Thank you. Mr. Thornberry mr. Chairman, i am proud to bring before the house h. R. 2810, the National Defense authorization act for the fiscal year 2018. It was reported favorably by the House Armed Services committee at 11 59 p. M. On june 28, 2017. By a vote of 601. That vote is an indication of the bipartisan support that exists to support our troops and to fulfill our obligations placed on us by the constitution. Mr. Chairman, i think the always helpful for us to remind ourselves of the authority by which we undertake our responsibilities. Article 1, section 8 of the constitution says that congress has the power and the responsibility to provide and to raise and support armies, to provide and maintain a navy, to make rules for the government and regulation of land and naval forces, and, of course, to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers. The members of our committee and our staff take those responsibilities very seriously. This year we seek to carry them now the a world which is as dangerous and complex as any of us have ever seen. One example from the news of the day is the alarming progress north korea is making towards having an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile that can Carry Nuclear Weapons to our homeland. Now, we have, of course, a number of tools to use, including diplomacy and sanctions. But there is no substitute for military power. And i believe we must develop and deploy more of it to be ready to deal with these growing threats. And so the bill before us today substantially increases money for Missile Defense. So we are more capable of protecting our homeland against those Ballistic Missiles. It also increases funding for key munitions, and for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance so we can have better visibility on what the adversary is doing. It increases the end strength for the army, nate i have and the air force, just as the navy and the air force, just as they requested. And it funds more joint exercises with key allies in the pacific. It boosts our ship building budget, to get more ships into the water faster and also cheaper. And so just as an example, mr. Chairman, each of those items is important for dealing with this growing threat coming from north korea. And we can sit here and go through a similar sort of discussion when it comes to iran, or the provocative actions of russia and china. Or the terrorist organizations of various shades. Of course we cannot guarantee that the capabilities that we will vote on in this bill will be available by the time the crisis comes. Unfortunately, mr. Chairman, we are still dealing with Defense Budgets that were cut by more than 20 at a time when the threats around the world were growing. So we cant guarantee that this capability these capabilities will be available when we need them. What we can guarantee is if we dont fund these things now, they will not be available when we need them. So that is the priority given to this bill. Mr. Chairman, exactly one month ago, on june 12, secretary mattis and chairman dunford testified before our committee. And i would like to read just one paragraph of the secretarys testimony, where he was comparing what the military was like when he left it and when he came back as secretary. Secretary mattis testified, and ill quote, four years later i returned to the department. And i have been shocked by what ive seen with our readiness to fight. For all the heartache caused by the loss of our troops during these wars, no enemy in the field has done more harm to the readiness of our military than sequestration. We have sustained our ability to meet americas commitments abroad, because our troops have stoically shouldered a much greater burden. , more ars later, shocked harm by sequestration than the enemies in the field, and its only because our folks are so incredible that they have borne an increasing burden. Thats what the secretary testified. Mr. Chairman, we have indisputably the finest military in the world. But the also indisputable that it has been severely damaged by continuing resolutions, by sequestration, and by failure of the executive and legislative branches to adequately support the men and women out there on the front lines. We have an urgent need to begin to repair and rebuild our military. And i also believe, mr. Chairman, it is fundamentally wrong to send men and women out on Dangerous Missions without providing them the best equipment, in the best shape, with the best training that our country can possibly provide. This bill, if followed by matching propings, takes a significant appropriation, takes a significant step toward meeting that objective, to support those troops. It also makes major reforms in the way the pentagon does business. Among other reforms, it enables the military to buy commercial products through online sites such as amazon, staples and granger. We require life cycle maintenance costs to be considered at the beginning of a program, as must intellectual property rights. To maximize competition in the maintenance and repairs. Oversight into Service Contracts is increased and there is much more, of course, in the bill. Mr. Chairman, this bill is the vehicle by which we usually, for 55 years at least, fulfill our responsibilities under the constitution that i mentioned. To provide for the common defense. I believe thats the first job of the federal government. And i want to just express my appreciation to each of the members of our committee, each of them has contributed to the product before us. Each of them takes their responsibilities under the constitution very seriously. No one more so than the Ranking Member, mr. Smith of washington. We dont always agree on the judgment calls about issues, but i have no doubt that he, among all the members of the committee, try to do whats right for the country, and put the interests of our troops first. Thats exactly the attitude that we must follow, i think, on the floor over the next three days, as we go through the amendments, which we will consider. I also want to express appreciation to the committee and personal staff who have worked on this bill. Its been a challenging year for a variety of reasons. As i started, i will finish. I am proud of this product, i hope it will gain the support of the entire house. And i reserve the balance of my time. The chair the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. The gentleman from washington is recognized. Mr. Smith thank you, mr. Chairman. I yield myself five minutes. The chair the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Smith i want to thank the chairman, first of all, for his hard work on this bill. And all the mens of the committee and the Staff Members of the committee and the staff. This is a bill weve passed for 55 straight years. T. S. A. Long and complicated bill it is a long and complicated bill that sets the defense and National Security policy for our country. And there is a lot of good work that has gone into this bill. Again, i thank the members for doing that. They recognize the complex threat environment that the chairman correctly described. And we are attempting to address it as best we can in this very difficult environment. I think the thing that is most difficult, that i really want to emphasize, is what the chairman said in the middle of his remarks. That over the past six years, we have had one government shutdown, a number of continuing resolutions, several threatened government shutdowns, and the unpredictability that that has presented to the Defense Department. Now, to be clear, it has also presented the same amount of unpredictability to the nondefense discretionary budget, that also has to deal with those challenges. But that uncertainty about our budget has made it very difficult to plan and nowhere is that more important than at the department of defense. As they try to lay out a strategy for National Security, not knowing from one month to the next how much money youre going to have or what youre going to be able to spend it on is a huge problem. And ill say a little bit more about this later. Because as big of a problem as that is, we havent solved it. As we debate this bill here today, we do not have a budget resolution from either the house or the senate. So this is a problem we still need to work on. However much money we wind up spending on defense if we had a clear idea of how much money wed have other the next few year, it would be a lot easier to plan for those contingencies. I do want to compliment the work thats been done on this bill. I focus a lot on unconventional threats. I used to chair whats now called the emerging threats committee. I want to thank congresswoman ste stefa nick, and others, at have focused on the agencies that do so much for foughting terrorism. I want to thank the subcommittee focusing on space, for the importance of emphasizes that. For a long time, our country dominated space, didnt have to worry about it. Now a lot of other countries are catching up and competing with us. I think this bill reflects the importance of that. There are a lot of very solid things in this bill but i want to close by emphasizes two significant problems that we still need to address. One i mentioned already. We dont have a budget resolution this bill has 621 billion as i understand it in the base bill and another, i believe, 75 billion in the overseas contingency fund. Were spending nearly 700 billion in this bill on defense. Thats a lot of money and the chairman mentioned a lot of the very necessary programs that thats going forward. However, that breaks the budget caps. In order to break the budget cap the house and the senate have to vote to break the budget caps. Its july. We havent done that. I will emphasize that in the senate it requires 60 vote tots break the budget caps. So as much as i see the need in defense given the complex threat environment out there, it is very possible that 72 billion of what is in this bill is going to disappear between now and the end of this year, unless we address the broader issue of sequestration and budget caps. Ill also emphasize that addressing that issue by gutting funding for the nondefense discretionary budget and plusing up defense is not going to work. For a couple of reasons. Number one a lot of the National Security needs that we have come out of some of those other items. The proposal to cut the state department by 31 in a time when we face the complex threat environment that was described is ridiculous. In fact, i will quote chairman mattis as well who said if youre going to cut the state department by 30 , you better give me five more divisions because im going to need them. Were not going to be able to resolve conflicts in a peaceful way. And also of course we have domestic needs that are very important as well. Were still waiting on the infrastructure package from the administration. There are a lot of needs not being met and we are not yet voting to bust the budget caps. Here we have a bill that does that, but this house has to step up and take that vote if this defense authorizing bill is going to go forward. Second and final point, we still dont have a National Security strategy from the white house. Now we have a complex threat environment, as i said more often than i meant to in the course of the last few minutes. We do. Weve got russia, china, north korea, iran, a variety of terrorist threats. What weve heard in our committee from the last six months is a series of people from the pentagon coming over and saying the house is on fire. We dont have enough money to do, fill in the blank. A lot of different things. What we havent heard is a strategy. The most disturbing conversation i had in that regard was with someone from the office of net assessment, i yelled myself an additional minute. The chair the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Smith who explained, we laid out a strategy in 2012 and we do not have the money to fund that strategy right now. I asked him, how short are you . How much more money do you need . He looked at me like i didnt understand what i was asking, so i sort of explained it. He didnt know. How could he not know . If you could sit there confidently and say, my gosh werg dont have enough money, were way crazy short, of our 2012 strategy and you cant say how short you dont have a strategy. We need a strategy to make sure the money is spent wisely. Ill complose with a compliment of the chairman for something we have he has done. We should not assume that simply spending more money at the department of defense is necessarily going to make us safer. We have to make sure we spend it efficiently and effectively. I think this bill has a lot of very solid effort to try to make us do that toward acquisition reform, toward spending the money more wisely. So its not just a matter of spend manager money. Weve got to spend it smarter and confront the lack of strategy and weve to the government to confront the fact that we still have not resolved our budget resolution problem. With that, i reserve the balance of my time. The chair the gentleman reserves. The gentleman from texas is recognized. Mr. Im pleased to yield two minutes to the chairman of the subcommittee on readiness, mr. Wilson of south carolina. The chair the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Wilson thank you, mr. Chairman. I appreciate the House Armed Services committee, chairman mambings c thornberry, for his etermined narme Mac Thornberry for his determined work on this i want to thank my colleague and ranking subcommittee subcommittee Ranking Member congresswoman bordallo of guam for her tireless efforts in this process and thank the member os they have House Armed Services committee on both sides of the aisle for bipartisan input for this bill. The creation of the 2018 National Defense authorization act truly was bipartisan. Mr. Chairman, over the past several months, we have heard testimony from every military Service Branch about the urgent eed to address the readiness shortfalls. Their actions were sobering. Here today we have the responsibility of reducing the risk to our Service Members by making sure they are well trained, supported, and that the equipment they use is properly maintained and combat ready. There are numerous important readiness provisions in the authorization, including adding over 2 billion to longneglected facility sustainment and modernization accounts. Gives the department of defense more sponsible a efficient use of d. O. D. Resources, extends multiple temporary hiring authorities to allow the department of defense to fill critical manpower gaps in particular in our Defense Industrial base, our depots, arsenals and shipyards. None of the readiness provisions are arbitrary. They are specifically targeted to stop and as much as possible reverse the decline of of the readiness of our armed forces to so we can continue to combat around the world. I strongly support this and encourage my colleagues in the house to support it as well. I yield back. The chair the gentleman from texas reserves. The gentleman from washington is recognized. I yield three minutes to the gentlelady from massachusetts, ms. Tsongas. The chair the gentleman is the gentlelady is recognized. Ms. Tsongas thank you, Ranking Member smith. Two years ago we brought this to the house floor with broad bipartisan support and id like to thank chairman thornberry and Ranking Member smith for their work in developing this years bill. Id also like to thank congressman mike turner, chairman of the tactical air and Land Forces Subcommittee of which i am the Ranking Member for his leadership and spirit of bipartisanship this year. This years bill includes investments to fill genuine readiness needs and funding that is critical to ensuring our men and women in uniform have the best cutting edge resources and best equipment possible to keep them safe when defending our nation. I was encouraged that the bill we passed out of committee directs the Defense Department to provide specific updates and reports on a number of programs and platforms so that we can robustly conduct our oversight responsibility on behalf of the american people. However, as we consider the bill on the floor today and in the coming days, i remain concerned about how we fund these needs. Substantial budget increases for the department of defense at the expense of other Vital National programs undermines investments in our National Competitiveness and the future of our country. And i believe makes us less secure over the longterm. Providing our men and women in uniform with the resources they need to carry out their mission is one of our most solemn obligation bus we must also fund these resources responsibly in order to safeguard our Economic Vitality and our National Security. Thank you, mr. Speaker, and i yield back. The chair the gentleman from washington reserves. The gentleman from texas is recognized. Mr. Thornberry im pleased to yield two minutes to the chair of the subcommittee on tactical forces, mr. Turner. The chair the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Turner i rise in strong support of h. R. 2810, the National Defense authorization act for fiscal year 2018. I have the privilege of serving as the chairman of the tactical air and Land Forces Subcommittee and i want to thank my subcommittees Ranking Member, ms. Niki tsongas, for her support in the n completing the markup of the bill and the bipartisan work weve done together on the issue of Sexual Assault in the military. I appreciate her leadership in that. I stongly support this bill and cant emphasize enough chairman thornberrys steadfast leadership in raising the top line in this bill. This bill recommends 631 bill