Ranking Member McCollum Rules Committee Remarks for H.R. 4365, FY 24 Defense Appropriations Act

[Remarks as prepared]

Thank you, Chairman Cole, Ranking Member McGovern.

As you all know, I was the Chair of this Subcommittee in the previous Congress. And I know how difficult it is to put this bill together. This is legislation that is huge in size and scope. It directly impacts the lives of our service members, their families, and underpins the defense of our nation not just for this fiscal year, but future ones as well.

That is why of the twelve appropriations bills, this is normally one of the less controversial. Usually the major disagreement is over the top line number for the Defense bill itself.

But as Appropriators, we were able to overcome that challenge in both Fiscal Years 2022 and 2023 and produce bipartisan Defense bills that made it to President Biden’s desk. When I was Chair, I wrote the House bills to the President’s request, and I largely support it again this year.

Chairman Calvert has written an $826.4 billion bill that is broadly in line with President Biden’s budget request and the Fiscal Responsibility Act. I have some concerns regarding the way funding has been allocated within this bill that I will get to in a moment.

My chief concern today is not funding related. What deeply concerns me is the way this bill has been weighed down with extreme social policy riders that have no place in the Appropriations Process – and certainly no place in the Defense bill.

This bill has a provision to restrict service members, civilians, and dependents from seeking basic reproductive health care. Our current force is almost 20 percent women; 80,000 of those service women are stationed in states that severely restrict reproductive health care access. Abortion has not been banned nationwide by the Supreme Court. But for anyone listening – especially women – this provision is one more step towards enacting a national ban on abortion. Ask most female service members, and they will tell you that restricting this personal choice related to their health or the health of their family – it will impact their decision to serve in our military. That is why I have submitted an amendment to remove this harmful provision from the bill.

Also in this bill is language restricting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, and a provision that bans Critical Race Theory. The bill seeks to define what can and cannot be taught at our military academies and in our professional military education programs based on whether or not certain topics make people uncomfortable. Slavery, the Civil War, Jim Crow, desegregation of the military? We must be able to factually teach American history, if we are still striving to become a more perfect union. It is slavery, it is Jim Crow, and it is desegregation. These are all things that happened in this country. If these facts are taught, they will now fall under the majority’s own broad definition of Critical Race Theory.

And if that is not enough, there is more.

There are provisions in this bill that are offensive to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans – and will impact who serves. For example, I have no doubt in my mind that the ban on gender-affirming care will drive transgender service members out of the military. The message that these riders send to many Americans – women, people of color, gay, lesbian, and transgender people – is that your service isn’t needed, valued, or wanted. Don’t sign up. We have a recruitment problem in many of the Services. Why would we send a signal that all aren’t welcome to stand up and serve their country?

Turning to where our focus as appropriators should be – the funding, I do want to register two major concerns on where the majority has allocated funds within the bill.

First, the reduction of $714 million to climate resiliency programs, and a provision that bans the assessment of climate impacts on the Department. We know climate change is a national security threat. The Pentagon says so, and publishes a report. Climate change is a driver of food insecurity, water scarcity, migration, instability, and conflict around the world.

Ask our U.S. Indo-Pacific Commander how concerned he is. He will tell you that climate change is impacting how U.S. forces operate in the Indo-Pacific right now. The Services must take into account climate caused changes to islands and coastal nations.

Our military installations also face serious vulnerabilities because of climate change. I’ve repeatedly made the point in our Subcommittee hearings that DoD installations have suffered over $10 billion in damage the last few years from severe weather events to places like Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, and Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

Look at what just happened to Guam a few months ago. A typhoon seriously damaged Andersen Air Force Base and other DoD installations on the island. The estimated cost from just the Air Force alone is over $4 billion. When bases like these are impacted by climate change it reduces readiness and the ability for units to deploy. When we cut climate resiliency programs, we will pay for it on the back end.

One other issue I am concerned about the $1.1 billion in cuts to civilian personnel in this bill. We know what these reductions will do to the force, because we tried something like this before. In Fiscal Year 2013, Congress directed DoD to cut civilian personnel by $10 billion over five years. But there were no significant savings that were achieved. That is because the work done – the mission themselves – were not eliminated. The Department just shifted civilian work to expensive contractors. Cutting the civilian backbone of the Department only increased delays in contracting and acquisition. Simply put, we ended up wasting taxpayer money, not saving it.

Those are two areas we are going to need to have further discussions about when we get to conference.

It does feel like Ken and I have spent the last decade trading our roles as Ranking Member and Chair back and forth. We know we can get the job done if the House can commit to a more bipartisan process. What is preventing bipartisanship are these social policy riders that have gone far beyond what we’ve seen in previous years, especially on this Subcommittee.

Fundamentally, they are why I oppose this bill as written and cannot recommend it to my colleagues.

We don’t have a lot of time left this year to avoid a shutdown and pass twelve appropriations bills into law. We all know that all these riders are going to need to come out if this bill has any hope of getting broad bipartisan support in the House. I think it is past time we get serious about working together to do that.

Thank you, Chairman Cole, I yield back.