Source: United States Senator for Oklahoma James Inhofe
This morning, U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, led a press conference urging Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to bring to the floor S. 2792, the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which authorizes funding levels and provides key authorities for the U.S. military and other defense priorities.
Congress has enacted this critical legislation for 60 years in a row, but only four times in history has the Senate begun consideration of this bill in November or later. In the absence of this bill, important authorities — including the ability to issue special pay for our troops — will expire on January 1. The Senate Armed Services Committee advanced the bill on July 21 by a vote of 23-3.
Click here to watch Sen. Inhofe’s remarks.
All right, you guys. Well, this is significant. We’ll have all the members that sit on the Armed Services Committee up here along with others. I know that Senators Thune, Young, Cornyn and Hoeven, and probably others who are not on the committee, will also be here.
I just want to make the comment — I don’t have to remind everyone that we’re in the most — I believe the most — endangered position our country has ever been in, in terms of what China has demonstrated clearly what they have the capability of doing. Same thing with Russia, North Korea, Iran, and I think we all understand — that it’s not just members of the committee — that our top priority is national security. And that’s what the NDAA is. The NDAA is, you’ve heard me say many times and I really believe, the important bill to do every year.
We’ve done it now for the past 60 years. Now, I’m older than these — these guys are all young. I’m old, I understand that, and I have been in on one-half of the 60 years of these bills that we’ve had. So, bringing up this bill is a no brainer.
The major message we need to send is to Senator Schumer. I have no idea why we don’t have floor time now. It’s to everyone’s benefit, to his benefit, and the alternative to that is to do the Big Four. I’ve done more Big Fours, I think, than anyone else who’s serving now, and all that does is shut out a lot of people and we want to open it up. We want to give everyone a chance to participate in this, and the best way to do that is to get on the floor, and that’s why we’re here today. So we’ll hear from our members along with others who are not on the committee.