Grand Send-Off

With Congress rushing to complete work on the months-late fiscal year 2011 defense authorization bill -- now revised to not include the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" provision -- House lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle today are lauding outgoing Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO), as witnessed by the following floor statements:

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD):

This Defense Authorization bill is about securing our nation in stronger and smarter ways. It builds on our strong Democratic record of putting new and better weapons into the battlefield; increasing support for human intelligence collection, cybersecurity, and security for our skies, our ports, and our borders; and looking out for our troops, our veterans, and their families.

This bill authorizes crucial national security programs for Fiscal Year 2011. It promotes efforts to disrupt and destroy terrorist networks and strengthens the ability of our special forces to act directly against terrorist organizations. It increases our international cooperation against terrorists, especially against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Because of the changing threats in the post-Cold War world, this bill also invests in ballistic missile defense and nuclear counterproliferation, including the President’s effort to secure all of the world's known vulnerable nuclear material in the next four years.

The Defense Authorization bill also supports the wellbeing of our troops and the strength of our Armed Forces. It keeps TRICARE strong and ensures that military families can keep their children on TRICARE policies up to the age of 26. It also reduces strain on our forces by providing for 7,000 more personnel for the Army and 500 for the Air Force, while helping all of the services rebuild their worn-down equipment and weapons systems.

But this bill is personally important to me for another reason, Mr. Speaker. It's named after my good friend, Congressman Ike Skelton, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Chairman Skelton has represented the people of Missouri for 34 years. He has stood up for the interests and ideals of people across his district, from rural towns to some of our Nation’s most important military bases. He has been a workhorse of a Congressman: always well-informed, always public-spirited, and always passionate about serving our Nation and its security.

For many years, Ike Skelton has been one of America's leading voices on defense policy -- and the decisions he made as Chairman will shape the future of our country, for the better, for many years to come. I am proud to have served with him. And I am proud to support this important bill, which he did so much to shape, and which fittingly bears his name.

Armed Services Committee Ranking Member (and Chairman-elect) Buck McKeon (R-CA):

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to speak with a heavy heart for a couple of reasons.  One is the process that has brought us to this point.  The other is that this is the last defense bill for my good friend and partner on the committee, Ike Skelton.  He has been a force on the committee and within the defense community for decades.  The way he has conducted business on the committee sets an example for all members of the committee -- and this Congress -- to follow.

Considering Ike's legacy, the actions of the Democratic leaders in the Senate and the House are all the more frustrating to me.  They have made it completely clear that they place a higher priority on repealing the Pentagon's 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy than on the National Defense Authorization Act.

The procedure that is set up in the House to pass legislation is: the House passes a bill, goes through committee, goes through hearings, finally is passed by the committee, passed on the floor.  A similar process should be followed in the Senate.  And, then once those two bills have been passed, we have conferees appointed, the conferees get together and negotiate the differences in the bills, and the final bills are brought back to the floor.  To this date, we have not had a Senate bill passed on the floor.  So this brings us to this point without a Senate bill, and giving individual Senators an opportunity to have a line-item veto on the House bill after we pass it here and send it back over.

Many of the provisions that we passed in our bill went through a semi-conference and some of the provisions, which were championed by the House, include a higher pay raise for our troops than the statutorily mandated pay raise of 1.4 percent, a provision which would have exempted critical force protection and MEDEVAC personnel from any troop cap in Afghanistan, and several provisions regarding the nation’s nuclear and missile defense policies.  Those found themselves on the cutting room floor of the conference.

Unfortunately, most of those provisions had significant support in the House of Representatives and within the Republican Conference.  The American people have spoken, and they are demanding a process that is better than the one that got us to this point.  They want a legislative process that works to provide our troops with the resources they need—not a process that is held up for months and then rushed through in the waning minutes of a lame-duck session.

The process in the Senate -- coupled with the Democratic Leadership's goal of advancing legislation to repeal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' ahead of the annual defense authorization bill -- is driving the politicization of the National Defense Authorization Act, and is indicative of a flawed process with misguided priorities.  In a time of war, this is unconscionable.

One thing I can promise to the American people and to our military; they will no longer be used as a political football.  We will return to regular order in the next Congress.

Now back to my good friend, the Chairman on the committee.  I want to commend him for years of service to this nation, to this Congress, and the people he has represented.  We all owe him a debt of gratitude, and I have appreciated working with him, especially these last two years as I have had the opportunity to serve as Ranking Member alongside him.  We will all miss him.

Ike, we owe you much and appreciate your service.