If it is not meaning to restrict that, there are no funds in the FY25 budget to rebuild in Gaza, so it is restricting something that isn't happening.
More broadly, I think the entire argument behind this amendment is misplaced. We have to have a future for the Palestinian people if there is going to be peace in the region and, crucially, for the purpose of this debate, if there is going to be any sort of peace for the people of Israel.
I do not believe it should be our policy to simply destroy Gaza and leave it in a state of absolute disrepair. I don't think that will serve anybody's interests, certainly not the Palestinian people living in Gaza but also not Israel.
There has to be a future here. There has to be an alternative to Hamas and all the terror organizations that the maker of this motion lists. If you don't create that, if you don't create some kind of future for the Palestinian people, then you will have a perpetual conflict not just between the people of Gaza but between the large number of people who support them.
We have already seen Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran be vastly more belligerent in their attacks against Israel because of what is going on in Gaza. If you don't build some kind of future for the Palestinian people, there will be no peace and security. If you vote for this amendment, what you are saying is Gaza should never be rebuilt, that we do not care about that.
We spend billions of dollars supporting Israel, and I support that. I think we need to support Israel's right to exist, and I agree with the maker of this motion that that is one of the largest problems going on in Gaza right now.
Hamas refuses to recognize that, as do too many other groups, but we also need to have an alternative to Hamas. We need to have some kind of hope going forward.
This approach says no, we are not going to do that. I think it will lead to further instability in the region and put Israel at greater risk.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.
If it is in our interest to send billions of dollars, and we sent roughly $4 billion a year and just approved another, I think, $14 billion a year in military aid to Israel, that is money coming out of taxpayers' hands. Presumably those tens of billions of dollars could be spent on infrastructure here in the U.S. and a wide variety of other needs we have in the U.S.
If it is in our interest to send those billions of dollars in military assistance to Israel, and again, I believe that it is, then it is also potentially, at least, in our interest to build greater security in Gaza and elsewhere for that matter to make sure that we don't have to have as much military aid. We don't have to have the wars and fights that go on.
It just doesn't make sense to argue that we should send $20 billion in military aid, or whatever the number is, but, heavens, we couldn't possibly do anything to make sure that Gaza can rebuild itself so that there is greater peace and stability in the Middle East.
Madam Chair, I think this amendment is misguided, and I urge Members to reject it. I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition, although I am not opposed to it.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I have no particular enthusiasm or opposition for this amendment, so I don't urge opposition, but I really don't have anything more to say than that.
Madam Chair, I will let the gentleman handle this, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, this is actually an amendment that was defeated on a bipartisan vote in the House Armed Services Committee.
There are no plans for the Department of Defense to participate in any resettlement process at this point. It is possible that it could come up, and that could be something that would be necessary and helpful, so precluding it doesn't really make a lot of sense.
We have in the past--in different sets of circumstances, certainly in Afghanistan--had some DOD assets participate in the resettlement of refugees, some aspect of it.
There will never be a situation where the Department of Defense is in charge of this sort of operation, but it is conceivable that assets within DOD could be used for that purpose. To block that off entirely doesn't make sense.
I think the Department of Defense and the broader executive branch should be allowed to determine whether or not refugee resettlement is in their best interests. It is certainly not inconceivable that in certain circumstances refugees from the war in Gaza could benefit, and it could benefit us to help them be resettled through a refugee process.
As the gentleman noted, there is a robust vetting process within that. More than anything, the general tone of this amendment and the previous amendment that we had--not the previous amendment, the one before that about rebuilding in Gaza--seems to take the opinion that every single Palestinian living in Gaza is an enemy of the U.S. and an enemy of Israel.
I think that is wrong, and I think it is incredibly dangerous. Hamas is doing more damage to Palestinians than anybody right now. We need to find allies and partners within the Palestinian community if we are going to get to peace. If we treat every single last one of them as an enemy of the U.S., we are, A, wrong; and, B, putting ourselves and more crucially Israel, who is a lot closer to the issue, in greater danger than we need to.
To pass an amendment that is biased and somewhat bigoted against the Palestinian people, to deny this possibility, I think undermines our interests in a wide variety of ways, and I would urge this body to do what the Republican-controlled House Armed Services Committee did and defeat this amendment.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, while I would not say at this point in particular Gaza is an ally of the U.S., as clearly they are not, I do not believe that Gaza is an enemy of the U.S., which is what is clearly being implied here.
Yes, obviously, while I say there are no plans to do this, that is a recognition of the fact. I oppose this amendment because if an opportunity were to present itself, I can see it being in the U.S.' interests to relocate some refugees from Gaza to the U.S. Completely blocking that out puts us in a position of saying we are the enemy of all Palestinian people.
Again, I don't believe that we are. I don't believe that all Palestinian people see us as an enemy. To view it that way I think puts us in a very dangerous position and puts Israel in a very dangerous position.
There are plenty of people in Gaza, plenty of people in the West Bank, and plenty of Palestinians that we can work with to build a better, more peaceful future. To totally block off any possibility of that, even while recognizing the current conflict--and again, I strongly support Israel. I strongly support them in this fight against Hamas. There is no question about that. What this amendment and the other amendment seems to do is to suggest that we are against all the Palestinian people and there is no hope for them whatsoever, and I think that is wrong.
Again, I think we should reject this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I think the gentleman admits, certainly there are some Palestinians who are not enemies of ours, and if they needed our help, we should put ourselves in a position to help them. This amendment forecloses that possibility, which is in all instances. Yes, we will absolutely vet anybody. The refugee process does not say: Just because you are under 18 there is no vetting, or just because you are over 45 or just because you are a woman, there is no vetting. There is a vetting process. Whether or not this ever happens, I don't know, but passing an amendment to completely foreclose the possibility I think is a mistake.
Madam Chair, I urge Members of this body to vote ``no,'' and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, this amendment would effectively ban electric vehicles and ban any effort to use them. Now, I will certainly agree that we are a long way off from having all electrical vehicles, but that is not what we are debating here. We are debating whether or not this should even be an option within the military.
First of all, from a readiness standpoint, having options is always a positive thing. Energy is enormously important within the military. Having access to it can be difficult, and if you have electric vehicles as an option, that gives you one greater option so that you don't necessarily have to rely on fossil fuels to power a vehicle going forward.
More importantly, the basic debate over global warming--and that is what it is, more than climate change--comes down to the belief that digging up fossil fuels from below the ground and burning them is bad for life. There is considerable evidence of this. It is placing carbon in the atmosphere that is damaging to the planet, and we need to develop alternatives so we are not 100 percent dependent upon fossil fuels.
That is the basic plan here, to save the planet, which is actually kind of important to all of us, certainly to members of the military, and certainly to the defense of our country. Eliminating this as an option goes in the exact wrong direction.
Now, the gentlewoman is correct. It is an industry that is still struggling. The fossil fuel industry, the internal-combustion engine, has well over a 150-year head start, has been very thoroughly subsidized across the board. If you build more charging stations, or if you build more electric vehicles, it will become more affordable and more viable. That is the entire point of this.
This isn't going to happen tomorrow. We are not going to build all electric vehicles tomorrow, but why wouldn't we want that option to preserve our planet and move forward? An outright ban on electric vehicles within the military does not make sense.
I urge Members to oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Virginia (Ms. McClellan).
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, the biggest issue here is that we keep hearing about climate politics. It is not climate politics. It is climate policy.
I have reminisced about this before, but back in the 2008 campaign, Republican nominee John McCain and his Vice Presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, were in favor of addressing climate change. There was a bipartisan agreement, but then Barack Obama had the nerve to get elected President and pursue those policies.
All of a sudden, it became partisan. All of a sudden, we decided that the planet isn't, in fact, warming and isn't, in fact, a problem, so we are just not going to worry about it anymore.
That doesn't change the basic facts that it is warming and that fossil fuels are contributing to it, and developing alternatives is going to be crucial to our national security going forward.
This isn't politics. This is basic policy. The lengths to which people opposed to these basic facts will go never ceases to amaze me, like the argument that we can't have electric vehicles come to our aid because they will be sitting there uncharged. Let me assure you that as basic readiness, they will be charged in the same way that gas tanks are currently full.
It is not impossible to have electric vehicles work and function for us. They are doing it all over the world.
Please reject this amendment and understand the need to get us to a more sustainable energy future.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment and yield myself such time as I may consume.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, this is a very problematic amendment. I mean, we all have parochial interests in our district that we want to protect, but one thing our committee has worked very hard to do is to not put those peripheral interests ahead of the broader interests of the Department of Defense and the national security of this country.
No determination has been made to alter or close Parris Island at this point, but it is being examined for a lot of the reasons that the maker of this amendment stated. For this body to come in and make a political decision to block DOD from being able to analyze that data in a fair and unbiased way is an enormous mistake.
This is the mother of all slippery slopes. I don't think there is a single Member in this body who doesn't have some interest in their district affected by the DOD. They have a base, they have a particular defense product that is maybe being manufactured there, and we could pass an endless array of amendments telling DOD that they can't touch anything in our district. That is the road to an incredibly ineffective, inefficient Department of Defense.
We need to give the Department of Defense the ability to make their decision based on what is in the best interests of the country and the best interests of our national security. There are issues around Parris Island that they are trying to manage due, ironically, to some of the climate change problems that the previous amendments that we have considered in here are studiously trying to ignore, so maybe if we could work on that so that we didn't have the climate change problem, we wouldn't have to worry about this.
However, that point aside, again, we can't be passing parochial amendments that simply try to protect things in our district. DOD needs to analyze the data, the facts, and make the decision on where to allocate resources and where to base based on what is in the best interests of the country.
Mr. Chair, I urge opposition to this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. I just want to clarify one point. I did not say that Parris Island is not at risk. I think you have outlined exactly why Parris Island is at risk.
What I said was a determination has not been made, and it has not been made. I would like the Department of Defense to have the opportunity to make that determination based on the best facts available, not on the parochial interests of Congress saying, no, you can't even consider it.
I don't know how this is going to come out. I don't think anybody knows for sure how this is going to come out. I do know that Congress shouldn't be standing in the way of a factual analysis to figure out what the best decision is.
This amendment takes away any sort of factual analysis and just says under no circumstances can you reduce, much less close Parris Island. That is the wrong approach, and it ties DOD's hands in a way that serves parochial interests. It does not serve the interests of our national security.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition, and yield myself such time as I may consume.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I don't have an enormous problem with this amendment. The 1033 program is very controversial, as we will get into in the amendment that follows. As to how they prioritize the program within its existing parameters, I can understand that that is debatable going forward, and I am certain that the border communities that the gentleman described have the needs described, but there are a lot of communities across our country that have needs when it comes to dealing with crime of one kind or another.
The 1033 program provides a wide variety of equipment. Prioritizing one group over another, I am not sure that it is justified. Yes, the needs for law enforcement in those areas and those communities are great, but I would have to hear the argument as to why the needs for other communities are not great. It seems like it would be equal across the board.
I would urge opposition to maintain the flexibility for the Department to make those decisions based on their own priorities, not on how Congress has directed it.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, the gentleman answered a question that I didn't ask. I don't doubt the need that you describe in those communities. The question that I asked was why are other communities' needs not as great, which is a more complicated question. Nor do I disagree that there is a time and a place for Congress to prioritize and say this is more important to us.
It just seems to me that there are criminal justice problems out there. In the communities that have tried to defund the police, by the way, they are not asking for these programs, so you don't need to worry about competing with them, sadly. That is a problem which I think I agree with the gentleman on, but not a problem in this case.
My only issue is not with the need of the communities that you are prioritizing, it is an issue of, well, how can we say that those needs are greater than the needs of other communities, that maybe drug and crime problems are not confined to the border, as I think many, many Members can tell you. That is the prioritization that I am more interested in an answer to, how we should balance that.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
The 1033 program has been highly controversial because it has led to some pretty substantial pieces of military equipment being transferred to law enforcement--vehicles, in particular--and, to some degree, led to the militarization of the police in the past.
Over the years, we have worked to try to get a delicate balance. I agree with the gentleman that the 1033 program is important and incredibly helpful to local law enforcement.
There are some on my side who don't agree with that, who would like to see the 1033 program banned. There are others on the other side who would like to see it wide open. We have, over the years, as I said, worked to strike a balance between those two things.
Supporting local law enforcement with excess military equipment is what the 1033 program does. It is equipment that is owned by the DOD but that they no longer need and that they can transfer to local law enforcement.
Obviously, you don't want them transferring a tank or a missile launcher or a whole bunch of other things, so there are restrictions on that. From time to time, we debate what those restrictions should be.
The most crucial part of this amendment that I find problematic is it eliminates the executive's ability to do that by not just changing the executive orders that are currently in existence but prohibiting any future executive orders that would reexamine that question.
For that reason alone, and because of the delicate balance that we have tried to strike on the 1033 program, I oppose this amendment and wish we would keep the 1033 program where it is and how we have worked it out over a series of Congresses going back years.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Just to repeat the arguments that I made, I think we have struck the right balance on the 1033 program. We should not upset that balance, nor do I support removing the ability of the President, any President, to issue an executive order on this very important and sensitive program that has impacted communities across the country.
Mr. Chair, I urge a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Rogers), the chairman of the committee.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield 45 seconds to the gentlewoman from Virginia (Ms. McClellan).
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Turner).
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield 45 seconds to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Houlahan).
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I believe we have the right to close, I have one speaker remaining, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Kamlager-Dove).
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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I think that was an excellent close. I would just urge opposition to this amendment for all the reasons that were stated by the previous speaker, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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