Rep. Ruben Gallego Statement on Passage of National Defense Authorization Act
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) released the following statement:
"Earlier today, the House passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), after Conference with the Senate. I was pleased and proud to have led several efforts that are in the final bill and should soon become law.
"First, I'm proud to have led the effort to ensure that American troops remain in South Korea. My amendment, now on the way to the President's desk, ensures that active U.S. troop levels in the Republic of Korea remain above 22,000 unless Secretary Mattis certifies that our national security and that of our allies would not be diminished by a reduction in that number.
"Additionally, I'm proud to have supported measures in the bill that ensure that we have a strong and credible NATO alliance that keeps Russia at bay, and that we punish Russia for their efforts to undermine our democracy and interfere in our electoral process. I was also proud to lead the fight against the inclusion of riders that would undercut key environmental protections in the Endangered Species Act.
"This year's NDAA also increases the pay of our service members, ensures that disabled veterans have access to military transit on a space-available basis, and calls for the lessons learned from the disastrous raid in Niger to be operationalized to prevent any similar disasters.
"There are also measures in this bill that I strongly disagree with. We do not need the additional nuclear weapons that this bill authorizes, especially smaller yield weapons that lower the threshold for use. We need to ensure that Chinese state-controlled companies like Huawei and ZTE are not allowed to infiltrate our communications, critical infrastructure, and other national security hardware; this bill has instead bent to pressure from President Trump to weaken strong provisions that I worked to put into the original House version of the bill. And, while this bill does not fund President Trump's border wall, neither does it expressly ensure that defense dollars are not wasted in the President's inhumane and unnecessary war on immigrants, many of whom are future Americans.
"However, due in large part to the inclusion of measures that I championed or support, I believe that this bill will increase the capability of our armed forces, strengthen our cooperation with friends and allies, punish and deter enemies like Russia, ensure more and more just compensation for service members and military families, and thereby increase our national security.
"I urge the President to sign this year's NDAA into law."