Throughout her time in Congress, Congresswoman Porter has fought to refocus U.S. national security on the threats posed by climate change, both at home and abroad. In 2021, she led a successful bipartisan effort to require the Department of Defense to study the threat that wildfires pose to military installations and training. In 2022, she became the co-chair of the National Security Task Force of the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition. She has led several successful amendments to the America COMPETES Act requiring the Pentagon to incorporate climate security into strategies and security assistance programs with allies in the Pacific. 

Congresswoman Porter believes that corporate interests have too much influence in our national security and foreign policy and that the U.S. must do more to fight international corruption. At the beginning of her second term, she spearheaded reforms to the Truth-in-Testimony rules for Congressional witnesses to give Americans transparency into witnesses who have conflicts of interest. At a hearing in 2022, she called out a witness with international oil and gas clients for failing to disclose his business ties, showing the way corporate interests corrupt U.S. foreign policy. Congresswoman Porter is also a founding member of the Caucus Against Foreign Corruption and Kleptocracy, where she was an original co-sponsor of multiple bills to prevent authoritarian regimes from wielding political and financial power in the U.S. and around the world.  

Lax Pentagon oversight enables waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars and undermines our national security as well as our foreign policy priorities. As a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Congresswoman Porter has faced down defense executives for refusing to refund taxpayers for broken parts and price gouging our armed forces. She prevented an effort to get rid of reports that check that military equipment is battle ready and will keep service members safe and called out the Pentagon when they tried to classify embarrassing information. She has also fought to close loopholes that give contractors a pass on human rights, pressing the Pentagon to complete long-overdue rules requiring contractors to report possible war crimes and working across the aisle to combat trafficking in persons by military contractors. 

From defense contracting to foreign policy, Congresswoman Porter believes that our engagement with the world should prioritize human rights and a commitment to oversight. As chair of the House Natural Resources Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, she has led an investigation into the legacy of Cold War U.S. nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands. Congresswoman Porter found that U.S. refusal to address its nuclear legacy is jeopardizing key international agreements that allow the U.S. to counter Chinese economic and military influence in the Pacific. Her investigation has garnered international attention and is ongoing. 

The founders understood that military force should be a last resort and placed responsibility with Congress—the elected representatives of the people—because they correctly understood that war can hurt all Americans. Congresswoman Porter has upheld these values, from supporting diplomacy with North Korea, to voting to pull the U.S. out of unauthorized wars, and fighting for transparency about where U.S. troops are in harm's way.