DOD Funding Amendment

Floor Speech

Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, I rise to express my deep concern that the Senate has yet to consider the Defense appropriations bill for fiscal year 2011.

As the Presiding Officer is well aware, we should have completed work on this bill and every other appropriations bill before October 1 of last year. But with the Department of Defense, this is becoming increasingly problematic. For this reason, along with two members of the Republican leadership, Senator Alexander and Senator Barrasso, I have filed an amendment to the patent reform bill that would fund the Department of Defense for the remainder of this fiscal year.

Just think what we have done the last 3 weeks. We took up an FAA reauthorization bill. Then we went on recess for a week. And now we are on a patent reform bill. I don't mean to suggest that FAA and patent reform are not important--certainly we could have gone without having a recess--but both of those bills pale in comparison to the urgency of providing our service men and women with the resources they need to carry out their mission.

Secretary Gates, Admiral Mullen, and other military leaders have repeatedly and clearly warned us about the dangers of failing to pass a full-year Defense funding bill. It is hurting our national security and harming our readiness. Secretary Gates' put it bluntly, saying: ``The continuing resolution represents a crisis at our doorstep.'' Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn testified that ``a year-long CR will damage national security.''

At no time in recent memory has Congress failed to pass a Defense appropriations bill. Even when there was a year-long continuing resolution for most of the government during fiscal year 2007, the Congress passed a separate bill funding the Department of Defense. With troops in harm's way, now is not the time to break with that precedent.

If we do not provide the authority for the Air Force to buy unmanned aerial vehicles to fly combat air patrols over Afghanistan, the fighting there will not be halted until we do so. If we do not act to provide the $150 million that has been requested to meet the very specific and urgent requirements of our special forces, we will be failing those who are truly on the frontlines.

Secretary Gates has made it clear, military readiness will suffer because of fewer flying hours for our pilots, fewer steaming days for our ships, and cutbacks in training for home-stationed forces.

A full year's CR will also delay much needed modernization of our military equipment. This would come at a time when our Navy is at its smallest size since 1916 and at a time when the aircraft and our Air Force inventory are older than at any time since the Air Force was created. The Navy will not be able to procure a second Virginia class submarine nor a DDG-51 destroyer needed to keep costs down and to achieve the minimum size fleet--313 ships--that the Navy has stated is the absolute minimum.

Operating under a full-year's CR also means that the taxpayers are going to end up paying more for less. The Navy would likely have to renegotiate some of its procurements. The Army has already shut down work on the Stryker Mobile Gun System that will likely incur additional costs to restart.

It is also important to recognize that at a time when the American public is most concerned about jobs and the economy, the Defense appropriations bill provides funds that are the source of thousands of jobs in the United States--jobs that will be lost or at least deferred.

The Secretary of the Navy has said that the combined effects of failing to fund the Defense Department will directly affect the strength of the industrial base and that more than 10,000 private sector jobs at shipyards, factories, and Navy and Marine Corps facilities across the country will be jeopardized.

I could go on and on listing the ways our service members and our DOD civilian workforce and the private sector contractors will be affected by our failure to act. There is simply no excuse for this Senate not to have acted last year on a Defense appropriations bill. Surely, we should turn our attention to focusing on the needs of our military immediately, and we should heed the warning of Secretary Gates, who said:

That is how you hollow out a military--when your best people, your veterans of multiple combat deployments, become frustrated and demoralized and, as a result, begin leaving military service.

Let's do what is most important and let's do it now. Let's pass the Defense appropriations bill.

I wish to thank the ranking member of the Budget Committee, Senator Sessions, for yielding me time.

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