[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 53 (Thursday, May 5, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 5, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                             BASE CLOSINGS

  Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, for the last couple of weeks, there has 
been a broad-range discussion in Congress, at the Pentagon, and in the 
White House about putting off the 1995 round of base closure decisions 
mandated by the base closure law.
  I am as aware as any Member of the Senate how painful this process 
is. In fact, under 1991 Base Closure Commission decisions, three major 
bases closed in my State. But I am also painfully aware that in each 
recent year the Congress has cut defense dramatically. Hundreds of 
thousands of people are being taken out of the service. We are cutting 
defense by tens of billions of dollars. We are beginning to affect our 
ability to modernize our forces.
  This year the President proposed that we not provide full cost-of-
living increases for our military personnel. We are not maintaining 
benefits. Last year, the Congress changed the Tax Code so that when a 
young military person is sent to Europe and we provide an allowance to 
pay for their move, that is now taxable income.
  In short, we have cut defense at a rate unprecedented since the years 
immediately following World War II. We have diminished benefits for our 
service personnel. We are now delaying modernization, we are affecting 
readiness, and we are doing it because, in my humble opinion, we are 
cutting defense by too large an amount, and we are doing it too 
quickly.
  I have voted against defense authorization bills for the first time 
in my career in Congress because I am concerned that we are making a 
bad mistake. But I do not understand how we can stand on the floor of 
the Senate and cast votes to cut defense and then turn around and say 
we should delay military base decisions.
  If we are going to cut defense dramatically and we are unwilling to 
go through with our commitment to review the mission of our military 
bases, we are going to end up with a large number of military bases 
that are understaffed and that are operating at much less than their 
full capacity. This means we are going to eat up the resources we have, 
we are going to hurt modernization, we are going to hurt readiness, and 
we are going to reduce our ability to continue to recruit and retain 
the finest young men and women who have ever worn the uniform of this 
country.
  Madam President, I want to go on record saying I am going to oppose 
any effort to delay the scheduled round of military base decisions in 
1995. I am acutely aware that every base in my State is going to be 
looked at and every base in every other State is going to be looked at.
  But we just voted for a budget that cut defense again. We are going 
to be faced with an authorization bill that cuts defense again. We are 
going to be looking at an appropriation bill that cuts defense again. I 
am not going to vote for those things, but I know the Senate and the 
House will vote for them, and I know the President will sign them.
  We cannot go on cutting defense and then be unwilling to do what we 
have to do to maintain a quality force. What we have to do, if we make 
the decision to cut defense, is to close bases that we do not need.
  Now, I am aware that there is going to be an election in 1996 
following these decisions. But the point is, we are talking about 
something that is vitally important to America's security. We are 
talking about something that is crucial. I believe that to halt the 
only smoothly coordinated part of this whole process, which has been 
the base closing commission, is a tragic mistake. I am going to do 
whatever I can to derail this attempt to delay it.
  The Base Closing Commission is critically important because, under 
the old system, we all know what happened. Every Member of Congress had 
to oppose every base closure in their State or district. And so when 
the decision was finally made, it was only after every obstacle that 
could be thrown in its way was thrown in its way. As a last resort, a 
Congressman would instruct his staff, saying, ``I'm am going out and 
lie in front of the bulldozer. Be sure that the camera gets a good 
angle on me. And just as I'm about to be crushed to death, run in with 
tears on your face and drag me from the front of the bulldozer.''
  But by setting up an orderly base review process, we have made it 
possible for all of us to vote on the broad recommendations of the 
commission.
  I hate closing bases. My dad was a sergeant in the Army. I believe in 
a strong defense. I love the people that wear the uniform of the 
country. I love the communities that have supported defense. There is 
almost something unfair about penalizing the very communities that 
helped us win the cold war. But there is no alternative.
  In my opinion, to sidetrack this nonpolitical process is a tragic 
mistake.
  Finally, I wanted to come on the floor today and say not everybody 
agrees with all of these articles that are being written. Not everybody 
agrees with the people at the White House and the people in the 
Congress. I disagree. In this case, the law of the land says we are 
going through with this review and I intend to oppose any effort to 
derail that process.
  Mr. STEVENS. Will the Senator yield for just a moment?
  Mr. GRAMM. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. STEVENS. I did not know whether my friend from Arizona wanted to 
speak.
  Mr. McCAIN. Go ahead, please.
  Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, I am happy to be here at the time the 
Senator from Texas mentions this, because I think I am one of those who 
raised the question of the 1995 round. I did so when the Appropriations 
Committee was informed that approximately 10 percent of the bases that 
were ordered to be closed in 1988, 1991 and 1993 have been closed. We 
now are carrying on the books and are financing the operation of a 
series of bases that theoretically were closed in those previous three 
rounds of base closures. The reason they have not been closed is in the 
process of closure environmental problems were discovered. There were 
transitional problems with regard to transitioning the bases from one 
place to another.
  But in any event, of the literally couple of hundred bases, I guess, 
we have ordered to be closed, only 10 percent or less have been closed.
  The problem is, if we start into another round of 1995 and we are 
asked to put up the money for that process, which is in effect putting 
a lot more bases in the pipeline, we are actually running up more costs 
today by the bases that were not closed than we could possibly save by 
trying to close more. I am not in favor of not continuing the process 
of closing bases. But if we are asked now to finance the closing of 
bases in 1995, we are going to have to cut troop strength and cut 
procurement to do that. Because the bases that were ordered to be 
closed have not been closed, cannot be closed because of problems that 
were not foreseen at the time those prior bases were ordered to be 
closed.
  I agree with what the Senator has said, this should not be related in 
any event, in my opinion, to 1996 as far as what we are doing. We are 
looking at the costs. I do not think the Senator from Texas wants us to 
reduce the number of divisions down to nine divisions because we have 
to order and start the process of closing some more bases that will not 
be closed in their time either because these bases are still in the 
pipeline. They are not being closed because of horrendous problems, 
particularly in the environmental field.
  I urge the Senator from Texas to look at some of those problems that 
are delaying these base closures. I am not for delaying any base 
closures, I am not for reversing any decisions. I just ask why should 
we add more to the list when we cannot close what we have ordered to be 
closed already? I think the cost of these, once you start the process 
of closing--you start immediately and you have problems of relocation 
of the forces there and disposal of the equipment there wherever you 
order a base to be closed. Today the cost of keeping up the utilities 
alone in some of these bases that were ordered to be closed in 1998 is 
quite excessive.
  I think we should not incur the additional expenses of additional 
base closures when the result of that will be a further decline in the 
troop strength, a further decline in the steaming hours and flying 
hours, the operation and maintenance money, that we have to have to 
maintain our readiness. I urge the Senator to study the problem with 
regard to the cost of maintaining these bases until we will get the 
environmental clearance to close them.
  Mr. GRAMM. Madam President, let me reclaim my time and respond. First 
of all, I am willing to look at any facts. I always try to enter these 
debates with an open mind but I am not entering this debate with an 
empty mind.
  Basically, the bottom line is that our military bases do not match 
the size of the force that the Congress is willing to pay for. I would 
readily agree with the distinguished Senator from Alaska that in 
closing military bases--it is a hard thing to do--we have run into 
environmental problems. But as we continue to expand the environmental 
requirements, those problems are not going to be any easier in 1997. If 
anything, they are probably going to be worse.
  If every business in America that had to make tough decisions simply 
looked at the immediate cost of closing a facility most of them would 
go bankrupt because they would conclude that in the short run it costs 
money to close a plant, consolidate, or relocate. But, instead, they 
try to look at the long-term benefits.
  My concern--and I emphasize this--is I believe we are cutting defense 
too fast. I do not think the world situation justifies what we are 
doing. But if we delay this process, if we keep outmoded bases open, 
then we will be forced to spend scarce defense dollars on them. We are 
building down, and if I have to choose between a military with 
personnel that are well equipped and well trained, or one with more 
bases, I want the better equipped and trained military. If delays are a 
problem, then I am willing to work with the Senator from Alaska to 
smooth the process.
  I am very fearful that if we stop this process we are going to end up 
with the kind of builddown we had after Vietnam, where benefits, pay, 
and modernization were sacrificed. All three Members on the floor at 
the moment on our side of the aisle have been strong supporters of 
defense. I am alarmed about the cuts that are being made. But I think 
in the midst of those cuts the worst thing we can do, when we are 
reducing the number of people, is not reduce the number of facilities.
  We are asking for a disaster, and the longer we wait to do this, the 
harder and more expensive it will be.
  Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. GRAMM. Why do I not yield and let the Senator from Arizona get 
the floor. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Arizona seek his own 
time? There are 8 minutes remaining on the time of the Senator from 
Texas.
  Mr. McCAIN. I seek my own time, Madam President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is recognized.
  What amount of time does he seek?
  Mr. McCAIN. I request 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Arizona is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCAIN. I understand the concerns of the Senator from Alaska. One 
of the unanticipated costs--and it probably should have been an 
anticipated cost of base closings--has been in the enormous 
environmental challenges we have faced. There is a base I believe in 
Indiana which used to be a place where ordnance was tested where no one 
knows when they will be environmentally clean and closed.
  I take exception to the description of the Senator from Alaska as to 
what a closed base is. Because a base is not closed entirely does not 
mean that all military activity has not been removed from it and all 
the military personnel have left. So a large number of the bases that 
the Senator from Alaska is talking about have been closed as far as the 
practical aspect of it if not a technical aspect.
  Also, the fact is that we have cut defense by 40 percent since 1987--
by 40 percent. It will be another 5 percent under the Clinton budget 
which I have no reason to believe will be changed. In fact I have 
reason to believe in light of recent actions on the part of the 
Congress the cuts will be greater rather than smaller.
  At the same time we have cut the base structure, the support base 
structure in this country by only 15 percent. That imbalance cannot 
last. That imbalance has to be addressed. Unless the Senator from 
Alaska has different information than I do, I suggest we have to match 
the base structure with the force itself. Otherwise we are going to pay 
this bill even more heavily over time.
  The environmental problems that exist at bases that are going to be 
closed are not going to get better. In fact, I think some expert in the 
studies of the environments at these bases would make a strong case 
they are going to get worse the longer we leave these toxic things that 
have been spilled and unexploded ordnance and things. They become a 
worse situation rather than better over time.
  The one aspect of the base closing commission concept was so the 
Congress would not have to carry out its responsibilities. As the 
Senator from Texas said, none of us could ever close a base so we gave 
the responsibilities to a base closing commission. They carried out 
their duties.
  They are, according to the law, empowered to do it one more time, in 
1995. And we all know that their decisions will be draconian in nature. 
In fact, the initial reports we have are they will be double the 
previous base closing commission's decisions. I am sure that is a very 
frightening prospect. But I do not believe we can tell young men and 
women that they have to leave the military, as we are telling them by 
the thousands, and at the same time say we are going to keep this base 
open because it is too expensive.
  Today we are telling thousands of young men and women who joined the 
military for a career: I am sorry, you have to leave the military 
because we cannot afford to keep you in the military because we have 
not enough in the defense budget. By the way, we are going to keep all 
these bases open because we cannot afford to close them.
  We are going to pay this bill for closing a base now or later. It is 
like the commercial which I believe is for mufflers: ``Pay me now or 
pay me later.''
  Mr. GRAMM. Fram oil filter.
  Mr. McCAIN. Is it a filter?
  ``Pay me now or pay me later.'' I would rather pay now and go through 
this painful adjustment and start addressing these terrible 
environmental problems that we found at these bases, rather than delay 
it and delay it.
  I will make one more comment from being around this organization, 
this body, for some years. Once we agree to a delay, once we break this 
chain that we have committed ourselves to by law, I have no confidence 
that we will then return to a base-closing procedure that will actually 
work.

  I look forward to working with the Senator from Alaska and the 
Senator from Texas in trying to put a brake on these draconian cuts 
that we are seeing in defense spending.
  On last Monday, the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Glenn], and I went down to 
Norfolk, VA. We met with Navy and Marine Corps personnel, both air and 
ship people. They are all very concerned. I would say to my friends: 
They are deeply concerned. They are worried. Readiness is starting to 
suffer already.
  So I suggest that if we deviate from what we imposed on ourselves by 
law, that we will suffer significant financial and, perhaps, personal 
consequences in having to force more and more young men and women out 
of the military than we are already.
  I respect enormously the views and knowledge of my friend from 
Alaska, but I suggest to him that if we are going to downsize the 
military in the post-cold-war era, we have to do it in a fair and 
equitable manner, with the first priority being to readiness, the 
second priority being to the welfare of the men and women in the 
military, and the third priority is the bases themselves.
  I yield back the remainder of my time.
  Mr. STEVENS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Feingold). The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I seek the floor in my own name.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, the strange thing is that the three of 
us, I think, are committed to the same concept of maintaining the 
strongest possible defense for the United States.
  I say to my two friends that the Appropriations Committee has been 
notified that studies made by the General Accounting Office and by the 
Congressional Budget Office have indicated that the original estimates 
of the cost of closing bases was exceedingly low. It was an estimate, 
and we have now processed 1988, 1991 and 1993 bases to be closed. The 
difficulty with it is the environmental costs alone are such that it is 
now estimated that we will not break even in terms of the cost of 
closing the bases and the savings, until the turn of the century.
  The problem that we have is, we anticipated these closed bases would 
be off the appropriations demand by 1996, and we find that is not the 
case. If we add to the list--already we are going to have to bring 
down, unless we get an increase in defense spending--we are going to 
have to bring down something in order to meet the added costs of 
closing these bases.
  My point is that I believe in readiness so much that I believe we 
have to recognize if we add to this list of bases to be closed in 1995, 
if we start funding in 1995, by the turn of the century--it will be way 
into the turn of the century before we break even.
  We all know in defense--the Senator from Arizona just said--despite 
the President's cut, there are going to be additional cuts demanded by 
some people in Congress. What is happening is readiness is being 
affected. We are going to have a hollow Army, hollow Air Force. We will 
not be able to, once again, man our ships. We will not be able to keep 
our airplanes flying. And we certainly will not have the people that we 
say we have in the divisions that are there.
  All I am trying to do is alert my friends: Keep an open mind where 
this money is going to come from. We say, ``Well, we'll have to pay the 
added cost.'' There is no place to pay the added cost from except the 
limited amount we have now, and that means something has to be 
decreased.
  What has been decreased so far has been readiness, has been manpower, 
has been the number of airplanes we are replacing, has been the number 
of ships we can maintain. I think the public ought to know that if we 
continue to say we are closing bases and do not close them, the effect 
is reduced manpower, reduced equipment, reduced procurement and reduced 
readiness. We have to keep that in mind.
  If you want to decide what bases to close in 1995, go ahead and do 
it. But if you try to spend money on closing them, you are going to 
take it from somewhere, and that will be from a reduced level of 
appropriations that is not currently enough to maintain readiness to 
defend this country.
  My commitment is to maintain readiness. Particularly, I call the 
attention of my colleagues to the fact that we are going to double the 
amount of money put into the environmental account this year. Where is 
it going to come from? It is going to come from reducing the size of 
some of the units that we thought we were going to have. Instead of 
divisions, we are going to have brigades. Instead of brigades, we will 
have battalions. Instead of a 600- or 700-ship Navy, we are going to 
have a 300-ship Navy.
  I have to tell you, we are the world's last superpower. I hate to be 
around here in the year 2000 when the world needs a superpower, because 
we are not going to be one if we keep spending the money for the 
process of closing, but we do not get them closed.
  I predict the bases ordered to be closed in 1988 will not be closed 
until 1998. Those ordered to be closed in 1991 will not be closed until 
2001. That is about the delay. It is about a 10-year delay.
  I agree, they are not maintained at the same level they were before 
the base-closure order, but there are still people there to protect 
them, there are still utilities there, there are still ongoing costs of 
maintaining the Corps of Engineers.
  Those costs alone, in terms of these bases that have not been closed, 
are mounting every year. I say to my colleagues, look at the reports of 
the GAO and the Congressional Budget Office and see what you can do to 
help us. We cannot stretch this dollar any further. The dollars 
available to us are decreasing, and the demands from the military 
people to not go any further are increasing.
  I originally got in this because of a complaint from uniformed 
officers saying, ``What are you doing to our services? The manpower is 
too low.'' I believe that this Base Closure and Realignment Commission 
concept should be examined once again in terms of the timing of 
spending money on closure of more bases that will not be closed until 
the next century.
  Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I will be brief. I think the Senator from 
Alaska makes some very important points, especially in the area of his 
responsibilities in the Appropriations Committee.
  First of all, it is a fundamental fact that we have an obligation to 
see that the Armed Forces of the United States are run in the most 
efficient manner. We cannot run the Armed Forces and conduct our 
operations in the most efficient fashion if we cut the defense budget 
by 45 percent and the support structure by only 15 percent. That is a 
fundamental imbalance which, over time, has to be extremely more 
expensive.
  Until you get that balance between force structure and bases, then we 
will operate, with the taxpayers' dollars, in an inefficient and 
wasteful manner. Admittedly, it will be painful. Admittedly, the 
environmental problems were underestimated dramatically, but those are 
not going to change.
  Now we come back to another question and a strong difference that I 
have had with the Senator from Alaska for a long time. I will fight as 
hard as I can to keep a level of defense spending which is appropriate 
to meet the national security requirements of this Nation. But I say to 
my friend from Alaska, if the Congress continues to cut, and the 
administration continues to propose these cuts, and we end up in the 
situation that the Senator from Alaska describes, at least I will have 
fought the good fight, and at least the people of this country will 
know who sounded the klaxon that this danger was upon us, and who did 
not go along and accept a premise that we have to go along with 
continued cuts in defense spending which will erode this Nation's 
ability to defend our vital national security interests.
  It is just like the Grassley-Exon amendment that was going to cut the 
budget; therefore, automatically it was coming out of defense. I said, 
no, it does not have to come out of defense. It can come out of a whole 
lot of things, a list of which a mile long I can give the Senator from 
Alaska. But we accepted the premise that any cut in the budget was 
going to come out of defense.
  I say no. I say we are rational, thinking people and understand that 
they cannot continue to come out of defense. They cannot, if we expect 
to defend this Nation's vital national security interests.
  So I say to the Senator from Alaska, it is time we went to the 
American people and said we have to close these bases because we have 
to have a proper balance between force structure and the support 
structure which are represented by the bases. We may have to pay extra 
for it, but we do not necessarily have to throw men and women out of 
the military while we are doing it.
  Why not cut some of these programs that the American people do not 
support anyway when they hear about them? Why not go at it from this 
direction rather than saying it is all going to come out of defense, 
guys, if we cut the defense budget. It does not have to. That is a 
conscious decision made by the Congress of the United States.
  I will not support it. I will speak against it and sooner or later 
the voters of this country will recognize who stood up for a strong 
national defense and who did not, and, unfortunately, in my view, it 
may be in a time of national crisis. But I am not going along to get 
along.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. GRAMM addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I do not have a quarrel with our colleague 
from Alaska. I do not doubt the sincerity of his position, but here is 
the bottom line. Whatever it costs to consolidate bases or no matter 
how long it takes, we know that when defense has been cut by 40 percent 
and our base structure has been cut by 15 percent, we have a facility 
excess, and therefore we are going to have to continue the review 
process.
  Nobody wants to do it. I hate to see bases closed in my State. I do 
not like seeing them closed anywhere. But there is something worse than 
not undertaking that assessment. What is worse is destroying our 
capacity to defend America and defend our interests. I know that we 
could get into a debate about how long it takes to recapture the money 
we spend to close bases, saying it will not happen until the end of the 
century. That sounds like a long time. But the end of the century is 
less than 6 years away. Closing bases is not going to get cheaper. It 
is not going to get easier. We know we have to do it if we are going to 
maintain defense. Does anybody believe we are going to have more money 
tomorrow than we have today given who is in the White House and given 
the makeup of the Congress?
  I believe this is something that needs to be done. I feel the same 
way about base closings that I do about going to the dentist. I never 
went to the dentist until I was a teenager, and it was a shocking 
experience when I did. I hate going to the dentist. But when I find out 
I have to go, I want to get there and get it over with.
  Finally, Admiral Boorda says, ``There is not enough money to maintain 
infrastructure we no longer need.''
  Now, I think that is as clear a statement of this problem as you can 
have. The bottom line is, we have a lot of people in the Senate and the 
House, in the Pentagon and the White House--and I do not count the 
Senator from Alaska among them--who want to cut defense but act as if 
it does not have any impact; that their votes to cut defense do not 
affect their State, do not affect their bases.
  Well, in reality we know what those votes do. What I want to do is 
make rational decisions. The Base Closure Commission process has helped 
us do what we hate to do but which we all know has to be done. Somebody 
may come forward with a rationale that could convince me the process 
should be halted, but I would have to say that as of today I cannot 
imagine it. I am afraid that if we stop the base closure review while 
we continue to drastically cut defense, we are going to end up with a 
military that cannot meet its missions. That is something I do not want 
and I cannot support.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. STEVENS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. STEVENS. I just want to make sure my friends understand. The 
Senator from Texas does not just have a toothache and needs a dentist. 
He needs a root canal, and it is a bad one and he needs some other 
experts to look at the situation. I have to let him know that the 
experts we have used so far have told us that while the Congress has 
said to close these bases and while the authorizers say in effect they 
are closed, we have not closed 15 percent. We have closed less than 5 
percent.
  The reason we have closed less than 5 percent is because Congress 
keeps passing environmental standards which must be met by the 
military, and these bases now are costing us more to close than they 
cost to operate. As a matter of fact, part of the problem is it was 
estimated that we could close some and sell them, and the revenue would 
be turned back into the Treasury and would be available to help sustain 
the military at the level we thought it would be sustained. The sales 
are abysmally low. No one wants to bid on this land because of the 
environmental problems. They are not willing to take them.
  As a consequence, we have the situation where, although we have 
ordered about 15 percent to be closed, they have not even come close to 
that. We are now going to order some more to be closed, and we are 
going to increase spending on them. It will actually be more expensive 
to go into it than to let them be delayed for a couple years. You can 
go ahead with your force structure reduction, but if you add more bases 
to be closed, you are going to hire more people to close them; it is a 
different set of people that handle closing a base than handle opening 
a base.
  I can tell the two Senators, from the best I can tell, the increased 
cost of closing bases is decreasing our military readiness; it is 
decreasing the amount of money available to do what all of us want to 
do, and that is maintain the highest capability we can. I agree we 
should not cut as far as we could. I agree we should have proceeded 
more rapidly.
  My point is I think that the authorizing committee has to take a look 
at what is going on. Streamlining our base structure in connection with 
the declining force structure is absolutely necessary.
  By the way, the Senator's estimate is, in my understanding, very 
conservative as to the number of bases to be closed in the next round. 
The number of bases to be closed in the 1995 round is equal to the 
number that were ordered to be closed in 1988, 1991, and 1993. As I 
said, of those--about 10 percent ordered to be closed so far have been 
closed. The forces are not there. But the base maintenance costs are 
there. I really do not want to see another group of base maintenance 
people get paid and have us reduce further the number of people we can 
maintain in our standing Army, standing Air Force, and standing Navy.
  Now, if I am not being understood--and it sounds like I am not being 
understood--I think we are basically in agreement in goals. But I would 
ask you how do we get the money to order more bases to be closed and 
move in more people to deal with the local communities, to tell them 
the bases will not be available to them, start planning for sales, and 
then find, as we have in all the rest them, that the environmental 
costs and the transitional costs are so great that the estimated 
savings have been nil so far? We have not saved one dime so far from 
any base that was ordered to be closed. That has not netted out yet, 
and we are now 6 years into the process. Six years is a short time all 
right, but I have to tell you in terms of base closures it is not very 
long at all. And I would predict to you that these bases are going to 
be on our base operations list as long as there are environmental 
problems. The environmental problems are increasing, not decreasing, by 
the laws that this Congress is passing.
  Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona [Mr. McCain].
  Mr. McCAIN. I wish to make a very brief comment. The Senator from 
Alaska, I am sure, knows that the laws passed by Congress require us to 
clean up the environment on a base whether it is open or closed. The 
environmental cleanup has to be carried out whether that base is open 
or closed.
  So the fact is that bases that are open, we are required to not allow 
them to be in violation of the laws of land.
  Yes, it is true. And the fact is that if the Senator from Alaska 
believes that these environmental problems are going to be any better 
if we delay these bases from being closed 1 or 2 or 3 or 5 years from 
now, he has different information from that received by the Armed 
Services Committee.
  These environmental problems are getting worse and worse and worse. 
They are going to cost more and more and more to get cleaned up. So the 
sooner we get about it, the better.
  Where the Senator from Alaska and I are in disagreement is where the 
money comes from. The Senator from Alaska assumes that it comes out of 
defense. I say maybe it will. Maybe that is the reality. But it does 
not have to be. It does not have to come out of defense. It can come 
out of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It can come out of the 
pork barrel projects of which I identified--$4 billion worth of 
unauthorized appropriations which had no use whatsoever except to 
satisfy some Senator or Congressman's district. It could come out of 
the airplanes that we purchased for the Department of Defense that they 
neither could use nor wanted. We could take it out of the funds for the 
airplanes that we bought for congressional junkets.
  We could take it out of the billions of dollars that the CBO 
identified for me which was total pork barrel spending instead of 
taking it out of what we are doing now, and that is telling men and 
women who join the military for a career that they have to leave 
because we cannot afford to keep them.
  Mr. HELMS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina is recognized.
  Mr. HELMS. I thank the Chair.

                          ____________________