John McCain

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Commander Eric Taylor, a Navy fellow in my office, be allowed floor privileges for the duration of Senate debate on H.R. 1735, the National Defense Authorization Act through the fiscal year 2016.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 3, 2015.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 3, 2015, at 9:30 a.m., in room SD-406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Challenges and Implications of EPA's Proposed National Ambient Air Quality Standard for Ground-Level Ozone and Legislative Hearing on S. 638, S. 751, and S. 640.''

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 3, 2015, at 10 a.m., in room SD-215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Audit & Appeal Fairness, Integrity, and Reforms in Medicare Act of 2015.''

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 3, 2015, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Implications of the Iran Nuclear Agreement for U.S. Policy in the Middle East.''

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on June 3, 2015, at 10 a.m., in room SD-430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ``Reauthorizing the Higher Education Act: Ensuring College Affordability.''

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 3, 2015, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Watchdogs Needed: Top Government Investigator Positions Left Unfilled for Years.''

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 3, 2015, at 10 a.m., in room 428A of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 3, 2015, at 2:30 p.m. in room SR-418 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. McCAIN

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

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 1463, which is at the desk.

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

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in recess from 1 p.m. until 2 p.m. today.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, it is my pleasure to rise with my friend and colleague from Rhode Island to speak about the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016. For 53 consecutive years, Congress has passed this vital piece of legislation, which provides the necessary funding and authorizes--I repeat, authorizes--our military to defend the Nation. The NDAA is one of few bills in Congress that continues to enjoy bipartisan support year after year. This is a testament to the legislation's critical importance to our national security and the high regard with which it is held by the Congress. Last month, the Senate Armed Services Committee voted 22 to 4 to approve the NDAA, an overwhelming vote that reflects the committee's proud tradition of bipartisan support for the brave men and women of our armed services. I thank the committee's ranking member, the Senator from Rhode Island. Despite his failure of education at our Nation's military academy, I appreciate the thoughtfulness and bipartisan spirit with which he approaches our national security. It has been a pleasure to work with Senator Reed over the last few months and years on this legislation and today as we appear on the floor on behalf of this legislation. We have worked through some of the toughest issues facing our military today. We have our differences on some aspects of this legislation, but those differences have never interfered with the search for common ground and consensus. This is a much better bill thanks to the Senator from Rhode Island. I also thank the majority leader, the Senator from Kentucky, for his commitment to resuming regular order and bringing the NDAA to the floor this week. Under the leadership of the Senator from Kentucky, the Senate will be able to take up this critical national security legislation on time, allowing for thoughtful consideration and amendments and giving our military the certainty they need to plan and execute their missions. That stands in stark contrast to the last 2 years under Democratic leadership, when this body failed to take up the NDAA until the very end of the year, at the last minute, with no amendments allowed. Just yesterday the Democratic leader said considering this vital Defense bill is just a ``waste of time''--waste of time. Those comments must be very disappointing to the servicemembers, retirees, and their families in his home State of Nevada who clearly understand the importance of this legislation. The fiscal year 2016 NDAA is a reform bill. It tackles acquisition reform, military retirement reform, personnel reform, commissary reform, headquarters and management reform. This legislation delivers sweeping defense reforms that can enable our military to rise to the challenges of a more dangerous world, both today and in the future. 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 war fighters 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. This legislation is a reflection of the growing threats we face in the world. Over the past few months, the Senate Armed Services Committee has received testimony from many of America's most respected statesmen, thinkers, and former military commanders. These leaders had a common warning: America is facing the most diverse and complex array of crises since the Second World War. Just consider some of the troubling events that have transpired over the past year. In Ukraine, Russia has sought to redraw an international border and annex the territory of another sovereign country through the use of military force. It continues aggressively to destabilize Ukraine, with troubling implications for security in Europe. Yet the President continues to refuse to provide Ukraine with the defensive weapons they need and have repeatedly requested to defend their sovereign nation from Russia's onslaught. In the Middle East, a terrorist army, with tens of thousands of fighters, many holding Western passports, has taken over a vast swath of territory and declared an Islamic State in the heart of one of the most strategically important parts of the world. Nearly 3,000 U.S. troops have returned to Iraq to combat this threat, with U.S. aircraft flying hundreds of strike missions a month over Iraq and Syria. Unfortunately, as recent reports suggest, nearly 75 percent of those air missions never even dropped weapons, and meanwhile ISIS is taking territory on the ground, most recently in Ramadi and Palmyra. At the same time, amid negotiations over its nuclear program, Iran continues to pursue its ambitions to challenge regional order in the Middle East by increasing its development of ballistic missiles, support for terrorism, training and arming of pro-Iranian militant groups, and other malign activities in places such as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Bahrain, and Yemen. Yemen has collapsed, as a Shia insurgency with ties to the Iranian regime has toppled the U.S.-backed government in Sana'a. Al Qaeda continues to use parts of the country to plan attacks against the West, the U.S. Embassy has been evacuated, and a U.S.-backed coalition of Arab nations has intervened militarily to reverse the gains of the Houthi insurgency and to restore the previous government to power. Libya has become a failed state, beset by civil war and a growing presence of transnational terrorist groups, such as Al Qaeda and ISIL, similar to Afghanistan in 2001. In Asia, North Korea continues to develop its nuclear arsenal and ever-more capable ballistic missiles, and late last year it committed the most destructive cyber attack ever on U.S. territory. China is increasingly taking coercive actions to assert expansive territorial claims that unilaterally change the status quo in the South and East China Seas and raise tensions with U.S. allies and partners, all while continuing to expand and modernize its military in ways that challenge U.S. access and freedom of movement in the western Pacific. A recent report in the Wall Street Journal described how China has taken steps to militarize the vast land features that it is actively reclaiming in the South China Sea. Unfortunately I could go on, but these are just some of the growing threats our Nation faces--threats that are far more serious than they were a year ago and significantly more so than when 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. The Committee on Armed Services has conducted wide-ranging bipartisan oversight on the effects of sequestration-level spending on our national defense, and every single military and national security leader who has testified before the committee this year has denounced sequestration and urged its repeal as soon as possible. Indeed, each of our military service chiefs testified that continued defense spending at sequestration levels would put American lives at risk. I want to repeat to my colleagues: Our armed services leaders have told the Armed Services Committee that American lives are at risk if we continue mindless sequestration. Don't we care about the risks and the lives of the young men and women who have volunteered to serve in our military? Don't we care about them? I urge my colleagues in the Senate and in the House to come together and repeal sequestration, and however that is accomplished, I will be glad to discuss, but our first priority has always been and always will be American security, our national security and the lives of the men and women who have volunteered to defend it. Unfortunately, this legislation doesn't end sequestration. 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. It deals only with defense and national security 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. Although the committee could not end sequestration, we did the most we could to authorize necessary levels of funding for the Department of Defense and our men and women in uniform. As a result, the NDAA 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. This legislation gives the President every dollar of budget authority he requested. The difference is our legislation follows the Senate budget resolution and funds that $38 billion increase through overseas contingency operations--or OCO-- funds. This is not my preferred option. It is not anybody's preferred option that I know of. I recognize that reliance on OCO spending limits the ability of the Department of Defense to plan and modernize our military. For this reason, 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 that legislation is enacted that increases the statutory limitations 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 NDAA to recognize the need for a broader fiscal agreement without denying funding for our military right now. Nevertheless, the White House threatened yesterday to veto this legislation over its additional OCO spending and because the Congress has not provided for similar increases in nondefense spending. This is misguided and irresponsible. With global threats rising, how does it make any 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 a budget negotiation. The political reality is that the Budget Control Act was signed by the President and 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 who testified before the Armed Services Committee this year said 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. Military leader after military leader has testified before our committee that they cannot carry out their obligations in their various commands to defend the Nation if the Budget Control Act--also known as sequestration--continues. My message is simple: Let's have our fights over government spending, but let's keep those fights where they belong--in the appropriations process, where money is actually spent. The NDAA is not the place for it. If the President and some of my colleagues oppose the NDAA 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. I care about nondefense spending. I really believe we need to fund many of the areas, such as the FBI, Border Patrol, and others. But to somehow equate that with national defense with the world as we see it today is either out of ignorance or partisanship--I don't know which, but neither is a valid ambition or reason. The NDAA is a policy bill, and this year's version is an incredibly ambitious one. It advances major reform initiatives that can make more efficient use of our precious taxpayer dollars while increasing military capability for our warfighters. In recent years, the Defense Department has grown larger but less capable, more complex but less innovative, more proficient at defeating low-tech adversaries but more vulnerable to high-tech ones. No one is more cognizant of this unfortunate fact than those of us whose responsibility it is to oversee our defense budget on the Armed Services Committee. It is a top priority for me, my colleague from Rhode Island, as well as all of my fellow committee members to ensure that every dollar we spend on defense is used wisely, efficiently, and effectively. The fiscal year 2016 NDAA makes important contributions to this reform effort. This legislation contains sweeping acquisition reform. Many of our military's challenges today are the result of years of mistakes and wasted resources. One recent study found that the Defense Department had spent $46 billion between 2001 and 2011 on at least a dozen programs that never became operational. I will repeat that--$46 billion on programs that never became operational. What is worse, I am not sure who, if anyone, was ever held accountable for these failures. At a hearing 2 years ago, I asked the Chief of Naval Operations who was responsible for $2.4 billion in cost overruns on the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier. He had no answer. In today's vast acquisition bureaucracy where personnel and project managers cycle through rapidly, everyone is accountable and no one is accountable. We need acquisition reform now because our senior leaders must be held accountable for responsible stewardship of taxpayers' dollars. But this is not just about saving money. Acquisition reform is needed immediately to preserve U.S. technological and military dominance and is therefore a national security imperative. Over the last decade, our adversaries have invested heavily in modernizing their militaries with a focus on anti-access and area-denial technologies designed specifically to counter American military strengths. Meanwhile, an acquisition system that takes too long and costs too much is leading to the erosion of America's defense technological advantage. If we continue with business as usual, I fear the United States could lose this advantage altogether. In short, our broken defense acquisition system itself is a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States. The acquisition reforms in this legislation center on five principle objectives. First, the legislation establishes effective accountability for results. We give greater authority to the military services to manage their own programs, and we enhance the role of the service chiefs in the acquisition process. In exchange for greater authority, the bill demands accountability and creates new mechanisms to deliver it. Service chiefs, service secretaries, service acquisition executives, and program managers would sign up to binding management, requirement, and resource commitments. The bill also creates new incentives for the services to deliver programs on time and on budget. If military services fail to manage a program effectively, they will lose authority and control over that program, and they will be assessed an annual cost penalty on their cost overruns, with those funds directed toward acquisition risk reduction efforts across the Department. Second, the legislation supports the use of flexible acquisition authorities and the development of alternative acquisition paths to acquire critical national security capabilities. The bill establishes a new streamlined acquisition and requirements process for rapid prototyping and rapid fielding within 2 to 5 years. It expands rapid acquisition authorities for contingency operations and cyber security missions, and the legislation allows the Secretary of Defense to waive unnecessary acquisition laws to acquire vital national security capabilities. Third, the NDAA improves access to nontraditional and commercial contractors. To give our military the necessary capabilities to defend the Nation, the Department of Defense must be able to access innovation in areas such as cyber, robotics, data analytics, miniaturization, and autonomy--the innovation that is much more likely to come from Silicon Valley, Austin or Mesa than Washington. But our broken acquisition system, with its complex regulation and stifling bureaucracies, is leading many commercial firms to choose not to do business with the Defense Department or to limit their engagement in ways that prevent the Department from accessing the critical technologies these companies have to offer. The NDAA creates incentives for commercial innovation by removing barriers to new entrants into the defense market. By adopting commercial buying practices for the Defense Department, the legislation makes it easier for nontraditional firms to do business with the Pentagon. The legislation also ensures that businesses are not forced to cede intellectual property developed at their expense to the government. Fourth, the NDAA streamlines the process for buying weapons systems, services, and information technology by reducing unnecessary requirements, reports, and certification. The legislation retains positive reforms made in the Weapons System Acquisition Reform Act of 2009, but streamlines processes to support more rapid and efficient development and delivery of new capabilities. It would also establish an expert review panel to identify unneeded acquisitions regulations. Fifth, the legislation reinvigorates the acquisition workforce in several ways, including by establishing several direct-hire authorities for science and technology professionals to join the acquisition workforce. The legislation seeks to improve the attractiveness of acquisition functions to skilled military personnel through credits for acquisition-related assignments, creation of an enhanced dual-track career path to include acquisition, and increased business and commercial training opportunities. In a Statement of Administration Policy released yesterday, 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 DOD's programs and activities. I could not disagree more with this 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 and 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 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 and 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. Yet there is nothing in this bill that overrides the 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 the bill are designed to put some of this optimism in check. There is also belief manufactured in parts of the Department that the current system is working. They are saying the current system is working. That is laughable. The statistics are improving, first of all, because Secretary Gates canceled over 25 programs. It is easier to make your numbers when you are unilaterally disarming and buying less. Still, all of the programs that are left under the U.S. Defense Department AT and L management have over $200 billion in cost overruns. I want to repeat--$200 billion in cost overruns under the current setup. That is why it is imperative we change it. There are a lot of words to describe this, but success is not one of them. The USD AT and L is trying to have it both ways: claiming credit for all the improvements in the acquisition system while blaming the services for its long list of failures. This is exactly the problem this legislation is trying to address--blurred lines of accountability inside the Defense Acquisition System that allow its leaders to evade responsibility for results. Then, there is the issue of process and documentation. Defenders of the current acquisition system say they have it right. They might have it right if our adversary were the old Soviet Union and their centralized planned economy. The reality for the modern world is that under USD AT and L management process takes too long and adds costs and looks like it was designed by a Soviet apparatchik. For example, an Army study looked at the time it would take to go through all of the U.S. Defense Department AT and L reviews and buy nothing. What was the answer? Ten years to buy nothing. The Government Accountability Office looked at the much wanted 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. The first step is to eliminate unnecessary calls for data from those outside the program office, just as David Packard recommended 30 years ago. This legislation does that. The acquisition reforms in this bill are sweeping, but there is much more work to do to transition what is in essence a Cold War management system into one that is more agile and nimble to meet the challenges of a globalized information age. This legislation marks the beginning of a multiyear process to change the acquisition system to be more open to next-generation technologies that can enable the United States to outpace its adversaries. Acquisition reform is part of a larger effort to reform the management of the Department of Defense. This bill seeks to ensure that the Department and the military services are using precious defense dollars to fulfill their missions and defend the Nation, not to expand their bloated staffs. While staff at Army headquarters increased 60 percent over the past decade, the Army is now cutting brigade combat teams. The Air Force avoided mandated cuts to their headquarters personnel by creating two new headquarters entities, even as it complained it had insufficient personnel to maintain combat aircraft. I want to repeat that. The Air Force mandated cuts of headquarters personnel, not reducing by a single person but by creating new headquarters entities, even as it complained it had insufficient personnel to maintain combat aircraft. From 2001 to 2012, the defense civilian workforce grew at five times the rate of the Active-Duty military. I repeat that. From 2001 to 2012, the defense civilian workforce grew at five times the rate of the Active-Duty military. This legislation initiates a reorganization of the Department of Defense in order to focus limited resources on operations rather than administration, to ensure military personnel can develop critical military skills, and to stabilize organizations and programs. The NDAA mandates a 30-percent cut in funding for headquarters and administrative staff over the next 4 years. These reductions generate $1.7 billion in savings for fiscal year 2016. As the Department implements these reductions, this bill authorizes the Secretary of Defense to retain the best talent available, rather than just the longest serving. Contrary to the Statement of Administration Policy that the White House issued yesterday, the reductions to Pentagon overhead and management staff are neither arbitrary nor across the board. These cuts are targeted to administrative functions, but they do not inflict unintended harms on functions such as mortuary affairs or sexual assault prevention. The legislation does not seek to micromanage the Defense Department. It cuts money from broad headquarters and administrative functions, but it defers to the Secretary of Defense on how, what, and where exactly to cut, and it instructs him to devise a plan to make these cuts wisely. Beyond management reform, the NDAA also puts forward wide-ranging and unprecedented reform to the military retirement system. Under the current 70-year-old system, 83 percent of servicemembers leave the service without any retirement assets. This system excludes the vast majority of current servicemembers who will not complete 20 years of uniformed service, including many veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The legislation creates a modernized retirement system and extends retirement benefits to the vast majority of servicemembers through a new plan offering more value and choice. Under the new plan, 75 percent of servicemembers would get retirement benefits. In many cases, the overall benefit of those serving at least 20 years will be greater than the current system. This new modernized retirement system will apply to members first joining a uniformed service on or after January 1, 2018. Current members are grandfathered but may choose to be covered by the new plan. The retirement reforms in this legislation will enable servicemembers to save for retirement earlier in their careers, create a new incentive to recruit millennials, and increase retention across the services. That is why these reforms are supported by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Reserve Officers Association, the National Guard Association, the Enlisted Association of the National Guard, and the Air Force Association, among others. In addition to retirement reform, the NDAA focuses on sustaining the quality of life of our military servicemembers, retirees, and their families. The legislation authorizes a 1.3-percent pay raise for members of the uniformed services in the grade O-6 and below. The bill authorizes $25 million to support local educational agencies that serve military dependent children, and $5 million in impact aid for schools with military dependent children with severe disabilities. The NDAA includes many provisions to improve the military health care system and TRICARE. The legislation allows the TRICARE beneficiary up to four urgent care visits without making them get a preauthorization. It requires DOD to establish appointment access standards and wait-time goals, and if a patient can't get an appointment within standards, the military hospital must offer an appointment in the TRICARE network. The legislation requires DOD to focus more on health care quality, patient safety, and beneficiary satisfaction by making them publish health outcome measures on their Web sites, and it requires a plan to improve the delivery of pediatric health care, especially for children with special needs. Furthermore, as military families frequently move from one location to another, their health care coverage must be seamless and portable, but too often families have to leap over several hurdles to get health care in a new location. This has to stop. We take care of that problem in this legislation. The NDAA also builds on the work of the past few years to prevent and respond to military sexual assault. The legislation contains a number of provisions aimed at strengthening the authorities of special victims' counsel to provide services to victims of sexual assault. The legislation also enhances confidential reporting options for victims of sexual assault and increases access to timely disclosure of certain materials and information in connection with the prosecution of offenses. This is a fiscally responsible NDAA. I have said that my top priority as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee is to repeal sequestration and return to a strategy-driven defense budget. But I have also made clear that repealing sequestration must be accompanied by a vigorous effort to root out and eliminate Pentagon waste. Given the fiscal constraints and global challenges confronting our military, we simply cannot afford to waste precious defense dollars. Our committee identified over $10 billion in excessive and unnecessary spending in the President's budget request: headquarters and administrative overhead, troubled information technology programs, weapons systems that are over budget and underperforming, among other items. The NDAA reinvests those savings in providing critical military capabilities for our warfighters and meeting unfunded priorities of our service chiefs and combatant commanders. Even as challenges to maritime security increase in the Middle East and the western Pacific, our Navy remains well below its fleet-size requirement of 306 ships. Moreover, our shipbuilding budget will experience even greater pressure at the end of this decade, as the Navy procures the replacement for the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine. The NDAA directs savings identified in the budget request to accelerate Navy modernization and shipbuilding to mitigate the impacts of the Ohio-class replacement and to increase the Navy to meet rising threats. The legislation adds $800 million for additional advanced procurement for Virginia-class submarines, and $200 million for the next amphibious assault ship. The bill provides incremental funding authority for one additional Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. The bill accelerates the Navy LX(R) Amphibious Ship Program, shipbuilding for the afloat forward staging base, and procurement of the first landing craft utility replacement. The NDAA upgrades an additional guided missile destroyer with ballistic missile defense capability and funds advanced undersea payloads for submarines. Across the services, our military faces dangerous strike fighter capacity shortfalls. For example, we have seen delivery of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter fall well short of projections, even as the Air Force has retired hundreds of aircraft. Indeed, the President's budget request proposed cutting the Air Force down to 49 fighter squadrons, of which less than half would be fully combat mission ready. The NDAA addresses these shortfalls, and it is all the more urgent in view of the ongoing and anticipated operations in Iraq and Syria against ISIL, as well as a potential delay of force withdrawals from Afghanistan. The NDAA fully restores the planned retirement of the A-10 aircraft. The Air Force itself has said in its posture statement this year: There was a time when the Air Force could trade some capacity in order to retain capability. But we have reached the point where the two are inextricable; lose any more capacity and the capability will cease to exist. The Armed Services Committee agrees. That is why divesting the A-10 capability at this time incurs unacceptable risk in the capacity and readiness of the combat air forces without a suitable replacement available. The NDAA authorized procurement funding for 12 additional F- 18 Super Hornets for the Navy and 6 additional F-35B Joint Strike Fighters for the Marine Corps. The legislation also procures an additional 24 MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aircraft for the Air Force to support increased combatant commander requirements for medium-altitude intelligence, surveillance, and reconciliation support. The committee was similarly concerned about munitions capacity across the services. So the NDAA adds funding for additional PAC-3 missiles for ballistic missile defense and additional AMRAAM missiles. The legislation also increases Tomahawk missile production to the minimum sustaining rate and procures TOW tube-launched, antitank missiles to mitigate shortfalls for the Marine Corps. The NDAA supports modernization across the services. The legislation invests in lethality by enhancing the firepower of Stryker combat vehicles and increasing the survivability of the Apache attack helicopter against new threats. The NDAA fully supports the President's request for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program and provides all executable funding for the Long Range Strike Bomber Program. In addition, the legislation authorizes $6.1 billion for Virginia- class submarines, $3.5 billion for Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, and $1.4 billion for the Ohio-class replacement program. While the NDAA supports our military commanders' most urgent priorities, the bill also contains rigorous oversight measures to prevent further cost growth in major acquisition programs, including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Ford-class aircraft carrier, and a littoral combat ship. As adversaries seek to counter and thwart American military power, the NDAA looks to the future and invests in the technologies that will maintain America's military technological superiority. The NDAA provides $400 million in additional funding to support the so-called third offset strategy to outpace our emerging adversaries. The legislation funds a cyber vulnerability assessment, a new initiative to enable the services to begin evaluating all major weapons systems for cyber vulnerabilities. It also increases investment in six breakthrough technologies: cyber capabilities; low-cost, high-speed munitions; autonomous vehicles; undersea warfare; intelligence data analytics; and directed energy. Similarly, our Nation has only begun to realize the potential of unmanned combat aircraft, especially in a maritime environment. In the past 2 years, the Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration Program, or UCAS-D, has achieved a number of historic firsts: the first carrier- based catapult launch, the first arrested landing on a carrier, the first cooperative operations with manned aircraft aboard a carrier, and the first autonomous aerial refueling. The NDAA funds the remaining research and development work to be completed on UCAS-D, while directing the Secretary of Defense to develop competitive prototypes that move the Department toward a carrier-based, unmanned, long-range, low-observable, penetrating strike aircraft that can enhance the capability of the carrier air wing to meet future threats. The NDAA supports our allies and partners with robust training and assistance initiatives. The legislation authorizes nearly $3.8 billion in support for the Afghan National Security Forces as they continue to defend their country and the gains of the last decade against our common enemies. The legislation also authorizes the provision of defensive lethal assistance to Ukraine to help it build combat capability and defend its sovereign territory. The legislation supports efforts by Lebanon and Jordan to secure their borders against ISIL, and it creates a new initiative to provide equipment, supplies, and training to Southeast Asian nations in order to support them in building maritime domain awareness capabilities and addressing growing maritime sovereignty challenges in the South China Sea. Finally, this legislation contains a bipartisan compromise on how to address the challenge of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. President Obama has said from day one of his Presidency that he wants to close Guantanamo Bay. But 6\1/2\ years into his administration, the President of the United States has never provided a plan to do so. The NDAA would require the administration to provide a comprehensive plan to the Congress on how it intends to close Guantanamo, which would then have to be approved by both Houses of Congress. That plan would have to include a case-by-case determination on the disposition of each detainee at Guantanamo Bay, including a discussion of the legal challenges of bringing detainees to the United States and any additional authorities that might be needed. The plan would also have to address how the Department would ensure the continued detention and intelligence collection from future combatants captured under the laws of war. If such a plan is approved, the Congress would provide the President the authority to proceed with the closure of the facility. If the Congress does not approve the plan, nothing would change. The ban on domestic transfers would stay in force, and the certification standards for foreign transfers included in the NDAA would remain. This is an ambitious piece of legislation. It recognizes that in order to ensure that the Department of Defense is prepared to meet our present and future national security challenges, we must champion the cause of defense reform, rigorously root out Pentagon waste, and invest in modernization and next-generation technologies to maintain our military technological advantage. America has reached a key inflection point. The liberal world order that has been anchored by U.S. hard power for seven decades is being seriously stressed and with it the foundation of our security and prosperity. It does not have to be this way. We can choose a better future for ourselves but only if we make the right decisions now to set us on a better course. That is what this legislation is all about-- living up to our constitutional duties to provide for the common defense, increasing the effectiveness of our military, restoring America's global leadership, and defending a liberal world order. This legislation is a small step toward accomplishing those goals. But it is an important step that the Congress must take now and take together. For 53 consecutive years, Congress has passed a National Defense Authorization Act. This year should be no different. I am hopeful that the bipartisan spirit that has carried this legislation for over half a century will prevail once again. Ultimately, we owe the brave men and women in uniform, many of whom are still in harm's way around the world today, nothing less. I yield the floor.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Rhode Island, my friend Senator Reed, for his thoughtful analysis of the legislation before us. Again, it has been not only a pleasure but an honor for me to have the opportunity to work with him on the issues that are so important to our Nation--none more important. I am told by the majority leader that he would like to have this legislation completed by the end of next week. That means we have a lot of work to do. We already have a number of amendments that have been filed. I would ask my colleagues to have their amendments in, hopefully, by, say, tomorrow afternoon, when the Senator from Rhode Island and I will ask unanimous consent that no further amendments be considered. We want to give every Senator an opportunity to have their amendments thoroughly vetted and debated and voted on, if that is their desire. That means we have a lot of work to do. I think we will be considering an amendment this afternoon from Senator Portman, and we would like to move forward from there. So I ask the indulgence of my colleagues that if they do want debate and a vote on their amendments, that they be prepared to come to the floor to do so. Again, on filing of amendments, we would like to have all pending amendments in, in the next 24 hours, so we can have a finite number of amendments for the legislation that is pending today. I thank all of my colleagues for their cooperation. We look forward to discussion and debate and, I am sure, will come out with a better result. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 1456, which is at the desk.

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

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, in consultation with Senator Reed, I ask unanimous consent that the next amendments in order be Reed No. 1521, Portman No. 1522, Reed or designee amendment, followed by Cornyn No. 1486--whether those amendments will require yeas and nays or voice vote we will figure out as we move through the amendments; further, that the regular order with regard to these amendments be the order as I stated regardless of the order offered.

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

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I wish to pay tribute today to CBS broadcaster Bob Schieffer, who retired yesterday as the moderator of the most watched Sunday news show, ``Face the Nation,'' after a career in journalism that lasted more than half a century. Bob reported from Dallas that terrible weekend President Kennedy was assassinated. At that time, he was with the Fort Worth Star Telegram. He was CBS's Pentagon correspondent, congressional correspondent, White House correspondent, and chief Washington correspondent. He anchored the ``CBS Evening News'' at a time of transition and turmoil at the network. For 24 years he moderated ``Face the Nation,'' which became more popular every year Bob ran the show. He tried to retire before, several times. CBS begged him to stay. That is an impressive run by anyone's standards, all the more so considering Bob is probably the most respected and popular reporter in the country. Familiarity might not always breed contempt, but it is certainly not a guarantee of enduring public admiration--except in Bob's case. The public's regard for Bob Schieffer never seemed to waver or even level off. He grew in stature the longer his career lasted. Not many of us can say that. The secret to his success, I suspect, is pretty simple: Americans just like Bob Schieffer. They like him a lot and trust him. That is pretty rare in his profession, which, like ours, has fallen precipitously in recent years in the esteem of the American people. I think it is attributable to the personal and professional values he honestly and seemingly effortlessly represented, old-fashioned values that in this modern communications age make him stand out. Bob is courteous and respectful to the people he reports on and interviews. There are people in his profession who disdain that approach to journalism, but I doubt they will ever be as good at the job as Bob Schieffer was. He looked to get answers to questions the public had a right and a need to have answered. He was dogged in pursuit of those answers, and more often than not he succeeded. But he wasn't sarcastic or cynical. He wasn't rude. He didn't show off. He didn't do ``gotcha'' journalism. He was fair, he was honest, and he was very good at his job. He asked good questions, and he kept asking them until he got answers. He was determined to get at the truth not for the sake of one-upping you or embarrassing you but because that was a journalist's responsibility in a free society. If he caught someone being evasive or dishonest or pompous, he would persist long enough for them to expose themselves. He didn't yell or talk over them or insult them. He didn't need to. I don't know how he votes. Most people in his profession have political views to the left of my party, and it wouldn't surprise me if Bob does, too. Almost all reporters claim they keep their personal views out of their reporting, but not many do it successfully, be they liberal or conservative. The best do, and Bob Schieffer is the best. I never once felt I had been treated unfairly by him because he disagreed with me. I think most Republicans Bob interviewed would say the same. He moderated Presidential debates without receiving any criticism--or at least any deserved criticism--for loading his questions with his own views or mediating exchanges between candidates to favor one over the other. He was the model of a successful moderator, intent on informing the electorate, not drawing attention to himself. That is not to say he didn't make an impression on his audience. He did. He impressed them, as he always did, with his fairness, his honesty, and his restraint. It is no secret that I have made an occasional appearance on a Sunday morning show. No doubt I have enjoyed those experiences more than some of my colleagues have enjoyed watching them. Some people might think I should take up golf or find something else to do with my Sunday mornings. I may have to now that Bob has retired. I have appeared on ``Face the Nation'' over 100 times--more than any other guest. I acknowledge there are viewers who would prefer to see someone else claim that distinction. Too bad. I have the record, and I think I will have it for a while. I am kidding--sort of. But I am not kidding about my appreciation for Bob Schieffer and the opportunity he gave me and everyone who appeared on his show to communicate our views on issues without a third party editing or misconstruing them and to have those views tested by a capable, probing, and fair interviewer, which Bob Schieffer certainly was. He is something else, too, in addition to being a very good and very fair reporter. He is a good guy. And there are never enough of those around. I am going to miss spending the occasional Sunday morning with him. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate as in morning business.

Mr. McCAIN

Mr. McCAIN. Twice the Senator from Kentucky has not observed the rules of the Senate. I would ask the Senator from Indiana, you have seen the events lately that are transpiring. ISIS has taken Palmyra. They are in the streets burning bodies, killing people, going to destroy 2,000-year-old antiquities, and at the same time Ramadi has fallen with thousands of innocent men, women, and children being massacred. At this time, isn't this program as critical as it has ever been since its inception, given the fact that the Middle East is literally on fire and we are losing everywhere?

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, regular order--obviously people don't know the rules of the Senate. Maybe they should learn them.

Mr. McCAIN. I object.

Mr. McCAIN. I ask for the regular order.