Adam Smith

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 335.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from the U.S. Virgin Islands (Ms. Plaskett).

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Speaker, I rise to congratulate Phil Lindquist on his retirement from Director of Governmental Affairs at the International Union of Painters and Allied Traders (IUPAT), District Council 5. Me and my staff had the pleasure of working with Phil for several years. Rarely have I met someone with the expertise, knowledge, and passion Phil possesses. He was an extremely effective advocate for workers' rights and genuinely cared about the work he was doing. He recognized the need to have a strong, organized union and was an important leader in IUPAT, District Council 5. For nearly two decades Phil was an incredible Director of Governmental Affairs to the union. The impact union leaders have are often overlooked, but they are incredibly important. I know his work- ethic, drive, and dedication will be missed by all and he has left an impressive legacy that will be hard for his successor to fill. Madam Speaker, I thank Phil Lindquist for spending his career advancing the rights of workers and congratulate him on a well-deserved retirement.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor and congratulate Ray Hall on his well-earned retirement after 33 years of service to the Congress at the Congressional Budget Office. Ray began his Congressional career in CBO's Budget Analysis Division in 1987 where he worked as a principal analyst in the Defense, International Affairs and Veterans' Affairs, Cost Estimates Unit. During his time at CBO, Ray was recognized as a knowledgeable and experienced analyst. As one of the longest tenured members of CBO's Budget Analysis Division, he has accrued extensive knowledge of the programs and accounts in his portfolio. Ray earned the gratitude of his colleagues at CBO and of his counterparts on the staff of the Committee on Armed Services. He established a solid working relationship with the Armed Services Committees, and for more than three decades was a valued contributor to CBO's work on the proposals for the annual National Defense Authorization Act. His technical feedback on legislative proposals made important contribution to the Armed Services Committees' success in achieving the timely enactment of the National Defense Authorization Act each year. With his departure, Congressional Budget Office lost a great asset. Over the past 33 years, the Congressional Budget Office--and by extension, the Congress itself--has been fortunate to enjoy the effort Ray brought to his work. I know my colleagues join me in extending our thanks and appreciation to Ray for his service to our nation and our very best wishes for a happy and productive retirement.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on the veto message of the President of the United States to the bill H.R. 6395.

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

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise to strongly urge Members to uphold what we did in this Chamber just a couple weeks ago and what the Senate did, as well; and that is we passed an overwhelmingly bipartisan bill, with roughly 80 percent of the vote in both the Senate and the House. The legislative branch made it absolutely clear that we support this piece of legislation, and as the gentleman from Texas just noted, we support it with very good reason. It is enormously important to give our troops the support that they need to carry out the job that we all are asking them to do. That is, I think, one of our minimum obligations as Members of Congress. And this bill reflects that. This bill is the process of a lengthy effort involving Members of both Chambers, both parties, that have come together and put together an incredibly strong piece of legislation. That is why it passed so overwhelmingly just a couple weeks ago. And nothing has changed. Nothing has changed. The bill is exactly the same and every little bit as important. Now, the President has the right to veto it, but I think we, as Members of the legislative body, have to look at the reason behind that. Was it because of something in the bill? Pieces of legislation come through here all the time, and we occasionally miss something. The President finds out, and we say: Gosh, I didn't know that. That is not what happened here. I really want Members to understand the President vetoed this because of something that isn't in the bill and was never going to be in the bill, something totally unrelated to national security and something that we were not going to do in any event. There is literally no reason to veto this bill for the reasons that the President did and certainly no reason for us not to uphold what we did in passing this bill. This is really important that we exercise our legislative prerogative. There are all kinds of crucial provisions in this bill, but I will just point to one, and that is the one that Mr. Thornberry mentioned earlier, to give you an idea of why it is important that the legislative branch do its job in exercising oversight of the Department of Defense in providing national security policy, and that is the cyber issue. Thanks to the leadership of Chairman Langevin, chairman of the subcommittee that deals with this issue, and Ranking Member Stefanik, they have worked together to really put together an incredible package to try to better address these very cyber issues that we are now facing. That is what we do in this legislation, and it is not always exciting, but it is incredibly important to meet our obligation to our troops and to the national security of this country. It is enormously important that we pass this bill. We did it once. Let's just do it one more time, and then we can all go home for the year. We can be done, and we can be proud of what we have accomplished. I urge Members to vote in favor of this bill to do what we did just a couple weeks ago. Show the country that the legislative branch can still do its job. I will close on one note, which we make a lot of times. This is the most bipartisan committee in Congress. That is not an easy thing to achieve. We have a lot of things that we passionately disagree about in this body, and we should, but on the Armed Services bill, we manage to come together. It is not always easy, but we get it done. I think it is enormously important that we let the country know that that process hasn't died. We put together a product, a bipartisan, bicameral product that has gotten an overwhelming number of votes. Let's show the American public that the legislative process works at least a little bit better than sometimes they think it does, that we can get our job done and, in this case, get our job done for the men and women who put their lives on the line to protect this country. We owe them nothing less than that. Madam Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry), the ranking member of the committee, pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. General Leave

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters), the distinguished chair of the Financial Services Committee. I really want to thank her for her leadership. The Financial Services Committee provided a number of key pieces of legislation on this bill.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Virginia (Mrs. Luria), a member of the committee.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the distinguished majority leader of the House.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Norcross), the chair of the Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mostly, I would like to associate myself with Mr. Thornberry's remarks. I think that was the perfect statement of why it is so important to vote for this bill and why every Member of this body should vote for this bill. It contains incredibly important provisions, and the excuses for not doing those provisions just don't hold up. As Mr. Thornberry points out, every year near the end of the process, because we are the only bill that actually makes it through the process, people who have been working on issues for a long time are desperate to get them taken care of. We respect that, we honor that, and we are the last vehicle to find. Many times we are able to help, but not always. That is not a reason to not do the bill because of all the other issues, as Mr. Thornberry laid out, that we have not addressed. Then, as people want to find reasons to oppose the bill, they start saying things that aren't terribly accurate. I think Mr. Gaetz wins the award for that one this year in his remark on Afghanistan. Our bill says that if the President wants to go below 2,000 troops in Afghanistan--he said he is going to go to 2,300. So this bill doesn't have anything to do with what President Trump said he is going to draw down in Afghanistan. If he wants to go below 2,000 or a future President wants to go below 2,000, then he has to file a report. It doesn't say that he can't do it. He has to file a report. I actually agree with Mr. Gaetz on where we need to go in Afghanistan. And I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, this bill does nothing to prohibit the next President, President Biden, from completely drawing down in Afghanistan. That is a policy debate he will have. So anyone who comes to the floor and says they are voting against this bill because of that is really not telling the truth. That is not what this bill does. I also want to mention the top line because that is a favorite argument on our side to not vote for the bill. I will let you in on a little secret: the defense policy bill does not control how much money we spend at the Pentagon. I know that sounds a little odd, but it doesn't. The budget process does that. And when we don't have a budget process because of how much things have broken down, which has happened frequently, then the Appropriations Committee decides how much we spend. What we do is we decide how that gets spent and the oversight of it. A few years ago, Mr. Courtney pushed us to do two submarines a year, a great provision that saved a lot of money. We can control that. But if you think the Pentagon should spend more than it is spending, or less, then your beef is on the appropriations side. We could take the tables out in terms of the amount of money that we have in this bill, and it wouldn't change the amount of money that is spent at the Pentagon. So, again, if you have a reason to vote against the bill, that is great. But the top line, Afghanistan, those are not valid reasons. This is an important piece of legislation that has been unduly complicated by the fact that, of all people, the President is one of the people this year who, near the end of the process, said: I want to fix that. He wanted to fix something about section 230 having to do with social media platforms, and he went looking for the only possible vehicle. Let me just say to people on that issue, that section is not going to be addressed in this bill. You can not address section 230 and pass a defense bill; or you can not address section 230 and not pass a defense bill. There is no choice here where you can do both, Mr. Speaker. So please make the right choice. Please recognize all of the incredibly important bicameral, bipartisan provisions that are contained in this bill. This is one thing in a very tumultuous time that we ought to be able to agree on. There are enough provisions and good policy in here for everyone in this body. Mr. Speaker, I want to close by thanking everyone in this body. We have worked together in this process. I am now finishing up my 2 years as chairman. My caucus, in their infinite wisdom, has given me another 2 years to do the job, but these first 2 years I really enjoyed the process. Members keep coming up to me and saying: You have a terrible job, it must be difficult, you have all these people making all these demands. I love what I do. I am in a position with all the other team here to help people. We don't always succeed and we don't always get it done, but we have a chance. Every Member of the House and Senate, I think, have worked together, and we have produced an outstanding product. Let us reward ourselves for our work. Let us take care of the troops, as we are supposed to do, and pass this bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Speier), the chair of the Subcommittee on Military Personnel.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis). I recognize Mrs. Davis is retiring after 22 years of service on the committee. It has been great working with her, and I appreciate her leadership.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Brown), the vice chair of the committee.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Intelligence and Emerging Threats and Capabilities, and I thank him for his leadership.

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

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on the conference report to accompany H.R. 6395.