[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 109 (Tuesday, August 9, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 9, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
     THE CONFERENCE REPORT ON MILITARY CONSTRUCTION APPROPRIATIONS

  Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, it is my understanding, under a previous 
unanimous consent agreement in relation to the military construction 
appropriations bill, that I was allowed 30 minutes to speak, with the 
sponsors having 20 minutes each, with a series of votes now 
contemplated to start at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning, one of those 
being on the military construction appropriations bill. Is that a 
correct description?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is correct.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I would then want to use 25 minutes of my 
allotted time at this time, or until the majority leader seeks 
recognition. If the majority leader seeks recognition, then I would be 
glad to yield at that time. If not, I would like to use 25 minutes and 
reserve 5 minutes, which I would yield back if the managers of the bill 
yield back their time tomorrow morning. In other words, if they utilize 
their time, I would like to use 5 minutes of my time tomorrow. I ask 
the Chair to tell me if and when I use 25 minutes of my allotted time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator may proceed.
  Mr. McCAIN. Thank you, Mr. President.
  I am here to speak on the fiscal year 1995 military construction 
appropriations bill which has emerged from conference of both Houses. I 
am in opposition to the bill. I have serious concerns about the 
continued wasteful and unnecessary spending of American tax dollars 
that are earmarked for defense.
  Mr. President, I would like to begin by noting the fact that, over 
the past 5 years, the defense budget in this Nation has declined by 
nearly 40 percent over the last 10 years. In that same time, Congress 
has added over $4.4 billion in unrequested military construction 
projects to the defense budget.

  This year, as we know, the Exon-Grassley amendment was passed, which 
mandated a reduction in appropriations over the next 5 years, of which 
some $500 million will apply to fiscal year 1995. I am trying not to 
make this too complicated. It was the decision of the appropriators, 
the members of the Appropriations Committee, to take that $500 million 
out of the defense budget--nowhere else. No project in any of the 12 
other appropriations bills deserved any cut. All of it had to come out 
of defense spending.
  At the same time, after the $500 million was taken out of the defense 
budget, we turned around and added $490 million to the military 
construction subcommittee. It was another decision of the 
appropriators. So we are talking about a billion-dollar turnaround 
there.
  The Congress fully utilized the additional funds allocated to 
military construction. The House added $731 million in Members' 
projects. The Senate added $718 million for Senators' requests, and the 
1995 military construction conference agreement before the Senate today 
contains $987 million in unrequested projects. That is nearly $1 
billion taken from other high-priority military programs to fund 
congressional pork barrel projects.
  It is also interesting to note, Mr. President, the General Accounting 
Office came out with a report that was released in July that the 
Department of Defense future years defense plan is underfunded by $150 
billion. The report calls into question the Department of Defense's 
claim that the 5-year defense plan is only $20 billion underfunded.
  While we are adding unrequested military construction projects, there 
are two things happening: One, next year, we are going to have the 
largest base closing announcement in the history of this country. We 
will close more bases next year as a result of the Base Closing 
Commission than the other two closings combined. So we know there are 
going to be draconian measures taken as a result of our overall 
declining defense budget, and we will close bases.
  I guarantee you, Mr. President, we will have bases being closed while 
military construction projects are being carried out on those bases. We 
will be treated to the humorous--if it were not so sad--spectacle of 
hundreds of millions of dollars in military construction projects being 
built while the base closing process is going on.
  At the same time, in the entire 1995 defense appropriations bill, the 
whole bill--not the military construction bill--we will fund 17 fixed-
wing combat aircraft and 4 ships; that is 17 planes, 4 ships, and $8.8 
billion in military construction projects.
  Something is seriously wrong, including the fact that readiness is 
declining throughout our military. The Defense Science Board task force 
report on readiness, dated June 1994, makes cautious statements 
concerning how to avoid a hollow Armed Forces. It refers to pockets of 
unreadiness and states: ``We have observed enough concerns that we are 
convinced that unless the Department of Defense and the Congress focus 
on readiness, the Armed Forces could slip back into a hollow status.''
  Meanwhile, the Air Force depot maintenance backlog is $868 million. 
The Marine Corps is suffering cutbacks in combat training; funds and 
time are being redirected to support peacekeeping operations. Navy 
afloat inventories are reduced by 40 percent. Army aviator training is 
funded at only 76 percent of requirements. A cut in base operations 
funding has reduced the standard of living of our troops, which puts 
men and women on food stamps. The administration proposed a 1.6-percent 
pay increase, but we obviously increased that.
  These numbers are meaningful to many scholars. But I guess it is 
better to mention a graphic demonstration of where we have come to. 
There is funding next year for 4 combatant ships and 17 airplanes.
  A few weeks ago, the USS Inchon, loaded with Marines and Navy 
personnel, returned from 6 months duty off Somalia--6 months sitting on 
ships, the Inchon and others, off the coast of Somalia. They returned 
to the United States and spent 10 days with their wives and families. 
Remember, we are talking about an All Volunteer Force. They spent 10 
days with their wives and families, and then the Haitian crisis arose, 
and guess what? They had to go out to sea again. They are still at sea. 
We do not know how long they are going to remain there, if or until we 
invade Haiti, because we do not have enough ships.
  Meanwhile, we can add on about 30 armories, $70 million worth, four 
reserve centers, $34.5 million worth, direct the inclusion of specific 
projects in next year's budget request, and include other earmarks for 
specific unrequested projects, such as construction of an entomology 
facility using unspecified minor construction funds; Philadelphia Naval 
Shipyard; Fallon Naval Air Station, $800,000 for a dining facility. It 
goes on and on.
  All of these, Mr. President, were not requested by the Department of 
Defense. So here we are--and this should surprise no one who knows how 
we do business here--with the following statistics: 29 percent of the 
Senate got 66 percent of the added dollars, the dollars that were added 
in military construction; 14 percent of the House of Representatives 
got 72 percent of the added dollars, and they just happen to match up 
with membership on these committees.
  Does anybody think that it is a coincidence that the unfunded 
military construction projects most critical to our national security 
just happen to be in the States represented on the Appropriations 
Committee? What a surprise.
  Mr. President, the Citizens Against Government Waste say:

       Coincidentally, at the moment we were asked by your staff 
     to review your amendment to delete $1 billion in pork-barrel 
     spending from the fiscal year 1995 Military Construction 
     Appropriations conference report, we were finishing a letter 
     to Senators concerning the pork-laden crime bill conference 
     report.
       The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste endorses 
     your effort * * *
       In only one respect would we disagree with you. In the 
     talking points prepared for the bill, you say the add-ons and 
     earmarks are ``an embarrassment for the Congress as a 
     whole.'' Senator, in the 10 years since Peter Grace gave to 
     the American people his report on Government waste, and 
     founded this organization, the one thing that is clear is 
     that Congress sadly seems to be beyond embarrassment when it 
     comes to pork-barrel spending.

  A letter from Citizens for a Sound Economy said:

       Citizens for a Sound Economy, a 250,000-member grassroots 
     organization that promotes free market economic policies, 
     supports you in your opposition to the pork-barrel spending 
     contained in the fiscal year 1995 Military Construction 
     Appropriations conference report.
       The conference report eliminated language in the Senate 
     bill that established criteria for making military spending 
     more fiscally responsible. Moreover, it added a slew of 
     unrequested and expensive new projects to the bill, most of 
     which would simply funnel money to specific States and 
     congressional districts. Although it purports to cut $137 
     million from the original bill, the report prohibits the 
     Department of Defense from eliminating any project--including 
     the new pork-barrel items--to make this cut.
       The unnecessary new spending items included in the 
     conference report constitute yet another burden on American 
     taxpayers. As an advocate of fiscal responsibility in all 
     areas of government, CSE urges the members of Congress not to 
     pass the conference report on the military appropriations 
     bill until all unnecessary spending has been removed.

  Mr. President, in the Senate's consideration of the military 
construction bill, the simple criteria that Senator Glenn and I worked 
out were included in the authorization bill.
  (Mrs. FEINSTEIN assumed the chair.)
  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, we asked and had included in the Senate 
military construction appropriations bill the following criteria:
  The project had to be consistent with past actions of the base 
realignment closure process. The project had to be included in the 5-
year military construction plan of the military department concerned. 
The project was necessary for reasons of national security, and a 
contract for construction of the project could be awarded in that 
fiscal year.
  In addition, the Senate position required consultation with the 
Secretary of Defense to obtain his views concerning the relative merits 
of military construction projects which were not included in the 
Department of Defense budget request. The Secretary would have been 
asked to comment on the four criteria that I just mentioned and would 
also have been asked to provide an offsetting reduction from another 
military construction project or from any other program in the defense 
budget.
  Madam President, it does not seem to be outrageous to ask if a 
project is consistent with the actions of the base closing process, 
that a project is included in the 5-year defense plan, that the project 
is necessary for the national security of the United States, that a 
contract for construction of the project could be awarded in that year, 
and that the Secretary of Defense would be asked to give his views.
  The conferees dropped the criteria. They dropped it. Why would they 
do such a thing? There is only one answer. There is only one answer as 
to why they would drop that criteria. It is because they do not want to 
be restrained by national security requirements as outlined by the 
President of the United States in his budget submissions and the 
Secretary of Defense in his evaluation of what is in our national 
security interests.
  That is how we get billions of dollars in pork added to military 
construction bills at a time when we are funding a grand total of 4 
combatant ships and 17 fixed wing aircraft.
  Madam President, not too long ago, there was a poll taken and 13 
percent of the American people believed that the Congress of the United 
States can be counted upon to do the right thing some of the time. I 
have not met any of that 13 percent, I might add, but the fact is once 
they get a load of this bill and what is in the defense appropriations 
bill, that 13 percent will disappear.
  All I ask for and all Senator Glenn asks for and all that was 
accepted by this Senate was a set of reasonable criteria for military 
construction projects, a set of reasonable criteria.
  I would like to hear from the conferees what was unreasonable about 
that criteria that made them drop that criteria for future military 
construction projects.
  So what did the conferees do? They not only did not accept that 
criteria, but they earmarked a bunch of projects for next year so that 
they will make sure they are included in the budget request next year 
and not be guided by any criteria.
  So, we find important projects such as Fort Bragg, NC, SOF Company 
Operations Complex; New Orleans, LA, Naval Support Facility; Niagara, 
NY, fuel maintenance hangar; Fort Campbell, KY, aircraft maintenance 
hangar and tactical equipment shop; Scranton, PA, organizational 
maintenance shop; Tacoma, WA, family housing at McChord Air Force Base; 
and on and on. Those are required by this bill to be included in the 
budget request next year. They are required to be included next year as 
a result of this bill.
  Is this a request by the Department of Defense? No. Is there any 
evaluation process being followed? No. Is there any reason for these 
projects to be put in except that they happen to be favored by certain 
Members of the House and the Senate?
  Madam President, it is wrong. We have 20,000 young Americans, 
military people and their families, now on food stamps. The number gets 
larger every day. We are now seeing in the All-Volunteer Force a 
reduction in retention. We are seeing a greater inability to recruit 
qualified men and women into the military. And, meanwhile, the pork 
barreling goes on. It goes on and on, and sooner or later, sooner or 
later--probably later--we are going to wake up, and we are going to 
find out, when we spend so many billions and billions of dollars on 
unneeded projects with an ever-shrinking defense budget, we are going 
to find out that we are not ready to defend this Nation's vital 
national security interests, nor do we have the qualified men and women 
to carry out the mission.
  When you send a ship to Somalia for 6 months and then you bring that 
ship back and allow those people to be with their wives and families 
only 10 days, and then send them out again for an undetermined length 
of time, you are not going to keep good people in. You are not building 
enough ships and not building enough airplanes. But we are facing the 
most draconian base closing in the history of this country and we add a 
billion dollars to military construction projects.
  I am going to be urging people with cameras to go around to the bases 
that are going to be closed and photograph the military construction 
projects that are being built on these bases.
  And, by the way, Madam President, you cannot go to a base in America 
today where something is not being built on it. But you can go to a 
shipyard and find ships not being built; and you can go to aircraft 
manufacturing companies and find planes not being built; you can go to 
tank manufacturing facilities and find tanks not being built. But, by 
golly, we can sure find lots and lots of military construction projects 
that are mandated by the Congress of the United States, which have 
nothing to do with national security requirements.
  Madam President, I would hope that we will have a significant number 
of votes against this bill. We may not. I would hope that the American 
people are aware of where their tax dollars are going, and I hope that 
they would sooner or later make their feelings felt--that we cannot 
continue in this fashion and expect to have a military that can defend 
this Nation's vital national security interests.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?
  The Senator from Hawaii.
  Mr. INOUYE. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PRYOR. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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