Barbara Lee: “I want to thank the gentleman for yielding and for his leadership and for really trying at least to allow many of us…”

“I want to thank the gentleman for yielding and for his leadership and for really trying at least to allow many of us with different points of view to have some input into this rule and this bill. Unfortunately, that did not happen at the Rules Committee, so of course, I rise in strong opposition to this rule to provide consideration for the National Defense Authorization Act. While I certainly support several elements of this bill, I have grave concerns about the more than $63 billion in funding for the overseas contingency operations fund. The OCO account remains a slush fund that allows the Pentagon to circumvent the Budget Control Act, and we still haven't received an audit from the Pentagon. Every agency has to go through an audit process. What happened at the Pentagon--we still have not received the audit for a lot of reasons that they state, but in a bipartisan way, many of us are urging the Defense Department to come up and show us the numbers, show us what their audit will provide, so the American people know what their taxpayer dollars are paying for. I also have grave concerns about authorizing any funding for the current war in Iraq and Syria--and, yes, that is a war that is taking place. Congress has not yet debated or authorized this new war. We see more and more troops being sent to the region; and, of course, unintended consequences could put these troops in harm's way and lead to combat operations.…”