{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.inhofe.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/inhofe-60th-annual-ndaa-does-the-right-thing-for-our-troops-in-harms-way", "Inhofe: 60th Annual NDAA \"Does the Right Thing for Our Troops\" in Harm's Way", "2020-12-10", "2020", "2020-12", "Republican", "House", "OK", "James Inhofe", "I000024", "www.inhofe.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "U.S.\r\nSen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee,\r\ntoday spoke on the Senate floor in support of the National Defense\r\nAuthorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021: Mr.\r\nPresident, I will sound a little redundant here because we've been talking\r\nabout this bill for a long time now, for several months. People don't realize\r\nhow long it takes to get a defense authorization bill all the way through the\r\nsystem. There is no doubt in my mind this is the most important bill of the\r\nyear, every year, and the importance, I think, is pretty well demonstrated by\r\nthe fact that we have successfully passed a defense authorization bill every\r\nyear for 60 years. I feel we'll do the same thing  it could be today, it could\r\nbe tomorrow, but nonetheless, it's a bill that has to pass. Now,\r\nwhen President Trump came into office four years ago, we had a problem. He\r\ninherited a military that had been  had serious problems. In\r\nfact, during the last four years of the previous Administration, that would\r\nhave been 2010 to 2015, the President depleted the budget, reduced the budget\r\nfor the military by 25 percent. I don't say that really critically of President\r\nObama because he had different priorities. He was upfront about it and didn't\r\nconsider this to be high enough of a priority. Now\r\nthe sad thing about this is at the same time he was reducing our military\r\nspending by 25 percent, Russia was increasing theirs threefold, and China was\r\nincreased by 83 percent. So we dropped ours by 25 percent at the same time\r\nChina increased theirs 83 percent. That's really serious. You\r\nknow, people have this assumption that America has the best of everything and\r\nthat we don't have a problem out there, but we do. We found several systems\r\nwhere they were actually getting ahead of us. So\r\nworking with Congress to pass the NDAA and appropriations bills, we secured\r\nnearly $3 trillion in funding in our nation's defense. This year alone, his\r\nAdministration will provide more than $740 billion for the resources our\r\nmilitary needs to keep our country and our troops safe. The\r\nFiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act cements President Trump's\r\nhard work to restore our military to be the best fighting force. That's what\r\nwe're supposed to be doing in America. The\r\nNDAA authorizes critical investments that protect our military advantage across\r\nall domains  from the skies to the seas and even now through space, a whole\r\nnew program. With the President leadership last year, the NDAA created the Space Force. It's the\r\nfirst time there's been a new branch since 1947. That's happened this year.\r\nThis year's NDAA makes sure that it's set up successfully. One of the things\r\nabout the Space Force, I think people who are somewhat critical of it, we were\r\ndoing a good job in space before, without the Space Force, but the fact that we\r\ncan concentrate all those efforts into one force and be on equal footing \r\nbecause that's exactly what our primary problem is out there with China and\r\nRussia. They both have what would be in their interpretation a space force, so\r\nit was important that we did too, and that was the right thing to do. This\r\nalso authorized the procurement of 93 F-35s, the Joint Strike Fighters, to\r\ncontinue the rebuilding of our overworked combat aircraft. It\r\nalso includes authorizations for C-130J aircraft, which will modernize our\r\nfleet used for transportation, personnel and also for refuelers and things that\r\nwe have to do in the military. That's an upgrade of literally the old versions,\r\nbut the J model C-130 is a great vehicle. We have to have it authorized and all\r\nthe priorities set. That's what this bill does. We\r\nalso authorize the procurement of nine new battle force ships, including the Virginia-class\r\nsubmarine. We talked about that for a long time, and now we finally are doing\r\nthat. Another\r\narea we have been doing it is our nuclear forces. Our president has been a\r\nchampion for our nuclear modernization efforts, and for good reason. Our\r\nnuclear deterrent is the cornerstone of our national security. The NDAA ensures\r\nthat our nation wields a safe and reliable nuclear deterrent by authorizing the\r\nresources needed to modernize. Now,\r\nwe didn't do this for a long period of time. We fell behind. This bill is\r\nreversing that, and we are getting back into the competition, the nuclear competition.\r\nThat's where the real threat is. Everybody knows that. I\r\nthink having the best weapons and equipment is critical to be sure, but we also\r\nneed the infrastructure and manpower to support it. Over the past several\r\nyears, Congress has provided the military with significant funding increases\r\nand authorized to begin and continue critical military construction projects\r\noverseas as well as in our country. These\r\nmilitary construction projects can be found everywhere, I mean from Arkansas to\r\nSouth Carolina, Oklahoma to California, Missouri to Massachusetts, all across\r\nthe country. The investments that we built also improved family housing. A\r\nlot of people, I heard people complain about what we do with the military in\r\nthis country, and they try to say that we're spending more on military than\r\nboth China and Russia put together. Yeah, that's true, but there's a reason for\r\nthat, and the reason for that is that the most expensive thing in building a\r\nmilitary is individuals, what we're spending on individuals, on housing, on all\r\nof these things. Now when you're dealing with  if you look at one of the\r\ncommunist countries, you look at Russia, you look at China, they don't take\r\ncare of their people. They don't have that expense. That's why we spend more\r\nthan they do. You know, just in the last two years, what we've done to improve\r\nhousing for our troops and their families, other people don't do that, but we\r\ndo it. So that's why it's so significant that we do this. I\r\nhave a concern that I'd like to share, and I hesitate to do this because it\r\nwill take a little bit of time, but people out there don't realize in a bill\r\nlike this, what all goes into it, and I look at the people that are heading\r\nthis thing up. Yesterday, Senator Reed talked about the Democrats and the\r\nRepublicans, the staff people that have worked so hard and let me say this. We\r\ncould not have this without the cooperation and the love that we have for each\r\nother with Senator Reed. He heads up the minority, I head up the majority, and\r\ntogether, we want to make sure that we have the best product in the world and\r\ncan have the best of everything for our troops in the field. So I really want\r\nto single out Senator Reed for all the work he has done. He has been a great\r\npartner and friend throughout this process. We want to thank our colleagues in\r\nthe House also  Congressman Smith and Congressman Thornberry, we all worked\r\ntogether. You\r\nknow these things, I've been involved in a lot of these things, and it always\r\nends up in the Big Four, that's where you have a leading Democrat and\r\nRepublican in the House, Democrat and Republican in the Senate, so far as\r\ndefense is concerned, and we iron these things out. In the meantime, this long\r\nbill is one that's just taken a lot of work. I know that yesterday, Senator Reed\r\ngot to mention the names of and show the appreciation of the Democrats who\r\nworked in the minority, and I want us to do the same for the Republicans in the\r\nmajority. John Bonsell, I don't think there is a person in Washington, DC,\r\nwho knows more about our military than John Bonsell does. He's put\r\ntogether a group of people  these are all experts, and they all worked \r\npeople don't understand this, but I'm talking about weekends, Sundays, times\r\nthey have to work to get things done and to get the bill in a position because\r\nyou've got to pass it through the Senate, and then you have to go to the Senate\r\nfloor, and then you have to go to the House and the House committee and the\r\nHouse floor, and then you have to have a conference. There\r\nare some things in this bill that I  that we avoiding having, and I'm thankful\r\nthat we did, quite frankly, that the House wanted and the Senate didn't want.\r\nWe were able to iron out these differences and get them done. But to do that,\r\nwe had to work long, hard hours. I can assure you that the staff worked a lot\r\nlonger hours than I did. So I single these people out as really the experts,\r\nand I wanted to show the appreciation, and I'm going to read them off to you:\r\nJohn Bonsell, we know about John Bonsell, we know what he's done. He's been\r\nwith me since he was years ago stationed at Fort Sill in my state of Oklahoma.\r\nHe's been with me and heading up this group and putting this group together.\r\nThis group consists of John Wason, Tom Goffus, Stephanie Barna, Greg Lilly,\r\nMarta Hernandez, Rick Berger, Jennie Wright, Adam Barker, Adam Trull, Brad\r\nPatout, Jason Potter, Katie Sutton, Eric Trager, T.C. Williams, Otis Winkler,\r\nGwyneth Woolwine, Katie Magnus, Leah Brewer, Debbie Chiarello, Gary Howard,\r\nTyler Wilkinson, John Bryant, Griffin Cannon, Keri Lyn Michalke, Soleil Sykes,\r\nBrittany Amador, and Jillian Schofield. They\r\nhave performed long and hard hours. There's been more staff work go into this\r\nbill than any other bill that's before us any time, year-round. I appreciate so\r\nmuch the hard work that's gone on there. We\r\nwill pass this bill. It's one that if we don't pass it, we're not going to give\r\nthe resources necessary for our kids in the field to have the safety that we\r\ncan provide them, and to have the equipment. We want to get to the point where\r\nwe have the very best of everything out there, and right now we don't. We're\r\nnot  China and Russia are knocking at our door. We have to do a better job\r\nthan we have in the past, and I'm going to be working with the Administration\r\nto do everything we can in the coming year. But\r\nright now, we need to get caught up and go ahead and pass this bill. This bill\r\nis the road map for the next year, and that's why this is important. So I\r\nencourage all of us to do what we have to do to get this bill done, hopefully\r\ntoday, but definitely by tomorrow. I believe that will happen because people do\r\ncare about our troops. There's no one more deserving in America than our troops\r\nthat are out there in harm's way, and we're going to make sure we do the right\r\nthing for them. With that, I yield the floor.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.inhofe.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/inhofe-60th-annual-ndaa-does-the-right-thing-for-our-troops-in-harms-way"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.6963619962334633, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}