Gene Taylor

Mr. TAYLOR

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Speaker, I come to rise in support of this bill, but most of all, to tell the American people what a great man this bill is named after. Under his guidance, the House Armed Services Committee, the first hearing that was held under his leadership was to address the problem of underbody explosions to American vehicles. Under Ike Skelton, the previous Secretary of Defense wanted to build 5,000 mine- resistant vehicles. The first hearing under Ike's watch was to discuss the possibility of building mine-resistant vehicles. We set the bar at 15,000. The next day, the new Secretary of Defense, Secretary Gates, said, No, it's not going to be 15,000. It's going to be 17,000. Now that number stands at about 19,000. What has that accomplished? In 2005, the Mississippi Guard went to Iraq. Twenty-eight of my fellow Mississippians died from underbody explosions to vehicles. In 2009, the Mississippi Guard went back to Iraq. They were attacked 85 times. They did not lose a limb, they did not lose a life, because of the mine-resistant vehicles they were traveling in. On Ike Skelton's watch, the fleet has grown by seven ships. We have a friendly game of one-upmanship in this Chamber, incoming Mr. Chairman. I've got believe Ike Skelton set the bar very high for you. I look forward to you doing even better. Ike Skelton, thank you for the magnificent job you've done in saving the lives of our troops.

Mr. TAYLOR

Mr. TAYLOR. Our country is going bankrupt. On May 9, 2001, Mr. Camp, our Nation was $5.643 trillion in debt with a 4.3 unemployment rate. Guys like you came to the floor and said let's pass the Bush tax cuts. They did. I didn't vote for it. Eight years later when the President left office, our debt had increased by $4,983,609,000,000, and the unemployment rate had gone up to 7.7 percent. The argument that somehow these tax cuts are going to magically put people to work is bunk. Since the Bush tax cuts, we are now $8,204,749,000,000 deeper in debt, and the unemployment rate is a shocking 9.8 percent. How much is enough? How much debt is enough? How many more bills are we going to stick on my kids and my grandkids so that you and others can get reelected? It is time to draw the line, Mr. Camp. I do believe in a balanced budget, and I would beg my colleagues, I would beg my colleagues, to defeat this measure. Announcement by the Acting Chair

Mr. TAYLOR. I understand that under the rule just passed, the time has been allocated to a proponent on this side of the aisle for the bill, a proponent on this side of the aisle for the bill. The understanding was, though, that time would be allowed to the opponents of this bill. I am asking if the Chair or someone would identify who that time will be yielded to.

Mr. TAYLOR. Further parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TAYLOR

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Speaker, May 9, 2001, was my son's 13th birthday. Thirteen was a very unlucky year for him, and every other kid in America. On that day, unemployment was 4.3 percent. Our Nation was $5,600,286,010,418 in debt. Nine years and 7 months since the passage of the Bush budget, unemployment is 9.8 percent, and our debt has grown by a staggering $8,204,749,146,330.57. If there's anyone in this body who wants to tell me that the intended effect was to double the number of unemployed people and to add $8 trillion to the debt and, therefore, we should do more of this--I rise in opposition to this rule, and I beg this body to defeat this bill.

Mr. TAYLOR

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. TAYLOR

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Speaker, with that in mind, there is no guarantee for those of us who are opposed to raising the national debt by $1 trillion. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Speaker, the rule before us, on a nearly trillion- dollar bill between spending and tax cuts, apparently does not allow for any time for the opponents of this measure. If you look at page 2, line 4, it says this resolution allows for 3 hours equally divided and controlled between the chair and the ranking minority member of the Committee on Ways and Means. It is my understanding that both of those gentlemen are for the bill. What guarantee do those of us who oppose increasing the deficit by a trillion dollars have of being able to voice our objections if this rule passes? If Mr. McGovern would like to answer that question, I would welcome it.

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask unanimous consent to speak out of order.

Mr. TAYLOR

Mr. TAYLOR. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 6494) to amend the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 to improve the Littoral Combat Ship program of the Navy, as amended.

Mr. TAYLOR. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my friend and colleague, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney).

Mr. TAYLOR. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on the bill under consideration.

Mr. TAYLOR. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, the Littoral Combat Ship Program started off as a very good idea. It was to be a single purpose, low-cost war ship that would help our Navy get to the stated goal of at least three Chiefs of Naval Operations of getting back to a 313-ship Navy. With that said, the program has had, admittedly, a number of problems. First of which was, we were going to build it to commercial specifications. That was a mistake that Congress later corrected because this is a warship. It needed to be built to warship recommendations. You don't build disposable ships unless you want to have disposable crews, and our Nation will never settle for disposable crews. Madam Speaker, having solved that problem, we found that the two vendors took a ship that was supposed to stand for LCS, Littoral Combat Ship, and it came late, costly, and subject to protest. And only because of the great work, in my opinion, of Under Secretary of Defense Sean Stackley of devising a strategy about a year ago that, in effect, read the riot act to both vendors and told them they were going to do a number of things. No. 1 in order to submit their package to Congress, their proposal, they were going to submit with that a technical data package which meant that our Nation that has paid to develop these ships would have the specifications to those ships so that if either vendor continued to underperform, we could then go out and seek additional vendors to build this ship if we felt like our Nation was not getting the ship we deserved at the price we need to pay. Under Secretary Stackley came back with a proposal that said we would give to one vendor a contract for 10 ships and then take that technical data package, put it out on the street and give a second vendor a contract for five, a winner-take- all strategy between a monohull ship and a trihull ship and gave the vendors about 8 months to come up with a price. Madam Speaker, one of the few pleasant surprises of this Congress was that both vendors came back with remarkably good prices when given that all-or-nothing proposal. And I want to compliment, give credit where it's due to Under Secretary Stackley. I also want to give credit where it's due to the Seapower Subcommittee, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Akin), and the other gentleman from Missouri, Chairman Skelton, for allowing us to work with Under Secretary Stackley to get this program back under control. Having said that, Madam Speaker, Under Secretary Stackley, once he looked at those prices--and I deeply regret the gentleman from Arizona was exactly right over in the other body when he said yesterday, What's the price? The public needs to know. Unfortunately, under the rules of our Nation, we are not allowed to divulge them just yet. Part of that reason is the fear that both vendors will drop their bids and come back later at higher prices. So one of the limitations we are going to be working under today is the inability to give the exact price to Congress but to tell you that this ship that started out to be about a $220 million dollar ship grew to be about a $720 million ship. We have now got the price a heck of a lot closer to the first number than the last number which is where we needed to go all along. Under Secretary Stackley is now asking, since both prices came back, and since there is a working ship of each variety out in the fleet right now that are performing well, he has asked for permission to buy both ships at the low price that the contractors have agreed to build them on. Having given that some thought, I think he is right. And also given the economic circumstances that the price of aluminum is down by about half since 3 or 4 years ago, the price of steel is down by about half from 3 or 4 years ago, that American vendors need work, that because they need work, they are supplying the kind of prices that our Nation should have been paying all along, that we can get the Navy the ships they need at a price our Nation can afford and build 20 ships for about $2 billion less than we had originally budgeted to build 19 ships. For all of these reasons, Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this program. I want to thank the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Akin) for being a cosponsor to this measure. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6494, a bill granting authority for the Secretary of the Navy to construct up to 20 Littoral Combat Ships, 10 each from the shipyards currently building the vessels. This is a change in already passed authorization to ``down- select'' to one of the two types of ships and build 19 of them over the next 5 years. This change in acquisition strategy is the result of lower than expected construction proposals from the two competing shipyards. The LCS has a very troubled history, but the bill before us today is about the future, it is about how true competition between vendors has actually forced these contractors to return competitive bids that this Nation can afford. These are good ships. Up until now they have just been too expensive to build. Neither contractor, until faced with the prospect of being shut out of the program, had ever submitted a realistic proposal for affordable construction. They now have. I would not be here today requesting this House pass this legislation if I was not highly confident that this is the right thing to do, and that this action will not come back to be an issue that my friend and colleague from Missouri will need to deal with in the next Congress as he takes the gavel of the Seapower subcommittee. I will also be the first to admit that the timing for this new acquisition proposal from the Navy is flawed. Normally, this is not the kind of decision that we would consider at the end of a Congress. However, the Navy has bids in hand from the two contractors that will expire this month if not acted upon. Unfortunately, time is of the essence. For my colleagues, the bottom line is this: The Navy has budgeted approximately $12 billion dollars for 19 ships over the next 5 years. This new strategy would buy 20 ships for approximately $9.8 billion dollars, a savings of over $2 billion from the budget, with the additional benefit of getting an extra ship. I believe this is a good deal and we should take it. I would like to state for the record that this affordable strategy for the purchase of this class of ships would not have been possible without the tireless work of our Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, the Honorable Sean Stackley. He was the official responsible for the strategy which forced the contractors to offer affordable bids, at a firm fixed price, to build these ships. I congratulate him on the effort. If the Department of Defense could just get 100 Sean Stackleys working over there, we would have far fewer issues with cost overruns and program delays on weapons and equipment our warfighters need. I urge my colleagues to agree to this resolution. I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. TAYLOR. Madam Speaker, first let me again thank future Chairman Akin, former Chairman Bartlett. I believe it was CNO Vernon Clark who first proposed this program. The idea was to build a ship under the speed of light, an inexpensive ship. That obviously didn't happen, and we learned some very painful mistakes as a Congress, and I hope those of you who remain on the committee will remember those painful mistakes. We can make mistakes doing things too rapidly. We made a lot of mistakes in this program. But the thing I want to most compliment the Armed Services Committee for, and particularly the Seapower Committee, was, when we recognized those mistakes, we admitted them and we went as far as to threaten to cancel the program if it wasn't corrected. I think those threats and, again, the phenomenal work of Secretary Stackley and Secretary Mabus in holding the vendors' feet to the fire, the economic circumstances of our Nation where people need work, the fact that the Navy needs the ships, that the frigates that these ships will replace are getting to the end of their useful life, and, again, the willingness of all the members on both sides of the aisle to hold these vendors accountable was the key element in turning this program around. So, again, I want to thank future Chairman Akin, former Chairman Bartlett, Mr. Wittman, Mr. Kagen, Mr. Bonner, Mr. Stupak, Ms. Baldwin, and Mr. Conaway for being cosponsors of this measure. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. TAYLOR

Mr. TAYLOR. Number one, I want to thank Mr. Akin for allowing us to go into your time a little bit. As a fellow Missourian, it's obviously time well spent. Mr. Speaker, I have a Vietnamese American friend who has a limited use of the English language. He is also very devout. I once saw him at his boatyard hit his thumb with a 5-pound maul. And having a limited use of the English language and also being very devout, he did not use the kinds of words I would use in that situation. He just shouted over and over as he was shaking his thumb, ``No joy.'' This is a ``no joy'' moment. For those of us who have had the privilege of working with Ike, we want to say thank you. If you are the mother or father of a troop, a marine, a coastie, a sailor, you should know about Ike Skelton. You should know his name. In our line of work, if you do something stupid, you are a headline. If you do the right thing, people don't know your name. But if your child has been saved because of a mine-resistant vehicle, you should know Ike Skelton's name. If you are a military retiree who is enjoying the benefits of TRICARE for life, you should know Ike Skelton's name. If you are a guardsman or Reservist who is now eligible for TRICARE, you should know Ike Skelton's name. What he won't ever tell you, out of concern for his kids, and I won't tell you the branch, but he has two sons who are officers in the United States military. But what every mom and dad should know is that there was one more parent out there looking out for their kids, and that was Ike Skelton. So, Ike, for all of those things and for your great humility, I got to tell the story. Ike visited a Coast Guard buoy tender on the Missouri River. And given his nature, obviously he paid his respects to the captain, engineering officer. But then he sought out the lowest- ranked person on that boat, a seaman apprentice. Went back to him and said, Hi, how are you doing? I am Ike Skelton. I am a Congressman from Missouri. How do you like the Coast Guard? I do. He said, Have you ever had a Congressman on your buoy tender before? And the kid said, No, and I hope to hell we never do again. They have been working my butt off for the past 2 weeks scraping and painting, getting this boat ready for you, sir. Now, only Ike Skelton would tell that story about himself. So now the rest of America knows. And I hope that seaman apprentice is listening tonight, and I hope he made chief one day. But, Ike, you have been an incredible role model. Someone who put together a $600 billion bill that involved the lives of airmen, marines, sailors, and to some extent coasties, certainly the troops in the field, and it passed out of your committee unanimously. That is an incredible feat. And all of us are grateful for your service. God bless you.

Mr. TAYLOR

Mr. TAYLOR. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 1251) recognizing and honoring the United States troops who gave their lives on D-day at the Battle of Normandy, as amended.

Mr. TAYLOR. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the resolution under consideration.

Mr. TAYLOR

Mr. TAYLOR. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 6102) to amend the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 to extend the authority of the Secretary of the Navy to enter into multiyear contracts for F/A-18E, F/A-18F, and EA-18G aircraft.

Mr. TAYLOR. I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the bill under consideration.

Mr. TAYLOR. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 6102, a necessary amendment to section 128 of the Fiscal Year 2010 National Defense Authorization Act which granted permission for the Secretary of the Navy to enter into a multiyear procurement contract for F/A-18 series aircraft. Madam Speaker, I mention this is a necessary amendment, and I ask the patience of the House as I briefly explain the technical issue in law which will prevent the Navy from entering into this cost-saving contract unless the House passes this bill and it is taken up in the Senate and passed before the end of this month. In the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress granted permission to the Navy for a multiyear contract if they could meet the intent of the requirements contained in title 10 of the United States Code for projected cost savings. The authority granted the Navy one- time permission to miss the title 10 reporting timelines as long as they submitted the required reports by March of this year. The Navy subsequently reported the significant cost savings this type of contract would achieve but missed the reporting requirement by a month, due to a variety of factors. As a result of the missing of this reporting requirement, the letter of the law prevents them from entering into this cost-savings contract. To fix this new problem, this House subsequently agreed to the exact language contained in this bill when H.R. 5136, the Fiscal Year 2011 National Defense Authorization Act, passed the House in May. This stand-alone bill is necessary because the Senate has yet to take up the Fiscal Year 2011 National Defense Authorization Act, which means we may not have an authorization act signed into law by the end of this fiscal year. Madam Speaker, this is not an argument about the number of strike fighters the Navy needs. That is a debate for another day. This is an argument that we know that we can save hundreds of millions of dollars by using a multiyear contract to purchase the remaining 84 aircraft that are scheduled to be built. The majority of economic savings in a multiyear contract come from savings in the cost of materiel and equipment. As any businessman or - woman who has been successful will tell you, the more of any item you order, the lower the per-unit cost will be. In this case, a multiyear contract will allow the prime vendor, in this case the Boeing Company, to contract with their vendor supply base for the materiel and equipment for the remaining 84 aircraft all at once instead of contracting for 25 to 30 per year. They will get a much better price with the larger order and save our Nation $590 million. Madam Speaker, with just the savings on this contract alone the Navy will be able to purchase an additional Littoral Combat Ship. Madam Speaker, an almost $600 million savings is too large a figure just to sweep under the rug. The bill that I offer today along with my cosponsor, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Akin), and, I must add, strongly supported by the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Gary Roughead, and the Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus, will allow the Navy to enter into this contract by the end of this month. I am assured by Assistant Secretary of the Navy Stackley that all the contracting negotiations are complete, and, as soon as this bill is passed by the House and Senate and signed into law by the President, the Navy and the Boeing Company will complete the contract. Madam Speaker, to use a phrase popular today, this is a ``no- brainer.'' I urge my colleagues to support this bill which will result in an almost $600 million savings to the taxpayers. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TAYLOR. Madam Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.