Ranking Member McCollum Remarks at the National Guard and Reserves Forces Oversight Hearing

WASHINGTON — Congresswoman Betty McCollum (D-MN-04), Ranking Member of the Defense Subcommittee, delivered the following remarks at the subcommittee's oversight hearing on the National Guard and Reserves Forces:

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and Mr. Chair, I stated to our people testifying this morning that I will be leaving to go to Interior, which you and I both served on. Right after my opening statement, Mr. Case will be here in my stead, and I hope to be back.

So good morning again to each and every one of you. Thank you for appearing before the committee. Thank you for your patience. As the Chair said, you all play a pivotal role in the safety and security of our nation, and I want to not only thank you but for each one of the service personnel under your charge for their dedication to our country and protecting the goals, objectives, the ideals of our constitution. 

As I have said in our previous meetings, the fiscal year 2026 budget process is off to a very rough start. I think it’s gone beyond rough, I think we are in more than rough shape now with the delays we know are coming on knowing what the numbers are going to be. And this is because there are only four months left at the end of FY 2025. And all that still hasn’t been finalized yet, so this committee really doesn’t know what foundation we are building on to get a budget done, as the Chair has been asking us to do in June. 

The "skinny budget" this year has been released, and there’s, you know, rumors that the full budget might not be released until June, and we were told yesterday, “soon.” Well, soon is not soon enough. We have not been able to discuss in any detail the budget priorities, so specifically, it is disappointing that we will be unable to discuss each of your priorities and programmatic details for FY26, at a time when some programs are facing long delays and others are facing setbacks. So, I hope each and every one of you will reach out to the Chair and the members of this committee as soon as the details are released to share your priorities for the coming year. 

Our National Guard and Reserve components are called upon to support a variety of missions, including humanitarian missions, overseas operations, increased support to the southwest border. And the Guard in particular, the state partnerships, one in which the Chair and I were just at with other members of this committee in Lithuania, and state partnerships – we were with “regular traditional troops,” but they were talking about how important the state partnerships were to them. 

So, given the announcement that the number of troops deployed to the southern border mission will dramatically increase, I would like to better understand how it will impact each one of your units, and how it will also impact the pace and schedule of other deployments and exercises. I’d also like to understand how this mission may be affecting our troops' morale, readiness, and retention efforts. It would also be helpful if each of you would share the impacts of the continuing resolution on the current pace of operations for each of your services, including training. And with the announcement that the Secretary of the Army that there will be a force structure change in equipment modifications, I would really like to hear from the Army Guard and Reserve how this might impact troops and the units and the equipment under your command. 

And finally, it would be helpful to understand the impacts of the civilian workforce. You already do a lot on a shoestring. And these cuts could, and I believe will not, further your ability to execute your missions with the success that you deserve to have. In serving our country, on top of managing a civilian job, in many cases supporting a family, this is one of the highest forms of service our citizen soldiers do. They are truly putting their country above themselves. 

So I thank you all for your efforts today to give us the best information you have, although I fear it will lack the substance and information we need to do our budgeting. I look forward to a productive dialogue today. 

I yield back. 

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