Adam Smith

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I concur with the Chairman's conclusions. We worked this process as bipartisan and as open as any process in Congress. We had the markup in committee, we had the floor vote, and we had a bunch of amendments. The Senate did the same. We went to a conference committee, and we had a very robust discussion. We had disagreements. There are a lot of things in this bill that I do not like, but we have bipartisan control here. We have the Senate controlled by the Democrats, the White House controlled by the Democrats--they have to sign the bill--and the House controlled by the Republicans. So we worked a good compromise. Mr. Speaker, what this bill does is it supports our troops in their efforts to defend this country and to meet our national security needs. It has a robust pay increase, it has increases in basic housing allowance, and a number of other provisions to support our troops and their families. Critically, it solidifies our alliances with our European allies, with our allies in Asia and with Israel and our allies in the Middle East, to meet the threats that we face. You cannot oppose this bill and claim that you support the national security of this country because this bill represents that bipartisan compromise that we worked for to get a good bill, to meet our national security needs, and again, I would emphasis, to support our troops and to support their families. Nothing is more important to the national security of this country than the people who we ask to defend it. This bill protects them. Mr. Speaker, I urge every Member in the body to support it, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Just briefly on the 702 issue. Section 702 needs to be reformed. There is no question about that. Nobody I know of, however, says that it should completely go away. If we don't do it on this bill, it completely goes away on January 1, which is a huge national security threat to this country, universally agreed. Now, I agree with the gentleman that we should debate that policy, but it is fascinating because on Tuesday we were set up to debate that policy. We had a couple different choices there, and the very people now who are screaming that we can't extend this without reform blocked the rule that would have allowed us to reform 702. It really doesn't make any sense. What this bill does is it gives us time to do the reforms that need to be done without jeopardizing national security. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Himes), the ranking member of the House Intel Committee who knows this issue very, very well.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining for the various Members.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes. Madam Speaker, I want to focus on this notion that this is how this town works and how terrible that is. I really don't understand where people get the idea that the way the world works is that you get absolutely everything you want and nobody else gets anything. That isn't how this town works. This is how life works in your family, your community, and in your neighborhood--everywhere. I know these Members know this because we just had the vote on Israel not long ago. I would ask: What does the IRS have to do with defending Israel? Somehow, these Members decided that they had to put the IRS cuts in with Israel. They all voted for it and were happy as clams. If you don't like the deal, fine, vote ``no.'' That's cool. The idea that you say that this is just the worst process in the world, apparently you don't like democracy because that is what democracy is. You compromise and work with people. You do it all the time. Argue against the substance of the bill, but please stop tearing down this institution and tearing down this democracy. We have to try to get along with people we don't agree with. Madam Speaker, to quote ``Game of Thrones'': ``We make peace with our enemies, not our friends.'' You have to find a way to get along with people who you disagree with. The chairman of the committee did an outstanding job of doing that in this bill. Madam Speaker, I urge everybody to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Speaker, I would point out that the money from the IRS was not a pay-for. It actually increased the deficit. Under the rules of the House, the people who decide how to score those things scored it as adding money to it. It wasn't a pay-for. It was going after the IRS to appease people so they could vote for the larger package. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Speaker, may I inquire again as to how much time is remaining.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Norcross), the ranking member on the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Speaker, as I understand it, I could go second to last, but I am prepared to close at this point, as well.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I think the most revealing thing said by the gentleman from Texas was: A majority of Republicans. A majority of Republicans supported something, so how possibly could we not do it? That really reflects their opposition. They would like the majority of Republicans to control this bill. Now, to the credit of the chairman and others, they recognize that bipartisan compromise is what we have to get to. They believe that what they want they get regardless of how anybody else votes. That is not the way the process works. We have worked a very good bill and got a very good outcome here. We haven't even mentioned things like the AUKUS agreement, a crucial agreement in deterring China and strengthening our allies. There are a whole lot of things in this bill that are going to have a very positive outcome on national security. Also, I do want to point out that this is important for the House to be involved. If we insist upon the notion that everybody has to agree, then we become irrelevant. This is the House expressing oversight of the executive branch, and, yes, it is on the Defense bill, but it is also in the Intel bill, and it is in the Foreign Affairs bill. If we aren't able to do that, then the executive branch becomes more powerful, and we disappear. Now, in the appropriations process we tried that. The House couldn't pass roughly one-half of the appropriations bills because everybody insisted on having it exactly their way, and, again, we have rendered ourselves irrelevant. Please vote for this bill. It is a reflection of a bipartisan and bicameral effort of the legislative branch to assert its authority and its obligation to exercise oversight. Lastly, Mr. Speaker, I echo Mr. Rogers' comments. Our staff is beyond fantastic. I have not had as much time in this debate to thank them as I would like. They have done a great job. The floor staff and the parliamentary staff pulled it all together. On a note of personal privilege, I specifically thank Connor Stubbs, my legislative director, for his outstanding work. He has the bad taste to be leaving my office tomorrow and going on to bigger and better things. He has done an outstanding job and is really reflective of the entire staff that I have, and that Mr. Rogers has, HASC and SASC. These are tremendous people who work more hours than anybody could possibly calculate to make this happen. So I thank them very much for their hard work. Again, Mr. Speaker, please, vote for this bill. It is enormously important that we do so, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize Kerrie Hurd for her many years of public service and congratulate her on her retirement as the Director of the Small Business Administration (SBA) in Seattle District Office. Kerrie's strong leadership, relentless work ethic, and steadfast commitment to the SBA's mission embodies the highest ideals of public service. During the pandemic when SBA COVID Relief programs disbursed funding to small businesses across the country, Kerrie worked to ensure no business was left behind. She advocated for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) policy changes so Washington's Tribal Fishers and other tribal- owned businesses could also benefit from the program. In addition, she drove efforts to identify and find local small businesses that were eligible for the SBA 8(a) program, helping small businesses grow with federal contracts. This included the strenuous process of reviewing industry association memberships and partnering with the state government. Her capabilities and dedication are also evident in her unprecedented accomplishment of organizing over $1.2 billion in SBA lending and willingness to work overtime to help small businesses be successful. Mr. Speaker, I sincerely thank and commend Kerrie Hurd for her service to the community. She is a great example of a public servant for us all.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize Mary Ellen Stone for her many years of service for the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center (KCSARC) and congratulate her on her retirement as the Executive Director. Mary Ellen has served as a steadfast advocate for survivors of sexual assault over the past 44 years throughout King County and Washington State. She has been a visionary leader in changing the landscape of sexual assault services including prevention, education, and victim advocacy. She was influential in establishing the state's first accreditation process for sexual assault providers, professionalizing service delivery and ensuring core services to be accessible; and publishing ``He Told Me Not to Tell,'' one of the first educational pieces in the nation for parents to talk with their children about sexual assault. As a result, KCSARC is nationally recognized for its effective and innovative services. Mary Ellen has shared her time and expertise in many ways to better inform systems and communities about the needs of victims. This includes serving on the Seattle Archdiocese Review Board, Mental Illness Drug Dependence Oversight Board, Seattle Chief of Police Search committees, Washington Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs, Sex Offender Management Committee, Women's Funding Alliance, and Municipal League Seattle-King County. My staff and I have had the privilege of working with Mary Ellen on multiple occasions. Through her productive relationships with several elected officials, Mary Ellen has helped the KCSARC gain exposure at both the state and federal level. Her passion, tenacity and leadership have shaped KCSARC into the strong, vibrant nonprofit it is today. Mr. Speaker, I sincerely thank Mary Ellen Stone for her tireless work and contributions to the community, and I wish her a happy retirement.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker Pro Tempore, I rise to recognize Kathleen O'Brien Ham for her forty years of work in wireless telecommunications advocacy, and to congratulate her on her retirement as T-Mobile's Senior Vice President for Government Affairs. Throughout her nearly 20 years with T-Mobile, Kathleen has been instrumental in leading the company's public policy practice. She was responsible for engaging federal and state governments and agencies to advance a wide range of priorities for T-Mobile, including radio spectrum and consumer safety matters. Kathleen's fourteen years of prior experience at the Federal Communications Commission equipped her well for the landmark achievements she accomplished during her tenure at T-Mobile. Thanks to her unmatched focus on industry competition and doing more for consumers, T-Mobile became the first telecommunications provider to offer 5G network coverage in all 50 states, expanding wireless access for millions of Americans across the country. From testifying before Congress to spearheading T-Mobile's efforts to secure additional spectrum, Kathleen laid the groundwork for the company's growth and innovation in recent years. Under her oversight, T-Mobile closed its merger with Sprint after a successful two-year policy and regulatory campaign, positioning T-Mobile as the country's leading 5G wireless provider and strengthening the company's competitiveness for years to come. Mr. Speaker Pro Tempore, I thank Kathleen O'Brien Ham for her career helping T-Mobile thrive and subsequently doing more for American consumers, and I wish her a happy retirement.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, if you support Ukraine, you cannot support this rule. My overarching concern here is for Ukraine. I mean, let's start with the fact that there is a Ukrainian supplemental that is needed to continue our support that the House Republicans are refusing to bring to the floor in any form, and they have given no indication whatsoever that they are going to bring that bill to the floor. That is frustrating because we have had a number of votes on support for Ukraine, and it is very apparent that over 300 Members of this body support that, an overwhelming majority of Republicans. Yet, as of October 1, our ability to continue to support Ukraine also dies. For all those Members on the other side of the aisle who support Ukraine, why are you letting that support die? Why aren't you insisting on moving forward with some kind of vote on the supplemental to help them? Let's focus on this particular rule. What this rule does is it takes out the funding for Ukraine. If you support Ukraine, you can't vote for this rule because it undoes the vote that we did yesterday. It very publicly, for Putin and all the world to see, shows the U.S. House voting to cut the funding for Ukraine. That is what it does. The only reason it is here is because the people who don't support Ukraine want it to be here. Now, tip of the hat to Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz and all the other folks who don't support Ukraine, who seem sympathetic to Putin for reasons that I really don't want to think about, are forcing this vote to advance their interests, and that is fine. However, for all the people who claim to support Ukraine on the other side of the aisle, how can they vote to take out the money that they voted in favor of yesterday? I share the chairman's mystification at what is going on here. Now, I know there is a separate bill that will then fund Ukraine except that that separate bill is dead on arrival in the Senate. It is not going anywhere. Also, the vote on the rule, the rule strips out the money from Ukraine. That is what it does. It undoes the vote from yesterday. Believe me, the Russians are good at propaganda. I have seen this propaganda, and I guarantee you that what they will use and what a lot of our allies will wonder about, why did the United States House vote to strip the money away from Ukraine that it had voted for the day before? It will be played as America backing off of its commitment from Ukraine. If you support Ukraine, you have to vote ``no.'' The people who don't support Ukraine are the ones who brought this motion. It is a free world. If you want to not support Ukraine, that is fine. Good for you for advancing this. However, the people who support Ukraine standing up here and voting for this? It is just unbelievable to me that we would undermine the support for Ukraine given how important that fight is. We should support Ukraine. Please vote against this rule.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, just a couple quick points. First of all, there is no legality issue here. This policy is clearly and unequivocally legal. As the quotes from the Hyde amendment said earlier, the Hyde amendment says that the government can't pay for an abortion or use their services for abortion. The travel policy does not do either one of those things, so there is nothing illegal and nothing unconstitutional. This is a policy choice, and we have heard some very passionate arguments on both sides about what that policy choice should be. Number one, let's put aside this ridiculous notion that this is illegal or unconstitutional. No. This is a perfectly legal policy that, on a policy ground, you disagree with. Number two, in response to Chairman Rogers' comment about this being a new policy, it is not really a new policy in the following sense: It has always been the policy of the Department of Defense that if you cannot get the healthcare that you need where you are at, they will pay to take you to where you can. Now, prior to the Dobbs decision, that was not an issue when it came to reproductive services. The Dobbs decision changed that. The Biden administration didn't support the Dobbs decision and didn't make that happen. Once that happened, servicemembers in many, many States were no longer able to get the reproductive healthcare that they needed or wanted where they were, so, therefore, the travel policy that has been a long-time existing policy then applied. It applied to servicemembers seeking reproductive healthcare that couldn't get it in the State where they were. This is not a change in policy, and it is not illegal. It is a policy choice. As a number of speakers have mentioned, it is an important policy choice on the very recruitment issue. It will be harder to recruit women if they are not protected. I think the former Speaker made an outstanding argument for why it is really important. Even if you don't believe in abortion, you have a miscarriage, you need these services that you cannot get, this is crucial to recruitment. The last point on this is we keep hearing the military is not popular anymore because of Biden's woke policies, which is ridiculous. To the extent that the military has gone down in credibility, it is because so many people are running around trashing our military saying they are excessively woke.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Our military is the best in the world. It is the best in the world today with those policies. Continuously undercutting and trashing our military as being weak and woke is hurting recruitment. I will grant you that. It is completely wrong, as are Senator Tuberville's efforts to gut the military's ability to do its job because he disagrees with the policy. We had a vote on it. President Biden got elected. He made his decision. Change the policy. Don't trash the military.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize Teresita Batayola for receiving lifetime achievement awards from the Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations (AAPCHO) and the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC). Over the years, I have had the immense privilege of witnessing Teresita's tireless work to improve health outcomes for refugee, immigrant, and underserved communities in Washington's Ninth District and across the Puget Sound region. Teresita's career as the President and CEO of the International Community Health Services (ICHS) was remarkable. She helped transform ICHS from just 2 clinics into a growing regional health care network that continues to provide comprehensive care to over 27,000 patients. Teresita's work went beyond just leading ICHS for 18 years. During her tenure at ICHS, she also took on leadership roles at the local and national level to help expand access to health care and other services for those that need it most. Her dedication to expanding health care access in Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities led her to serve on the AAPCHO's Board of Directors for well over a decade. Her years of steadfast leadership has been instrumental in advancing the resources and capacity of community health centers across the country, building a legacy that communities will continue to benefit from for decades to come. These lifetime achievement awards from AAPCHO and NACHC are a well-deserved testament to that legacy and to Teresita's exemplary service. Mr. Speaker, I thank Teresita for her visionary leadership, and I congratulate her on these achievements.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

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

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Three quick points here. First of all, it is interesting. You can go back to 2008 and look at John McCain's campaign and, entertainingly, Sarah Palin's Vice Presidential statements about how climate change was an existential threat, and this was a bipartisan issue where we talked about why this was a significant challenge that we needed to address. Then, of course, Barack Obama had the audacity to get elected President and pursue that agenda, so suddenly it became political. I just want to make this very, very clear. The belief here is that digging up fossil fuels from below the ground and burning them is bad for life, it is bad for the planet, and it will eventually exterminate the planet. Now, if you want to disagree with that, you want to have a little argument about whether or not that is true, we can. I mean, the overwhelming majority of scientists seem to agree with that, but let's hear the argument. It just kills me to sit here and listen to the other side claim that this is a political agenda. Now, I understand why they do that, because that skips past the messy part of where you have to actually argue the facts and you can just dismiss it as politics and everyone robotically goes: Oh, yes, politics, that is bad. We can't have that. If we can have an actual discussion about this, if you believe, as the administration does and as, again, I don't know, 80 percent of the scientists believe, that climate change could destroy the fricking planet, then it is worth saying that that's a national security threat at least equivalent to China. Yes, there is the possibility of global nuclear war with China that could exterminate the planet, but climate change, the argument is, would exterminate the planet, so I think that is worth thinking about. Please believe me when I say this is not a political agenda. It is a heartfelt belief that we have a distinct problem here that needs to be addressed. Second: How to address it. Come up with alternative sources of energy and make those investments. This is also very important, because even if this wasn't destroying the planet, our dependency upon oil has been problematic. I know there is this fantasy that we are going to become energy independent. Nobody is energy independent. Oil is a global marketplace. Even if we generate enough energy, we sell it overseas, and Saudi Arabia and OPEC therefore have an enormous amount of control over that market. As I have said over and over again, the true answer to this problem is, when gas prices go up, wouldn't it be great to say: That is wonderful, but we don't need that, we have other sources of energy to go to. Nothing is more important in the military than energy and access to it. Wars are started over having access to the energy that you need. To say that this doesn't involve national security literally hurts my brain. You need these alternatives. The last argument is on the market: We will let the market decide. The market subsidized the living hell out of the oil industry for 175 years. They have an enormous advantage. The pipelines, the system, the entire thing that was built, was built on our taxpayer dollars. Now, what we are saying is if we are going to develop an alternative to that, then we are going to have to help that, as we helped nuclear energy, and a whole of bunch other different things. I don't think I hear the other side complaining about the government subsidizing nuclear energy because that fits within their politics. If I ask nothing else, could we please just have a rational discussion that understands that this is a legitimate policy issue? It isn't a fetish. It isn't a political debate. It is the fate of the planet and how we manage energy policy, both of which--I am going to take a real bold step here--actually impact national security. I believe that they do, and I believe that anybody would agree with that statement. Please, defeat this amendment. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I would just note that we actually are making investments in nuclear power. It is really expensive and difficult to develop, but the investments are being made. That is part of the agenda. Mr. Chair, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi).

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

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I urge opposition to this bill, but I do thank the people for the process that was put in place. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stanton).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.