Ranking Member McCollum Floor Remarks in Opposition to the 2024 Defense Funding Bill

Congresswoman Betty McCollum (D-MN-04), Ranking Member of the Defense Subcommittee, delivered the following remarks on the House Floor in opposition toH.R. 4365, the fiscal year 2024 Defense bill:

Thank you, Mr. Chair, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

I rise today in opposition to H.R. 4365, the Fiscal Year 2024 Defense Appropriations Act.

As Chair of this Subcommittee last Congress, I understand the difficult process required to put this bill together. And that's why I want to thank the minority staff - Jennifer Chartrand, Jason Gray, Farouk Ophaso, Ben Peterson, and Mike Clark in my personal office. And Johnnie Kaberle, and all the majority staff who work so hard for us.

I wish the bill before us was more focused on our job as Appropriators, on training and equipping our troops, and ensuring that our service members and their families have their needs met at home.

That's why it is disappointing to see the majority use the Appropriations process, and the Defense bill, to push an extreme social policy agenda. The riders included in this bill divide, they do not unite.

Here are a few examples. The bill prohibits the Department of Defense's policy to ensure service members and their families have access to leave and travel allowances for basic reproductive health care.

The Department's policy is legal under federal law. The Department of Justice has concluded that fact: "DoD may lawfully expend funds to pay for service members and their dependents to travel to obtain abortions that DoD cannot itself perform due to statutory requirements."

I do not support the Hyde Amendment – but let me address it.

It prohibits DoD from using funds or facilities to perform an abortion, except in the cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is endangered.

Nearly 20 percent of our force is women, and they do not choose where they serve.

Eighty thousand women are stationed in states that restrict reproductive health care services. If you serve in one of those states and are pregnant because of a rape and you are on a base that does not offer obstetrics or gynecological care - then you must travel out of state for health care that you are entitled to.

This bill interprets the Hyde Amendment in a way it was never intended. Many service women and dependents will lose access to the exceptions the Hyde Amendment provided.

This language advances a de facto national abortion ban, and using our service members to do that is shameful. Young women will refuse to serve, and women will exit the force because of this.

Husbands and fathers will not want to serve in states where their families will be negatively impacted.

That is why I offered an amendment in Rules to strike this provision. But the majority chose not to make it in order.

I wish they had the courage to bring it to the floor and allow the debate that our service members deserve. The majority has cut programs for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion which will discourage recruitment from across America.

There is language that bans Critical Race Theory, but it goes far beyond that.

The bill seeks to define what can and cannot be taught at our military academies based on whether certain topics cause "discomfort."

This language reads like a ban on teaching American history. Sometimes facts are uncomfortable. As a former social studies teacher, I find this outrageous.

How can our military academies tell the history of the Civil War without teaching about slavery? That's uncomfortable.

How can they discuss the history of desegregation in the military without talking about Jim Crow laws, and the struggle faced by Black service members when they returned home from war? That's uncomfortable.

We should be celebrating that DoD is about to be led by two distinguished Black Americans for the first time in history.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Select – General C.Q. Brown. Their service shows us how building a diverse force can take us into the future.

There are provisions in this bill that are offensive to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans – and that will impact who serves.

The ban on gender affirming care will drive transgender service members out of the military. Why do we have an IRS provision on the tax treatment of individuals who hold a belief that marriage is a union of one man and one woman in this bill?

It is not germane.

Words matter – and divisive riders will hurt the military, undermine readiness, and make our national security weaker.

They must come out of this legislation is going to gain bipartisan support to become law.

Turning to the numbers.

The majority has funded this bill at $826.4 billion, very close to the President's budget request. But I am concerned about cuts in two areas.

First, the majority has made $714 million in cuts to climate programs – and banned the assessment of climate impacts on the Department.

We know climate change is a national security threat and drives conflict.

You can ask our U.S. Indo Pacific Commander.

He will say climate change impacts how U.S. forces operate. Our military installations also face threats from climate change.

Look at the $10 billion in damage from severe weather events to installations like Tyndall Air Force Base in Florda, Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, or Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

This spring, a typhoon seriously damaged Andersen Air Force Base on Guam to the tune of $4 billion.

When we cut climate programs we pay for it on the back end.

I also oppose the $1.1 billion in cuts to civilian personnel in this bill. Ten years ago, Congress directed DoD to cut civilian personnel by $10 billion over five years.

We achieved no substantial savings. We shifted work from civilian employees to expensive contractors. M. Chair, I have a long history of bipartisan cooperation.

I am confident that Chairman Calvert and I can find agreement in conference on defense spending levels with the Senate.

But I have to say again how disappointed I am that the majority has included these extreme social policy riders.

They will undermine the force of today, discourage building the force of tomorrow, and leave us weaker as a nation.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill.

And I reserve the balance of my time.

###