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Floor Speech

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Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise to express my support for the fiscal year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act. I am pleased, as we all are, that we will be voting soon on passage.

I would like to thank Ranking Member Inhofe for his leadership and his thoughtfulness on this bill. He has been an excellent partner throughout this whole process.

Our Nation faces an enormous range of security challenges, and it is more important than ever that we provide our military men and women with the support they need to keep Americans safe.

To that end, this bill makes great progress. It addresses a broad range of pressing issues, from strategic competition with China and Russia, to disruptive technologies like hypersonics, AI, and quantum computing, to modernizing our ships, aircraft, and vehicles. It provides our servicemembers with the resources and support they need to defend our Nation, while at the same taking care of their families.

Importantly, this bill authorizes a well-deserved 2.7-percent pay raise for both military members and the DOD civilian workforce. It also increases parental leave to 12 weeks for all servicemembers and creates a new 2-week bereavement leave benefit for both military and Federal civilian employees.

I want to especially note that this bill includes historic, sweeping reforms to the Uniform Code of Military Justice and how the military investigates and prosecutes sexual assault and other offenses, including murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, and many other crimes. Just as my Senate colleagues, the President's Independent Review Commission, and survivors advocate groups have called for, this bill takes prosecutorial power away from the chain of command for these cases. Our bill creates ``special trial counsel,'' highly specialized prosecutors who will have exclusive, binding, and final decision-making authority over whether to prosecute these offenses. This is a sea change for the military justice system, and I am grateful to my colleagues in both Chambers and on both sides of the aisle for working together to achieve this historic reform for the well-being of our military women and men.

Indeed, we listened to survivors, advocates, and experts because we owe it to our servicemembers to get this policy right. The world is as dangerous and complex as it has ever been. We depend on the military to answer the call in these challenging times, and we owe it to them to ensure the policies we enact on this matter and others preserves this Nation's military power and cohesion. I respect those who might see this matter differently, but this bill makes our country and our troops more secure because we listened to advocates and experts to reach a compromise with the House of Representatives.

This year's defense bill also makes excellent progress toward meeting the challenges of long-term strategic competition with China and Russia. It invests in the people, platforms, infrastructure, and game- changing technologies that will define the future. It extends and modifies the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, or PDI, and reiterates the Senate's intent to improve our force posture in the Indo-Pacific, increase readiness and presence, and build the capabilities of our partners and allies to counter the increasing aggression of China.

Similarly, this year's bill authorizes the continuation of the European Deterrence Initiative, or EDI, in recognition of the vital need to support our allies and partners in Europe as we work toward the shared goals of deterring Russian aggression, addressing strategic competition, and mitigating shared security concerns.

With respect to our services, we have taken steps to improve their capabilities and their ability to fight and win. Across the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Space Force, this bill makes significant efforts to improve the readiness of our aircraft, ships, vehicles, missiles, and weapons systems. It authorizes significant increases in military construction projects, modernizing our nuclear triad and missile defense systems, and investing in cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, microelectronics, advanced materials, 5G, and biotechnology.

And with regard to our withdrawal from Afghanistan, we must capture the lessons of the last two decades to ensure that our future counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan and elsewhere continue to hold violent extremists at bay. To that end, I am pleased that this bill includes the Afghanistan War Commission Act, an amendment spearheaded by Senator Duckworth.

This bill was originally crafted by the Armed Services Committee after a series of thoughtful hearings, discussions, and debates on both sides of the aisle. Through the committee markup process, we considered more than 300 amendments and ultimately adopted 143 amendments. Senator Inhofe and I introduced this bill to the full Senate with the intent of adding more amendments on the floor. Although we were not able to come to an agreement to debate and vote on several amendments on the floor, we were ultimately able to adopt amendments from Senators on both sides of the aisle in the final legislation.

Over the past several weeks, the Senate and House Armed Services Committees have worked around the clock to come to an agreement on this final version of this bill. I am proud of the improvements we made throughout this process, and I was pleased to see the House vote last week in an overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion, 363 to 70, to pass the bill. We have produced a strong NDAA that both parties and both chambers can support, and the President will be able to sign.

I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the phenomenal staff who have made this bill possible. I want to specifically recognize the director for the Democratic staff, Elizabeth King, and the director for the Republican staff, John Wason. They have led their staffs and collaborated admirably with bipartisanship, diligence, and utmost professionalism.

I would also like to thank members of the Armed Services Committee staff: Jody Bennett, Carolyn Chuhta, Jon Clark, Jenny Davis, Jonathan Epstein, Jorie Feldman, Creighton Greene, Gary Leeling, Kirk McConnell, Maggie McNamara Cooper, Bill Monahan, Mike Noblet, John Quirk, Andy Scott, Arun Seraphin, Cole Stevens, Soleil Sykes, Keri Lyn Michalke, Hailey Becker, Patrick Shilo, Alison Warner, Leah Brewer, Debbie Chiarello, Joe Gallo, Leslie Ashton, Cami Pease, Brittany Amador, Griffin Cannon, Nate Green, Brandon Kasprick, Sofia Kamali, Tom Maggiacomo, and, once again, staff director Elizabeth King.

From my personal office, I would like to thank Neil Campbell and Elyse Wasch.

Also, let me thank the floor staff and the leadership staff. Gary Myrick, Tricia Engle, Dan Tinsley, Brad Watt, Stephanie Paone, Nate Oursler, Rachel Jackson, and Liza Patterson. You have been part of this process for the last several weeks, and you have done a remarkable job. We thank you for that very, very much.

I would like to thank Senator Inhofe again for his partnership throughout this process, and I would thank Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Rogers from the House Armed Services Committee for their collaboration as well.

Finally, I urge all of my colleagues to vote for this excellent bill.

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Mr. REED. Mr. President, the yeas and nays are requested.

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