National Defense Authorization Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the Senate recently voted to move forward on the National Defense Authorization Act, NDAA, the annual defense policy bill. The Senate took this procedural step by what is known as a voice vote, a process that does not record the final vote tally or how each Senator specifically voted, but a voice vote is not a sign of unanimous support for a measure, and I am submitting this statement to mark my opposition to this year's NDAA and to this process.

When the Senate debated and passed this bill for the first time, earlier this year, I voted no. I said at the time that I could not go along with a Republican plan to greenlight $740 billion in military spending while providing almost nothing to help Americans impacted by this unprecedented global pandemic.

I said that I could not vote for a defense bill with Federal agents actively occupying Portland and treating peaceful protestors like foreign enemies. Donald Trump ordered these occupiers into my hometown, uninvited, to crack down on Oregonians peacefully demanding an end to systemic racism.

Senator Merkley and I introduced an amendment to the NDAA that would have required Donald Trump to remove these unwanted forces from our State. The Senate majority blocked our amendment and told us that we were making things up while Trump's goons were shooting protestors with tear gas, rubber bullets, and other crowd control munitions.

I want to be clear that I support plenty of provisions in this NDAA and wrote or negotiated some of the language to improve the bill, but I must oppose the NDAA due to its flaws and its timing, in light of the lack of help for everyday Americans suffering from the economic downfall brought about by Donald Trump's inept response to a global pandemic. For this reason, I have no choice but to oppose.

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