{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.rounds.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/vital-national-security-legislation-passes-senate-with-rounds-support", "Vital National Security Legislation Passes Senate with Rounds\u2019 Support", "2018-06-18", "2018", "2018-06", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "Mike Rounds", "R000605", "www.rounds.senate.gov", "rounds", "https://www.rounds.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON\u2014U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, last week delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor regarding the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2019. The NDAA passed the Senate tonight by a vote of 85-10. It now heads to a conference committee, where differences will be worked out with the House-passed NDAA.\n\n\u201cAs a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I am pleased we as a committee have once again come together, in a bipartisan fashion, to advance the National Defense Authorization Act, a vital piece of legislation for our national security,\u201d said Rounds. \u201cI\u2019m pleased we were able to put together legislation\u2026 that builds on last year\u2019s efforts to provide adequate tools so our forces can fully rebuild our military and adequately address the challenges they face.\u201d\n\nVideo of Rounds' remarks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWndY9oFMh0&feature=youtu.be\n\nRemarks as Prepared for Delivery:\n\nAs a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I am pleased we as a committee have once again come together, in a bipartisan fashion, to advance the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, a vital piece of legislation for our national security.\n\nI thank the chairmen and ranking members in both the House and Senate, for their leadership, Senator Inhofe, and the members on both sides of the aisle who have continued to work together on this important defense bill.\n\nCongress, as an institution, continues to come together each year to show our troops and their families that they have our full support.\n\nThe federal government\u2019s number one responsibility is to provide for the defense of our nation.\n\nThis year\u2019s NDAA, the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act, honors our Chairman who has dedicated his life to serving our country.\n\nFew people are more passionate about our troops and our military readiness than Chairman McCain and the courage he has exhibited during his years of service - and in his current battle \u2013 has inspired us all.\n\nI\u2019m pleased we were able to put together legislation \u2013 bearing his name \u2013 that builds on last year\u2019s efforts to provide adequate tools so our forces can fully rebuild our military and adequately address the challenges they face.\n\nBut the most important capability we have is our people \u2013 the men and women in uniform who defend our nation - and the families who give them the strength to do so.\n\nThat is why I am pleased this year\u2019s NDAA includes a 2.6 percent pay raise for our troops.\n\nWe are also fortunate that the leader of our armed forces, Defense Secretary James Mattis, has provided us with a national defense strategy that clearly articulates the current and emerging threats we are facing.\n\nThis strategy focuses on the central challenge facing our nation: the reemergence of long-term strategic competition with our near-peer competitors, such as Russia and China.\n\nIt is our duty to provide Secretary Mattis and all of our troops with the tools they need to execute this strategy.\n\nThe world is more dangerous than any time since the Cold War-era:\n\nChina and Russia are both strategic competitors,\n\ngreat uncertainty remains on the Korean peninsula,\n\nIran continues to threaten Middle Eastern stability, and\n\nour forces remain engaged in combat in Afghanistan and conducting counter-terrorism in multiple areas of operation.\n\nOur superiority in the maritime, air, ground, space and cyber domains \u2013 once taken for granted \u2013 are constantly challenged by our strategic and regional competitors.\n\nEven more concerning, the threat of sequestration and repeated Continuing Resolutions have prevented our troops from being fully equipped to prepare and defend against these threats.\n\nAs a result, modernization, readiness and sustainment have all suffered.\n\nIt is our duty to provide funding stability and avoid arbitrary budget caps that constrain defense spending below that which is required to protect our nation.\n\nFailure to provide adequate, stable funding disrupts planning, impacts responsible obligation of critical funding resources, degrades readiness and inhibits modernization.\n\nAnd there have been unimaginable real-world consequences.\n\nThe high-operational demand with an insufficient fleet, over-burdened maintenance infrastructure, and an erosion of training all were factors in a string of recent Navy surface fleet incidents.\n\nThe Marine Corps and Air Force have had their own serious readiness issues with the F-18 and B-1 fleets, which experienced multiple \u201cClass A\u201d accidents \u2013 some of which caused the loss of life.\n\nAnd, the shortage of pilot- in every service - is a strategic readiness concern that must be addressed.\n\nOur sailors, soldiers, airmen and marines deserve the very best in training and equipment.\n\nThis year\u2019s NDAA does that by providing a total of $716 billion dollars in fiscal year 2019 for national defense.\n\nVoting for this vital legislation is not an act of budget-busting.\n\nIn fact, in 2010, we spent $714 billion dollars, just $2 billion dollars less than this year on national defense.\n\nBut a dollar went a lot further back then.\n\nAdjusted for inflation, this bill actually authorizes more than $110 billion dollars less than in 2010.\n\nWe are slowly digging ourselves out of a hole that has hollowed our armed forces.\n\nThe real budget-busting is being done with mandatory spending.\n\nSince the Cold War, the stakes for failing to take decisive action have never been higher.\n\nThis legislation will enable our armed forces to continue taking necessary steps to rebuild and restore our national security.\n\nFor example, in the Navy, this year\u2019s NDAA builds on last year\u2019s bill to improve ship and aviation readiness and the infrastructure necessary to support the fleet \u2013 which directly addresses a significant problem the Armed Services Committee has examined in multiple hearings this year.\n\nSignificantly, it improves the Navy's capacity to execute maintenance in Naval Shipyards by continuing to grow the workforce while investing in shipyard infrastructure, including facilities, equipment and information technology.\n\nThis increase in workforce will help the Navy to meet scheduled ship maintenance, support additional ships, and reduce the backlog that has accumulated from over a decade of increased operational tempo.\n\nSimilar plans to restore readiness will be executed across the force, so long as we honor our commitment to invest in a complete lifecycle acquisition system.\n\nAs chairman of the Cybersecurity Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I am pleased that the NDAA includes important provisions that take steps to address the serious cyber threat our nation faces.\n\nThis includes:\n\nproviding the Secretary of Defense with the authority to conduct military operations in cyberspace,\n\ndeveloping a program to establish cyber institutes at educational institutions, and\n\ninvesting in cyber programs in the defense industrial base.\n\nThese are important steps we can take to defend the nation in the cyber domain.\n\nI am also glad that the bill we are considering today includes strategic measures I offered to improve officer personnel management and increase the capabilities of our training ranges throughout the DOD, to better support the objectives outlined in the National Defense Strategy.\n\nToday, a number of our personnel and training systems are outdated and fail to provide our forces with the tools they need on the modern battlefield.\n\nThis bill changes that.\n\nWhile we champion this year\u2019s bill, we must also extend our view beyond fiscal year 2019.\n\nWe must be prepared for the future while reacting to the present, especially as it relates to funding.\n\nFor the past three years, I have served as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, bearing witness to potential challenges that could threaten our national security if we do not address arbitrary budget caps placed on our defense.\n\nThese arbitrary budget caps have forced the kind of false choices that are potentially so devastating for our armed forces.\n\nWe must also avoid the false choice of paying for readiness while assuming risk for modernization or vice-versa.\n\nWe cannot let the pursuit of the perfect modernization solution prevent us from implementing mature technologies \u2013 to address short-term capability gaps \u2013 now.\n\nThe bill we are considering today avoids these choices.\n\nIn closing, I thank Chairman McCain, Ranking Member Reed, Senator Inhofe and my other Armed Services Committee colleagues and everyone on staff for their work on this year\u2019s NDAA.\n\nI look forward to getting this bill to the president\u2019s desk in a timely manner as we continue our strong tradition of coming together, in a bipartisan basis, to support our troops and their families so that they can continue to keep us safe.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-06-27T22:59:28Z"]], "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.rounds.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/vital-national-security-legislation-passes-senate-with-rounds-support"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.6906580422073603, "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"}