Adam Smith

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Virginia (Mrs. McClellan).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Alabama (Ms. Sewell).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Strickland).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, the point of all this is whether or not sustainability should be an objective that we work toward in our building materials. What this amendment does is it undermines the ability to get to that goal of sustainability. Now, sustainability can mean a lot of different things. Mr. Rogers focused on the aspect of how timber can be used. There is an aspect of sustainability that focuses on whether or not what you are building will enable us to sustain the planet. It is sort of widely accepted that the way we are using carbon-emitting--all kinds of different issues--is jeopardizing the health of the planet long term. That is something that we ought to think about and we ought to be concerned about. If this amendment passes, you are putting your thumb on the scale in a different way, saying the sustainability isn't important, you are going to focus on other issues. Actually, Mr. Garamendi is very good on other issues. As the chairman of the Readiness Subcommittee, he always pointed out: Don't look at the upfront cost. Look at the sustainability costs. What does it cost to maintain what you are doing? What is the long- term cost going to be? The market may be very good at figuring out what is going to be cheapest right now today in this second, but then we pay over the long term. This amendment basically guts our ability to contemplate that long term, to contemplate what sustainability would look like and what those long-term costs are. It is good to be on the same side as the chairman on an amendment. I am with him. We should reject this amendment. Please vote ``no.''

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of what DEI is, and there are certainly examples and there are many anecdotes of bad DEI, of DEI that goes too far in the opposite direction, as has been described over and over and over again. But the basic idea that we need to make sure that our military is inclusive and focus on diversity and equity, as we have argued throughout the day today is inarguable. There is a history of racism. There is a history of sexism. There is a history of bigotry. As was pointed out, we wouldn't even allow trans or gay people to serve in many instances. Now that we have allowed Black people to serve in the military, they are not getting promoted at the same level. If we are going to recruit from the diverse population that we have in this country, we have to at least focus on it. If folks want to focus on some minor bad aspect of it, we can talk about that, but what you are doing is you are completely eliminating like 10 times--talk about shooting a dead horse. We have now shot this thing like 15 times in the course of the day. You are completely eliminating any consideration of this Nation's history and how we are going to recruit and retain members of the military. These amendments are terrible ideas for the national security of this country, and I, once again, urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, it is obvious to me that the Republican majority doesn't understand what diversity, equity, and inclusion is, so I am going to attempt to explain it this way. We need to be intentional in recruiting from populations that have been historically discriminated against. I will use myself as an example. I grew up in a neighborhood that was 95 percent White. My friends were White. My family was White. I moved into a responsible position. I started to hire people. Typically, you either hire people you know, or you hire people who you know know. That is where you get it. I looked around, and I was hiring a bunch of White people, all right. That is who I knew. What I did is I affirmatively reached out to groups that worked with Black people or Hispanic people or gay people. When I had openings, I said, okay, who have you got? I don't have those relationships, and I built those relationships. That is what diversity, equity and inclusion is, and it is sorely needed in a country that at least until about 30 or 40 years ago was really racist, okay. To correct that, we have to work with communities, diverse communities, to make sure that we recruit the people diversely.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, let's be clear. There is no money in the authorizing bill for Afghanistan, so the gentleman's worries are misplaced. In fact, if he wasn't bringing up this amendment, we wouldn't even be talking about it. So that last little bit there was completely wrong, totally confusing, some big, impassioned plea about how dare we pass an authorizing act that funds the Taliban. I assure all Members there is no money in this bill for funding the Taliban. This amendment has got nothing to do with the authorizing bill. It goes way beyond that. We are not doing what the sponsor of this amendment just said we are doing. I don't know. Maybe he wishes to withdraw the amendment at this point since it is pointless to his argument, but I just want to be clear to the Members who will have to vote on this, it is not in the bill. This amendment has nothing to do with that.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. We are not missing our recruitment goals because we are trying to expand the people we are recruiting. We are missing our recruitment goals primarily because of COVID, and also, by the way, because a lot of Republicans are running around talking about how terribly weak our military is. If they would stop spreading that message, maybe people would believe in our military and join. That is what DEI is. Eliminating it is a huge mistake.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, this prohibits the President from funding anything, including all of that other stuff, so it goes beyond what is in the bill. He implied that in the bill we are funding this. The executive branch is a different thing. His amendment would prohibit the administration from doing anything. That is the objection to it.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Strickland).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I can't say it any better than my colleague said it, so I will primarily associate myself with her remarks. The bottom line is, we have interests in Afghanistan. She mentioned a lot of the humanitarian interests. There are also national security interests. ISIS is present in Afghanistan. We have considerable concern about what they might do in terms of posing a transnational threat. We have taken strikes against there. There are many conceivable situations where we might need to work with Afghanistan in focusing on this issue, on humanitarian needs or national security needs. If it requires Congress to do it, it ties the hands of the President to basically be able to implement the policies that we will need to protect our interests. There is no need to have this requirement. Mr. Chair, I join my colleague in urging a ``no'' vote on this amendment.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chair, I actually agree with what the gentleman has listed in terms of what this great country has done. What is beyond belief is why in the name of God would we choose to celebrate the particular aspects of our history that don't reflect those values that the gentleman just explained. I want to talk about all the great things that the United States of America has done. I don't want to talk about our history of white supremacy. I want to understand it and make sure that we don't ever repeat it. I have an enormous amount of respect for the chairman of the committee, but I want to make sure everyone understands what we are voting on here. This is to prohibit the use of Federal funds to carry out the recommendations of the base naming commission. So to say, ``They are done. It doesn't really matter. This is going to block what they did. This is going to stop the ability to change those names,'' this commission was passed on a bipartisan basis to make sure that this is implemented. This amendment would gut that and go against that bipartisan agreement and the work that they have done. Please understand what you are doing. As I said earlier, it is something we should not be doing. Mr. Chair, I urge a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I really would just associate myself with Chairman Rogers' remarks. These technologies are crucially important to developing the capabilities that we need to be able to compete with China, deter our adversaries, and have a strong military. I understand that there are controversial decisions that are made; what is the right technology going forward? We will never be perfect about this. We have gone through this in DOD in many instances. Gosh, we spent a lot of money on the F-35 that didn't quite work out. We spent a lot of money on a lot of different programs that didn't work out perfectly. Targeting electric, solar, new green energy I realize is being done because of the politics around it, but I would hope that we could put aside those political debates on that to recognize the crucial need that we have for these technologies in the military. If the gentleman's amendment passes, I guess we would have to take down the satellites. I mean, how is this going to work, exactly? This is a really, really bad idea, and I hope we will vote ``no.''

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I believe we have the right to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I think the comments made by my colleague were perfectly appropriate. We have to deal with China and a whole series of issues, but to say that we should not collaborate with them on basic scientific research, that as was bluntly stated, could literally help us cure cancer is not something that is in our best interest. We also have to realize that China is a major factor in the world. We would like to get to a more peaceful relationship with them. Cutting off all contact doesn't make sense. Even at the height of the Cold War when we were aggressively trying to stand up to the Soviet Union, a bipartisan group of legislators kept dialogue up between the two countries. Madam Chair, I agree with my colleague that this amendment goes too far and I urge opposition.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, the ignorance contained in these comments is really breathtaking. Transgender people who have normal, regular healthcare are no more likely to commit suicide than anybody else. Basically, the statistics he is showing say once somebody identifies as having a problem, they are more likely to have a problem. I mean, that would be like saying, we have identified that servicemembers who complain of PTSD symptoms are more likely to commit suicide. The point is to get proper care for transgender people, and you won't have these issues. It is the ignorance that has prevented them from getting that proper care. By the way, the overwhelming majority of transgender people don't need any of this any more than any of us do, but when they need it, they need it, just like when anybody else does. To Ms. Jacobs' point, we need to recruit people. Being bigoted against transgender people takes a huge population out of the recruitment. This is a very simple, easy thing to do and deal with. Again, I really want to emphasize not every transgender person needs this care. If you have a problem, yes, you are more likely to have a problem, but that is true of anybody regardless of your gender. We need transgender people to serve in the military. This amendment will make that more difficult and should be defeated.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Jacobs).