John McCain

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. I thank my colleague from Indiana for his outstanding work on a very difficult issue that poses a threat to every American and citizens throughout the world. I yield the floor.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, what is the parliamentary situation?

Mr. McCAIN. Twenty-two minutes on the majority side.

Mr. McCAIN. I ask unanimous consent that such time as the Senator from Rhode Island may need to conclude the debate be in order and I have 10 minutes in order before the vote.

Mr. McCAIN. We have Senator Sessions as well. Well, let me suggest the absence of a quorum first, and then we will work it out. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following Senators be permitted to speak before the vote: Senator Durbin for 8 minutes, Senator Sessions for 8 minutes, Senator McCain for 7 minutes, and Senator Reed for 7 minutes.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from Alabama for his very important remarks. I rise to oppose this amendment. I do so with the great respect that I have for my friend and colleague, the ranking member. The Senator from Rhode Island and I have worked together very closely on every aspect of this legislation. We agree on the overwhelming majority of its provisions. As I have said before, this legislation is better because of the good work and cooperation that I have enjoyed with my friend from Rhode Island. I respect his knowledge of and experience on national defense issues, and I agree that we must fix sequestration. I also agree with him that our national security does not depend solely on the Department of Defense. But unfortunately, I disagree with my friend on the amendment before us. Since the Budget Control Act became law, threats to this country have only increased and increased dramatically. Today, the United States faces the most diverse and complex array of crises around the world since the end of World War II. In the face of these global challenges, this amendment would prevent the Department from using $38 billion of vital budget authority through overseas contingency operations, known as OCO. Despite the claims that OCO is a slush fund, the entirety of the OCO budget goes towards real defense requirements. With this budget authority, we are supporting our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, operations against ISIL, and broader counterterrorism efforts. The Armed Services Committee has also funded a portion of operation and maintenance activities in OCO. These activities are directly tied to supporting our operating forces. They pay for training, transportation, fuel, and maintenance of our combat equipment. These budgetary lines pay for the readiness of our Active Forces and directly support our ongoing military operations. It would be a disaster if this $38 billion is removed from what we are trying to achieve in this legislation. That is why it is not surprising the President himself has requested OCO funding for the exact same activities. The NDAA funded $38 billion of operation and maintenance with OCO money because the President had requested OCO funding for these activities already. They were the most closely linked to the government's growing number of overseas contingencies in which we are engaged. To reiterate, I agree with Senator Reed that we must absolutely fix the Budget Control Act. Finding a bipartisan solution to do so remains my top priority. But in absence of such an agreement, I refuse to hold funding for the military hostage, leaving defense at sequestration levels of spending that every single military service chief has testified would put more American lives at risk of those serving in the Armed Forces of the United States. We cannot do that. We cannot add greater danger to the lives of the men and women who are serving in the military. This amendment would do that. The NDAA is a policy bill. It cannot solve the Budget Control Act. It deals only with defense issues. It does not spend a dollar. It provides the Department of Defense and our men and women in uniform with the authorities and support they need to defend the Nation. The NDAA is a reform bill--a reform bill, my friends--that will enable our military to rise to the challenge of a more dangerous world. It tackles acquisition reform, military retirement reform, personnel reform, even commissary reform, and headquarters and management reform. The list goes on and on. The Armed Services Committee identified $10 billion of excess and unnecessary spending from the President's defense budget request, and we are reinvesting it in military capabilities for our warfighters and reforms that can yield long-term savings for the Department of Defense. We did all of this while upholding our commitments to our servicemembers, retirees, and their families. Members of the Armed Services Committee understand the need to fix the Budget Control Act. That is why we included a provision in the bill that would authorize the transfer of the additional $38 billion from OCO to the base budget in the event that legislation is enacted that increases the budget caps on discretionary defense and nondefense spending in proportionately equal amounts. This was the product of a bipartisan compromise, and it was the most we could responsibly do in the committee to recognize the need for a broader fiscal agreement without denying funding for our military. Every one of us has a constitutional duty to provide for the common defense, and as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, that is my highest responsibility. Funding our national defense with OCO is not ideal, but it is far better than the alternative, which is to deny the men and women in uniform the $38 billion they desperately need now. The President requested $38 billion, and our military leaders have said they cannot succeed without that $38 billion. Regrettably, that is what this amendment would do, and I oppose it. I yield the floor.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be temporarily set aside so that Senator Feinstein may offer amendment No. 1889 and that amendment No. 1889 be set aside so that Senator Fischer may offer amendment No. 1825.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, the ranking member and I have a small package of amendments that have been cleared by both sides. I ask unanimous consent that the following amendments be called up and agreed to en bloc: No. 1485, Hoeven; No. 1510, Heller; No. 1520, Rounds; No. 1538, Wicker; No. 1579, Ernst; No. 1622, Moran; No. 1791, Rubio; No. 1677, Udall; No. 1701, Wyden; No. 1733, Stabenow; No. 1739, McCaskill; No. 1744, Feinstein; No. 1781, Heitkamp; and No. 1796, Cardin.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I defer to my colleague from North Carolina.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, as we consider the amendment by the Senator from Rhode Island, I would like to again remind my colleagues that the world is in turmoil. The world has never seen greater crises since the end of World War II, according to people as well respected as Dr. Kissinger. I repeat my assertion that OCO was not the right or best way to do business. The worst way to do business is to have an authorization that will eliminate our ability to defend this Nation and the men and women who serve it. I urge my colleagues to read in this weekend's New York Times ``The Global Struggle to Respond to the Worst Refugee Crisis in Generations.'' Eleven million people were uprooted by violence last year, most propelled by conflict in Syria, Iraq, Ukraine and Afghanistan. Conflict and extreme poverty have also pushed tens of thousands out of parts of sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. . . . the worst migration crisis since World War II, according to the United Nations. That is what is going on in the world, and we are worried about how we are going to defend the Nation with priorities that are dramatically strewed and unfair. ``Islamic State attacks government office on western fringe of Baghdad.'' That was yesterday. Three militants disguised in military uniform killed at least eight people in a local government office in Amiriyat al-Falluja in western Iraq on Tuesday, in an attack claimed by Islamic State. ``The U.S. Army's main Web site is down--and the Syrian Electronic Army is claiming credit.'' The Syrian Electronic Army hacked the official Web site for the U.S. Army, a Twitter account apparently associated with the hacktivist group claimed Monday. The site was down in the afternoon, while screenshots posted on the social network by the group purported to show messages of support for beleaguered Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on the site earlier in the day. That was from the Washington Post, June 8 at 4:53 p.m. The World: ``Islamic State seizes power plant near Libyan city of Sirte.'' Islamic State militants have seized a power plant west of the Libyan city of Sirte which supplies central and western parts of the country with electricity, the group and a military source said on Tuesday. ``The plant . . . was taken,'' Islamic State said in a message on social media, adding that the capture of the plant meant that the militants had driven their enemies out of the entire city. Libya descending into chaos and ISIS extending its influence. The Washington Post, June 6: ``Libyan gains may offer ISIS a base for new attacks.'' Misurata, Libya--As the Islamic State scores new victories in Syria and Iraq, its affiliate in Libya is also on the offensive, consolidating control of Moammar Gaddafi's former home town and staging a bomb attack on a major city, Misurata. The Islamic State's growth could further destabilize a country already suffering from a devastating civil war. And Libya could offer the extremists a new base from which to launch attacks elsewhere in North America. That was from the Washington Post. FOX News, June 9: ``ISIS captures 88 Eritrean Christians in Libya, US official confirms.'' The ISIS terror group kidnapped 88 Eritrean Christians from a people-smugglers' caravan in Libya last week, a U.S. defense official confirmed Monday. The Washington Post: ``What is at stake in Ukraine if Russia continues its onslaught.'' Ukraine is fighting a war on two fronts. The one you see on television is taking place in the east of our country, where thousands of Russian troops are engaged in an armed aggression against Ukraine's territorial integrity, including the illegal annexation of Crimea. This is a piece that is important, by the Prime Minister of Ukraine, Arseniy Yatsenyuk. The Wall Street Journal: ``President Obama admits his anti-ISIS strategy isn't `complete.' '' President Obama doesn't give many press conferences at home, so sometimes his most revealing media moments come when he's button-holed abroad. Witness his answer Monday in Austria to a question about Iraq. Mr. Obama offered a startling explanation for why the war against Islamic State isn't going so well: His strategy still isn't up and running. ``We don't yet have a complete strategy because it requires commitments on the part of the Iraqis, as well, about how recruitment takes place, how that training takes place. And so the details of that are not yet worked out,'' Mr. Obama said. We still do not have a strategy to try to counter the Islamic State or ISIS. The quote continues: Wow. Islamic State, or ISIS, took control of Mosul a year ago, and it beheaded two Americans for all the world to see last summer. Mr. Obama announced his anti-ISIS strategy in a September speech, promising to ``degrade'' and ``destroy'' the self-styled caliphate. Nine months later here we are: ISIS has overrun Ramadi, a gateway to Baghdad, the grand alliance that Mr. Obama promised barely exists, the Kurds in the north are fretting publicly about the lack of weapons to forestall a major ISIS assault, the U.S. bombing campaign is hesitant, and now Mr. Obama tells us the training of Iraqis is barely under way. I will skip through some of these because I know my colleagues are waiting to speak. The Associated Press: ``Activists: Syrian air raids kill 49 in northwestern village.'' Government airstrikes on a northwestern Syrian village Monday killed at least 49 people and left survivors screaming in anguish as they pulled bodies from the rubble, according to activists and videos of the chaotic aftermath. The Local Coordination Committees said two air raids on the village of Janoudiyeh in Idlib province killed 60 people and wounded others. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the air raid killed 49 people, including six children. It said the death toll could rise as some people are still missing. The Associated Press June 6 headline: ``Houthi rebels fire Scud missile from Yemen into Saudi Arabia.'' BloombergView, by Eli Lake: ``Iran Spends Billions to Prop Up Assad.'' Iran is spending billions of dollars a year to prop up the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, according to the U.N.'s envoy to Syria and other outside experts. These estimates are far higher than what the Barack Obama administration, busy negotiating a nuclear deal with the Tehran government, has implied Iran spends on its policy to destabilize the Middle East. By the way, I will add to that, Iranians are basically even taking over Cabinet positions in the Bashar al-Assad government. This is a report dated June 5: ``Report: China Dispatching Surveillance Vessels Off Hawaii.'' China has begun dispatching surveillance vessels off the coast of Hawaii in response to the Navy's monitoring activities of disputed islands in the South China Sea. . . . The purported surveillance comes on the heels of raised tensions between China and the United States late last month. . . . This from the June 7 edition of the Financial Times: ``US struggles for strategy to contain China's island-building.'' China's efforts to dredge new land on remote coral atolls in the South China Sea have left the US struggling to come up with a response. For Washington, Chinese land-creation has helped make allies of former adversaries now fearful of military domination by an assertive China. The latest example was the trip to Vietnam last week by Ashton Carter, US defence secretary, who pledged US patrol craft to the Vietnamese navy. But there is a limit to how far countries in the region are willing to present a united front to China, which has reclaimed 2,000 acres of land in the past 18 months, far outstripping all other claimants combined, according to Mr. Carter. The Obama administration is also unsure about how strongly it should push back against what US officials see as a long-term Chinese plan to control the region's waters. Finally, this is an article that is in Politico today: Actually, the United States does have a strategy to fight the Islamic State, a State Department spokesman says. ``The president was referring yesterday to a specific plan to improve the training and equipping of Iraqi security forces, and the Pentagon is working on that plan right now. But absolutely, we have a strategy,'' Kirby said Tuesday on MSNBC's ``Morning Joe.'' I would be overjoyed to have a complete strategy and that plan presented to Congress and the American people. It would be a wonderful event. The fact is they have no strategy or policy and the world is on fire, and here we are trying to pass an amendment which would deprive the men and women who are serving the means and wherewithal to defend this Nation. I hope my colleagues will strongly reject the amendment that will be pending before this body. I yield the floor.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m., Tuesday, June 9; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that following leader remarks, the Senate be in a period of morning business for 1 hour, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, and that the time be equally divided, with the majority controlling the first half and the Democrats controlling the final half; further, that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of H.R. 1735; finally, that the Senate recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly conference meetings.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned, following the remarks of Senator Blumenthal, who I am told will appear shortly.

Mr. McCAIN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 1569 for Senator Burr.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I note with some interest over the weekend in the New York Times that ``Russia Wields Aid and Ideology Against West to Fight Sanctions.'' On the front page of the New York Times: The war in Ukraine that has pitted Russia against the West is being waged not just with tanks, artillery and troops. Increasingly, Moscow has brought to bear different kinds of weapons, according to American and European officials: Money, ideology, and disinformation. Yesterday and today in the Wall Street Journal: ``Iraqis Call for a Deeper Overhaul of Army.'' Also: ``Mistrust of military leadership among troops is widespread in crisis of confidence.'' Right below that: ``Airstrikes Kill Dozens as Fighting in Yemen Intensifies.'' The reporting of a world in turmoil, as described by my friend Lindsey Graham as on fire, continues. To top it all off, today, speaking to reporters at the G7 summit in Germany, President Obama said: ``We don't yet have a complete strategy about how to combat ISIS.'' I would remind my colleagues that on August 28, 2014, nearly a year ago, President Obama stated: ``We don't have a strategy yet to fight ISIS in Iraq and in Syria.'' My friends, nearly a year after the President said we don't have a strategy yet to fight ISIS in Iraq and in Syria, he said again: We don't yet have a complete strategy about how to combat ISIS. I would like to see the incomplete strategy. I would like to see something. I would not like to see continue that 75 percent of the combat missions that are flown in Iraq and Syria return to base without firing a weapon because we don't have forward air controllers on the ground. When is this administration going to figure out that if we want to destroy the enemy, we have to be able to identify the enemy, and that requires forward air controllers on the ground and that means U.S. troops. I know that whenever I and some others say we need additional U.S. troops, people recoil and say, Oh, no, here we go again. Well, what is going on now is ISIS is succeeding. Bashar Assad is hanging on. Iran is on the move. They now dominate four countries: Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon. And the President of the United States says we don't yet have a complete strategy. Well, the Pentagon is a pretty big place. There are hundreds of people who work for the National Security Advisor, and somehow, nearly a year later, we don't yet have a strategy? Wow. ISIS goes from house to house in Ramadi with lists of names and they execute people and they kill 3-year-old children and they burn their bodies in the streets. And the atrocities in Syria continue as Bashar Assad barrel-bombs innocent men, women, and children--barrel bombs, by the way, supplied by Iran and Russia--and we don't yet have a ``complete strategy.'' Well, I have never seen the world in more crises, nor has Henry Kissinger, nor have most other longtime observers of our Nation and the world. I urge my colleagues to take a look at a map of the Middle East from January of 2009, when President Obama was sworn in as President of the United States, and look at that same map today and color in where there is ISIS, where there is Iranian domination, where there is conflict, and where there is a complete lack, except in the State of Israel, of democratization or the kinds of freedoms the United States of America stands for. All I can say is one has to wonder whether this President just wants to wait out the next year and a half and basically do nothing to stop this genocide, blood-letting, and the horrible things that are happening throughout the Middle East, where, in the view of the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Director of the CIA, they say, as far as ISIS is concerned, they pose a threat to the security of the United States. Why do they say that? Obviously, because these thousands of young men who have gone to Syria and Iraq and are being radicalized and trained are going to go back to where they came from. Everybody knows that. On the day Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, left our Camp Bucca--where he spent 4 years along with about 25,000 others--he said to the Americans: We will see you in New York. Mr. Baghdadi is not known for his sense of humor. What we are trying to do in this legislation that is before the Senate is to provide the means, the training, the equipment, the care for the men and women, and the much needed reforms that I have been over and will continue to go over, whether it be in retirement, whether it be in acquisition, whether it be in a number of other areas of the Department of Defense and the way we defend this Nation. That is, in my view, long, long overdue. Now we see the President of the United States threatening to veto this legislation, if it gets through the House and the Senate, over the issue of OCO. That, as my colleagues know, is overseas contingency operations, which began with the conflicts in Afghanistan and in Iraq as a means of providing additional funds to pay for and fund the operations in those countries as the name implies-- overseas contingency operations. I have opposed sequestration. I think it is a terrible thing to inflict on the men and women who are serving in the military, much less on our national security. I agree with our uniformed leaders, every one of whom has testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that if we continue sequestration, it puts the lives of the men and women who are serving in the military at greater risk. I don't know of a greater obligation that we have than to prevent putting the lives of the young men and women who have volunteered to serve this country at greater risk. But that has been lost on my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. So now we have the OCO, and it funds the defense of this country at the levels the President requested. I don't like it. I don't like it because it can only give them 1 year of planning. What the military really needs is to be able to plan for at least 5 years ahead of time. We can't build new weapons and new ships and new airplanes on a year- to-year basis. But it is better than the sequestration, which, as I said, increases the threat to this Nation's security. Last week, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy threatening to veto this national security legislation. The threat hardly comes as a surprise. After all, the President has threatened to veto, for some reason or another, every Defense authorization bill since 2011. The White House's compilation of complaints is long, but it is woefully short on substance. The Statement of Administration Policy makes clear that the true basis for the administration's veto threat has nothing to do with defense. Objecting to the use of $38 billion in overseas contingency operation funds--or OCO--to meet the President's request of $612 billion, the statement said the President ``will not fix defense without fixing nondefense spending.'' It is incomprehensible that as America confronts the most diverse and complex array of crises around the world since the end of World War II, that a President of the United States, who has not yet been able to come up with a ``complete strategy'' for the challenges we face, would veto funding for our military to prove a political point. The threats we confront today are far more serious than they were a year ago and significantly more so since the Congress passed the Budget Control Act in 2011. That legislation arbitrarily capped defense spending and established the mindless mechanism of sequestration which was triggered in 2013. As a result, with worldwide threats rising, we as a nation are on a course to cut nearly $1 trillion of defense spending over 10 years. Every single military and national security leader who has testified before the Armed Services Committee this year has denounced sequestration and urged its repeal as soon as possible. This legislation doesn't end sequestration, unfortunately. Believe me, our committee would have done so if the NDAA were capable of it, but it is not. The NDAA is a policy bill. This legislation is a policy bill. It is the appropriators who deal with the money. It only deals with defense issues, and it doesn't spend a dollar. It provides the Department of Defense and the men and women in uniform with the authorities and support they need to defend the Nation. It fully supports President Obama's budget request of $612 billion for national defense, which is $38 billion above the spending caps established by the Budget Control Act. Let me repeat that. The legislation gives the President every dollar of budget authority he requested. The difference is that this legislation follows the Senate budget resolution, which was voted on time after time all night long and was agreed to by both Houses of Congress. It is the Senate budget resolution. Now, this is not my preferred option, as I said. That is why the committee included a special transfer authority in this legislation that allows the Department of Defense to transfer the additional $38 billion from OCO to the base budget in the event legislation is enacted that increases the statutory limits on discretionary defense and nondefense spending in proportionately equal amounts. This was the product of a bipartisan compromise, and it was the most we could do in the Defense authorization bill to recognize the need for a broader physical agreement without denying funding for our military right now. Here on the floor we have heard a number of misconceptions about OCO funding, many of which have been fed by this administration's rhetoric. While OCO is not the ideal way to budget our defense, technical and budgetary consequences to using OCO funding have been greatly exaggerated. OCO is authorized and appropriated on an annual basis, just like base funding. OCO funding is allocated to the same DOD accounts as base funding. In fact, the Defense bill purposely placed the additional $38 billion of OCO funding in the same accounts and activities for which the President himself requested the money. These activities have historically had a large share of OCO funding, and the account has been designated by the President as OCO eligible in the past, and there are no laws that make OCO funding expire any differently than base funding. The White House threat to veto this legislation and the desire for increases in nondefense spending are misguided and irresponsible. With global threats rising, it simply makes no sense to oppose a defense policy bill--legislation that spends no money but is full of vital authorities that our troops need--for a reason that has nothing to do with national defense spending. The NDAA should not be treated as a hostage in budget negotiation. The political reality is that the Budget Control Act, which the President signed, remains the law of the land. So faced with a choice between OCO money and no money, I choose OCO, and multiple senior military leaders testified before the Armed Services Committee this year that they would make the same choice for one simple reason: This is $38 billion of real money that our military desperately needs and without which our top military leaders have said they cannot succeed. The bottom line is this. The NDAA authorized $612 billion for national defense. This is the amount requested by the President and justified by his own national security strategy. If the President and some of my colleagues oppose the Defense bill due to concerns over nondefense spending, I suspect they will have a very difficult time explaining and justifying that choice to Americans who increasingly cite national security as a top concern. The Statement of Administration Policy raises specious concerns with the sweeping defense acquisition reforms in the NDAA. For example, the White House asserted that transferring some acquisition authority back to the services is somehow inconsistent with the Secretary of Defense's exercise of authority, direction, and control over all of the Department of Defense's programs and activities. I could not disagree more with that assertion. What this legislation does is merely switch who does what in certain circumstances from different people who all directly report and serve under the authority, direction, and control of the Secretary of Defense. In this legislation, for a limited number of programs to start with, the Secretary of Defense will look to the service Secretaries directly for management of these acquisition programs rather than looking to the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, or AT&L. This is not usurpation of the Secretary of Defense's power. It is called streamlining of authorities and reducing layers of unnecessary bureaucracy. There is a section in the legislation that would allow the Secretary of Defense to continue to rely on more layers of management, if he chooses, but only if he certifies to Congress that this makes sense. There simply is not any undermining of the Secretary of Defense's authority in here. Another concern raised has been that the transfer of milestone decision authority to the services would reduce the Secretary of Defense's ability--through AT&L--to guard against unwarranted optimism in program planning and budget formulation. Unwarranted optimism is indeed a plague on acquisition, and there is not a monopoly of that in the services. Nothing in this bill overrides a requirement to use better cost estimates from the Office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation. In fact, new incentives and real penalties imposed on the services in this legislation are designed to put some of this optimism in check. Some in the White House and the Department of Defense want to perpetuate the absurd fiction that the current system is working. Even after a wave of 25 program cancellations by former Secretary Gates, all of the programs that are left under AT&L management have over $200 billion in cost overruns. I want to repeat that. Under the supervision of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, there are programs that have over $200 billion in cost overruns. AT&L is trying to have it both ways, claiming credit for the improvements in the acquisition system while blaming the services for its long list of failures. This is exactly the program this legislation is trying to address, blurred lines of accountability inside the Defense Acquisition System that allow its leaders to evade responsibility for results. The reality is that in the modern world the AT&L management process takes too long and costs too much. For example, an Army study looked at the time it would take to go through all of the AT&L reviews and buy nothing. I repeat: To go through all those reviews and buy nothing. What was the answer? Ten years--10 years to buy nothing. The Government Accountability Office looked at the much vaunted milestone reviews that the Office of the Secretary of Defense is touting as a success. Just one review takes on average 2 years. A similar review at the Missile Defense Agency takes about 3 months. Our adversaries are not shuffling paper. They are building weapons systems. It is time for us to do the same. I find it disappointing or maybe just outright laughable that the Statement of Administration Policy expressed concern about the Armed Services Committee's decision to downsize and streamline the bureaucratic overhead of the Pentagon, while at the same time complaining that we are not letting them downsize the fighting forces. Let me repeat. The administration wants to keep more Pentagon bureaucrats while drawing down our forces and cutting military equipment such as fighter aircraft. Is there any Member of this Chamber who believes we should increase the Army staff by 60 percent over a decade, and then turn around and slash our Army brigade combat teams from 45 to 32? Of course not. The administration cites reductions already taking place in headquarters activities, but ignores the fact that the Air Force is trying to achieve those reductions by playing a shell game--creating two new organizations and shifting people around. Moving the deck chairs on the Titanic didn't keep the ship from sinking, and shifting people around in a game of ``hide the headquarters staff'' will not keep our national security from sinking under the weight of bureaucratic empires. As the White House asks the Senate to preserve bloated staffs, the Statement of Administration Policy laments the Committee's effort to address dangerous strike fighter capacity shortfalls across the services. As deliveries of the F-35 have continued to fall short of projections, the Air Force has continued to drain combat power. Senior Air Force officials have repeatedly testified to the alarming reality that their service is the smallest in its history, with readiness at very low levels, all while our airmen perform ongoing combat operations in the Middle East, theater support packages in Eastern Europe, presence and reassurance to our allies in the Asia-Pacific, and maintain a strong strategic nuclear deterrence posture. The misallocation of airpower resources over the past 6 years, coupled with the mismanagement of very expensive aircraft weapons systems procurement programs, places America's national security interests in jeopardy and endangers the lives of our men and women in uniform. Our military commanders know this is true. That is why, for example, the Chief of Naval Operations and the Commandant of the Marine Corps included in their unfunded priorities lists requests for 12 F-18 Super Hornets for the Navy and 6 F-35B Joint Strike Fighters for the Marine Corps. The NDAA funds these requests because senior Navy and Marine Corps leaders have repeatedly testified to significant strike fighter shortfalls in the maritime services due to unanticipated increased combat operations in the Middle East, aging and obsolete fighter aircraft, and significant delays in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter delivery schedule. Bizarrely, the White House has apparently disregarded that testimony and instead labels these requests for more combat power from our military commanders as ``unnecessary.'' The Statement of Administration Policy opposes the strong oversight measures put in place by the NDAA on the Ford-class aircraft carrier program. The administration objects to a provision in this legislation that reduces the cost cap for the USS John F. Kennedy by $100 million from $11.498 billion to $11.398 billion. But in the budget request, the Navy estimated the cost of this ship at $11.348 billion. In other words, the NDAA still provides a buffer of $50 million. The provision simply locks in the savings the Department has advertised, which comes after more than $2 billion in cost growth--$2 billion in cost growth of one aircraft carrier. Unless the budget request is misleading or inaccurate, this provision should not result in reduced capability or a breach of the cost cap as the administration claims. It is also unfortunate that the administration doesn't recognize the importance of conducting full-ship shock trials on the USS Gerald R. Ford, known as CVN-78. With the abundance of new technology, including the catapult, arresting gear, and radar, as well as the reliance on electricity rather than steam to power key systems, there continues to be a great deal of risk in this program. Testing CVN-78 will not only improve the design of future carriers but also reduce the costs associated with retrofitting engineering changes. Absent this provision, the Navy will delay by up to 7 years full-ship shock trials and shift the test from the lead ship in the class to the second ship. That poses the risk that CVN-78 will deploy and potentially fight without this testing, putting the lives of our sailors at risk. The Statement of Administration Policy also raised objections to a number of provisions related to military personnel. For instance, the administration bemoans the fact that the Committee did not adopt its plan to raise existing TRICARE fees and implement new fees for Medicare-eligible retirees and their family members. The so-called Consolidated Health Plans would not have created a modern, value-based health care system. The administration made no attempt at all to improve access to care, quality of care or beneficiary satisfaction. The NDAA, on the other hand, addresses those issues and more without raising enrollment fees or creating new fees. The White House expressed concern about the provisions in the NDAA that call for a plan to privatize commissaries and a 2-year pilot program at no fewer than five commissaries in the largest markets of the commissary system to assess the feasibility and advisability of the plan. But the rationale is confusing. The administration claims that ``there is an independent study underway to determine whether privatization is a feasible option and we should wait for those results prior to making any policy changes.'' The bill did require a comprehensive review in fiscal year 2015 by an independent organization of the management, food, and pricing options of the commissary system. But in that section, there was no requirement to study the feasibility of privatization of the commissary system. It is also curious that the administration warns against implementing a pilot program on privatization before the results of an independent study, while at the same time encouraging the Congress to adopt their own proposed pilot program. The White House's policy statement reflects the President's feckless policy towards Russia. Despite the advice of nearly every statesman and policy expert who has appeared before the Armed Services Committee in recent months--Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, Madeleine Albright, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and others--and against the advice of both the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense, the President has refused to provide defensive lethal assistance to Ukraine. The President's continued inaction, for fear of provoking Russia, is seen by Putin as weakness and invites the very aggression we seek to avoid. The Ukrainian people aren't asking for U.S. troops. They are simply asking for the right tools to defend themselves and their country, and those are the tools that this legislation would provide. We have seen Vladimir Putin commit aggression, draw back, commit more aggression, draw back. We are now in the phase where any day now we will see continued aggression and territory-grabbing by Vladimir Putin as he establishes his land bridge to Crimea and puts additional pressures on Baltic countries and Moldova. Meanwhile, we refuse to give the Ukrainians weapons with which to defend themselves. This bill does not force the President to provide lethal assistance to Ukraine. Trust me, if there were a way to do that, it would be in this bill. The President has a decision to make on providing lethal assistance to Ukraine. That decision has consequences far beyond whether the President obligates the full amount of funds authorized in a decision that is long overdue. Making matters worse, the Statement of Administration Policy seeks flexibility to continue our Nation's dependence on Russian rocket engines. The NDAA would put an end to this dependence by 2019 and stop hundreds of millions of dollars from going to Vladimir Putin and his cronies. It eliminates a launch subsidy that the commander of Air Force Space Command has stated impedes fair competition, and it directs the administration to stop playing games, develop a domestic rocket engine--not a new rocket system--to replace the Russian RD-180. The Russians are being paid billions of dollars for their rocket engines, and there is a ``middle man'' who has made tens of millions of dollars just by moving those rockets from Russia to the United States. There is an individual who runs this outfit who has been sanctioned by the U.S. Government, and we have elements in the Pentagon who still want to deal with him for as long as possible. In testimony before the Armed Services Committee in March, Gen. John Kelly, the commander of U.S. Southern Command, testified: ``With the amount of drugs and people that move across our southwest border, it doesn't seem all that secure to me.'' General Kelly went on to state that the threat of terrorists crossing our southern border is ``extremely serious'' and that ``if a terrorist or almost anyone wants to get into our country, they just pay the fare.'' They just pay the fare. That is why this bill would provide $45 million for Operation Phalanx, increasing border security operations by the National Guard along the southern border, and boosting aerial surveillance of the region by up to 60 percent. To date, Operation Phalanx has directly contributed to more than 96,000 apprehensions along the border and the interdiction of more than 282,000 pounds of drugs destined for our communities. The legislation directs the Secretary of Defense to provide up to $75 million in additional assistance to Customs and Border Protection operations to secure the southern border, potentially including the deployment of personnel, surveillance assets, and intelligence support from the U.S. military. The NDAA would authorize an additional $50 million to address U.S. Southern Command's unfunded priorities to increase surveillance and interdiction operations in Central America--a primary transit point for illicit trafficking into the United States. Finally, I am disappointed by the administration's puzzling response to provisions in the NDAA related to the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. The administration argues that this legislation's limitations placed on Guantanamo Bay transfers are unnecessary and beyond the scope of congressional authority. That is false. Congress has long had constitutional authority over wartime detention matters, and there are good reasons for Congress to assert its authority in this instance. For over 6 years, the administration has stated that one of its highest policy priorities is to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. But for that same period of time, Members of the Senate have repeatedly requested a plan that explains how the administration will handle each of the detainees currently held there, and unfortunately, over the last 6\1/2\ years, the administration has consistently failed to provide that plan. As the terrorist threat continues around the world and grows and metastasizes, the administration continues to demand that the facility be closed while failing to explain how it will do so. There are serious legal and security challenges inherent in moving this population to other locations, whether inside or outside of the United States. Congress is simply asking the executive branch to explain where it will hold those set for trial, how it will continue to detain dangerous terrorists pursuant to the laws of war, and how it will mitigate the risks of moving this population. If the administration can provide those answers to these basic questions to the satisfaction of the American people, then congressional restrictions on the movement of these detainees will be lifted and the plan can be implemented. Now, Congress's need for answers is even more acute after the administration transferred five senior Taliban detainees under secret agreement to Qatar without prior notification to Congress as required by law. The President of the United States blatantly violated the law-- which required, before these five detainees were transferred to Qatar, that Congress be notified 6 months ahead of time--using the rationale that they were afraid the information might leak. Is that justification for breaking the law? And isn't it understandable, the skepticism here on both sides of the aisle about any plan they may have or may not have? Isn't it reasonable that the Congress of the United States should be presented with a plan, and shouldn't the Congress of the United States express its approval or disapproval? The notification standard was enacted into law to allow the President the authority to implement his stated policy but with a good-faith understanding that the people's representative could weigh in on these important decisions before the transfers happened. The President's failure to abide by the notification provisions undermined any trust Congress had in the process. Now, as the Taliban continues to plot attacks against U.S. servicemembers in Afghanistan, the administration is scurrying to figure out how to keep those five terrorists from the battlefield. This is not congressional overreach; it is congressional oversight. The President has decided that the security risks of keeping Guantanamo open outweigh the security and legal risks of closing it. Congress is seeking information that will allow the American people and Congress to understand that decision. The American people deserve an explanation for how the President plans to execute one of his most repeated policy goals. There is some dispute about what percentage of those who have been released from detention in Guantanamo have reentered the fight. Some say it is as high as 30 percent, and some say it is as low as 7 or 8 percent. There is no debate that detainees who were released from Guantanamo have reentered the fight, placing the lives of American service men and women in jeopardy and in danger. Of course, the five who were released were amongst the toughest, the worst, the hardest cases. Now there is some question as to whether they will remain under strict supervision in Qatar. Let me conclude by simply saying that the NDAA is far too important to be held hostage in a budget negotiation. For 53 consecutive years, the Congress has passed a national defense authorization act. With threats to our national security multiplying around the world, I would hope this year would be no different. I thank my colleague from Rhode Island for all of the hard work he and his staff and Members on that side of the aisle have done in order to have legislation that passed overwhelmingly through the Senate Armed Services Committee. I hope we can move forward on getting that legislation through the Senate, in consultation and in compromise with the House, and to the White House for the President's signature. I would say again that I read carefully the administration's objection to the legislation as it now stands. These are not valid in some cases. In other cases, we would be glad to negotiate with the White House as we go to conference with the House after completing this. I sincerely hope and pray that--there are so many provisions there that are important to the lives of the men and women serving in the military that I would hope the President would take into consideration how important this is to the men and women who are serving, their lives and their welfare, their equipment, their training, and their ability to defend this Nation. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate resumes consideration of H.R. 1735 on Tuesday, June 9, the time until 3 p.m. be equally divided between the managers or their designees; that following the use or yielding back of that time, the Senate vote in relation to the Reed amendment No. 1521. I further ask that there be no second-degree amendment in order to the amendment prior to the vote.