C. Young

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word to express support for this good amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Madam Chairman, I make a point of order against the amendment because it proposes to change existing law and constitutes legislation in an appropriation bill and therefore violates clause 2 of rule XXI. The rule states in pertinent part: ``An amendment to a general appropriation bill shall not be in order if changing existing law.'' The amendment requires a new determination. I ask for a ruling from the Chair.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I do so to make this announcement: that there are a number of points of order lying on amendments that we will be considering shortly. It will be my hope that we can reserve the point of order so that the Member propounding the amendment can also have their 5 minutes to explain the amendment. As long as that courtesy is not abused, I will continue to allow that, but if it does appear to be abused, then we will raise the point of order immediately. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Madam Chairman, I make a point of order against the amendment because it proposes to change existing law and constitutes legislation in an appropriations bill and therefore violates clause 2 of rule XXI. The rule states in pertinent part: ``An amendment to a general appropriation bill shall not be in order if changing existing law.'' This amendment imposes additional duties. I ask for a ruling from the Chair.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Madam Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in very strong opposition to this amendment. I have suggested so many times that I would not do anything, produce any bill or support any bill, that negatively affects our soldiers or that negatively our affects readiness. Well, this bomber is a long time from production because it takes time to develop a new bomber due to the nature of that vehicle. But by the time it gets online, we are going to need the new bomber because the old bombers are going to be old. Now, without going into all the details that Mr. Dicks did, and he did a very good job of explaining in detail why this new bomber is needed, just let me relate a story that happened to me as a freshman and a member of the Armed Services Committee after a lengthy hearing with the United States Marine Corps. This very, very distinguished, very powerful-looking marine came to me after the hearing and he said, listen, son--he called me son back in those days--he said, listen, son, we marines will go anywhere to fight any war our country sends us to. We will fight on the beach, we will fight on the sea, we will fight in the hills, we will fight in the jungle. Just promise me that as a Member of Congress you will do everything in your power to make sure that any airplane that flies over the battlefield is an American airplane. You can certainly understand why the troops on the battlefield would want that to be the case, why he would want that bomber flying overhead to be an American, why he would want that fighter flying overhead to be an American, why he would want that strike fighter flying over the battlefield to be an American. It just makes good common sense that if you are going to send troops to war, make sure that the aircraft that fly over the battlefield belong to us and not to the enemy. And, having said that, I again say I strongly oppose this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment. NATO has been a very, very important part of keeping peace in the world. Are there some changes that might be necessary in NATO as we see the world unfold and the world develop differently? Maybe so. But it should not be done in a hit-or-miss, helter-skelter way. Mr. Dicks and I, as the leaders of the Defense Appropriations Committee, have already had several lengthy meetings on this subject. And we have agreed that following the completion of this fiscal year's Defense appropriations bill, we plan to hold hearings and look thoroughly into what we see as the role of NATO today, tomorrow, and next year. But in the meantime, it's important that we don't do any serious damage to NATO, which is probably one of the most effective international organizations at maintaining peace that we have in the world. So I must object to the gentleman's amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, the amendment would redistribute $15 million of Army operation and maintenance account funding in order to finance the Energy Security and Technical Certification program. The program is not authorized. It was added by the House Armed Services Committee, but the defense authorization bill is not law. This program currently is not authorized; and because of that, the amendment had to be written in such a way, as just a straight increase or decrease, without actually mentioning the actual program, to avoid being out of order. Further, the Army operation and maintenance account is funded at over $34.5 billion. Should this project remain in the final authorization bill and the Department concurs that it is a high enough priority, then there are more than enough funds for the Department to execute the program. Unfortunately, however, I don't have the ability to make that determination for the Department on the floor. And because of these and other objections, I must oppose the amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would offer $10 million to restore a cut that the committee had already made in the operation and maintenance, defense-wide account. Actually, the Defense Department offered this up when we were looking to achieve $9 billion in savings to reach our allocation. This is one of the areas where the Defense Department indicated that there was no problem with taking a cut. You will hear me discussing this throughout the day and evening as long as we're dealing with this bill. We had to come up with $9 billion in reductions from the President's request. This is a part of where we found the $9 billion. And since the Department did not have any objection to this, in fact, offered this up as a possible way of helping with the savings, I must oppose this amendment and ask that the Members do so. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I rise in opposition to the amendment, and I do so reluctantly because I know my good friend is very sincere about this. However, Mr. Dicks has spoken the position established by the subcommittee very well, and I endorse the comments that Mr. Dicks made and rise in opposition to this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Let me say that I agree with Mr. Dicks. We are more than happy to work with you in order to work out this problem.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, some years ago, the Americans and our allies pretty much stabilized Afghanistan and neutralized the Taliban. But then before the job was completed, we all walked away. The Taliban resurged, came back, and created the situation that we face today and yesteryear and the year before. Let's not let that happen again. Now this Task Force for Business and Stability is part of that operation to try to maintain stability once we clear out and neutralize the Taliban once again. The mission of the task force is to assist the commander of U.S. Central Command in developing a link between U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and economic elements of U.S. national power in order to reduce violence, enhance stability, and to restore economic normalcy in Afghanistan through business and economic opportunities such as agricultural diversification and energy development. The Secretary may use up to $150 million of available operations for overseas contingency operations. This amendment would prohibit that. This amendment would not permit us to do the things that we need to do after winning on the battlefield. After eliminating the combat areas, we have got to maintain an Afghanistan that is not any longer under the jurisdiction and the influence of the Taliban. As I said, we did that once before at great cost. We neutralized the Taliban. We basically stabilized Afghanistan, and then we walked away. We didn't do the things that this Business and Stability Operations Task Force would do. So let's do them this time so we don't have to go back and refight the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is not a good amendment. It is not a good amendment, and I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, the AIF, Infrastructure Fund for Afghanistan was created by this Congress in the FY 2011 House-passed authorization bill. It was again fully authorized in the FY 2012 House- passed authorization bill. We support the objectives of Operation Enduring Freedom, including the Afghan Security Forces Fund. This is a counterinsurgency tool that General Petraeus placed the highest priority on when he recommended that we create the AIF in place of the CERP, the Commanders Emergency Response Program. So we did that. We took money from the CERP, put the money into the AIF as part of General Petraeus's counterinsurgency program. So we think this is not a good amendment, and we are opposed to the amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. The ranking member, Mr. Dicks, has eloquently pointed out why we are opposing this amendment. But like Mr. Dicks and like Mr. Poe, the author of the amendment, I couldn't agree more. If this language included the word Pakistan, I would probably have to have a different attitude on this amendment because I share those concerns and I share them strongly. However, I understand the importance of our coalition and the coalition support fund that we have agreed to and the importance of maintaining that agreement. But I would say that someone at a higher level who deals diplomatically with other countries, including Pakistan, has dropped the ball somewhere. I agree with Mr. Poe, but I just don't think that we can be in a position where we can renege on our agreements and arrangements with our coalition partners, because they are very important to us and to the missions that we face. So as reluctant as I might be because I share Mr. Poe's thoughts, I also will oppose this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.